Drinking too much beer at once is not healthy, but as recently as the early 20th century, beer was considered a healhy alternative to gin. Some Belgian towns even built reputations on purported health benefits of the local brew.

Believe it or not, the process of brewing manioc root chicha is remarkably sterile, eliminating both human pathogens and the natural toxins in the root itself. This is an ancient tradition, fine-tuned over millennia by the native peoples of the Amazon and Caribbean. Chew, spit, repeat.