It is likely that the first fermented beverages were made fortuitously due to spontaneous fermentation by microbial contaminants during storage of surplus goods. The benefits of fermentation, including new sensory properties, tastes, aromas, mouth-feel, the analgesic and euphoric effects of ethanol, and protection from further contamination by pathogenic microbes may have triggered systematic efforts to replicate and optimise fermentation . These efforts would have likely involved back-slopping, the addition of small amounts of a fermented end-product to the next unfermented batch, beginning the domestication of yeasts and other microbes. Although Saccharomyces yeasts are not particularly abundant in the wild , their dominance in these controlled fermentations has led to their selection and use for most industrial fermentation processes today, including beer and wine production , either as the sole fermentative microbe or in conjunction with others such as bacteria for kombucha ,