History of alcoholic drinks had previously thought beer was invented. The earliest evidence of wine was found in what is now China, where jars from Jiahu which date to about 7000 BC. This early rice wine was produced by fermenting rice, honey, and fruit. What later developed into Chinese civilization grew up along the more northerly Yellow River and fermented a kind of huangjiu from millet. The Zhou attached great importance to alcohol and ascribed the loss of the mandate of Heaven by the earlier Xia and Shang as largely due to their dissolute and alcoholic emperors. An edict ascribed to BC makes it
History of wine but the production of alcohol, wine in particular, seems to have thrived. Wine was a subject for many poets, even under Islamic rule, and many khalifas used to drink alcoholic beverages during their social and private meetings. Egyptian Jews leased vineyards from the Fatimid and Mamluk governments, produced wine for sacramental and medicinal use, and traded wine throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. Christian monasteries in the Levant and Iraq often cultivated grapevines; they then distributed their vintages in taverns located on monastery grounds. Zoroastrians in Persia and Central Asia also engaged in the production of wine. Though not much is known