[Matt-Tolley22002]

Hi J Fleming There is a simple reason why Aboriginal Australians did not distill alcohol. The fermentation/distillation of alcohol requires the availability of domesticable crops, the domestication of said crops, and a surplus of said crops which allows for the support of a non-farming class of workers (artisans) and the raw materials for the alcohol. The Australian continent has no indigenous domesticable crops (with the possible exception of the macadamia nut). This means that Aboriginal people have never had access to crops like rice, corn, wheat, barley or grapes. Thus, they never became an agrarian society, able to support people who were neither hunters nor gatherers. Even if hunting/gathering provided a large enough surplus to allow somebody to sit around fermenting beer/wine and distilling spirits, they did not have the raw materials to ferment in the first place.

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Name : Matt-Tolley22002, City : Canberra, State : NA Country : Australia, 

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