High calorie, high nutrition. It’s candy with nutrients and a deeper buzz. Survival food, low effort to consume, no cooking required, source grows in famines, doesn’t rot.
A mutation in our ancestors 10 million years ago likely spread due ground fruit fermenting, becoming toxic to other creatures thus creating an ecological niche. So, even if they were not human it’s reasonable to say the love affair is that old and shared with other species.
“Ten million years ago a common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas acquired a mutation that let them remove ethanol from the body more efficiently. This adaptation coincided with a change of habitat. Tropical forests were collapsing, notes Robin Dunbar of Oxford University. Some 90% of apes went extinct. One lineage survived by leaving the trees and foraging on the ground.
Whereas apes in trees gobbled fresh fruit, those on the ground found fallen fruit, which ferments. Thus, our ancestors may have acquired a taste for alcohol–which allowed them to use these scarce calories. This “drunken monkey” hypothesis suggests that a love of the smell and taste of alcohol, the sign of an energy-rich fruit, gave our ancestors an edge. Their chosen poison would have been fairly weak. A study of overripe wild Panamanian palm fruits found none stronger than 5% alcohol—about the same as a Heineken.“
There is that pet theory that alcohlism also converted us from nomads to agrarian societies as mead and bear are impractical to make year round while on the move.
> humanity hasn't existed for anywhere close to 10M years.
From the article:
" Humans, unusually, have a pair of enzymes that turf it out like night-club bouncers. Our ability to process alcohol has deep evolutionary roots.
Ten million years ago a common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas acquired a mutation that let them remove ethanol from the body more efficiently. This adaptation coincided with a change of habitat. Tropical forests were collapsing, notes Robin Dunbar of Oxford University. Some 90% of apes went extinct. One lineage survived by leaving the trees and foraging on the ground."
I haven’t read the whole thing, but it starts off talking about a gene mutation in our ancestors species 10 million years ago that lets us process alcohol. So they are taking a little artistic license.
So I just looked this up. It's a prodrug for GHB, which is a notoriously dangerous drug.
It's about the same danger as alcohol... Except that because it's taken as a powder, it's much easier to overdose. And it's also extremely dangerous to take with alcohol.
For anyone taking this comment seriously, please research and understand the potential long term impacts of GBL before going near it. It's neurotoxic and can cause brainfog and lowered cognitive ability. It's also lethal in the wrong dose, with a tiny margin for error.
Your response feels like a gut-level averse reaction, not an actual weighing of the harms against alcohol, which is about the most harmful drug ever for every system in your body, and also has a relatively small margin between lethality and and recreational doses.
> which is about the most harmful drug ever for every system in your body
I am not saying that alcohol is good for you or anything, but that is not even wrong. It’s trivial to find drugs that kill you or nuke your liver if you get a few milligrams.
> also has a relatively small margin between lethality and and recreational doses.
Unless by "recreational dose" you mean a whole bottle of 40% ABV spirits, not really. And even then. IIRC the lethal dose is around 7g/kg, which is more than a pint of pure ethanol for someone weighting 70kg, or twice the amount of alcohol in the bottle. This is not a particularly small margin of error, particularly considering that the hypotheses were conservative.
It is possible to kill oneself with alcohol. It is nowhere near the dose commonly taken for recreative purposes.
>GABA, which is part of the brain’s natural calming system, is strongly affected by alcohol. Scientists think this is the mechanism by which drinking can reduce stress and anxiety. GABA Labs, a firm based near London, is trying to develop a flavourless substance called Alcarelle that has a similar effect. Trials to show that it is safe could take years. But if they are successful, the firm will be able to market Alcarelle to drinks makers as a way to create soft drinks that mimic the buzzy feeling of booze, with none of the downside.
We already have GBL. It's semi-legal and feels like a long lasting ethanol. I tried it a couple times and thought it was boring. But yeah, we have plenty of alcohol alternatives already. Etizolam seltzers could be a thing.
The point of drinking is to get a buzz. Most alcoholic drinks taste bad anyway, and would not be consumed if not for that. The only people who would need a pill to stop after one drink are hardcore alcoholics. This guy is either really stupid, marketing for some upcoming product, or propagandizing against alcohol because they found it is actually good for you after all lol.
Don't speak for people. I don't like getting a buzz - I don't like anything at all that alters my mood chemically. I really dislike it as an idea, deeply. But I love one cocktail or one drink of Scotch or one beer, sipped casually - for the taste.
It’s funny how personal it is. I really hate the taste of alcohol and don’t even tend to like food cooked with alcohol (even if it has “cooked off” it clearly leaves a taste behind).
I tried drinking for a short while but I had to almost hold my nose and swallow it as if it were medicine.
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/11/nx-s1-5640109/early-humans-fi...
> The discovery suggests early humans were making fire more than 350,000 years earlier than previously known.
> "For me, personally, it's the most exciting discovery of my 40-year career," Ashton said.
“Ten million years ago a common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas acquired a mutation that let them remove ethanol from the body more efficiently. This adaptation coincided with a change of habitat. Tropical forests were collapsing, notes Robin Dunbar of Oxford University. Some 90% of apes went extinct. One lineage survived by leaving the trees and foraging on the ground.
Whereas apes in trees gobbled fresh fruit, those on the ground found fallen fruit, which ferments. Thus, our ancestors may have acquired a taste for alcohol–which allowed them to use these scarce calories. This “drunken monkey” hypothesis suggests that a love of the smell and taste of alcohol, the sign of an energy-rich fruit, gave our ancestors an edge. Their chosen poison would have been fairly weak. A study of overripe wild Panamanian palm fruits found none stronger than 5% alcohol—about the same as a Heineken.“
From the article:
" Humans, unusually, have a pair of enzymes that turf it out like night-club bouncers. Our ability to process alcohol has deep evolutionary roots. Ten million years ago a common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas acquired a mutation that let them remove ethanol from the body more efficiently. This adaptation coincided with a change of habitat. Tropical forests were collapsing, notes Robin Dunbar of Oxford University. Some 90% of apes went extinct. One lineage survived by leaving the trees and foraging on the ground."
https://archive.is/KVT11
Humanity's gene for processing alcohol has existed for 10M years, and that's what they are actually talking about.
It's about the same danger as alcohol... Except that because it's taken as a powder, it's much easier to overdose. And it's also extremely dangerous to take with alcohol.
A better alternative to alcohol this isn't.
It's by no means a safe alcohol replacement
I am not saying that alcohol is good for you or anything, but that is not even wrong. It’s trivial to find drugs that kill you or nuke your liver if you get a few milligrams.
> also has a relatively small margin between lethality and and recreational doses.
Unless by "recreational dose" you mean a whole bottle of 40% ABV spirits, not really. And even then. IIRC the lethal dose is around 7g/kg, which is more than a pint of pure ethanol for someone weighting 70kg, or twice the amount of alcohol in the bottle. This is not a particularly small margin of error, particularly considering that the hypotheses were conservative.
It is possible to kill oneself with alcohol. It is nowhere near the dose commonly taken for recreative purposes.
We already have GBL. It's semi-legal and feels like a long lasting ethanol. I tried it a couple times and thought it was boring. But yeah, we have plenty of alcohol alternatives already. Etizolam seltzers could be a thing.
Also my wife doesn't like the smell so if I drink,she doesn't kiss me. Everything stacked against me! Lol
I tried drinking for a short while but I had to almost hold my nose and swallow it as if it were medicine.
I think drinking for the buzz demonstrates an immaturity with alcohol consumption. One many have, but an immaturity nonetheless.