Most people today would find the idea of chewing and spitting as the first step to making alcohol rather confronting — yet for millennia, this was one of humanity’s simplest and most effective brewing techniques. Chewing starch-rich foods like maize, cassava, or rice allows enzymes in saliva, especially amylase, to break down complex starches into simple sugars. Yeast cannot ferment starch directly, but it can ferment sugar.  Before malted grains and mold starters (like Japan