We've been told that with regard to seduction, "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker," but in truth, rather, properly selected: "candy makes randy; liquor makes desire flicker"; or, as Shakespeare's porter said to Macduff: "[drink] provokes the desire but it takes away the performance." The wines and beers of antiquity, however, which were potent infusions of innumerable psychoactive plants, often requiring dilution with water and in which alcohol served rather as preservative then inebriating active principle.