Drinks of the World

A Victorian-era journey through the drinking cultures that shaped civilization. John Ashton documents beverages from every continent, from the wines of French monasteries to the fermented milks of Central Asian steppes, from British public house traditions to the ceremonial libations of East Asia. This is not merely a catalog of recipes; it is a portrait of how societies gathered, celebrated, mourned, and conducted business through the vessel of drink. Ashton captures a world on the cusp of modernity, where industrial brewing and distilling were transforming ancient traditions, and where the classifications between "civilized" and "barbaric" drinks reflected the racial and class hierarchies of empire. For the modern reader, it offers a fascinating time capsule: the exact moment before globalization homogenized taste, when every region still held secrets of local fermentation and specific ceremony. History enthusiasts, cocktail scholars, and anyone curious about what humans actually drank before the soda fountain will find themselves captivated by this comprehensive portrait of a world that drank differently, and perhaps, in some ways, more interestingly than we do today.