Proof

A spirited narrative on the fascinating art and science ofalcohol sure to inspire cocktail party chats on making booze, tasting it, andits effects on our bodies and brains.Drinking gets a lot more interesting when you know what'sactually inside your glass of microbrewed ale, single-malt whisky, or NapaCabernet Sauvignon. All of them begin with fermentation, where a fungus calledyeast binges on sugar molecules and poops out ethanol. Humans have beendrinking the results for ten thousand years. Distillation is a two-thousand-year-old technology-invented by a woman-that we're still perfecting today. Andthe molecular codes of alcoholic flavors remain a mystery pursued by scientistswith high-tech laboratories and serious funding.In Proof, Adam Rogers reveals alcohol as a miracle ofscience, going deep into the pleasures of making and drinking booze-and theeffects of the latter. The people who make and sell alcohol may talk abouthistory and tradition, but alcohol production is really powered by physics,molecular biology, organic chemistry, and a bit of metallurgy-and our taste forthose products is a melding of psychology and neurobiology.Proof takes readers from the whisky-making mecca ofthe Scottish highlands to the oenology labs at UC Davis, from Kentucky bourboncountry to the most sophisticated gene-sequencing labs in the world-and to morethan one bar-bringing to life the motley characters and evolving science behindthe latest developments in boozy technology.