Apparently the Baptist belief grew out of the American temperance movement in the 19th Century. Even the early Mormons drank wine. Throw in the teetotaller’s prescription that all, any, alcohol is both evil & sinful, and......
Baptists will turn into pretzels trying to explain the wedding feast at Cana. The colloquy between the chief steward & the bridegroom (who was criticized for wasting the fine wine on already sozzled guests) drives them nuts until one exclaims, “Would Jesus create something as evil as alcohol?” They also seize on the “new wine in new wineskins” verse & assert that wherever the term “new wine” appears, it really means grape juice.
OK, now that one is correct. Fermenting grapes let off gas, and that gas could explode the container it's in. The people had grape juice, grape ferment, and grape vinegar. They couldn't stop the juice from fermenting, so the wine went through all three stages. To avoid an explosion, the wine would have to be either fresh grape juice or vinegar - the final stage, otherwsie the flask would blow open.
.
All wine starts out as grape juice, but by the end of October it definitely is not grape juice!
.
Ironically, bourbon was invented by a Baptist preacher, Elijah Craig. And his brand is still out there.
Ironically, bourbon was invented by a Baptist preacher, Elijah Craig. And his brand is still out there.
The US alcohol problem was this way. It was hard to ship grain from western settlements, so farmers distilled grain and shipped whiskey which weighed a lot less and paid better. When Washington stopped the Whiskey Rebellion around Pittsburgh, something like 5,000 whiskey producers fled to Kentucky territory to resettle and distill. This Rebellion had to do with taxes and the unfairness of forcing people to pay them before their crops were turned into coin. Hard drink was very popular on the frontier and elsewhere. Living was much work, sore muscles, etc. and a drop or two or ten helped kill the pain. It also led to alcoholism, wife abuse, fighting and killing, which eventually led to the temperance movements and prohibition.