It's easy to imagine the accidental discovery of beer
and wine, maybe 10000 years ago. Grain ferments
naturally. We might speculate this was the genesis
of agriculture - the cavemen wanted a stable supply of barley.

But I was wondering about distilled liquor - it's a
sophisticated, nonintuitive process. This must have
appeared much later.

Anybody have any ideas when/where/how distillation
was invented/discovered? What are the earliest records?


--
Rich