What it is
Fermented grain, grape or honey — genuinely ancient, and your ancestors made beer, wine and mead for thousands of years. The craft is old; the science changed.
Why your biology objects
Ethanol metabolises to acetaldehyde, an IARC Group 1 carcinogen that binds DNA and blocks its repair — the same top-tier classification as tobacco and asbestos. The old "glass of red is heart-healthy" J-curve has been overturned as abstainer-bias confounding; no safe level exists for cancer risk. Wine's resveratrol is real but the dose is trivial (studies used 100–1000× what a glass holds). Ancient, but the molecule is a toxin.