The earliest known evidence comes from 7,000 BCE in China, where residue in clay pots has revealed that people were making an alcoholic beverage from fermented rice, millet, grapes, and honey.

While the first origins of alcohol remain in conjecture, researchers have discovered that the earliest record of our ancestors producing this drink was dated 7000 to 6600 BCE, in Jiahu, Northern China. The earliest alcohol was a mixed fermented drink made from rice, honey, hawthorn fruit, and/or grape.

Although it is impossible to say exactly where or when Homo sapiens first sampled alcohol, chemical analysis of the residues found in pots dating from 3500 B.C.E. shows that wine was already being made from grapes in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). This discovery makes alcohol almost as old as farming.

Fermented beverages existed in early Egyptian civilization, and there is evidence of an early alcoholic drink in China around 7000 B.C. In India, an alcoholic beverage called sura, distilled from rice, was in use between 3000 and 2000 B.C. The Babylonians worshiped a wine goddess as early as 2700 B.C.