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[Kamamura]

Well, I know that the Romans used their wine to purify water for consumption.  Only alcoholics drank wine straight.

Wines were often very alcoholic, with Pliny noting that a cup of Falernian would catch fire from a candle flame drawn too close.

Yeah, I guess one would want to add a drop of water to such a beverage.

[Badger Storm]

Here in Virginia, there's actually over 200 wineries.  We're almost certainly in the top 10 for wine states.  Apparently French Bordeaux grapes grow very well here: two favorites are Cabernet Franc and Viognier.  Because it's pretty warm, it isn't very good climate for growing, say, Riesling or Gewurtztraminer, which are pretty big up in the Finger Lakes (which everyone should visit btw, it's absolutely /beautiful/)

You have to go to the state-run stores to get liquor, but beer and wine are plentiful and easy to get; you can literally waltz into 7-11 and pick up a pack of canned rat piss Miller Lite.

As for beer, my brother, who lived in Richmond until very recently, has referred to PBR as the "Preferred/People's Beer of Richmond".  The city is also one of the nation's most tattooed, so take that as you will.

And apparently in Ireland, women aren't supposed to order a pint - it's more ladylike to order two half-pints.  Likewise, guys aren't supposed to put this currant-flavored stuff in their drinks.

[shoeless]

In the great state of North Dakota, we drink to stay warm.  Some of us just get a little colder quicker than others...

We also stay a bit tipsy throughout the day as a way of keeping our courage up in case of the inevitable Canadian invasion.  Don't tell Minnesota, but we're currently working on a three high smoothed stone trench on our northern border with only a three wide Bauxite drawbridge located near Bottineau.  The lever to the drawbridge is located in the Hague, ND bar as there is always someone in that place despite Hague only having a population of less than 60.

[evictedSaint]

Looking for anything exotic that doesn't mesh with standard fantasy. Please explain why it's the way it is.

I'm very curious as to why you want this.  Are you writing a story or something, or do you just want to get creative with your Friday nights?

[Scoops Novel]

Looking for anything exotic that doesn't mesh with standard fantasy. Please explain why it's the way it is.

I'm to young to drink anything. And I probably never will anyways.

One day, you shall find coffee, as i did

Looking for anything exotic that doesn't mesh with standard fantasy. Please explain why it's the way it is.

I'm very curious as to why you want this.  Are you writing a story or something, or do you just want to get creative with your Friday nights?

Toadys gonna read this

[Thisfox]

Well, coffee is becoming a "thing" in Oz, but mostly we drink tea if it's a non-alcoholic beverage.

Alcoholic beverages, well, Aussies drink a lot of wine (apparently Australian wines are some of the best in the world, go try some Australian Wine, and see) and a lot of beer (Don't drink the beer we export though, it's rubbish swill being sold off cheap to people who don't know any better) but we're really opening up in ciders. There are some excellent Australian gins, and awful Australian vodkas.

When I turned 18 (Australian legal drinking age) my father was delighted, and took me to get a gin and tonic at a pub. I'd had some alcohol before that, sips from adult glasses, but it is traditional to drink in a corner pub when you come of age, whatever your gender (I happen to be female). That said, pubs are expensive, I don't tend to frequent them, other than on a unique occasion such as that. I got to the drive-through bottleshop to buy my booze. I guess that shows some drinking cultural stuff. Do other countries have drive-throughs?

My friends all brew mead, ginger beer, cider, and so on. It's a lot cheaper than buying in a pub, or at a bottleshop. It's legal to brew here but not to sell your brewing without a licence, and it's illegal to distil liquor for any reason without a licence. Homebrew ginger beer, rich with herbs from the garden and full of alcohol brewed out of cane sugar, is an excellent thing to drink in this hot climate.

[Verjigorm]

I'm from North Carolina, of mixed German(PRUSSIA!) and Irish ancestry.   I can hold my liquor, if ya know what I'm sayin:   I was even able to compete with a couple of Sand Gropers that found themselves in my fair city. 

I am of the belief that Booze, along with fire and dogs, are the greatest inventions of man, and all civilization flows from them.

[finka]

One of the Big Problems of a society without modern-style water purification, as I understand it, is the simple problem of finding something safe to drink.  Water in nature has all sorts of baleful bacteria in, so that wouldn't do.  Fermentation is a good answer -- the alcohol being antiseptic is one factor, but short of concentrations that require distillation the action of the yeast is actually more important -- and the ease of discovering fermentation means that tons of cultures rely on fermented drinks as an everyday thing.  The boiling step involved in beer brewing helps too.  Other attested solutions include tea (boiling again), milk (in regions of lactose-tolerant genetics), perhaps blood, ...

Beyond that I don't have too much, but your question seems like a fertile one for some Wikipedia-trawling, starting say here. 

For instance, I see that pulque among the Aztecs, at one time, was basically reserved for the upper classes in ceremonial contexts, except that it was so nutritious that they let the rule slide for the elderly and the pregnant.  Seemingly similarly nutritious is cauim, even now the staple of the diet of infants less than two among the Tapirapé (of the Amazon rainforest). 

Historical China looks to be another interesting case, as in many things given how prone they seemed to be to societal sea changes with the accession of each emperor.  One dynastic transition was directly linked to alcohol: the Zhou declared that their predecessors' renunciation of the right to rule was largely due to their alcoholism (incidentally kicking off a politico-philosophical meme that long outlived them).  Beer was so central to the Chinese of the 7th century BC that "to prohibit it and secure total abstinence from it is beyond the power even of sages", but by Han times half a millennium later they'd managed it... at least in the literal reading: beer production had been abandoned in favour of rice wice.  And "laws against making wine were enacted and repealed forty-one times between 1100 BC and AD 1400".

[Scoops Novel]

Loving this finka

[Sutremaine]

There's a saying about not mixing grape and grain, though I believe that's less to do with the alcohol source and more with the quantity drunk of each.

Absinthe preparation ritual comes to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLr8NaHbf5U

You have no idea how glad I am that no fire was involved in the preparation of that absinthe.

[Henny]

Absinthe preparation ritual comes to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLr8NaHbf5U

Ad alcohol is a poison - everything is a poison in extensive quantities. Food can be a poison, even water can kill you if you drink several liters fast enough. On the other hand, many cultures drunk moderately without problems. Don't confuse moderate drinking with alcoholism.

SCB (Statistical Central Bureau of Sweden) in their evaluation of future population of Sweden took into consideration three things in particular that could affect longevity in the future: Alcohol, smoking and multi-resistant bacteria. Food and water(?!) was not mentioned. People are prone to relativizing and abstraction, but looking at the sheer potency of poisons it's obvious which ones are the most dangerous.

[evictedSaint]

Looking for anything exotic that doesn't mesh with standard fantasy. Please explain why it's the way it is.

I'm very curious as to why you want this.  Are you writing a story or something, or do you just want to get creative with your Friday nights?

Toadys gonna read this

I just read your question in Future of the Fortress.  I thought you were threatening me for harassment, heh.

If we're just coming coming up with drinking cultures for DF, I suppose it doesn't have to be based entirely on our world.  It could be pretty fun to come up with fictional drinking cultures for dwarves and elves and such.

Like, maybe dwarves drink (more than they usually do) to celebrate notable events in history.  For example, in memoriam of Urist McFlammable, who was immolated by the dragon Trogdor in the year 214 (it was terrifying), dwarves will celebrate that day by drinking flaming Rocknut Whiskey, which invariably sets someone's beard on fire.  The first dwarf to set their beard aflame becomes "Urist McFlammable" and spends the rest of the day getting buckets of water thrown at him when he least expects it. 

It's a very fun and jolly celebration, and it's all in good spirits.  It's what Urist McFlammable would have wanted, rest his beard.

[Verjigorm]

Well, I know that the Romans used their wine to purify water for consumption.  Only alcoholics drank wine straight.

Wines were often very alcoholic, with Pliny noting that a cup of Falernian would catch fire from a candle flame drawn too close.

Yeah, I guess one would want to add a drop of water to such a beverage.

Yust throwing this out there:  Pliny is full of crap.   Alcohol will not burn unless it's atleast 50% alcohol by volume, and you can't get that sort of concentration via simple fermantation, you have to have distillation.   Falernian wine was supposed to have a 15% ABV, which would mean you would need to simmer that wine, then put a candle to it to get combustion.

I've made brandy from a homemade still, and the wine used to cook with is not flammable.  But the stuff that comes out the worm, CERTAINLY is(at 80-90% alcohol, it will burn with a bright blue flame, will drip fire, and a teaspoon burns for about 2 minutes).   

To be fair, Pliny is the same guy who said that there were hope snakes, oxen that shot fire out of their arses, and other similar things.   He's a terrible source for science.    And he got himself killed investigating a volcano, because he was an idiot. 

[Urist_McGamer]

Well, I know that the Romans used their wine to purify water for consumption.  Only alcoholics drank wine straight.

Wines were often very alcoholic, with Pliny noting that a cup of Falernian would catch fire from a candle flame drawn too close.

Yeah, I guess one would want to add a drop of water to such a beverage.

Yust throwing this out there:  Pliny is full of crap.   Alcohol will not burn unless it's atleast 50% alcohol by volume, and you can't get that sort of concentration via simple fermantation, you have to have distillation.   Falernian wine was supposed to have a 15% ABV, which would mean you would need to simmer that wine, then put a candle to it to get combustion.

I've made brandy from a homemade still, and the wine used to cook with is not flammable.  But the stuff that comes out the worm, CERTAINLY is(at 80-90% alcohol, it will burn with a bright blue flame, will drip fire, and a teaspoon burns for about 2 minutes).   

To be fair, Pliny is the same guy who said that there were hope snakes, oxen that shot fire out of their arses, and other similar things.   He's a terrible source for science.    And he got himself killed investigating a volcano, because he was an idiot.

Sounds like a pretty Dwarven way to die.

[Kamamura]

Absinthe preparation ritual comes to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLr8NaHbf5U

Ad alcohol is a poison - everything is a poison in extensive quantities. Food can be a poison, even water can kill you if you drink several liters fast enough. On the other hand, many cultures drunk moderately without problems. Don't confuse moderate drinking with alcoholism.

SCB (Statistical Central Bureau of Sweden) in their evaluation of future population of Sweden took into consideration three things in particular that could affect longevity in the future: Alcohol, smoking and multi-resistant bacteria. Food and water(?!) was not mentioned. People are prone to relativizing and abstraction, but looking at the sheer potency of poisons it's obvious which ones are the most dangerous.

Then your SCB uses obsolete data for their evaluation. What kills most people today? Cancer and cardiovascular problems. First is related to toxicity of our environment, second is related to moving too little and eating too much - i.e. poisoning by excess food. Your alcohol and smoking comes after that, much more people die from obesity related problems today.

Did you know you can kill yourself by eating fish? Previously deemed the super health food, now containing unsafe levels of PCB and mercury. PCB gives you - again - cancer, and mercury is a neurotoxin that slowly accumulates in your fatty tissues to damage your CNS in the end. Read all about it:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-finds-unsafe-mercury-levels-in-84-percent-of-all-fish/

Fish on top of the food chain are now considered genuinely unsafe.