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There are a few theories behind the clinking of glasses prior to drinking and the evolution of the toast. Some historians believe that clinking glasses provided the noise that would keep evil spirits at bay, while others say that it was to assure the other beverage consumers that their drinks were not poisoned. Apparently poisoning each other’s drinks was a common way of handling social issues. How silly, why waste wine on someone you’re going to kill anyway? Any who, the actual lifting of the glasses came from the host pouring wine from a common pitcher and drinking it before his guests. When the host remained alive (obviously not poisoned) he would raise his glass to his friends to do likewise.
One of the most interesting theories is that a good glass of wine or champagne appeals to the senses of sight, touch, taste and smell. By clinking the glasses and creating a chiming noise, it also appeals to the sense of sound, making it an all-encompassing sensual experience. There is one last theory; in Greece, people would perform a libation, that is a fancy word for an alcoholic drink that is offered to the gods as a religious ritual. While holding a cup full of wine in one hand, standing up and looking up into the sky, they would pray with their cup raised. Once the prayer was completed, they would take a sip of the drink and sit down. As you would assume, historians differ and argue on which theory is correct, but we think their time would be better spend simply toasting to each other with a nice glass of wine or champagne.
Fun Fact: Ulysses drinks to the health of Achilles in The Odyssey, which was written over 2500 years ago.
This still leaves the problem to solve of where the word “toast” comes from. What in the world could charred bread have to do with good cheer and non-poisoned alcohol? The term toast comes from the practice of dropping a piece of burnt bread into the wine. This was done to temper some of the bad wines they sometimes had to drink. There is actual science behind this practice. The charcoal actually reduces the acidity of less than delicious wines, making them tolerable or even palpable. Luckily today the wines are much better and we don’t need to float burnt bread in our wine. However, the happy side benefit of throwing bread into wine was that it would now be spiced or with embedded with fruit flavors and this would improve the initial taste and texture of stale bread. Talk about a win/win!
Over the years, the term “toasting”, slowly transitioned from the traditional libations to the honoring of people. When this practice first gaining traction the person being honored would often received the actual toast saturated with wine at the end. We’d rather have another glass of wine, but wine soaked burnt bread works too.
Nowadays we neither poison each other’s wine (we hope), float bread in rancid wine nor try to scare off evil spirits with the noise of our glasses. However, the tradition of toasting is still alive and well.
