I actually came across this book in the bibliography of another book I read a while back, about cholera and how it spread through the water supply in England in the 1850s. This book is sort of a trip through civilization, with each of six drinks (beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola) setting up the narrative through time. Water will be the seventh drink; the drink of the future, according to Standage. Will third-world countries have access to clean, safe water? Will World War III break out over water supplies, rather than oil? Will we find signs of water (and life) on Mars?
Of course, these are questions for the future when “6 Glasses” is focused on the past. I’m not usually a big history fan, since retrospectively it all seems so general (“and then there was a war, and some people died, and then there were some boats, and then they planted some trees, and then there was another war,” etc. ad nauseum). But this book had loads of little factoids, and that’s right up my alley. (I pretty much own trivia nights.)
Things I learned include:
Teacups and teapots and tins of Twinings tea. Photo credit: Wikipedia
- Twinings tea has what is thought to be the oldest commercial logo in continuous use in the world;
- Coca-Cola is apparently the second most commonly understood phrase in the world, after “okay”;
- beer and bread are essentially liquid and solid forms of the same thing;
- Sir Isaac Newton wrote Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica and published it in 1687 after a conversation with Edmond Halley (as in the comet!) at a coffee-house… I sometimes forget that all these famous scientists knew each other and worked together. It boggles the mind, truly;
- Lloyd’s of London and the London Stock Exchange also grew out of organizations originally based in coffee-houses;
- New Coke sucked. Jokes! I already knew that.
Beer (by the pitcher) and trivia (in teams is good, because then you can share the pitchers) go well together, incidentally.
Put the Book Down 