Skip Channel4 main Navigation
History of Alcohol
| Back | Next | |
Alcohol was the healthy alternative to water in Mediaeval England when the water was filthy. The best source of clean liquid refreshment was ale – double the potency of today's beer and drunk by the entire family. In the 1400s, beer began to be brewed with hops instead of the malted barley in ale and adverse effects on health were noted by a London chronicler: 'It makes them fat and inflates the belly.' But it was the arrival of gin, a spirit distilled from juniper berries and initially imported from the Netherlands, which really caused alarm about the effects of intoxicating beverages. The gin houses that sprang up in the 1700s meant that 'you could be drunk for a penny and dead drunk for two pence', wrote one observer. |
||
