Dionysus was the god of wine in Ancient Greece. According to legend, Dionysus was known for conquering lands not with weapons, but wine and dance. He was also often accompanied by drunken revelers carrying wine who worshiped this beloved figure.

Beer was a beloved drink in Ancient Egypt, so much so that it was even used as a form of currency at one time. Many Egyptians revered the drink, and given that the Nile River was often polluted, beer was considered safer than drinking water. While wine was also prevalent at the time, it was mainly considered a drink of the upper class.

Soju is a popular Korean spirit that originated in the 13th century, shortly after the Mongolian invasion of the Korean Peninsula. The Mongols introduced distilling techniques that were later used in the invention of soju. In 1965, the Korean government banned using rice — the traditional method — in the soju-making process because of shortages, forcing manufacturers to come up with alternatives.

Curt Mast first conceived of Jägermeister in 1935, and 20 years later, he took over his father’s vinegar factory in the German town of Wolfenbüttel. Eventually Jägermeister’s production outgrew the factory, and the company relocated in 1958 to another site in Wolfenbüttel, which still attracts countless visitors each year despite its small population.

Though he’s best known today for being the namesake of a famous Champagne brand, Dom Pérignon was once a Benedictine monk living in 17th-century France. Pérignon was born in 1638 in France’s Champagne region, and he helped improve Champagne production methods while at the Abbey of Hautvillers. One such improvement was inventing a press to make clear wine from dark grapes.

In 1935, New Jersey’s Gottfried Krueger Brewery became the first brewery to sell its beers in cans. At the time, a company called American Can offered to package Kruger’s beers, and if the product failed then Krueger wouldn’t have to pay anything. Kruger’s Cream Ale and Finest Beer were the first sold in cans, and the effort soon became a huge success.

Absinthe as we know it today originated when a French doctor living in Switzerland created it from the bitter wormwood herb in the late 18th century. However, the use of wormwood for liquor dates back to ancient times, and the ancient Greeks had a similar drink that was used for something very different than casual drinking: as a medicinal aid for childbirth (and also menstrual) pain.

Gaspare Campari is responsible for the popular Italian bitter apéritif of the same name, which he invented in 1828 when he was just a teen in Cassolnovo, Lombardy. He perfected the recipe by 1860. Campari originally got its bright red color from carmine, a dye made from crushed insects, though the company stopped using it in 2006.

Though each country's version features slightly distinct flavoring, both Peru and Chile claim to have invented the local drink known as pisco. In Peru, it was created in the 16th century to replace a Spanish brandy known as orujo. Strict Peruvian laws state that only eight native grape varieties can be used in pisco’s production, with oak-aging strictly forbidden.

The earliest evidence of grape-based winemaking dates to approximately 6000 BCE in the South Caucasus, in a region that is part of modern-day Georgia. Scientists discovered pottery fragments in an area known as Gadachrili Gora, 20 miles south of Tbilisi. They contained residual wine compounds and were decorated with depictions of grapes.

Vodka originated in either Russia or Poland as early as the eighth century CE, and the spirit was mainly consumed in Europe’s Balkan region until after World War II. In the wake of that conflict, vodka production and consumption sharply rose in the United States, thanks in part to America’s wartime allyship with Russia. The beverage then spread throughout all of Europe.

Brandy, a distilled spirit made from fermented fruit, was created in France in the early 1300s. At first it was used as a medicine, one that worked so well that doctors began to call it the “water of life.” Brandy is still produced all over France; two of the most well-known varieties are Cognac and Armagnac.

Starting around 1000 BCE, the ancient Aztecs, who lived in present-day northern Mexico, used the sap from agave plants to make a fermented drink called “pulque” — the precursor to tequila, which was named after the town in which it was first produced in the 16th century. Commercial distillation of tequila began with the Cuervo family in 1758.

In the 1780s, a brewer named George Hodgson created a pleasantly bitter beer with a high hops content that could survive the long journey from England to India. The beer was aged in a similar manner to wine, and not only lasted the entire trip but also improved in flavor. The result was the India Pale Ale, now commonly referred to as an IPA.

In the 16th century, the Dutch began making genever, a medicinal drink of malt wine and juniper berries. Its name comes from the French name for the juniper berry, “genièvre,” which the Dutch changed to “genever.” By the late 1600s, genever made it to England (by way of King William III, who was originally Dutch) and the name became gin.

Evidence of the first alcoholic beverage, a mead-like substance, dates back to approximately 7000 BCE in China, but historians believe the first barley beer — what we’d consider most similar to beer today — was made by the ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia (now the Middle East) around 3400 BCE. Archaeologists have found ceramic vessels still sticky with beer residue.

Though the exact origins of bourbon are murky, the history of the spirit is intertwined with the state of Kentucky. The term “bourbon” first began appearing in newspaper ads for Kentucky-based whiskey in the 1820s, and the name “bourbon” is believed to have been partly inspired by Kentucky’s Bourbon County.

Sake is the national beverage of Japan and is considered the drink of the gods, given as an offering at celebrations. The first written reference to it dates back to the third century CE, after Japan began cultivating wet rice. Sake was originally made by royalty, temples, and shrines, but became popular with the general public by the early 12th century.

The first written record of whiskey was in 1324, in the Red Book of Ossory, a medieval manuscript from Kilkenny, Ireland. The book notes that someone died from having too much of the drink. That reference was a full 170 years before any written records of whiskey in Scotland, where the first written records were tax receipts.

The West Indies have always been known for sugarcane crops, which make the byproduct molasses. Molasses is used to make most rums, though some countries use sugarcane juice. And in 1650, when the drink was first mentioned in Barbados, it had two nicknames: rumbullion and kill-devil. By 1667, it was known just as rum.