SAUCEAT

When alcohol first entered the English language in the early seventeenth century it denoted a kind of cosmetic, specifically an eye-liner once used in the Middle East by people such as Cleopatra and Nefertiti. Francis Bacon, for example, refers to the substance in his 1626 work of natural history called Sylva Sylvarum: "The Turkes," he writes, "have a Black Powder, made of Mineral called Alcohol..