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This chimpanzee stumbles across a windfall of overripe plums. Many of them have split open, drawing him to their intoxicating fruity odor.
这只黑猩猩偶然发现了一堆熟透了的李子。好多已经烂熟得咧开了口子，飘出醉人的水果香气。
He gorges himself and begins to experience some... strange effects.
它不由得狼吞虎咽起来，然后一些...奇怪的感觉产生了。
This unwitting ape has stumbled on a process that humans will eventually harness to create beer, wine, and other alcoholic drinks.
这只不知情的黑猩猩碰巧经历了一种作用过程，这一过程后来被人类所运用于制造啤酒、红酒和其他酒精饮料。
The sugars in overripe fruit attract microscopic organisms known as yeasts.
熟透的水果里的糖分吸引来一些名为酵母的微生物。
As the yeasts feed on the fruit sugars they produce a compound called ethanol -- the type of alcohol in alcoholic beverages.
当酵母进食果糖后，便产出一种名为乙醇的化合物，即酒精饮料里的酒精。
This process is called fermentation. Nobody knows exactly when humans began to create fermented beverages.
这个过程被称为发酵。我们不知道人类第一次制作发酵饮料的确切时间。
The earliest known evidence comes from 7,000 BCE in China,
已有的证据显示最早可追溯到公元前7000年的中国，
where residue in clay pots has revealed that people were making an alcoholic beverage from fermented rice, millet, grapes, and honey.
出土陶罐中的残留物表明那时人们已经开始利用经过发酵的稻米、粟米、葡萄和蜂蜜制作酒精饮料了。
Within a few thousand years, cultures all over the world were fermenting their own drinks.
在几千年间，世界上各个文明利用发酵，制造着属于自己的饮品。
Ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians made beer throughout the year from stored cereal grains.
古代美索不达米亚和埃及地区一年到头都在利用储存的谷物酿造啤酒。
This beer was available to all social classes, and workers even received it in their daily rations.
这种啤酒向社会各个阶层开放，甚至每日向工人们定量发放。
They also made wine, but because the climate wasn't ideal for growing grapes, it was a rare and expensive delicacy.
他们还制作红酒，但由于当地气候不适宜种植葡萄，那是一种稀有而昂贵的佳酿。
By contrast, in Greece and Rome, where grapes grew more easily, wine was as readily available as beer was in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
相反，希腊和罗马的环境适合葡萄生长，那儿的红酒就如同埃及和美索不达米亚的啤酒一般平常。
Because yeasts will ferment basically any plant sugars, ancient peoples made alcohol from whatever crops and plants grew where they lived.
由于酵母几乎能使任何一种植物糖发酵，古人就利用当地的各种农作物和植物酿酒。
In South America, people made chicha from grains, sometimes adding hallucinogenic herbs.
在南美洲，人们用粮食酿奇恰酒，有时还添加致幻草药。
In what's now Mexico, pulque, made from cactus sap, was the drink of choice, while East Africans made banana and palm beer.
在墨西哥，由仙人掌汁液制成的龙舌兰酒也大受欢迎，而东非的人们制作香蕉啤酒和棕榈啤酒。
And in the area that's now Japan, people made sake from rice. Almost every region of the globe had its own fermented drinks.
在如今是日本的地区，人们用大米制成清酒。世界上几乎各个角落都创造了其独属的酒饮。
As alcohol consumption became part of everyday life, some authorities latched onto effects they perceived as positive
随着饮酒成为了一项生活日常，权威们对酒精带来的积极效用产生了浓厚的兴趣。
Greek physicians considered wine to be good for health, and poets testified to its creative qualities.
希腊医师们宣称红酒有益于身体健康，诗人们也赞叹酒精对创造力的显著裨益。
Others were more concerned about alcohol's potential for abuse. Greek philosophers promoted temperance.
其他人则对酒精的滥用表达了隐忧。例如，希腊的哲学家们就提倡要节制慎饮。
Early Jewish and Christian writers in Europe integrated wine into rituals but considered excessive intoxication a sin.
早期的欧洲犹太教和基督教的作家们将红酒融入礼教，但将醉酒斥为罪孽。
And in the middle east, Africa, and Spain, an Islamic rule against praying while drunk gradually solidified into a general ban on alcohol.
在中东、非洲和西班牙，一项伊斯兰律法从禁止醉酒时祈祷逐渐演化成对酒精的全面抵制。
Ancient fermented beverages had relatively low alcohol content.
古法发酵饮品的酒精浓度相对较低。
At about 13% alcohol, the by-products wild yeasts generate during fermentation become toxic and kill them.
大约发酵到13%时，野生酵母就会产生有毒副产品并杀死酵母。
When the yeasts die, fermentation stops and the alcohol content levels off.
酵母失效后，发酵过程也终止了，酒精浓度便随之稳定。
So for thousands of years, alcohol content was limited. That changed with the invention of a process called distillation.
所以几千年来，酒精浓度都是有限的。而蒸馏的发明改变了这一切。
9th century Arabic writings describe boiling fermented liquids to vaporize the alcohol in them.
9世纪的阿拉伯文献有记载，沸腾的发酵液体能挥发出酒精。
Alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, so it vaporizes first.
由于酒精的沸点比水低，所以会首先挥发掉。
Capture this vapor, cool it down, and what's left is liquid alcohol much more concentrated than any fermented beverage.
将挥发的气体收集起来，并冷却，便能得到比任何发酵饮料纯度高很多的液体酒精。
At first, these stronger spirits were used for medicinal purposes.
一开始，这些高浓度酒精被用于医疗中。
Then, spirits became an important trade commodity because, unlike beer and wine, they didn't spoil.
接着，它成了一种重要的交易品，这是因为酒精不像啤酒和红酒那样会变质。
Rum made from sugar harvested in European colonies in the Caribbean became a staple for sailors and was traded to North America.
欧洲在加勒比的殖民地所收获的糖，发酵产生了朗姆酒，并成为贸易中的主要商品，被海员们卖到了北美。
Europeans brought brandy and gin to Africa and traded it for enslaved people, land, and goods like palm oil and rubber.
欧洲人又将白兰地和金酒引进了非洲，用它们来交换奴隶、土地和物品，例如棕榈油和橡胶。
Spirits became a form of money in these regions. During the Age of Exploration, spirits played a crucial role in long distance sea voyages.
烈酒在这些地区成为了一种货币。在大航海时代，烈酒在长途航海中有着重要的作用。
Sailing from Europe to east Asia and the Americas could take months, and keeping water fresh for the crews was a challenge.
从欧洲到东亚和美洲常常要航行数月，保持海员生存所需的淡水清洁，是严峻的挑战。
Adding a bucket of brandy to a water barrel kept water fresh longer because alcohol is a preservative that kills harmful microbes.
往水桶中添加一勺白兰地能延长淡水的保质期，因为酒精作为一种防腐剂能杀死有害微生物。
So by the 1600s, alcohol had gone from simply giving animals a buzz to fueling global trade and exploration -- along with all their consequences.
到了17世纪，酒精从一种能让动物感到晕眩的物质，演变成全球贸易和探险开拓的重要产品，同时带来了种种影响。
As time went on, its role in human society would only get more complicated.
随着时间的推移，酒精在人类社会中的角色将会变得越来越复杂。
