Maybe you have tried at least one of this beverages until now. Now you can discover more about them and other of the most popular drinks on the Globe, for example you can find out the country where they were created.
10. Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grapes or other fruits. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids,enzymes, water, or other nutrients. Yeast consumes the sugars in the grapes and converts them into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts produce different types of wine. Wine has a rich history dating back thousands of years, with the earliest known production occurring around 6000 BC in Georgia. It first appeared in the Balkansabout 4500 BC and was very common in ancient Greece, Thrace and Rome. Wine has also played an important role in religion throughout history. The Greek god Dionysus and theRoman equivalent, Bacchus, represented wine. The drink is also used in Christian Eucharistceremonies and the Jewish Kiddush.
9. Beer
Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the saccharification of starch and fermentation of the resulting sugar. The starch and saccharification enzymes are often derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat. Most beer is also flavoured with hops, which add bitterness and act as a natural preservative, though other flavourings such as herbs or fruit may occasionally be included. The preparation of beer is called brewing.
Beer is one of the world’s oldest prepared beverages, possibly dating back to the early Neolithic or 9500 BC, when cereal was first farmed, and is recorded in the written history of ancient Iraq and ancient Egypt. Archaeologists speculate that beer was instrumental in the formation of civilisations.
8. Vodka
Vodka is a distilled beverage composed primarily of water and ethanol, sometimes with traces of impurities and flavorings. Vodka is made by the distillation of fermented substances such as grains, potatoes, or sometimes fruits or sugar. Scholars debate the beginnings of vodka, and it is a problematic and contentious issue due to little historical material available on the subject of the origins of the drink. According to some sources, first production of vodka took place in the area of today’s Russia in the late 9th century; however, some argue that it may have happened even earlier in Poland in the 8th century.
7. Sake
Sake or saké is an alcoholic beverage of Japaneseorigin that is made from fermented rice. Sake is sometimes called “rice wine” but the brewing process is more as rice beer, converting starch to sugar for thefermentation process.
In the Japanese language, the word “sake” generally refers to any alcoholic drink, while the beverage called “sake” in English is usually termed nihonshu( “Japanese liquor”). Under Japanese liquor laws, sake is labelled with the word “seishu” (“clear liquor”), a synonym less commonly used colloquially.
6. Rum
Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcanebyproducts, such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels. Rum can be referred to in Spanish by descriptors such as ron viejo (“old rum”) and ron añejo (“aged rum”). The majority of the world’s rum production occurs in the Caribbeanand Latin America (including the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua,Belize, Martinique, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia and Costa Rica.
5. Tequila
Tequila is a distilled beverage made from the blue agave plant, primarily in the area surrounding the city of Tequila, 65 kilometres (40 mi) northwest of Guadalajara, and in the highlands (Los Altos) of the western Mexican state of Jalisco. The blue volcanic soil in the surrounding region is particularly well suited to the growing of the blue agave, and more than 300 million of the plants are harvested there each year.
4. Whiskey
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grainmash. Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn. Whisky is typically aged in wooden casks, made generally of charred white oak.
Whisky is a strictly regulated spirit worldwide with many classes and types. The typical unifying characteristics of the different classes and types are the fermentation of grains, distillation, and aging in wooden barrels.
3. Arak
Arak, or araq, is an alcoholic spirit (~40–63% Alc. Vol./~100–126 proof) from the anis drinks family. It is a clear, colorless, unsweetened anise-flavored distilled alcoholic drink (also labeled as an Apéritif). It is the traditional alcoholic beverage in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and Israel.
2. Absinthe
Absinthe is historically described as a distilled, highly alcoholic (45–74% ABV / 90-148 proof) beverage. It is an anise-flavoured spirit derived from botanicals, including the flowers and leaves of Artemisia absinthium (a.k.a. “grand wormwood”), together with green anise, sweet fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs. Absinthe traditionally has a natural green colour but may also be colourless. It is commonly referred to in historical literature as “la fée verte” (the green fairy). Although it is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a liqueur, absinthe is not traditionally bottled with added sugar, and is therefore classified as a spirit. Absinthe originated in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland in the late 18th century. It rose to great popularity as an alcoholic drink in late 19th- and early 20th-century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers.
1. Liqueur
A liqueur is an alcoholic beverage made from a distilled spiritthat has been flavored with fruit, cream, herbs, spices, flowers or nuts and bottled with added sugar or other sweetener (such as high-fructose corn syrup). Liqueurs are typically quite sweet; they are usually not aged for long after the ingredients are mixed, but may have resting periods during their production to allow flavors to marry.
In the United States and Canada, where spirits are often called “liquor” , there is often confusion over liqueurs and liquors, especially as many spirits today are available in flavored form (e.g. flavored vodka). The most reliable rule of thumb is that liqueurs are quite sweet and often syrupy in consistency, while liquors are not.
