'Tis Seemly This Rhyme for New Year's Eve

Monks of the Screw

by John Philpot Curran

When Saint Patrick this order established,
He called us the Monks of the Screw
Good rules he revealed to our Abbot
To guide us in what we should do;
But first he replenished our fountain
With liquor the best in the sky;
And he said on the word of a Saint
That the fountain should never run dry.

Each year when your octaves approach,
In full chapter convened let me find you;
And when to your convent you come,
Leave your favourite temptation behind you.
And be not a glass in your convent
Unless on a festival found;
And this rule to enforce I ordain it –
One festival all the year round.

My brethren, be chaste till you're tempted;
While sober be wise and discreet;
And humble your bodies with fasting,
As oft as you've nothing to eat.
Yet in honour of fasting one lean face
Among you I'd always require;
If the Abbott should please, he may wear it,
If not let it come to the Prior.

Come, let each take his chalice, my brethren,
And with due devotion prepare.
With hands and with voices uplifted
Our hymn to conclude with a prayer.
May this chapter oft joyously meet
And this handsome libation renew,
To the Saint, and the Founder, and Abbot,
And Prior, and Monks of the Screw!

Then as now, beer for the masses and wine for the elite?

A "banquet" scene on an impression of a lapis cylinder seal from Queen Pu-abi's tomb. A male and female on either side of a wide-mouthed jar are shown imbibing barley beer through drinking tubes, while others below raise high their cups, probably containing wine, which is served from a spouted jar.

It has usually been argued that barley beer was the alcoholic beverage of choice in ancient Sumer,
since the hot, dry climate of southern Iraq makes it difficult to grow grapevines, and the textual evidence for viniculture and winemaking in Mesopotamia is minimal before the 2nd millennium B.C. But based on chemical evidence for wine inside jars that could've been used to transport and serve it, wine was probably already being enjoyed by at least the upper classes in Late Uruk times (ca. 3500-3100 B.C.)

But then, what of the grape?

MesopotamiaUnder the Grape Arbors...

It has usually been argued that barley beer was the alcoholic beverage of choice in ancient Sumer,  Did you know...? Queen Pu-abi, who was buried with her servants—who had all been ceremonially poisoned—was accompanied to the afterlife with hundreds of gold and silver goblets, drinking-tubes or straws of lapis lazuli, and a five-liter silver jar, which is thought to have been her daily allotment of barley beer! since the hot, dry climate of southern Iraq makes it difficult to grow grapevines, and the textual evidence for viniculture and winemaking in Mesopotamia is minimal before the 2nd millennium B.C. But based on chemical evidence for wine inside jars that could've been used to transport and serve it, wine was probably already being enjoyed by at least the upper classes in Late Uruk times (ca. 3500-3100 B.C.). Early Dynastic cylinder seals depict the royalty and their entourages drinking beer with tubes/straws from large jars and a second beverage—presumably wine—from hand-held cups. Did you know...? Museum scientists have analyzed what participants ate and drank at the finalfunerary feast of King Midas atGordion (ca. 700 B.C.) and discovered that it was lamb stew and a mixed fermented beverage of wine, barley beer, and honey mead! The wine imported into lowland Greater Mesopotamia could have been brought from the northern Zagros Mountains of Iran or other parts of the Near East, at least 600 kilometers away. The 5th century B.C. Greek historian Herodotus describes shipping wine down the Euphrates or Tigris from Armenia at a much later period: round skin boats were loaded with date-palm casks of wine and delivered to Babylon. River transport was also an option in the Late Uruk Period. But if the demand for the beverage were great enough, transplantation of grapevines to closer locales in the central Zagros and possibly as far south as Susa would be anticipated. When the Late Uruk trade routes were suddenly cut off at the end of the period, the pressure to establish productive vineyards closer to the major urban centers would have intensified. A "banquet" scene on an impression of a lapis cylinder seal from Queen Pu-abi's tomb. A male and female on either side of a wide-mouthed jar are shown imbibing barley beer through drinking tubes, while others below raise high their cups, probably containing wine, which is served from a spouted jar. Future excavation will be decisive in tracing the prehistory of viniculture and winemaking in this region of the ancient Near East; already there is a strong indication that the domesticated grape plant had already been transplanted there as early as the mid-3rd millennium B.C. Elamite cylinder seals, foreshadowing similiar scenes on Assyrian reliefs some two millennia later, depict males and females seated under grape arbors, drinking what is most likely wine.

In the beginning there was fish, that made us smart... then we invented beer

So the ancient Egyptians paid for the labor for the building of the pyramids in credits that bought the workers what? Beer!

First Things First

What is the world's oldest known recipe?