Elves:

Grey and High Elves: They’re city dwellers, so distilling wouldn’t be unknown, but I still don’t see them as whiskey drinkers – probably wines and some brandy predominately.

Drow:  being decadent sorts would enjoy anything – preferably ‘acquired’ in raids, or made by lower caste drow.  Distilling underground would have some challenges, but nothing too extreme – the main problem is availability of ingredients.  Everything I can find tells me that fungi (aside from yeast, obviously) aren’t useful in distilling, so the hypothetical mushroom beer of the drow and dwarves is probably -flavored- with mushrooms, but still has some sort of a grain base.

Wood elves and Grugach – The idea of grugach hicks out in the middle of nowhere defending their stills from ‘dem nosy outsiders’ has momentary appeal, but not in a serious campaign.  If they’re nomadic or semi-nomadic, they could concievably carry around leather skins of still-fermenting beverages, similar to the way the mongol’s made their kumiss.

Sea elves – No fire, so no whiskeys, and how exactly would you keep your drinks from just, er, diluting out into the water around you?  Basically, the sea elves are (ironically) dry.

This is more general musings that fit any ‘classical fantasy’ world; my World of Greyhawk campaign has been going on off and on since 1983 and I’ve had various ideas about this.

With the typically low overall tech level (in GURPS terms, TL 3 or 4 predomiately) the water just isn’t safe to drink in many places, and the caloric intake is otherwise low enough that alcoholic and fermented beverages would be ubiquitous.  Obviously the children will drink watered down versions if they drink it at all, with more milk and the like than adults, and a reliable water source (spring, magical) would make it the staple drink – or at least be cut with less rum etc.

Greyhawk itself has rice, sugarcane, corn, wheat, barley etc. etc. so almost anything we have, they (could) have.

Drink Types

• Ale/Small Beer – by the original definition, ale was made without hops, tend to be sweet
• Beer – ale made with hops, which balance the sweetness.  It keeps longer/travels better than ales.
• Wine – typically fermented grape juice, but other fruits can make a wine of sorts.
• Brandy – a twice distilled grape wine aged in oak casks.
• Whiskey – whiskeys are distillates of a grain beer
• Scotch whiskey is malted barley kilned over a peat fire, aged in oak for 3+ years
• Bourbon Whiskey is 70-90% corn with some rye or wheat.  Aged in new, charred oak barrels for at least 4 years.
• Absinthe – liqueur infused with oil of wormwood, and flavored with several herbs.
• Rum – rum is made from sugarcane juice or byproducts (molasses).  When mixed with water or beer, you get Grog.

That’s a good start to what they may drink… next post will look at some ideas of who drinks what and why.