History: Alcoholic drinks in Mesoamerica have a long history, but the introduction of grapes for wine is only securely known for the post-conquest period. This verse probably labels as “wine” a different fermented beverage. Sorenson notes:
Wine was apparently not made from grapes in the New World. (Certain grapes were present, but we do not know that they were used for food or drink.) However, the Book of Mormon nowhere says that “grapes” were present, only “vineyards.” The Spaniards spoke of “vineyards” referring to plantings of the maguey (agave) plant from which pulque is made. And various sorts of “wine” were described by the early Europeans in Mesoamerica: one from bananas in eighteenth-century Guatemala, another from pineapples in the West Indies, palm wine from the coyol palm trunk (manufactured from Veracruz to Costa Rica), and the balche of the Mayan area, made from a fermented tree bark. Clearly Noah the “wine”-bibber in the book of Mosiah could have been drinking something intoxicating besides the squeezings of the grape.
Scripture: The printing of the Book of Mormon precedes Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants by three years. When the Book of Mormon was translated, the Lord had not given instructions to avoid alcohol, and so this verse should not be read as a deliberate violation by Noah and his court of the Word of Wisdom, even though the Lord (and Mormon) clearly disdain alcoholic excess. The Bible exhibits this same general conception of the relationship of alcohol and spirituality by prohibiting alcohol in situations of particular religious purity while it was clearly acceptable at other times.