The characters for a kind of ritual vessel called a zun, and for the words "rite" and chieftain, seen in tortoise shell inscriptions and on bronzes from earliest antiquity, are all derivatives of the character you, an early version of the modern character for wine.
甲骨文和鐘鼎文中，有關祭典的「奠」、「禮」、「酋」字，都從酉（酒）字而來。而中國的米酒文化，幾乎與中國的稻米文化等長。