In specific cases, ancient beverages were weaponized in the ancient world to execute or murder notable figures of Classical antiquity. In this presentation, Travis Rupp explores how beer, wine, and other intoxicants were made deadly in both intentional and unintentional ways. From Bronze Age Britain to ancient Greece and ancient Egypt to the Roman Empire, curious ingredients and methods were employed to produce alcoholic beverages that would be entirely illegal today due to the high risk of illness and death. Did the ancients know what they were doing? Why did they take these risks? Was their intent murderous, or is the more to the story?

Travis Rupp is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Classics at the University of Colorado Boulder where he has taught for 15 years. He teaches all things Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman. His scholarly expertise focuses on Roman archaeology, ancient food and alcohol production, ancient sport and spectacle, and Pompeii and the cities of Vesuvius. He also worked at Avery Brewing Company for 9 years serving as Research and Development, Wood Cellar, and Innovation Manager. He was granted the title of Beer Archaeologist while working at Avery and founded Avery’s Ales of Antiquity Series, which ran from 2016-2020. He serves on the National Advisory Board for the Beer Culture Center, and he is the founder and owner of The Beer Archaeologist LLC, which is a research brewery dedicated to exploring brewing processes and recreating ancient and historic drinks from the past. As a result of his careers and passions, Travis is writing a book on beer consumption and production in the Roman military. He is also actively conducting research on intoxicants from Homeric Greece, brewing in the early monastic tradition, beer production in Revolutionary America, and the beer industry in WWI Belgium. Recently his travels and research abroad have focused on beer production in early monastic Ireland, and beer consumption in Roman occupied and Gaul and Britain.