Historically, brewing, fermenting, and distilling are all "wife chores", probably because of the feminine-coding you mention... until it becomes highly profitable, at which point men take it away.
Wine has always easy to trade. Mead and ciders, ditto.
Beer/ale, prior to preservative hops, doesn't keep long enough to be viable for intercity trade. The acceptance of hops in a communities' drinkers coincides with a gender change in brewers (documented in PhD dissertations and books).
Distillation always results in a shelf-stable product; ergo it quickly becomes male dominated in a cash society (even supplanting cash in colonial America!).
Historically, brewing, fermenting, and distilling are all "wife chores", probably because of the feminine-coding you mention... until it becomes highly profitable, at which point men take it away.
Wine has always easy to trade. Mead and ciders, ditto.
Beer/ale, prior to preservative hops, doesn't keep long enough to be viable for intercity trade. The acceptance of hops in a communities' drinkers coincides with a gender change in brewers (documented in PhD dissertations and books).
Distillation always results in a shelf-stable product; ergo it quickly becomes male dominated in a cash society (even supplanting cash in colonial America!).