ABSTRACT
Drinking together has been fundamental to Andean life since at least the beginning of agriculture. This chapter begins by outlining the roles that drinking plays in the region today, focusing on the relationship between the consumption of alcoholic beverages in socially-sanctioned settings and the circulation of the cosmic energy that sustains all life. After exploring how this moral imperative to drink has helped structure four very different types of societies over the past three millennia, we end with a discussion of the corrosive effects of global capitalism which is rapidly unraveling families and communities that for so long came together to work, worship, and drink together.
