I strongly believe that only wine and wine-derived products (brandy) are forbidden and the formal reason is almost exactly the same as to why red whine is used in Christianity rituals where it symbolizes the blood of God. So the wine-alikes (wine made of other fruits/plants/honey is not wine, technically speaking) formally are not forbidden. At the same time there are 2 widely known facts - drinking alcohol in childhood, before sex and during pregnancy can have negative consequences on the next generations  and average Arabic person gets drunk extremely fast (simply as the consequence of multiple generations not touching it at all). Factor in excessive heat of the desert climate and increase of heart attack and similar risks if you drink alcohol at the same time. Remember, there was no vodka or brandy or other strong alcohol beverages centuries ago (brandy had appeared during middle ages and vodka as a mixture of water and alcohol in certain proportions maybe even later). I'm sure the distillation/rectification process existed long before it was used to create strong alcohol beverages - but somehow it was not used for that.

To me - the goal of Islam was to keep nation alive and healthy despite harsh conditions of the surrounding life. That principle explains many things - like multiple wives (during wars many men get killed - and a woman without husband had almost no chance of growing kids, not even mentioning of getting pregnant again - to compensate the losses), not eating pork ("dirty pigs" could not only transfer diseases but increase blood system-related issues, especially when used without alcohol), and probably any other "not doing something" has a logical explanation applicable to the times when Islam has appeared.

For some reason - smoking and using "substances" in variety of ways were not forbidden - probably because there was no habit of doing that so long ago at the scale we do that now.