Editing Alcohol (section)

==Alcohol Production and Terminology for Dummies==
Alcohol is produced via ''fermentation'' (using bacteria - usually yeast - to convert organic material into alcohol).  Fermenting alone produces a product that humans can metabolize, however it can be further enhanced by ''distillation'', which uses vapor evaporation to concentrate the amount of alcohol. Because alcohol kills microbes, it allowed farmers to turn excess crops into spoilage-resistant foodstuffs and a "safe" source of hydration. If its a plant that has some form of sugar in it, chances are that someone's tried to make alcohol out of it.  People have even made alcohol out of animal products like milk. If alcohol is allowed to ferment for too long, some other bacteria will come along and turn it into vinegar; it becomes too sour to drink and loses its intoxicating effects, but its still useful as a condiment and preservative.

'''Beer''' is brewed from starchy source material (grains), in a fermentation process that converts starch into sugar (usually by caramelizing the starch) and then sugar into alcohol.  This process is not very efficient, and most beer is only able to reach 3-9% alcohol before the bacterial reaction dies out, although various tricks can be used to push it a bit higher.  Alcohol has been brewed since the dawn of civilization and it has been argued that the production of beer was one of the driving factors in the agricultural revolution.  

Beer is typically made from malted barley and flavored with an herb called hops, though older beer recipes used whatever local herbs and spices were available, and there is great variety in what other starchy material may be mixed in with barley (corn and oats are common). Beer typically takes a couple weeks to ferment.

Within the beer family, there are two major groups, ''ales'' and ''lagers'', the distinction being whether the yeast floats in a warm mixture (ale) or sinks in a cool mixture (lager).  The darkest beers are generally ales (stouts & porters), but otherwise there is considerable variability in color and clarity of various types of beer.  Most American canned beers are lagers, specifically ''pilsners'', a bavarian/czech type brought over by immigrants who settled in the midwest; although American brewers tend to use a corn & barley mix which you can't call a pilsner in Europe.

'''Sake''' is made by a very similar process as beer but using rice and is able to reach up to 18% alcohol because of the way rice ferments compared to other starches.  The rice used in sake is broken down into sugar using koji mold.  Unlike in beer, the process of saccharification and fermentation take place at the same time instead of in separate steps. 

'''Wine''' is produced from sugary material, and because there is no intermediate starch-to-sugar step, the reaction happens more efficiently. Wine is typically made with grapes and is usually found in warmer climates; '''Cider''' is a common fruit wine made from apples which can be more easily grown in colder climates. '''Mead''' or honeywine is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages and is made with watered-down honey. Wine fermentation can naturally reach 10-15% alcohol. Wines made from grapes can take years to fully mature after fermenting, and fine wines put a lot of care in selecting quality grapes and the right fermentation conditions; for this reason wine tends to be more expensive and viewed as a finer drink compared to Beer, Cider or Mead. Though cheap wines have certainly existed and made easily enough by amateur brewers.

'''Liquor''' is any distilled product. Alcohol boils at 78.47°, so the steam that comes off from a boiled brew can be collected, cooled and condensed, producing a more portent drink that's 40% alcohol by volume. Somewhere north of 40% alcohol starts to become combustible. ''Rum'' is one of the simplest, made from pure sugarcane, fermented and then distilled. Close to it in terms of potency is ''vodka'', which uses beets or potatoes, both which also can ferment down very efficiently.  Cereal grains such as corn, barley, or rye don't ferment as effectively, and are used to make ''whiskey'', which unlike rum and vodka has some flavor because of the inefficient fermentation. ''Brandy'' is distilled wine; sometimes brandy is made from the leftover pulp of grapes, called pomace brandy. ''Tequilia'' is the odd duck of distilled beverages, or alcohol in general, in that its made from a desert succulent called Agave, and from a part of the plant that is more wood than fruit or seed.  ''Gin'' is a distilled beverage that is flavored with juniper berries.  ''Absinthe'' is a strong alcohol flavored with several herbs that may possibly give it some other mind altering effects in addition to the effects of alcohol.  Many people believe it to be hallucinogenic but this is actually false.

'''Moonshine''' typically refers to illegally made distilled alcohol that can have varying levels of purity.  While homebrewing of beer is a common enough activity, vapor distillation of alcohol presents a very serious risk of explosion so unlicensed stills are usually highly illegal. Still commonly found in the Southern parts of the United States, and other countries are at the same/higher levels of per-capita production despite such stills often being illegal: Examples being Germany, Poland and Russia. No matter where you are in the world, however, they're almost always known to be dangerous both in production and consumption- moonshiners often throw out the first parts of a batch because the amount of methanol in the first part can blind, paralyse or even kill you (methanol is converted in the body into formaldehyde, then formic acid, which humans cannot process). 

'''Grog''' is watered down alcohol (typically rum), mixing in lime juice was also very common among British sailors (hence the nickname "limeys"). In the Navy, grog kills three birds with one stone; making stagnant water rations more palatable, preventing sailors from getting too drunk on their alcohol ration and helping the crew fight off the early effects of scurvy with the vitamin C the lime juice would provide. Grog in fantasy often has the connotation of cheap, gross-tasting alcohol (probably owing to the stagnant water that the rum gets mixed with), though the two ideas are not mutually exclusive; if you're going to supply an army with [[Libators|libations]], you're not going to bother buying the expensive stuff in bulk ''(even as late as the world wars it was pretty normal for soldiers to be brewing hooch on the sly)'', and watering it down will help stretch the supply out and keep the boys from getting too rowdy.
* In French-speaking countries, however, 'grog' refers to a home remedy against colds that consists of a big cup of black tea with lemon juice, honey and a dollop of hard alcohol, and it lacks the cheap/gross connotation altogether.

'''Fortified Wines''' take wine and add some harder liquor (usually brandy) to up the alcohol content. If you add in sugar and flavoring, the result is frequently called a '''Bum Wine''' because, well, they combine the taste of fruit juice with the kick of the harder stuff, at a fairly cheap price, thus making them frequently the drink of choice for the homeless.

'''Pruno''', also known as "prison wine," is one of the grossest home-brewed alcohols you can make, and a testament to what lengths people will go to get buzzed. Pruno is made with the few resources available to prisoners; fruit cocktail, orange juice, sugar, or just about any sweet substance they can get their hands on. And in the absence of a proper and safe-to-use fermentation yeast (if you work in a prison kitchen then maybe you have access to baker's yeast, but this is unlikely), pruno is usually fermented using wild bacteria. '''This can be very dangerous and has been known to cause botulism,''' so naturally this is highly discouraged. The resulting sludge will taste gross but will contain some level of alcohol.

'''Literal Poison''' in the many forms! Everything from kerosene mixed with honey, turpentine mixed with tree sap, wood alcohol mixed with whatever was available to paint thinner or hand sanitizer mixed with nothing. You name it, somebody has drank it in the hopes of getting a good buzz; this would usually end up with the people drinking it falling over and dying an agonizing death. Chairforce airmen working with Redstone missiles used to drink rocket grade ethanol when they could get their hands on it.