What non-alcoholic drinks might be common in a faux-European medieval fantasy setting? In my setting, the only options are
>Water
>Milk
>Fruit juice
And that's a pretty bland roster. I thought of prematurely introducing lemonade, but lemons and other citrus fruits weren't a thing in Europe until the age of exploration. Same for tea, coffee and chocolate milk.
They drank herbal infusions (peppermint, nettle, and the like). Also cultured milk products, like kefir and ryazhenka.
Also, why are the drinks so important to your setting? Do your players literally spend time describing what they ordered for dinner at the inn?
>>47855080
Beer. Most medieval beer was barely alcoholic, it shouldn't be counted as a hard drink.
>>47855080
Tea was a thing in medieval europe. Barley tea was probably the most common, but other types probably existed as well during that period.
Remember, they drank a lot of alchohol because it was the safest beverage. It was about the only thing that didn't make people sick.
>>47855080
Low alcohol beer.
>>47855137
That and mildly alcoholic stuff was often drunk because it was preserved. Without refrigeration fermentation was a common way of preventing spoilage.
Water is fucking dangerous in any pre-modern setting. Stick to alcoholic drinks, even for children or anything that involves boiling. Boiling water is OK, but most common on nomadic tribes.
>>47855297
There's also the fact that you could get the water for your beer from a duck pond or downstream from a tanner and not get sick from it.
>>47855080
>I thought of prematurely introducing lemonade, but lemons and other citrus fruits weren't a thing in Europe until the age of exploration. Same for tea, coffee and chocolate milk.
Are you playing in a faux-medieval fantasy setting, or are you playing in 10th-century Earth? There's no reason why those things wouldn't be accessible other than "that's how the continents on Earth formed".
>>47855136
muh immersion
>Coffee
In the RL world, the caliphate held a complete monopoly on coffee beans, to the point where Europeans were only sold roasted and thus infertile beans.
>Cocoa
IRL, that's native to South America. In your setting, it doesn't nescecarily have to be. Same with tobacco.
Just drink beer anyway. Anything else would be ahistorical.
>>47855201
>>47855297
Water wasn't as uncommon a drink as people tend to think. While its true you couldn't keep water (or milk, or juice) for long without it spoiling, most places had wells or springs which provided reasonably clean water.
It was only really in large towns where the water quality became bad enough that people didn't want to drink it, and often that was because of refuse and chemicals getting into it rather than from bacteria.
Also, on the subject of fruit juice, the Romans brought lemons to Europe, and other cirtrus fruits (like oranges) have been present since further back. They probably would have been less common than other fruits, like apples or pears, but they did exist and people did make juice of them
Even lemonade isn't utterly impossible. Before sugar was easily available, they used to sweeten drinks with honey. And sugar wasn't unknown in Europe, it just didn't become 'widely' available until the 15th century
>>47855080
Fruit juice? Who's gonna take farmland away from easier, more reliable, higher-yield plants and then, rather than eat this food, squeeze out a tree's worth for a glassful of sugar?
>>47855080
>water
Only in the country. Cities were rife with disease and infections.
Most people would drink low-alcohol beer and cider (if apples are a thing).
Milk would only be available on farms for most people. You can get more money by selling cottage cheese, cheese and other milk derivates than by selling simple milk.
Herbal infusions were a thing but it's not going to be the fancy stuff you can get today (peppermint), it's probably going to be thymus, chamomile, ironwort, rosemary and other readily available local plants.
>>47855374
>Anon doesn't understand the importance of logistics in a premodern setting
>>47855335
STOP
THIS IS A LIE
this was only true in large settlements in times when the plague or something is infecting everything through pests and animals,
but pretty much everywhere else (urban population was <1% of the general population) water was safer than it is today with our pesticides and fracking
>>47855694
>tfw glorious clean aquifer water source
>>47855694
>water was safer than it is today with our pesticides and fracking
Somewhat debateable.
But I wouldnt disagree at all if you had said "water was no less safe than it is today with our pesticides and fracking"
Seriously, people, if you imagine water is some sort of lethal liquid that killed everyone, do you think we'd have survived as a species?
No.
Water was safe. Water in urban areas, or worse, in things like seiges, was unsafe. but the local beck, the freshwater spring in the castle, and the likes? those are far safer to drink than for instance, milk - which in a pre-pasteurisation era without refrigeration was pretty risky for more than a few hours storage.
>>47855080
Just serve watered wine like everyone else. The alcohol sterilizes the water and you're not going to get drunk from it unless you chug gallons of it.
>>47855694
No, it was just a matter of fact. Beer was perfectly safe because one of the earliest steps involves boiling the water which, as all know, cleanses it of parasites, bacteria, and all the other nastiness that's likely to make you sick.
>>47855820
Pretty sure you need something stronger than wine to sterilize water.
>>47855747
Sauce?
>>47855594
>no water in the city because of disease and infections
Ain't that just a myth?
http://www.medievalists.net/2014/07/09/people-drink-water-middle-ages/
>>47855845
Pretty sure grapes can make alcohol just as stiff as hops.
>Please select all boxes containing street signs
>Three balloons, no street
>>47855901
Beer is sterile because you boil the mash. Alcohol has nothing to do with it.
Water– from clean sources like springs and spring wells.
Wine– drunk all over where grapes were grown. elswhere they were imported.
Beer— not particularly alcoholic at the time. By the fifteenth century, there was a record of hops used in Flemish beer imported into England
Ale, along with bread, was an important source of nutrition in the medieval world, particularly small beer, also known as table beer or mild beer, which was highly nutritious, contained just enough alcohol to act as a preservative, and provided hydration without intoxicating effects. Small beer would have been consumed daily by almost everyone in the medieval world, with higher-alcohol ales served for recreational purposes. The lower cost for proprietors combined with the lower taxes levied on small beer led to the selling of beer labeled “strong beer” that had actually been diluted with small beer. For many medieval people, ale was healthier than the local drinking water, which was often contaminated by bacteria, whereas the ethanol in ale kills bacteria. In some places even children drank it.
Mead– fermented honey.
Barley Tea,steep barley in hot water, add honey.
Dancha is essentially tea made by boiling tea bricks.
Sage Water. Soaking the sage in a pitcher of water over night.
Coriander water same as Sage Water except with Coriander seeds.
Granatus This is modernly known as Grenadine. It is essentially a thick, sweet, pomegranate syrup.
Sekanjabin is the family of sweet vinegar beverages.
Clarea of Water was essentially spiced honey water.
Rose Soda and Lavender Drink were common among refined ladies of the middle ages.
Cold Almond Milk was used in England in the latter part of the period.
Chicory Water
And all of the varieties of apple ciders. Apple drinks and ciders were basically apple juice with various amounts of pulp, sweetened with sugar and/or honey.
>>47855335
>>47855785
Stagnant water is a good way to get parasites and diseases. That's why ships carried small beer and sailors were known as being half-drunk monsters at times. An actual source that isn't just sitting there for months is generally fine unless you're in some jungle shit hole.
But yeah, it's not poison. Unless there's some horrible outbreak or you have ash and rubble falling into the water supply you're pretty much looking at mild food poisoning at worst.
>>47855954
>Alcohol
>Not a disinfectant
>>47856019
From the Centre for Disease Control:
>Alcohol
>Overview. In the healthcare setting, "alcohol" refers to two water-soluble chemical compounds—ethyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol—that have generally underrated germicidal characteristics 482. FDA has not cleared any liquid chemical sterilant or high-level disinfectant with alcohol as the main active ingredient. These alcohols are rapidly bactericidal rather than bacteriostatic against vegetative forms of bacteria; they also are tuberculocidal, fungicidal, and virucidal but do not destroy bacterial spores. Their cidal activity drops sharply when diluted below 50% concentration, and the optimum bactericidal concentration is 60%–90% solutions in water (volume/volume)
Good luck finding a beer with 60-90% alcohol content.
>>47855459
>Even lemonade isn't utterly impossible. Before sugar was easily available, they used to sweeten drinks with honey. And sugar wasn't unknown in Europe, it just didn't become 'widely' available until the 15th century
Honey would be far too expensive to use to sweeten drinks unless you were royalty. The common man would rarely if ever get to taste something more sweet than apples or berries.
>>47855080
>lemons and other citrus fruits weren't a thing in Europe until the age of exploration
The Romans brought lemons to Europe. Most of Europe is a terrible climate for cultivating citrus crops though so they didn't gain much reach beyond the Mediterranean until people could transport them cheaply and reliably enough to make a profit.
>Same for tea, coffee and chocolate milk.
Blah blah blah. All these things didn't exist in the real Europe either because they didn't grow well there or trade with those areas was difficult, but your setting isn't IN Europe. It's in faux-Europe. There's no requirement that the climate of faux-Europe be identical to real Europe. Just make the whole slightly warmer and drier and suddenly all those crops can be native to your faux-Europe. Chocolate, sugarcane, coffee, all these things can be big time crops right in the fields outside the castle.
Just keep in mind that if you want to be historically accurate, as others have mentioned, pretty much everything is going to at least be slightly alcoholic for preservation reasons. Wines and beers were historically so watered down that they made fine beverages for everyone.
>>47855970
>Ale, along with bread, was an important source of nutrition in the medieval world
Is this true for all of medieval Europe? Nowadays in Europe we have a somewhat clear line between Beer Europe (mostly Celtic and Germanic), Wine Europe (mostly Latin) and Vodka Europe (mostly Slavic). Did these lines also exist in the Middle Ages or are they a rather modern thing and did everyone drink ale and other beers in the midle ages?
>>47856019
You know beer isn't like 70% alcohol, right? Good luck disinfecting something with 5-10%.
>>47856080
Wow, it's almost like the CDC specifically mentioned alcohol because it's been a folk remedy for thousands of years. That totally proves that it wasn't a thing in the middle ages.
>>47856019
You're either underage or Russian
>>47856019
f people can completely replace regular water with it don't you think it miiiiiiiight not be an effective poison? In case you also didn't know drinking nothing but 80 proof vodka doesn't work well with humans either, even Russians need water at some point.
>>47856173
Could you point out what he was trying to say, because I don't think you understand what he was trying to say.
>>47855872
Go to /h/, they have explosive erections about this game that came out recently
Girl's name Liru
>>47855080
Almond Milk was actually used a lot in the medievals. Almonds were a very common product, and contained many of the nutrients the peasantry barely got.
>>47855873
Yep, pure myth. For one thing it takes a couple of weeks to make beer so you'd need to drink water in the meantime, for another the entire animal kingdom is supported by being able to handle drinking water, thirdly medieval people knew loads about telling bad water from good.
>>47856155
good luck disinfecting something with 2-5%
The heavier stuff did exist, maybe, but small beer was a lot more common.
>>47855080
Kvas (sometimes spelled Kvass.) It's a Russian/Slavic fermented beverage made out of rye bread. Its alcohol content is like 1% or less, so it's considered "non-alcoholic", kind of like kombucha (there's another suggestion for you.)
>>47855297
>>47855335
Most peasant folk received an amount of ale/cheap beer as part of their wages as well.
>>47855080
Meat.
>>47856509
Everyone gets explosive erections from Liru.
>>47856767
Nordics all have similiar drinks, not sure about tge rest of Europe.
>>47855136
>Do your players literally spend time describing what they ordered for dinner at the inn?
No they run a tavern
>>47855456
*wank off motion*
>>47856155
There is a beer with a 65% alcohol content.
>>47855845
Would whiskey be able to sterilize water with the end result being watered down enough to not get people drunk?
>>47857932
Kinda doubt it. Grog was, what, half and half rum and water, but even that was mostly to make it palatable.
>>47857988
rum water and lime juice
>>47855080
>What non-alcoholic drinks might be common in a faux-European medieval fantasy setting?
The question should be if the economy is advanced enough that even peasants get to drink something other than shit water and die of dysentery.
You could always make semi fantastic fruit like Dohasfeh, slightly acidic umami flavor shaped like a bottle deep brown fruit that's boiled or fermented to make bagohdoij, the national drink of the asdfg empire. Mages like to drink it as it's reputed to be a mind tonic and vitality tincture, and it's used in the Holy rituals of the vadzskinji heresy. Sweetened with vidkaj, the blood of the obdokaji monster. And boy is he a bleeder.
>>47856619
>it takes a couple of weeks to make beer so you'd need to drink water in the meantime
You're a retard.
>>47858609
Stop throwing letters into the comment field at random, those don't even remotely look like words from the same or even remotely related languages.
>>47858980
Not that anon, but he's clearly inventing words at random to illustrate his point, that OP could make drinks up since it's a fantasy world.
>>47855585
Or, rather, make cider out of them
>>47855080
>non-alcoholic
>medieval Europe
It doesn't work like that.
>>47858609
You're bad at making up names, and your perception of medieval economies has little relation to reality.
>>47855872
Centuries of rain seepage.
>>47855080
Water, water everywhere.
Heated and infused with literally anything to make it less boring. Onion skins, relatively tasteless leaves and roots.
Stews and the like were incredibly common as well, even if you've got almost flavourless boiled water with a few carrots and turnips floating in it; and you eat it with some bread and lard. You'll still be drinking a lot of water.
The importance of fermentation and the popularity of alcohol is also silly to miss. If you're trying to avoid inebriation then your character should still be consuming some alcohol based on the setting.
Many people favoured herbal tea remedies that were alluded to make one sleep more deeply and such, a mild consumption of alcohol could lend itself to such practices; without getting shit-faced.
Alcoholic beverages were very often watered down substantially to make it last longer and more affordable to poorer people.
You can finally make water more interesting with snippets of different myths and stories. Like how the Hobbits drank from the waters of Fangorn and grew larger.
Even if it won't do anything, you can make things a little more interesting by attaching rumours to springs and creeks. Sources of drinkable water were very often the reason for the settlement of an area and usually had some stories attached to them. A stream may taste quite different due to certain mineral deposits.
It's still just water but all drinks are still mostly water. It's how well you can spin it.
>>47856087
Honey was far less rare than you think it to be. They certainly wouldn't use it for every-day drinks, but a common baker could use it fairly often; and you would perhaps see honey added to wine or whatever a people thought tasted good quite regularly through tradition. Perhaps every sunday and such.
>>47855080
>go into this thread expecting a lavish selection of beverages
>get almost nothing
FUCKING PLEBEIANS, DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF?
- Kvas;
- Ayran (also sometimes known as "tan");
- Ryazhenka;
- Kefir;
- Kissel;
- Kompot;
- Uzvar;
- Cider (>inb4 "cider's alcoholic")
- Grenadine;
- Honey water;
And these are all just things I can name without looking it up on Google.
Even Vikings made basic cordials and steeped fruits and herbs in water to flavour it.
The variety of fruits and herbs available is up to you, you said it's faux-europe, not real europe.
Birch water, pine tea, caraway tea, beetroot juice, kvass, cider, mint water
>>47861202
Kvas has been mentioned. Fermented dairy products haven't. Drinks steeped from fruits have. Honey in drinks has.
>>47856080
Biotech student here. Liquid chemical bacteriocidal agents in general are not FDA approved as being adequate for sterilization measures, but only because they have a tendency to leave residues behind.
>>47861765
>Fermented dairy products haven't.
Literally first post.
>>47862385
WHOOPS
>>47861150
>If you're trying to avoid inebriation then your character should still be consuming some alcohol based on the setting.
Also especially worth noting, it was virtually impossible to have fruit juice that wasn't at least partially fermented unless it was extremely fresh-squeezed. The pasteurization process necessary to store juice any substantial amount of time without fermentation wasn't invented until the 19th century, since nobody knew that fermentation was caused by microorganisms that could be killed by heat.
So, even fruit juice is more likely going to be something like must, containing small amounts of alcohol. Not enough that there'd be any substantial chance of inebriation, but definitely enough to alter the flavor noticeably compared to fresh juice or the pasteurized stuff we think of as "fruit juice" today.
>>47855080
Cider. It can technically be alcoholic, but doesn't have to be.
>>47855080
Lemons were around in Europe in Roman times, although not extensively farned. They also had access to Oranges but used them for medicinal purposes.
>>47861076
Kek
>>47855201
>Tea was a thing in medieval europe.
Tea made with actual "tea" was not, and really only became popular after the Coffee revolution swept from the Ottoman and other M.E. nations to Europe in the 1600's(? Maybe 1700's?) once the Dutch discovered "hey this is some pretty good shit."
Things like Barley Tea weren't actual "tea," just kind of a psuedo-tea drink that didn't go by the name "tea."I am very anal about tea, so excuse me if this comes across as pedantic.
>>47858535
As much scurvy as sailors suffered, I think it's safe to say lime juice was a much later addition.
>>47855080
They didn't understand that boiling water would kill harmful bacteria, but they did notice that if you drank ale, mead, beer etc you'd live longer than if you drank normal water.
Therefore alcoholic beverages were by far the most common type of drink throughout the dark ages.
>>47864569
Lime juice doesn't prevent scurvy. British sailors switched to lines at the same time steam ships cut months off of travel times, they literally weren't out long enough to get scurvy.
>>47869062
Actually it's because they couldn't get oranges. They could get limes more easily so they had them. Limes were implemented into the rations long before steampowered vessels.
>>47856087
Honey wouldn't be that expensive. One good hive can produce like 70 pounds of the shit a year and modern methods aren't much different from bqck in the day. I used to work as a beekeeper during the warm months.
>>47870083
Correction, a good box can have 70 pounds. The hive usually had 2 to 4 boxes stacked over the broodbox. And one yard had 20 or more hives bees are easy as fuck to raise.
>>47870083
Also honey was a backproduct of making wax. Without electric/gas lights it was produced in much higher quantities.
>>47855845
>Pretty sure you need something stronger than wine to sterilize water
Not really. It was such a common method that a ration of watered wine was given to every employee of the Venetian Arsenal every day as part of their wages.
