Some Country Beers of India

savage have made use of intoxicating drinks of some kind from time immemorial. Modern research has established the fact that alcoholic beverages were prepared from cereals by the Babylonians about 4,000 B.C. and ancient explorers have dilated upon the wonderful skill ?f man which enabled him to turn barley into wine. Primitive man in his progress towards civilization first developed the art of agriculture and there appears to be little doubt that the cultivation of barley preceded that of wheat. The use of these cereals in bread-making was intimately related to the manufacture of beer, and in ancient Egypt and Babylon bakers and brewers prepared bread and beer which were consumed by all classes of the community. Various kinds of beers were brewed in Egypt from different cereals and their use was intimately connected with the sacrificial rites performed in those days. The Egyptians taught the art of brewing to the Jews and Greeks, the latter transmitting their knowledge to the Romans. There is evidence to show that the Romans made ample use of this knowledge because beer was served to the armies of Julius Caesar as a ration. The beers of early days Were flavoured with wonnseed, ground-ivy, pine, willow-bark, etc.; hops only came into use very much later. The ancient Aryan invaders of India were also well versed in the art of brewing drinks and earlier than 2,000 B.C. used a beverage called 1 soma'. The exact nature ?f the ' soma' of the Vedic period is still Wrapped in mystery and there are about a dozen different plants whose juice is said to have been the ' soma ' so much talked about in Sanskrit literature. Hemp and ephedra figured in this list. According to Professor Max Muller '.soma' was probably a kind of fermented liquor. The ' soma ' or ' homa ' plant (Sarcostzinina of botanists) was imported into India from the north by the Mongolian Tartar races. When properly squeezed it yielded a juice which Was allowed to ferment and being mixed with honey it produced an exhilarating and intoxicating drink. According to Ray (1906)^ three kinds of liquors were known in the time of ^fanu, viz, gouri prepared from ^ molasses, madvi from the sweet flowers of Bassia latifolia, and paishti from rice and barley cakes. Of these paishti was reckoned as the most common. The suras were included under the generic term Anadya meaning every kind of alcoholic drink. ' The word kohala occurs in Susruta a Sanskrit medical treatise written in the 5th century A.D., in which it means an alcoholic beverage made from powdered barley. Another word jagala also occurs in Susruta and in much earlier works such as Charaka, etc., in which kohala is not mentioned. Jagala was a kind of rice beer. It is probable that the English ' alcohol' and the Arabic ' alcohol' have