Laman makes the wine more desirable by urging the Lamanites to postpone drinking it. This may be one of the earliest recorded uses of reverse psychology, where the impetus to do something is increased by suggesting a delay.
Much is now known of the ancient Maya since the translation of the glyphs, but none of the available inscriptions mentions drunkenness. Good data do not exist until the time of the Spanish Conquest, and those data are for the Aztecs, who have very strict laws against drunkenness. I hypothesize, however, that there was some continuity with the older culture. The existence of severe Aztec laws against drinking (with exemptions restricted to the elderly, ill, and during certain festivals) paint a picture of a substance to be kept under tight control, since otherwise it created problems in their society.
Laman’s suggestion to keep the wine until just before the coming battle has an interesting Aztec parallel. One section of the Florentine Codex describes some of the people who were allowed to drink, a category that includes “the intrepid warriors, the bold, the foolish, who paid the debt with their heads and their breasts. That is, they would be captured sometime when war was declared; or else on issuing forth [to battle] they should capture others and take prisoners. So [by drinking] they went about mocking death.”
Apparently alcohol stimulated bravery in facing battle, either in taking captives or in being captured. The Lamanite warriors may have had a similar practice, to which Laman referred. In any case, the Lamanites indulge immediately and to excess.
History: The “wine” of Mesoamerica was the fermented juice of the maguey plant, known by the Nahuatl word octli. (See commentary accompanying Mosiah 11:15, 22:6.)