What do the various beverages discussed in the text symbolize in the book, A History of the World in Six Glasses?

The drinks of choice that cultures and regions have chosen through the years often are symbolic of the culture or times. The colonists selected whiskey as their drink of choice. To these pioneering folks whiskey represented independence and liberty which were at the very heart of the new nation. The Greeks felt they were the highest state of humanity and felt blessed that Dionysus, the god of wine, had blessed them with an unlimited supply of wine. While the hunter/gatherers-turned-farmers didn’t find great symbolism in beer, making the beer changed their lives from a nomadic way of life to a settled one that fostered villages and cities.

Great Britain was the first Western nation to make coffee a prominent drink. People loved to discuss the news and politics over coffee. It was natural that coffeehouses sprung up around London where people could gather to drink coffee and talk. The venues were dominated by intellectuals, scholars and scientists who exchanged ideas and shared knowledge. The coffeehouses symbolized the curiosity, thirst for knowledge and need for freedom of expression of the intellect.

Although England enjoyed its coffee, it took second place to tea when it became available. To the Brits, tea represented the genteel life and practicality of the English. England fell in love with tea and that love has never wavered.

There was never a drink more identified with a culture than Coca-Cola. The company made it available to the U.S. soldiers during World War II, and soldiers wrote the company to think them for the drinks that symbolized home to them and reminded them what they were fighting for.