Everyone in Australia, from the First Peoples to the present, has brewed booze, a new book finds

Max Allen and Owen Latta will discuss everything, from the booming industry of Ballarat's breweries, and distilleries in the days of the goldfields to current challenges facing winemakers as climate shift force vignerons to seek hardier, heat-resistant varieties.

Wine writer for The Australian and the Financial Review, Gourmet Traveller and a host of other print and online publications, Mr Allen is also the author of over a dozen books, the latest being Intoxicating: Ten drinks that shaped Australia, which he will launch at a three-course dinner with matched drinks in Ballarat.

In his book, Mr Allen punctures several myths about the culture of alcohol in Australia, including one of the most pernicious - that the First Australians did not consume or ferment booze before the colonial invasion.

He says he'll discuss Indigenous production of alcohol with Mr Latta.

"There is this myth that there was no alcoholic consumption of alcohol here in Australia, before Europeans arrived in the 18th Century," Mr Allen told The Courier.

"That's just not true. There are accounts right across: for example, in Western Victoria, there are accounts of people making drinks by steeping flowers, banksia flowers, for example, which have a lot of nectar, into water to make a sugary drink called beal.

"Over the last decade or so I've become increasingly aware of accounts of Indigenous fermentation right across the country from from Western Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory to Tasmania.

Mr Allen says it's important to remember that in the wake of the gold rushes, towns like Ballarat had thriving beer, cider and spirit manufacturing industries.

"From the 1850s, wherever this influx of people was, you had on their heels entrepreneurs saying, 'Well, all these gold diggers, they're gonna be flush with cash. What do they want? They want to drink, let's set up a brewery, let's set up a distillery.'

"Until the recent kind of craft spirits explosion of the last decade, I reckon there are generations of Australians that grew up without any idea of of what a flourishing industry there was in production spirits in the 19th Century.

"People of my generation, and the generation after me, grew up thinking they were two breweries in Australia and no distilleries apart from Bundaberg. What we're seeing now with breweries, craft breweries, craft distilleries, wineries everywhere is a return to the 19th Century."

The meeting of Indigenous cultural belief with the drinking tradition arriving with the colonists was inevitably disastrous for the former, says Mr Allen.

"The second chapter of the book is called Firewater," he says.

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"There was these ancient traditions, very often the seasonal ceremonial consumption of relatively mild alcohol. That's in the south of the country. There are examples of distillation, for example, in the Torres Strait that predates European arrival. But most of the other examples from around the country, you're probably looking at about two or three per cent, so like a mild beer, or a light cider.

"It wasn't constant consumption, it wasn't a commercial commodity. You go from that cultural understanding or experience of alcohol, and then suddenly - slam - there's this wall, this wave of very strong, 20, 30, 40 50 per cent alcohol and spirits that are constantly available, and that are not associated with the same kind of ceremonial culture that the Aboriginal people have associated with alcoholic drinks in the past. Of course there's going to be that incredible disruption."

Winemaker Mr Latta says having someone with the encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of the beers, wines, bubbles and other beverages consumed in Ballarat and Australia through time, and launching a book discussing that knowledge at the same time, is a coup for the city.

"It's probably one of the great books of the next 10 years or so, in my opinion," Mr Latta says.

"It's amazing to go into thinking about our past, our present and the future. The big message is thinking about who was here before us and what cultures we missed out on? Where we're going and where we've been.

"It touches on Indigenous culture, but also things like the history of Victoria Bitter, on wines - everything. It makes you think a lot more about where have we come from? For example, Max is going into detail about the cideries and the spirit houses that existed in the area for the miners to enjoy. It is pretty amazing."

Mr Allen and Mr Latta will talk about the past, present and future of drinking in Ballarat and launch Intoxicating: Ten drinks that shaped Australia in the dining room Lola at The Provincial Hotel on February 21.

Explore the orchards and distilleries of the 19th Century through to vineyards and craft breweries of tomorrow, as the pair tell stories and pour wine, beer and gin.

There will be three courses with matched drinks plus tastings of local heritage cider apples and fermenting grape juice at $125 a head.

For more information, visit https://www.visitballarat.com.au/whats-on/ballarat-drinking-history-lunch-max-allen-and-owen-latta