While I was securing a source of water for my goblins so that they wouldn't die of dehydration on the freezing tundra and mountain I put them on, I discovered something that I hadn't noticed before: goblins (and by extension, the race you're currently playing) drink from wells very quickly. So quickly in fact, that it's almost instantaneous. They simply walk to the well, pull out one unit of water from the bucket, and go on their merry little way, thirst completely quenched.
As we all know, our workers spend half their time drinking from barrels of booze while all of our projects remain undone. So I got to thinking, could I increase the productivity of my citizens by utilizing wells instead of barrels of booze?
If you play as a race that isn't alcohol dependent, then the answer is an obvious yes. You can greatly increase productivity by using the near instantaneous drinking speed from wells with no side effects that come from being alcohol dependent. You'll miss out on the happy thoughts that come from drinking booze, but we all have legendary dining rooms anyway.
The problem comes when you apply this to dwarves. Would the time gained from instantaneous drinking balance out the slowness that comes from not having drunk booze in a while?
I think so. I don't know how much dwarves slow down without booze, but I think it could be easily counterbalanced with agility increases and quicker drinking time. Hunters, for some reason, drink from waterskins instead of barrels of booze, and I can barely notice any difference in how fast they work.
Only one creature can drink from a well at a time, and that includes the time a creature is walking to the well, so you would need several wells to keep up with demand. But, dammit, I'm tired of waiting for my dwarves to stop drinking and get back to work, and five or ten wells and a bunch of sober dwarves seem like a small price to pay.