Since fermentation is mentioned in the first post, one of those little things that bug me is that we have Dwarven Ale and Dwarven Beer. Dwarven Beer bugs me, because ale is a beer. "Dwarven Lager" would have probably been a better choice. Most beers fall into one of these two major categories, ales and lagers.
A greatly oversimplified view of these categories is that lagers are typically fermented in colder temperatures and ales in warmer temperatures. So, if fermentation is to be added I'd like to see where the fermentation is done be a part of the style of beer. When the fermentation is done underground away from magma, for example, it might end up a lager. When the fermentation is done underground on a magma-heated floor, it might end up an ale.
Again, this is very much a simplified view of the differences between ales and lagers. You could get into different strains of yeast or how those strains are sourced, for example, and how they affect the outcome. This might be a nice middle ground, though, for slightly more realism without unabashed beer-geekery.
The two types of beer common before lager were Ale and Bitter. Bitter tended to have more gruit (bitter herbs or bark) than ale. Ale also tends to be stronger than bitter. Nowadays there are many categories of beer and it might be fun to give dwarfs some of these. There is lager, which is made with a bottom-fermenting strain of yeast. I don't know where you're coming from with the temperature of fermentation but lager is traditionally stored in cool cellars
after primary fermentation. Ale and Bitter are certainly more common in Britain than in Spain or Italy for example.
There is stout which is made with a darker roasted malt than other beers, traditionally in areas without enough acidity in the water supply (roasting malt increases acidity). Porter is a type of stout, and Baltic porter is a lager made with the same dark roast. I'm not sure how mild is made but it is quite different to the others. Wheat beer and white beer are made with wheat, millet beer with millet (mainly in africa). A lot of modern lagers have malted or unmalted rice mixed with the barley, which makes quite a different drink though still called lager. Trappist ales are very different from the English styles as they tend to be stronger and quite syrupy. The less said about fruit beers and Christmas ale the better.
I'm pretty sure whiskey is post 1400
Whiskey is older. The first direct mention of whiskey (as aqua vitae...) is from 1405...
It may be nitpicking but aqua vitae is really
nothing like whisky. The word whisky was used for various moonshines in Ireland and Scotland before being applied to the modern drink but that doesn't make it the same thing. What we now call whisky is matured in wooden barrels, by most definitions for at least 4 years. These barrels have usually been used to store other drinks first. America probably has as much claim to modern whisky as Ireland or Scotland as it was colonialism that made a lot of second hand barrels available.
P.S. I think Aqua Vitae was invented by the Persians or Arabs. Also I have no objection to post 1400 beverages being in the game myself. These
are dwarves after all.
Distilled alcohol doesn't make gin, gin is grain alcohol which is redistilled with juniper berries and other herbs to give it flavour.
Traditional gin is just made with juniper berries, usually macerated in the alcohol. Spiced gin is a different, more recent, drink. Passing distillation vapours over flavourings in the still is even more recent I believe. Sloe gin was traditionally made with blackthorn fruit instead of juniper, though most people today make it with spiced gin (a real shame, but their loss). And yes, grain alcohol was usually called gin too. It was sometimes referred to as planters gin.