Jars excavated in Jerusalem. It's thought some contained wine possible enriched with vanilla.Credit: Photographed by Sasha Flit, Tel-Aviv University / Sourced from PloS One study.
Jars excavated in Jerusalem. It's thought some contained wine possible enriched with vanilla.Credit: Photographed by Sasha Flit, Tel-Aviv University / Sourced from PloS One study.
I bought a bottle of the vanilla crown royal recently it’s okay but I’ll stick with the regular whiskey from now on
It makes complete sense. I fully suspect that taste buds haven’t changed much in millennia. Same goes for man’s curiosity ... “Hmm, what if I put this or that in my wine. I wonder what that will taste like?”
Probably helped cover the bad taste of many wines back then. Wine was very inconsistent then.
It is what you make artificial vanilla flavoring out of and can be found in oak.
So they found wine that had been aged in oak barrels.
Wine in the ancient Mediterranean was in a more viscous state and was customarily watered before drinking. Banquet scenes in the Iliad and the Odyssey always described adding and mixing water with wine in a bowl, a little then sprinkled on the ground as share for the Gods, before serving it out to the participants. Imbibed in sufficient quantity, the result was still strong enough to get everybody drunk. Drinking un-watered wine was considered a faux pas and barbaric. But adding flavorings to cheap or bad wine was how one got past the taste.
The wine drank by the Greeks and Romans was actually pretty bad and usually had water added - basically the equivalent of lite beer.
Nothing new under the sun...
Modern “elites” drink wine infused with adrenochrome. /s
Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hills Forever!
Thanks, SunkenCiv!
Interesting. Was that red or white wine? Or?
I love vanilla, might try it in a glass or two of wine, but not expensive wine.
I thought the phrase “...during the Babylonian destruction....” somewhere. Caught my eye.
Suppose they used the storage containers for different things at different times?
This seems like bad journalism and possible bad research.
Why was the researchers’ thought “hmm what could explain this vanillin? Must be vanilla.” and not “what has vanillin in it and could be associated with wine?”
Oak would be the natural first thought for someone who drinks wine, knows much of anything about wine, botany, chemistry, etc...
An online magazine that caters to wine folk would... or should, answer that question in the article. “Hints of vanilla” is so common for oaked wines and even an amateur drunk who goes to wine tastings a few times a year would probably know this.
Was there something involved in the research that eliminated oak as a candidate explanation? If so, the article should address this. If not, the article is remiss about not addressing it.
Ancient elites were just as drunk as they are now 🤪
I could have told you that
