And I’m particularly taken aback by the mention of ivy. Aside from the grapevine, it is the Dionysian plant par excellence. Why would anyone mix it into their wine? In the first century AD, Dioscorides specifically says that an ivy drink can “alter consciousness” or tarassousi ten dianoian (ταράσσουσι τήν διάνοιαν) when taken in higher doses.17 According to the Greek naturalist Pliny, who identified twenty varieties of the plant, ivy has the power to “derange the mind.”
