Denaturation of wines

Although it is thought that the distillation of alcohol is a relatively late phenomenon from the historical point of view, there are references to probable distilled preparations prior to its generalized European diffusion in the XIV and XV centuries d.e.c.
There are Chinese registers of the IV century d.e.c. that mention pure and clear wines fermented up to nine times. Probably the chronicler is indirectly describing a distillation process. In any case, although the distillation of fermented beverages must have existed in many places and times, the practice did not spread in a general way until the social and historical conditions for this to occur in the European societies of the 15th and XVI.
There are references that the distillation process was discovered in 800 AD. by an Arab alchemist named Jabir Al-Hayyan, forerunner of current chemistry, better known in the western world as Geber. Alcohol is a word of Arabic origin; the original Arabic term alghool meant ghost or evil spirit. It is presumed that Jabir Al-Hayyan must have suggested this name because of its most marked effects.
On the other hand, the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1966 mentions that "it is generally accepted that the word alcohol is a derivation of the Arabic kuhl, koh, or kohol which means a" very fine powder ". Alkohol, or fine powder, usually referred to a subtly pulverized antimony sulfate used in cosmetics to shade the eyelids.
Gradually the word alkohol came to mean essence. The Arabic verb khamara basically means to cover while khamura indicates the notion of fermenting. Therefore drinking khamar (fermented drink) would cover or obscure the clarity of thought of an individual making him act without a logical thought process.
 Other references indicate that the "discovery" of distilled alcohol took place in the thirteenth century AD, and was the work of a Mallorcan alchemist named Ramón Llull.
 Supposedly, in his search for the elixir of life, Llull managed to prepare the aqua vini or aqua vita which said "his taste exceeds that of all other tastes and the aroma all other aromas."
Once the distillation process was known, its diffusion in the Europe of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries would completely change the role played by alcoholic beverages in European and world societies.

It was at the beginning of the 14th century that sugarcane plantations began to spread in Andalusia, and by the mid-15th century there were already extensive cane plantations in Madeira, colonized by Portugal, and in some of the Canary Islands, recently conquered in blood and fire for the Kingdom of Castile. A short time later, the Portuguese established plantations on the island of Santo Tomé, in the Gulf of Guinea, using slave labor sequestered in the neighboring continental regions.

Around the year 1500, the Spanish invaded the Taino islands of America (especially Santo Domingo, Cuba and Puerto Rico), and the Portuguese began to install numerous plantations in Brazil. In both cases, native and African slave labor was used.
An important part of the sugar was destined to the manufacture of spirits of various types, which in huge volumes would invade the European countries, accelerating the process of alcoholization, masculinization, feminine devaluation and general dullness of the continent.
In America the effect was different. Europeans used alcohol to culturally "disarm" Native American societies. The First Nations of America had developed very complex ceremonial and social systems for the preparation and ingestion of many substances from psychoactive plants: peyote, ayahuasca, coca, yerba mate, tobacco. Although they consumed "wines" of various kinds (for example the "chichas" of corn and manioc), they did not know about distilled beverages, and their sudden appearance led to a general disarticulation of values ​​and practices.
 Many Native American societies, traditionally matriarchal, suffered an accelerated masculinization and a generalized expansion of the individual ego. In many places, violence against women appeared, the role of women was devalued, feminine hierarchies lost authority, and above all, a profound loss of individual and collective self-esteem that lasted until today was generated.
The most effective weapons the Europeans used to conquer America were not fire and gunpowder. Much more effective were the spirits, the "waters of life," which from the point of view of native societies could well be called "waters of death."