In the Drink

A History of the World in Six Glasses. I started reading this book a few months ago but put it down when I started reading something else, so I'm just getting back to it now. It's a really interesting idea, charting the ways in which beer, wine, liquor, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola influenced and, in some cases, shaped world events. The writing is a little (pardon the pun) dry in some spots, but I'm learning some interesting things. I knew that tea had played a large role in the expansion of the British Empire (and it's loss of the American colonies), but I had no idea that coffee and coffeehouses were so vital to the innovations of the Age of Reason and the beginnings of the French Revolution. Imagine going to your local Starbucks to debate your latest theories of gravitational force or the divine right of royalty with a bunch of other customers. Good stuff.