Alcoholic beverages

Various alcoholic beverages exist in the world of Artograch. Alcohol distilation was invented by the Gnomes and the Dwarves in Northern Etrand, and it spread to other countires - like Dragoc - via the trade routes around 1000 BEKE.

Wine
Wine is considered the oldest alcoholic beverage in Artograch, dating back all the way to the Ancient Lizardman Empire. Lizardmen are known for their love of fruits, and even though they don't seem to like any kind of alcoholic beverage today, back when their ancient empire existed, they had thriving viticulture. While it seems that the Ancient Lizardman traditions of wine are lost forever - other than in written records - wine was not lost: the High Elves revived viticulture when they founded the Kingdom of Froturn. Since then, the High Elves have mastered the art of winemaking, and wine has been known as a distinctively High Elven beverages, despite the fact that wine consumption has spread to other countries as well, such as Etrand and Artaburro.

Beer
Beer was first made by Dwarves and Gnomes in Northern Etrand millennia ago, mostly from the wild barley that grew in warmer valleys - just like food made out of cereals, it failed to spread into the south for as long as the Ancient Lizardman Empire existed. After the Lizardman Empire collapsed, Halflings acquired the recipe for beer from the Dwarves via trade. When the Proto-Elves started colonizing Artograch, they spread cereals into Etrand, which is why beer became an important beverage for the Humans.

Dwarven/Gnomish Beer differs from Etrandish/Etrancoast/Etrancoasti Beer in the respect that the earlier contains a lot of additives made out of mushrooms - even the hops being replaced with a mushroom that has a similiar effect on the beer - and is usually heavily spiced, to make the drinkers feel warmer in the winter cold; while the latter lacks any type of fungi, uses hops and usually lacks spicing too.

Today, beer-drinking is most associated with Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings.

Cider and other fruity liqueurs
Alcoholic beverages made from the fermented juice of any fruit other than grapes are considered distinctively Wood Elven beverages, even though their consumption dates back to Ancient Lizardman Empire - the Ancient Lizardmen did not make a distinction between alcoholic beverages based off what fruits they were made out of. The distinction arose when the Kingdoms of Froturn and Dragoc emerged - the farming High Elves of Froturn produced their alcoholic beverages exclusively out of grapes (wine), while the forest-inhabiting Wood Elves of Dragoc produced their alcoholic beverages out of the various fruits found on the trees: apples, pears, peaches, apricots, cherries: either weaker beverages and shorter-lived with lower alcohol content made out of the fermented juice of the aforementioned fruits; or stronger, "immortal" beverages made with similiar methods as wine (crushing the fruit, adding a mixture of hot water and a sweetener like sugar or honey, then waiting for it to age), but distiled afterwards (similiar to real-life pálinka]).

Singer true cider - beverage made out of fermented fruit juice - usually lasts only for two years before going bad, magic is required to preserve them in their original state for prolonged periods of time: either keeping them in freezing chambers that naturally shouldn't exist when it's not winter, or adding additives of magical nature that help to preserve the beverage.

Usquebaugh
Alcohol distilation was invented by the Gnomes and the Dwarves in Northern Etrand. Naturally, as Dwarves and Gnomes previously drank only beer and shunned the fruity beverages made by Lizardmen and High Elves / Wood Elves, they first experimented with distiling beer, and the result was usquebaugh. As the centuries passed, the Gnomes have experimented even more with the art of making usquebaugh, and instead of distiling beer, they began making alcoholic beverages directly out of fermented grain mash.

This new beverage may have failed to catch on in Etrand, but in Hulra, it became very popular early on, and even to this day, usquebaugh is considered a very important beverage, consumed by the nobility casually, and consumed by commoners on important ceremonies. While the drink has so far failed to penetrate from Etrancoast and Northern Etrand into the rest of Etrand previously, in the 8th century AEKE, King Bryant started to popularize usquebaugh in Etrand as well, having grown fond of the beverage during his stay in Etrancoast during the succession war. Still, a century after his rule, usquebaugh is only mildly popular in Etrand, commoners and nobility preferring beer, clergy preferring wine.