Everybody drinks everyday, and the drinks menu may range from the morning’s eye-opening shot of caffeine, perhaps a fizzy soda or milk midday, to something alcoholic in the evening, with the ubiquitous bottled water ever-present in contemporary America. How did these drinks become our quotidian refreshments? To answer this question, we will survey the roles that wine, beer, distillates, cocktails, coffee, tea, chocolate, soda and water have played in different societies throughout history, examining what these beverages can tell us about the technological, economic, religious, political and social structures of key drinking cultures. We will study such cultural landmarks as the symposium of ancient Greece, the political tinderboxes of Restoration England's coffeehouses, Japan’s “way of tea” and it surprising relationship to medieval war, or the soft root ‘beers’ that became the darling of Temperance crusaders. We’ll conclude with a look at water access and its relationship to capitalism, as well as contemporary soda politics and the debates over American culture as expressed through a Coke.

Everybody drinks everyday, and the drinks menu may range from the morning’s eye-opening shot of caffeine, perhaps a fizzy soda or milk midday, to something alcoholic in the evening, with the ubiquitous bottled water ever-present in contemporary America. How did these drinks become our quotidian refreshments? To answer this question, we will survey the roles that wine, beer, distillates, cocktails, coffee, tea, chocolate, soda and water have played in different societies throughout history, examining what these beverages can tell us about the technological, economic, religious, political and social structures of key drinking cultures. We will study such cultural landmarks as the symposium of ancient Greece, the political tinderboxes of Restoration England's coffeehouses, Japan’s “way of tea” and it surprising relationship to medieval war, or the soft root ‘beers’ that became the darling of Temperance crusaders. We’ll conclude with a look at contemporary soda politics and the debates over American culture as expressed through a Coke.