Chimps and the Ancestry of Alcohol: What a New Study Reveals About Our Shared Evolutionary Past

In the tropical forests of Uganda and Côte d’Ivoire, chimpanzees spend hours each day in the treetops, reaching for figs, plums, and other ripe fruits. A new study in Science Advances¹ shows these fruits hold more than sugar and fiber: they also contain measurable alcohol. This finding suggests that alcohol exposure has been a routine part of primate life for millions of years, long before the invention of brewing or winemaking.

“Across all sites, male and female chimpanzees are consuming about 14 grams of pure ethanol per day in their diet,” said Aleksey Maro of the University of California, Berkeley. “When you adjust for body mass … it goes up to nearly two drinks.”

A chimpanzee at Ngogo in Uganda's Kibale National Park in 2018, surrounded by one of their favorite foods — figs. UC Berkeley biologists measured the ethanol content of many types of fruit that chimps routinely consume and found that they contain substantial quantities — enough to suggest that the apes are chronically exposed to dietary alcohol. Aleksey Maro/UC Berkeley