Christian Herr, like his father, Hans Herr, was a Mennonite minister. As was typical of the Anabaptists then, Christian had other occupations, in his case farming and distilling. His estate inventory in 1750 shows that he owned two stills. Today, Anabaptists frown severely on the use of alcoholic beverages. With our own Germanna colonists, we often find that they owned stills. A short presentation here on the use of alcohol through the ages is based on material from the current issue (June 1998) of " Scientific American ". If you are interested in my own views on alcohol, I have a bottle of spirits that is advertised as aged seven years but, since I have had the bottle, at least some of the contents have aged another fourteen years.
Drinks with a high percentage of alcohol are relatively modern, arising only in the last few hundred years in the western world. Prior to that time, drinks with a low percentage of alcohol, such as beer and wine, have been used for perhaps ten thousand years. As civilization developed or became concentrated in a region, the water supplies became polluted. It simply was not safe to drink the water and beer and wine filled the need for safe liquids.
How many instances can you cite in the Bible where water is extolled as a drink? Jesus converted water into wine and not wine into water. In the writings of the Greeks, water is not mentioned favorably except for mountain springs, deep wells, or from rainwater. Roman towns on a river had water supplied by an aqueduct from sources several miles away because the river water was too polluted. The river was not viewed as a source of water but a disposal means. Unless you were a hermit, living away from civilization, the water was often not fit to drink. This has only changed in the last one or two centuries in the western world.
Additionally, alcoholic beverages were a supply of calories besides being a liquid. The beverages kept well from one growing season to the next.
In 1777, Frederick the Great of Prussia was disturbed by the fad for coffee which had to be imported. He said, "It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the amount of money that goes out of the country as a consequence. Everybody is using coffee; this must be prevented. His majesty was brought up on beer, and so were both his ancestors and officers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer, and the King does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be relied upon to endure hardships in case of another war."
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the [email protected] email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.