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[Blade Master Model 42]

All my dwarves are thirsty or dehydrated, and about 5 have died from not drinking. I don't know why either. I have about 60 units of hooch, and 4 different types. But they aren't drinking.

Do dwarves have to drink plain water occasionally now, even when they aren't injured?

[Sphalerite]

60 units of booze is not enough.  Brew much, much more.

Only one dwarf can drink from a barrel at a time, and they take a surprisingly long time to do so.  Barrels can contain up to 10 units of booze, so 60 units of booze will be stored in a lot fewer than 60 barrels.  If all your barrels are occupied by drinking dwarves, nobody else will be able to drink.  Solution:  brew many more barrels of booze.

[Dutchling]

Do you have a dead elven caravan outside and the drawbridge closed? I've lost many dwarves because I had plenty of booze but it was all outside.
And if you have 60 booze no dwarves should die of it so that's probablt not the problem of the dead dwarves but you should probably make more if you don't want thirsty dwarves.

[Blade Master Model 42]

Nope. Booze is in the food stockpile, and I have my 2 stills set for constant brewing, and I have a wealth of empty barrels. No burrows set either.

Oh well. Spring came, and with it, melting ice.

[Mister Always]

Do you have only one type of alcohol? If so, your dwarves may just be sick of drinking only that. I think when that happens, they won't drink it any more.

Dwarves are surprisingly stubborn little creatures.

[Blade Master Model 42]

Nah, I thought of that. I had fair stocks of three different kinds, and 1 unit of longland beer, I think it was.

[Flare]

Every fort needs an emergency cistern inside, especially the ones where the water freezes.

[greycat]

Barrels can contain up to 10 units of booze

They can contain much more than 10 units of booze.  A stack of 5 plants will give you a barrel with 25 units of booze.  I rarely see plant stacks larger than that, so I'm not sure if barrels can exceed 25, but I suspect they can.

The rest of what you said is correct, and insightful.

My personal rule of thumb is that I try to have 5 times my population in booze as a minimum.  So if I have 40 dwarves, I try to have more than 200 units of booze at all times.

[ThirdSpartacus]

Are they military or high-priority-labour dwarves?

I've often witnessed my military dwarves dehydrate or starve to death due to having to "Wait for Combat Training" while the demonstration leader is sleeping or whatnot. Occasionally I also see high-priority labours like carpentry-dwarves die from dehydration simply because they were queued to the boot with orders and did not take time to drink. Beer. Oh, and Strawberry Juice. Mmmm....

[Hyndis]

Always have a backup well. Even if the well is never used, its good to have it. If for any reason you have a temporary booze shortage no dwarves will die because they have water to fall back on.

There is no limit to how deep a well can be. You can make a 50Z level well if you really wanted to, though the deeper the well is the more inefficient it is.

[ThirdSpartacus]

Dwarves will fall into wells too, so... yeah.
I guess that's both good and bad.

Heehee.

[JohnnyDigs]

All my dwarves are thirsty or dehydrated, and about 5 have died from not drinking. I don't know why either. I have about 60 units of hooch, and 4 different types. But they aren't drinking.

Do dwarves have to drink plain water occasionally now, even when they aren't injured?

No they only need water if injured. That's very weird and shouldn't happen unless you mass forbid all your booze somehow? If you have a bookeeper go to the stocks menu and find Drinks. There should be no letter F next to the name of the booze.

There's also an order that tells dwarves not to gather food, but I think that only applies to harvesting plants.

[BurnedToast]

Do you have only one type of alcohol? If so, your dwarves may just be sick of drinking only that. I think when that happens, they won't drink it any more.

Dwarves are surprisingly stubborn little creatures.

They will drink the same booze if they are thirsty, they will just get a sad thought from it.

I'm pretty sure they will not intentionally die of dehydration just because they are sick of plump helmet wine.

[wuphonsreach]

My personal rule of thumb is that I try to have 5 times my population in booze as a minimum.  So if I have 40 dwarves, I try to have more than 200 units of booze at all times.

That's about what I shoot for as a minimum, although in the long-term once I dedicate a brewer to do nothing but that I usually hit the 10x mark (200 dwarves, 2000-2500 units of drink).

[Hyndis]

I've found that each still will produce enough booze for about 100 dwarves.

I also make sure there is a well, so if production falls short for any reason they can drink water until more booze becomes available.

I put a different stockpile next to each still that accepts only one plant type, so I can ensure I have at least two types of booze being produced. I usually make dwarven rum and dwarven beer.