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Comment by scott_s | Hacker News Reader

I'm reading "Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol", by Iain Gately, and he covers some of this in detail. In his book, he talks about how unprepared England was for gin: people primarily drank ale at that time, and they drank it regularly and in abundance. Some people drank gin like they drank ale, with disastrous results; people didn't initially believe that doing so was harmful, and certainly not that it could kill you. It really was treated like an epidemic among the working class.

I recommend the book to anyone with a curiosity in our history with alcohol - and it's a long history. The book, however, is a relatively light read. It's like a brief history of the world (although mostly the West) through the lens of alcohol.

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Though I haven't invested too much time verifying this, the story is that Guinness was originally founded as a Christian ministry to prevent drunkenness. Basically, Arthur Guinness was seeing his beloved Ireland ravaged by alcoholism, mostly caused by abuse of gin, so he wanted something that was more difficult to get drunk on. Guinness was supposed to be heavy enough (and sufficiently low in alcohol) that your limiting factor would be feeling full, not unconsciousness.

That is a very cool idea. Where did you first come across it (even if it's not verified)?

> Some people drank gin like they drank ale, with disastrous results

I don't see how people even remotely thought this was a good idea. Not because of the alcohol content, but because spirits burn your throat.

I love gin. It's my favorite liquor, and I drink it often. But just thinking about downing a pint of gin like I'd drink ale makes my throat burn. It's very difficult for me to even do shots of hard liquor.

How did people back then stand to quaff gin like ale?

Just a guess - maybe it was much less strong at the time?

In a couple generations we evolved more sensitive throats.

(I jest, but only slightly.)

I did not mean that they literally put gin in a pint glass and downed the whole pint in a few gulps - the author did not say how exactly they drank it. But what he made clear was that in total quantity drunk, for some, it was the same.

Two things give some perspective on this. First, at the time in England, people did not really drink water. They drank ale as their primary drink. So they consumed a lot of alcohol on a regular basis. Two, they didn't really know they were consuming alcohol. It took some time for people to establish that the chemical that caused intoxication in distilled spirits, beer and wine was the same chemical. (Because of this, initial temperance movements were exclusively about spirits.) So people didn't have a clear basis for reasoning that this new thing could potentially harm them.

It isn't exactly literal, but it happens to children (young adults) as well. Drink beer at a moderate rate for a great long awhile and the drinky bird action of the elbow learns its own cadence. I actually think booze neurons migrate down into the arm, somewhat like octopus appendage intelligence. When the delivery medium changes, the cyclic rate of consumption takes awhile to update, it is especially hard since there is a positive feedback loop that is only dampened by incapacitation.

With that in mind, I am training my children on hard liquor from a young age.

The same story is given in the Ken Burns's prohibition documentary. Alcoholism was rampant in America at the turn of the century because americans were drinking whiskey like they'd been previously drinking beer.

Whiskey features prominently in the book, particularly in America. Of course because people liked it, but also because whiskey was just a much more practical way to sell, ship, and store corn.

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