origin of booze?

It's easy to imagine the accidental discovery of beer
and wine, maybe 10000 years ago.  Grain ferments
naturally.  We might speculate this was the genesis
of agriculture - the cavemen wanted a stable supply of barley.

But I was wondering about distilled liquor - it's a
sophisticated, nonintuitive process.  This must have
appeared much later.

Anybody have any ideas when/where/how distillation
was invented/discovered?  What are the earliest records?


--
Rich