Louis Pasteur first applied pasteurization to which drink?

Pasteurization or pasteurisation is a process that kills microbes (mainly bacteria) in food and drink, such as milk, juice, canned food, and others.

It was invented by French scientist Louis Pasteur during the nineteenth century. In 1864 Pasteur discovered that heating beer and wine was enough to kill most of the bacteria that caused spoilage, preventing these beverages from turning sour. The process achieves this by eliminating pathogenic microbes and lowering microbial numbers to prolong the quality of the beverage. Today, pasteurization is used widely in the dairy industry and other food processing industries to achieve food preservation and food safety.

Unlike sterilization, pasteurization is not intended to kill all microorganisms in the food. Instead, it aims to reduce the number of viable pathogens so they are unlikely to cause disease (assuming the pasteurized product is stored as indicated and is consumed before its expiration date). Commercial-scale sterilization of food is not common because it adversely affects the taste and quality of the product. Certain foods, such as dairy products, may be superheated to ensure pathogenic microbes are destroyed.