Complex Numbers

Liquid Ick

Another link from Cracked, this time about drinking.

    4 Gross Historical Drinks That Show How Good Modern Drinkers Have It  

Except that "modern drinkers" quaff kombucha, which is objectively disgusting. Also, veggie smoothies.

Nowadays, even the humblest watering holes are going to have a wealth of beverages available for those looking to tip back a glass of their preferred shape and size.

And yet, it's almost never enough variety for me.

Here are four ancient drinks that show how good modern drinkers have it.

To be sure, the original beer doesn't seem very appetizing to me. And you had to drink it through a straw, because Sumer, for all of its innovations, hadn't figured out filtering.

4. Airag/Kumis

If you were part of the Mongol army and were seeking a pick-me-up after a long day of pillaging, the drink of choice would have been airag, now known by its Turkish name, kumis, which, given its appearance, doesn’t seem like much of an improvement. Now, for such a nomadic people, it wasn’t as if they were able to tote wheat fields or barrels of grapes along, so they had to make do with what they had. And what they had, in great numbers, were horses. Horses that could, to their delight and our disgust, be milked.

That might disgust some people, but really, is it that different from cow's milk? Also, sheep's milk is still a thing. They're all herbivores. No, the origin isn't the disgusting part. The disgusting part is that, since almost any sugar can be fermented into alcohol, and milk contains a kind of sugar, well...

The fermentation wasn’t purely for producing alcohol content, but because straight mare’s milk is apparently nature’s Ex-Lax, and fermenting it kept a little bit more of your insides, well, inside. Making the horse milk a little boozy was just a happy side effect, and the concoction wasn’t only tolerated, but celebrated as one of the sources of the Mongols’ strength.

For some of us, any mammal milk is basically nature's Ex-Lax.

3. Kykeon

Kykeon, a drink that pops up throughout Greek mythology and history, did indeed have the rep of fucking you up, but not by benefit of its ABV. It was instead supposed to have hallucinogenic properties.

One thing that most hallucinogens seem to have in common, not that I have any experience with them, is that they can cause great gastric distress. That keeps me away from them more than the whole "illegal" thing does.

Well, the O.G. recipe isn’t exactly mega appealing, being made from water (okay), barley (sure), herbs (fair enough) and ground goat cheese (hmm).

Goat cheese? Oh no, that's disgusting! Wait, no it's not. Goats are another mammal it's okay to milk (see above).

I'm going to provisionally put this one in the "not that objectively gross" category.

2 Posca

Posca was the fuel of choice for the Roman troops — at least, the ones poor enough that they couldn’t afford to drink anything better.

If they were rich, they wouldn't have been troops.

The sales pitch was that it was great for revitalizing tired troops and fighting infection, which is what you might have to tell someone to get this shit down their gullet. Posca was made from red wine vinegar, water, herbs, spices and honey.

Okay, not something I'd drink, but all of those things are stuff most of us have swallowed.

1. Three Penis Wine

Yeah... no.

Let me disappoint you immediately by clarifying that this is not a euphemism. This is, fairly straightforwardly, wine infused with the tangy taste and power of three different animal penises.

Maybe that's why they invented the word "cocktail."

Then there's that drink with the human toe in it. No, I'm not going to look it up to link it. You can Google same as I can.

Not to fact-check a sitcom’s fake infomercial, but their precise penis combo is a little off, as true three penis wine contains seal, deer and dog penises.

As this is supposedly a magical potion for improving one's sexual prowess, and potions are based on sympathetic magic, you'd think they'd have taken a cue from the Mongols and used horse dong.

I guess maybe that was a steppe too far.