The word Alcohol itself is an arabic construct. First defined by persian scientist Rasis around year 1000, it slowly spread among the christian world. The word itself means The Kuhl (“Al” = Arabic for “The”), a powder used for eyeliner, though he came to use it for all distillates. Further down the road we specified it’s meaning to ethanol, or what we today think of as drinking alcohol.
We don’t really know who first started fermenting stuff into alcohol, but we know humans have been doing it for at least 9000 years. Most likely far longer. Fermentation is what happens when you combine sugar and yeast and let it sit. Seeing as yeast is all around us, this process is not really advanced, it’s basically what happens if you let your fruit sit for too long. The method of controlling the fermentation process is slightly more complicated, and when you can master that, you are able to make things that are fermented but also tastes good. Producing wine is probably the first evidence of fermentation that was actually drinkable. This dates back to China at around 7000 BC. Probably wine was made even before this, but this is the first evidence we have.
Ethanol fermentation, also called alcoholic fermentation, is a biological process which converts sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose into cellular energy, producing ethanol and carbon dioxide as by-products. Because yeasts perform this conversion in the absence of oxygen, alcoholic fermentation is considered an anaerobic process.
The method of distillation came to europe from arab and persian scientists, whom themselves probably picked it up somewhere in history. There is a high probability that the Babylonians (somewhere around what we today call Iraq) practiced the technique as yearly as 2000 years BC, though mostly for perfumes, not gin.
In a modern sense, however, we have greek texts mentioning the technique, and how they picked it up on travels to Persia and Egypt.
Distillation is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by selective evaporation and condensation.
When bartenders talk about distillation it’s always about distilling spirits from a fermented alcoholic liquid. In short, we have a wine or a beer, and separate the alcohol from it, to end up with a stronger alcoholic liquid. Seeing as alcohol has a lower boiling point(78,3) than water; if you heat a wine the alcohol will evaporate before the water. If you cool down the alcohol evaporation you return it to a liquid state. This will be a very strong liquid, varying in strength based on what kind of still you use.
In the middle ages, however, munks and alchemists alike utilized the technique of distilling wine and beer, trying to create both cure-alls and gold. Neither really worked, but the medicinal effect of distillates are hard to disprove, and sick people are desperately trying to get better, and will try anything, even if it might not work.
So be it alchemists in Europe or snake oil peddlers in the New World, their faux medicine sold, and can be thought of as the first bitters, amaro or even liqueurs. At least, we can see them as prototypes of things to come.