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