European Imperialism and Emigration and The Expansion of The Alcohol Belts
European imperialism and emigration has spread Europe’s drink preferences across the world. While traditional indigenous alcohols are still produced (rice wine in East Asia), and new processes have created new alcohol belts (the rum belt in the Caribbean and Latin America, or tequila in Mexico), overall European alcohols are dominant across the globe.
Wine and beer moved in tandem with the Spanish conquistadors, but beer more quickly became established in the colonized areas, and spread more widely. Both indigenous Americans and Africans already produced beverages from fermented grains when Europeans arrived (tesgüino in Mexico, umqombothi in South Africa), but in both the Americas and Africa, barley-and-hops style beer has become more popular and profitable. The first official concession to brew European-style beer in New Spain was granted to Alfonso de Herrero in 1543 or 1544. Its exact location is unknown, but it is thought to have been located in the south of Mexico City (where Metro Portales is today) or in Amecameca, Mexico State. Beer arrived in New Netherland in 1587, with the first commercial brewery set up in 1632 by the Dutch West India Company in Manhattan. New France’s first commercial brewery was created in 1668 by Jean Talon in Quebec City. Dutch settlers brought beer to South Africa by the 1650s. Captain Cook had beer on board when he first sailed to Australia. Today, beer is the world's most widely consumed alcoholic beverage; it is the third-most popular drink overall, after water and tea.
- For the brewing histories of individual regions, see Beer and breweries by region
Vodka spread east across Northern Eurasia with the expansion of the Russian Empire. Whisky spread from Ireland and Scotland to the New World, creating the new styles of American whiskey and Canadian whisky (note spelling differences). Later Eastern European immigrants brought a taste for vodka to the New World as well, and by 1975 vodka had overtaken Bourbon as the most popular spirit in the United States.
Wine has a long history in the New World, but European wines have retained a significant prestige advantage over New World wines well into the twentieth century, and to some extent the twenty first. The first attempt to cultivate grapevines for wine in the New World began with the second voyage of Christopher Columbus on Hispaniola in 1494.
- For a full history of the spread of wine see New World wine
Read more about this topic: Alcohol Belts Of Europe
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“Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.”
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“Such a style,—so diversified and variegated! It is like the face of a country; it is like a New England landscape, with farmhouses and villages, and cultivated spots, and belts of forests and blueberry swamps round about, with the fragrance of shad-blossoms and violets on certain winds.”
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