Outside a chicheria in Lamay, Peru, in the Sacred Valley of the Inca Empire, Lucio Chávez Díaz drinks a glass of chicha frutillada, a corn beer flavored with strawberries. The pure beers, wines, and spirits of today are a historical exception; alcoholic beverages have long been doctored with everything from pine needles to tree resins to honey. Ancient Greek warriors even grated goat cheese onto their beer. When the Inca drank chicha out of wooden cups called keros—like this 17th-century one—they often stirred not strawberries but psychoactive herbs into the beer.
