King Ashurnasirpal II
Before the reign of the Ancient Assyrian king, wine was just a delicious beverage; during his reign, he popularized wine as a drink for the elite and the sophisticated. This was the first time that drinking wine was seen as something that suggested cultural significance.
Gilgamesh
The protagonist of one of the first known works of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this Mesopotamian consumed beer with no perceptible negative effects, which was a symbol to his contemporaries of his maturity. This was the origin of the perception that having a beer equates in some way to masculinity.
Enkidu
Enkidu also appears in The Epic of Gilgamesh but unlike his eponymous friend, Enkidu was unable to drink beer. This showed him to be an immature and wild young man, again making the connection between beer and manhood.
Dionysus
The Greek god of both wine and drama was capable of drinking undiluted wine without getting sick, and was said to be the only one who could do this. The fact that he was the god of both wine and drama was also a very early indication that wine was regarded as something to be appreciated, like an art, rather than just consumed like a beverage intended to quench thirst.
Marcus Aurelius
The Roman emperor popularized wine throughout the Roman world and he was convinced that it was not just a beverage but a powerful medicine.
Galen
Galen was Marcus Aurelius' personal doctor and he was given the task of finding the best wine for his master. This was because Aurelius believed that the better the wine, the more efficacious the medicine.
Jesus Christ
Jesus' earliest miracle was turning water into wine and there are many references to wine within both the Bible and within Christianity itself. At Communion, the blood of Jesus is represented by wine and it is this that maintained the popularity of wine throughout the Middle Ages.
Alexander Hamilton
The first Secretary of the Treasury introduced an extremely controversial and unpopular tax on liquor called the WhiskeyTax, which was particularly hard on the Southern states.
Pasqua Rosee
Before Starbucks there was Pasqua Rosee, who introduced the first coffeehouse into England in the eighteenth century. Of course, because it was successful, it was frequently imitated, but it was Rosee's coffeehouses that attracted the intellectual and artistic luminaries of the day more than any other imitators.
Oliver Cromwell
Cromwell was a Puritan and therefore despised alcohol in all its forms. Fear of the wrath of the Roundhead leader led many in England to take up drinking coffee and Cromwell is credited with popularizing it.
Daniel Edwards
If Daniel Edwards were alive today he would be posting pictures of Pasqua Rosee's coffeehouses on Instagram; he was the first coffee influencer and he brought his wealthy and influential friends to the coffeehouses to bring kudos and an air of aspiration to them which increased their popularity.
Adam Smith
The author of The Wealth of Nations was a coffee devotee and penned his most famous book entirely in a coffeehouse.
Camille Desmoulins
The instigator of the French Revolution shouted, "To arms, citizens!" in order to encourage the lower classes to rise up against their rulers; he did this from a coffeehouse.
Emperor Shen Nung
Shen Nung was an Ancient Chinese emperor who was said to have invented tea, and the concept of brewing it.
Lao-tzu
Lao-tzu founded Taoism and was also one of the first proponents of tea as a medicinal beverage.
Charles Bruce
Thanks to Charles Bruce, the British colonials became obsessed with tea. Bruce himself spent twenty years learning how to grow tea and subsequently how to brew it correctly for drinking. In doing so he inadvertently kick-started another industry, that of ceramics that would be used specifically for the brewing and serving of tea.
Joseph Priestly
The first man to get busy with the fizzy, Priestly discovered oxygen and also discovered that it was possible to make sparkling water by adding oxygen to water. This is considered to have been the first soda.
Benjamin Silliman
Silliman was the first commercial seller of bottled soda water, creating a new beverage industry that laid the groundwork for the bottled sodas that we purchase today.
John Matthews
Matthews was a genius, an inventor and an innovator. He patented devices for packaging of soda that are still used a century and a half later.
John Pemberton
The first man to buy the world a Coke, Pemberton was a pharmacist who invented Coca Cola and marketed it as a medicinal remedy.
Frank Robinson
Pemberton's business partner came up with the name "Coca Cola" for their product and he also designed the instantly recognizable Coca Cola logo.
Asa Candler
Candler was a businessman who marketed Coca Cola as a soft drink rather than a medicinal tincture.
Archie Lee
Advertising spin doctor Archie Lee managed to keep Coke popular even during the Great Depression by creating marketing campaigns that showed Coke to be a family-friendly beverage that not only promoted togetherness and wholesomeness but also suggested that if you bought Coca Cola you were saving money because the entire family would drink it.
