Of course, the alcoholic beverage our hominid ancestors drank wasn´t exactly wine, and even “drank” may not be the right word. What early humans discovered and consumed was something closer to a bubbling gruel that ingested, gave the eater a pleasantly euphoric feeling.

But from 2 million to 12,000 years ago-that long period when most humans were hunters and gathers -alcohol could only be happened upon, a lucky find in a day´s worth  of searching for things to eat.

There are a few exceptions. Stone mortars carved into the floor of the Raqefet Cave in Mount Carmel, Israel, for example, suggest that a fermented alcoholic porridge was intentionally being made from wheat and/or barely as early as 13,000 years ago.