A community focused project run from the Walthamstow Tool Library, artists Maria Piva, Emily Stapleton-Jefferis and I led a cider making workshop where we collectively pressed apples and explained how to hard brew cider. I gave an informal lecture on the history and evolutionary history of alcohol while participants crushed apples and made mono-printed labels for their bottled results.

We talked about alcohol's role in the ecosystem, and in human beings' evolution. In particular discussing the unique enzyme (dehydrogenase) that's found only in fruit-eating animals and humans, and how this allowed us to access rotting fruit as a source of sugar.

We discussed too how brewing alcohol in the UK was at one point a woman’s job. These women wore tall back hats to advertise their role and often travelled with cats to help prevent pests getting to the hops, apples and barley that were intended for brewing. Brewing was done in large cauldrons. All these features will be obvious to most as a feature of the modern idea of a witch. This was in part an intentional assassination to dismantle this feminine power.