This has been making all of the lists, but in case you missed it, tune into the History Channel on Wednesday night for two booze-related shows:

Distilleries (Wednesday, November 16 at 8:00 Central)

From water and grain…to mash…still…vat…barrel and bottle–the distilling of alcoholic spirits is a big business and near-sacred religion. Its acolytes eye the color, swirl the glass, inhale the bouquet, sip, then ponder their ambrosia. What’s your pleasure? Bourbon, Scotch, Rum, Gin, Vodka, or Tequila? We trace the history of distilling from the one-man/one-still tradition to the Voldstead Act of 1920 that devastated American distilleries to the mega-sales and high-volume distillery of today.

Brewing (Wednesday, November 16 at 9:00pm Central)

It’s one of the world’s oldest and most beloved beverages–revered by Pharaohs and brewed by America’s Founding Fathers. Today, brewing the bitter elixir is a multi-billion-dollar global industry. Join us for an invigorating look at brewing’s history from prehistoric times to today’s cutting-edge craft breweries, focusing on its gradually evolving technologies and breakthroughs. We’ll find the earliest known traces of brewing, which sprang up independently in such far-flung places as ancient Sumeria, China, and Finland; examine the surprising importance that beer held in the daily and ceremonial life of ancient Egypt; and at Delaware’s Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, an adventurous anthropologist and a cutting-edge brewer show us the beer they’ve concocted based on 2,700-year-old DNA found in drinking vessels from the funerary of the legendary King Midas.