Fictional Alcohols

Who else ro/tg/ut here? What kind of drinks do bars, inns, and taverns in your setting serve? Are there signature spirits of various cultures/races? What are your coolest fantasy brews? Beers, wines, liquors, or cordials, post what you got.

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I usually just go with the usual standard cliches. Dwarven ale is the strongest drinkable beer for a human being, goliath ale will literally kill you, elven wine is the single best thing you'll ever drink but it's relatively light in terms of getting you fucked up, and human beer is somewhere between dwarven ale and elven wine.

However, whenever I make a character I always decide right away what they drink (or if they abstain from drinking altogether). It really says a lot about someone. Does your character enjoy a fine wine, or do they like to get good and rowdy with a stout ale and throw a chair at someone in the bar just to start a fight? Or, do they steer away from "the devil's drink" and look down on those that enjoy it? It's a small detail for sure, but I feel a character's choice in booze (or lack thereof) really says a lot about who he or she is as a person.

I always was a fan of Bastion's system of making various kinds of alcohol unlockable passive buffs. Each came with both a gameplay effect and a lot of flavor regarding both the ingredients of the liquor and the taste of it. Implementing something similar in D&D could work, if the effects aren't quite as good as potions but also not as expensive. Makes taverns more than just a side-quest acquisition center too.

Respectable. You bring up a good point about characterization there too. If a character doesn't drink alcohol, what do they drink? Does the setting allow for easy access to fresh water, milk, or unfermented juices? Or is this a hard path to follow, risking infection from waterborne parasites and diseases?

Milk.

In a setting I'd been doing recently, the most creative alcohol was from a community that lived at the edge of a great sea of grass. It was weird fantasy grass, it grew tall, like, jungle tall (the sea was deep), and the blades had a waxy coating that acted as a powerful fire retardant.

There was grain, to be made into flour and whisky, with a strong flavor, somewhat similar to rye, but not quite as heavy or dense. But the locals drank an ale-like drink, that actually invoorperated the leafy part of the plant to, converted into a mash, and added with the grain in the brewing process. The drink was heavy, like a very dark ale, not quite a porter, but it had a strange lightness on top of that, combined with a very foamy, strongly flavored, almost sweet head.

Almost like the heaviness of a porter with the flavor profile of a lager, and an incredibly rich, thick head.

I actually just had a thought about elven wine. It seems reasonable to associate elves with wine, but on closer inspection, they're an often forest-dwelling people who don't live stereo-typically in the kinds of locations one would expect grape growing, in addition to originally being a Germanic mythological fair folk. If they made wine, I would expect it to be blackberry or other forest-berry based, but more commonly, I would expect them to be mead-drinkers.

High Elves would likely be able to grow grapes. But I'd suggest that the reason elven wine is so good is due to nature magic being used to enhance the grapes/berries while growing and ensuring absolutely perfect conditions. Plus centuries of experimenting with plants to create the perfect fruit.

Also the fact that what humans consider to be "well aged" wine would be considered bottom shelf swill to an elf. Having a lifespan measured in centuries does have its advantages.

Most wines aren't really meant to be stored for a long time, and even the fine stuff only lasts for so many decades. At some point it all turns to vinegar.

But they'd be good at it, and you can trust elves to always know just when to open a bottle for peak flavor.

>High Elves would likely be able to grow grapes.
So somebody explain high elves to me. Are they like, plains elves? Is their range more like humans? What niche do they really fill?

I wrote up a priestess character at one point and an off-hand comment from a friend about what their character was interested in drinking inspired me to write up a whole divine ritual for my character to perform as part of her clerical duties, which included the imbibing of specially treated wines.

It was a small aspect of her character and didn't come up in any meaningful way, but it provided that extra layer of character for me to immerse myself into.

While we're at it what about drugs, smoking and whatever in fantasy settings?

The only time I've ever encountered any of it was one DM who featured tobacco in setting because it was my house and he wanted to smoke inside and say the NPC was doing it.

Never seen any kind of drugs in a game though.

Alcoholic drinks were ubiquitous because they were the only clean drinks. Not everyone has access to a well, and if you wanna see what feudal-age rivers were like, visit the Ganges in India, or the Nile in Egypt. Remember how upset people were about the water events in the Rio Olympics? and they weren't intending to drink a couple litres of the stuff every day.

"beer" and "wine" were fermented just enough to make it potable. What we call beer now is potent stuff -- "dwarven ale" is probably the double-bock you can get in a grocery store today.

I played a Changeling LARP, sessions were in a bar. I was a blue-collar car mechanic, and I always had a beer in my hand (bought one from the bar, refilled it with water all night). Other players knew I had a secret, and were expecting it was alcoholism, drug addiction. (my secret was actually a mundane girlfriend.)

I go a step further and typically have my characters start with more than water in their inventory. Im playing a desert elf right now who doesn't leave home without some bottles of fine wine tucked away. She prefers something lighter so she doesnt have to worry about being smashed in combat, But when it comes time to hang out in taverns, Strongest ale and picking bar fights all the way.

Lots of light ales for mid-day and summertimes, heavier brown beers during the colder months, and ciders available year-round.

Depending on the region, most have their own variety of wine if the soil is good for it.

Elvish wine is made from berries rather than grapes, so the elves tend to bushyards rather than vineyards. Brandy distilled from lingonberry wine is quite prized amongst those who are familiar with Elvish spirits.

Orcs make a spirit out of sour goat's milk. It tastes about as good as you'd think it does, but it works quite well.

A few Halfling-dominant communities are well known for their regional and family-operated micro-breweries.

If a world has some kind of magical flower, I like to think that the honey of the bees (or pixies, or whatever) gets some effect from that. This would reasonably then extend to any mead made from that honey.

Also, I always imagined elven wine to be the kind of thing where the elves check all the super-rare specimens of some type of magical vine that only bears fruit once every 100 years to pick only the most super-dee-duper-dee-perfect grape from one of them; which they then keep in some kind of enchanted stasis until they have enough to make one bottle which they then save for 200 years to crack open with some misfit pack of adventurers they happen to make friends with so they can lament at how the significance is lost on them. Or somesuch typical elf shit.

Anybody remember that thread about Giant's Wine?

In a dirty glass

In the Hobbit, Bilbo overhears how Thranduil and his forest elves get their wine: from human realms in the south.

So berry wines, ciders, and cordials for elves.

But where do dwarves get all the grain for brewing??? Buy it all from humans, I suppose. Their only brew with entirely home-grown ingredients would be potato vodka.

Orcs obviously drink pruno.

The Romans considered drinking pure wine to be barbaric. They always drank wine cocktails, mixing it with water, sea water, juices, honey, etc.

>Orcs obviously drink pruno.
If I had to guess what orcs drink, I would wager that they're more carnivorous, with less of a taste for fruit, and would instead make some kind of fermented milk drink like kumis or airag from one of the beasts they raise, likely an aurochs, and it would probably taste fucking awful to anyone not an orc.

In early ancient times, a lot of these drugs weren't used "recreationally" in the way we say today, but were used in religious ceremonies, to induce trance, visions, and altered states of consciousness. Cannabis was used like this, though over time, it evolved to casual smoking, the fly agaric mushroom was used for this too. I would personally introduce something like this in a game, though it would be setting-specific and specific to the in-game religions.

aged vine is relatively new thing which was only really possible in the way we think about it when the technology of sealing containers became sophisticated enough. Before that aged wine was considered bad. The lack of technology is why we have beverages such as Retsina in which you use resin to seal away the wine.

They tend to prefer mediterranean climes, or similar to france and italy, but they can be found all over - the definition of high elves is much more about their culture than their location or physical features (though they tend to be tallest and very beautiful)
High Elves are based on the ideas of Rome compared to the medieval world (the accuracy of the idea doesn't matter, people have the image) - high elves are ancient, advanced and in decline, they have cities which are all pleasant, shiny white, and have towers, they're noble, proud and good at magic

But kumis and airag taste good. However the beasts orks would rise should produce sweet milk, so it could be fermented, so aurochs are not good choice.

They might make that fermented meat juice stuff that the Bosmer make in Elder Scrolls; something-rot or whatever.

Since in most of the fantasy games I play, I typically play monk, I usually default to my characters being tea-drinkers.

>But kumis and airag taste good.
The way orcs would make it, it probably wouldn't.

That's a myth, to be honest.

leslefts dot bloggyspot dot co.uk/2013/11/the-great-medieval-water-myth.html

Well, let's see… breaking it down by race, my setting has humans, wee folk, fair folk, goblins, ogres, and beast folk.

Humans, typically diverse and culturally heterogeneous, exhibit much the same variety as the real world. Beers, wines, liquors, you name it, but liquors are a particularly human invention. Humans remain the undisputed masters of brandy, whisky, vodka, etc.

Wee folk (dwarfs/gnomes/halflings) tend to live in forests or farm-villages; for the latter, wine may be a side-hobby, but ale-brewing is serious business and a highly respected craft. Little folk are small but rugged, and so their beers (surprisingly) tend to match humans' for strength; and they may even arguably surpass human-brewed ale and beer for quality and variety. Wandering dwarfish vagabonds may distill the occasional moonshine, but it wont stack up to a proper human whisky.

Fair folk are nearly always wandering adventurers, and often sailors. Thus, their drink of choice is rum or grog, but they don't make it themselves. The High Elves, who are the rulers of fairy society, are said to possess knowledge of elfwine, which is indescribably strong and possibly enchanted. Few mortals have ever tasted it.

Goblins live in mountains, and so their drinks are distilled from fungus and hardly palatable to anyone else. (Rumors persist that goblins have stomachs of stone and like to drink melted silver and gold, but this is just a foolish legend spread by ignorant humans.)

Ogres wander the steppes and tundras. The greenskins prize foreign liquor when they can get it, but the only drink they make is a fermented yak or goat milk.

Beast-men, which are malformed and hideous soldiers of Chaos™, have no culture of their own and can usually only pillage whatever will get them shitfaced. But their demonic overlords may supply them with syrupy "black draught", which dulls pain and induces rage.

On this, I like that the Greeks would enjoy wine together, but getting wasted was for lesser peoples.

Has that been translated to any fantasy races?
I can't seem to recall any off the top of my head.