"However honey isn't a trivial component to produce"....indeed it is not, apiaries were built on boats in roman times as a means to insure polenation for crops along water ways and increase honey production with an eye on shipping logistics to get it to the highest paying markets. there is cave art that depicts honey gathering from truely ancient times and it is impossible to think that humanities ancestors were not oportunistic honey gatherers, with the bee's wax having a multitude of good uses as well. the liklyhood is that honey and wax were sometimes scarce and sometimes in abundance, and sometimes popular as additives and loathed by others. there are various claims and evidence for the earliest deliberate fermentation, but a general agreement that fermentation is truely ancient, with some evidence to suggest that fermentation was the impetus for the first permanent settlements, and as (some) humans ability to metabolise alcohol is a recent genetic adaptation to produce the nessesary enzymes, we will get more evidence as to who, where and when that happened, or kept happening..... edit: my point(if I have one) is that it could be argued that grapes were first to be snuck in as an aduterant, with honey and other ingredients having much longer prior use