Writing in New York Magazine, Sam Anderson reviews Iain Gately’s new book, Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. Worth a read.
If you do go on to the next set of items on the page, about the "past lives" of certain beverages, take a bit of care, for not all there is accurate (e.g. at least two errors in the brief paragraph about the history of Champagne and one on the background of absinthe)
Best
Rogov