On Food and Cooking

and beer and spirits are very different foods.
Wine begins with fruits that are fragrant and
sweet with sugars, and therefore ready-made
to ferment into an aromatic drink — but only
during the few days of the year when they’re
ripe. Grapes and wine are a gift of nature, a
form of grace, which the winemaker must
accept when they’re given, and can leave
largely to themselves to realize their innate
potential for producing flavor. Beer and rice
alcohols, by contrast, are the expression of
everyday human effort and ingenuity. They’re
made from sugarless, aroma-less dry grains,
the charmless but dependable staff of life.
Brewers transform grains into something
fermentable and aromatic by sprouting them
or cultivating molds on them for days, and
cooking them for hours. They can do this at
any time of the year, anywhere in the world.
Beer is thus our universal alcohol,
comfortably local and everyday and ordinary,
yet sometimes extraordinary. And distilled