Do orders in Glori du Roi not get followed because most people in period are suffering Hang Overs ?

The English/Jacobite player in G7 recently sent Spain a interesting letter partly on the subject of drinking which also talked about percentage of orders which go wrong.

It seems that following plundering of Spainish Wine ships by the Royal Navy and its free issue to the English population their King and leader has just worked out that at min every English subject has just drunk 20 glasses of Spanish Wine each for the last few months and their Monarch is now wondering:

a) As he developed a National Taste for Sherry, Sicilian Wines etc in the lower orders which will hurt sales of Gin & Beer?

b) Will all this drinking hurt the Nations health?

I have pointed out that in C18 England the water was not fit to drink, tea and coffee were expensive luxury goods, Somerset Farm Worker's payment (partly in Kind) included 7 litres of Cider a Day for him and his family, Beer was the staple Breakfast drink, Gin was drunk by the pint and Sailors got Rum every day so a few glasses of Wine is hardly going to be noticed and he is wrong to leave out the kids.

However I was wondering if anyone knows how strong C18 drinks were?  And if we can put down orders going wrong to most people being drunk at least part of the time?

I assume a lot of Beer was like Welsh Mild.....effectively a way to make water safe to drink.  But what about the Gin, Cider, Rum etc?  Was once given some Hick's Rum from Cornwall which was one of the last Naval Ration Rums and it was like being punched in the Chest.

I'm no expert over the argument of alcoholic beverages' alcohol strength, but being a chemist i can affirm with a certain level of confidence that the reduction in alcohol percentage of actual strong beverages is an indirect consequence of the increased refinement process, wich are required in order to be compliant with hygienic standards that in C18 were far to be required.

This could lead not only to strong beverages but also to the development of mushrooms and other biological class of living creatures who can live in bottles or barrel and add aldehydes as a metabolic product to the aforementioned beverages. This could lead to interesting flavours that today might be completely lost (that is job n°1 of aldehydes) but also with a strong effect on brains, being happily active on our SNC(that is job n°2). It is correct to add also that the lack of aldehydes in the sober part of your clerk's life leads to a severe effect wich is called hangover syndrome, wich is directly related to the level of aldehydes they've been exposed to.

We should add to our reflection that the perceived quality of life was in many ways lesser that our's today, and wine, beer or stronger alcoholic beverages were used and useful as recreational activities. In the end, especially for nobles one, job commitment was not as strong as we would have loved.

To make things short, not only they were drinking more, but they probably were drinking stronger beverages, more intoxicating and with worst hangovers.

Given those conditions, your navy should be awarded a prize for having at least effectively found Spain

Add in that lead fillings were used to help clear the cloudy nature of Cider, & you can also add lead poisoning to the problem

Beer strengths were still very much like those of the medieval period, with the idea of strong beer, beer, and small beer. So the strongest of beers could be as strong, or even a tad stronger, than today's wine.

Interestingly, I had assumed that small beer was always weak (1%) but recently came across some examples where small beer was being produced that was 5% or more. As far as I can make out this was when made from second runnings of the strongest beers and so even when reused the strength was much higher than expected.

Jason wrote:Beer strengths were still very much like those of the medieval period, with the idea of strong beer, beer, and small beer.  So the strongest of beers could be as strong, or even a tad stronger, than today's wine.

Interestingly, I had assumed that small beer was always weak (1%) but recently came across some examples where small beer was being produced that was 5% or more.  As far as I can make out this was when made from second runnings of the strongest beers and so even when reused the strength was much higher than expected.

Oh great........I had always assumed that the Small Beer Drunk in Engand & Germany etc for Breakfast was basically flavoured water and was just a way of making water safe to drink. Now Jason is saying a lot of NPC's could be pissed from Breakfast!

Oh and if anyone is thinking of campaigns in Cider areas like Normandy & the English West Country a family friend who has a house with a apple orchard but had never done anything with the Cider Apples purchased a old fashioned cider press at auction (while looking for a gift for his wife?!).

I can confirm that with a old fashioned oak press and a load of apples its perfectly possible to make loads & loads of really clear crisp cider a true taste of West Country Culture..........only do not drink more than half a pint if you want to be legal to drive and that was pushing it.

Don't worry, most of the time you're right on small beer but you know, given how G7 has gone, extra-strength small beer might explain things a bit...

and heres me, given up alcohol for Lent...

Always thought "Small Beer" meant ordering a half rather than a full pint.

Can also say that Cider direct from the press is best when a bed of straw is laid on the press bed & the apples laid on top & them pressed, helps filter out the Apple skins.

Also remember an old Cider Farm near my parents home in Somerset, had their open top storage tanks emptied for repairs, after all the Cider was drained they found the skeleton of a horse in the bottom of the tank, obviously in those days adding a bit of body & flavour to the drink really meant something. Still at least it was all Natural & no Chemicals.

I think small beer (and so the term) started to disappear as improvements in the water supply, plus cheaper tea and coffee, made alternatives more practical...so it's possible that 'small beer' came to mean a half...and thinking about it I can remember people saying they'd have a small beer when they meant a half.

The term has made a bit of a comeback apparently, with some craft brewers using it as a way of describing low alcohol beers. What with health concerns and the threat up here to introduce minimum alcohol prices, more brewers do seem to be starting to do weaker beers again.

Can remember when low alcohol beers would be titled "gnat's piss". Now its all the rage to drink low percentage stuff, seemingly.


Was once on holiday as a child, and my father insulted the local brewery's finest beer after ordering a pint in a pub. The locals didn't like that - especially when the barmaid confirmed that what they were drinking wasn't as good as the beers my father enjoyed back home. My father certainly knew how to be diplomatic on holiday

If players in Japanese & Far Eastern positions blame the Rice Wine.

And European positions blame the Rum, Vodka, Wine and that tricky Small Beer when thinks go wrong with their turn.

What do Ottomans and other Muslim positions blame?

Stuart Bailey wrote:If players in Japanese & Far Eastern positions blame the Rice Wine.

And European positions blame the Rum, Vodka, Wine and that tricky Small Beer when thinks go wrong with their turn.

What do Ottomans and other Muslim positions blame?

Gin.

In period, there was apparently a fair amount of drinking in the Jannisary corps of non-grape based alcohols...

Can they drink Mead? (if they knew how to make it??)

That Antonio Banderas film The 13th Warrior has his Muslim character refuse a drink when he thinks it is beer, but when he is told it is mead and made from honey he happily drinks it. Obviously I shouldn't look too much into what a movie tells me is correct, however.

- ooh, you can make investments in bee keeping and honey in the game, too!

When the Khans of the Golden Horde and other Mongol/Turkish successor states converted to Islam many took a literal view of the Koranic banning of drinking wine drinking and continued to drink fermented mares milk.

On a very, very literal reading of the Koran it can be claimed that its fine to drink Mead, Gin, Rum as well as the good old fermented mares milk.  But not Wine, Beer (hops are grown on Vines), Brandy & Sherry.  Mind you 99.9% of Muslim scholars and all the later rulings from Islamic judges not faced with an heir of the Great Khan will say your interpretation is in error.

The Pro Jannissary and Corsair backing Bey of Egypt in G2 was very interested in Bee Keeping and Honey.  Generally agreed that he was a very bad man (probably effect of all the Mead Drinking).  When taken captive by Ethiopians they demanded a ransom backed up by threat of covering him in honey and staking him out over a ant nest.  Oddly enough the ransom was paid and the Bay avoided a sticky end that time around.

Later to fall in battle against French lead invasion of Egypt and North Africa by the "Catholic League" who thought the Bey support for Corsairs was getting out of hand.

Is a certain state in southern Africa going to convert to form of Islam which says drinking Date or Palm Beer is fine as they dont grow on vines? Clearly G10 needs more Islamic Heretics offering Harbours, Brothels and Palm Beer to Corsairs in the Indian Ocean.

Rozwi will continue flying the flag for Ancestral Worship as the religion of choice for the uninitiated. Worshipping the dead is far easier than concerning one's nation with mass building projects and spiritual dogma.

I was going to make a start on recognising the religious side of my Rozwi this last turn, but then the bad harvest struck and that put paid to that ambition.