@TheEdVerse I’ve asked after Cormyrian dining habits & novel after novel paints Waterhavian favourites.
What of heartland drink, Ser Greenwood?
I imagine Cormyr & Dales overlap strongly here but what *are* their favourite beverages? Intoxicating, mostly seems wine in books?
/1— 🌈Jaye🦄Em🌹Edgecliff🏳️🌈 (@jayeedgecliff) July 14, 2019
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Hi! In rural Cormyr and the Dales, as most places in the temperate forested-and-agricultural Heartlands, nigh everyone makes “small beer” at home for daily use, and makes wine from local “free” (grown on your land or readily…#Realmslore https://t.co/eyieaZYp4X— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 15, 2019
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…pluckable on common land) ingredients (such as “kruth wine,” which we in our modern world would call “dandelion wine”). Crude “over-the-flames” distillation is common (habitually done by about one in eight people) for making…medicines/liniments and stronger drink (often mixed with wine or beer or crushed berries as a fortifier rather than drunk “straight” as itself).
Most homemade wines in Cormyr and the Dales are made from wild berries… #Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 15, 2019
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…(blackberries, raspberries, “wild grape” and the like) or other wild fruit (crabapple wine is a favourite in the Dales and eastern Cormyr). Farmers tend to make melon wine, plum wine, or apple wine (and hard cider), and the5)
…colloquial collective term for all homemade wines in this part of Faerun is “wildapple wine.” Many of the wines of this region are a light translucent green in hue due to the most popular wine “recipes” combining grapes that…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 15, 2019
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…have skins that impart green hues during maceration, and leaves of various herbs, vines, weeds and other wild plants that do the same thing.
Aside from these green hues, there’s nothing really “different” or characteristic7)
…about drinkables of this region compared to other temperate Heartland areas; everything varies locally depending on what’s most cheaply or freely (“wild”) available as ingredients (sugars from beets [molasses] or birch wood…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 15, 2019
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…or honey or maple syrup or various plant nectars). For some reason, mead is less popular with younger folk, and more popular with older generations.
However, daily drinks in the homes of common folk are almost all broth9)
…(the warm broth for breakfast is a do-heavy-manual-labour fortifier for all temperate-zone farmers, not just in the Dales) in mornings or chilly evenings, teas and tissanes (herbal or fruit teas) any time of day (and the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 15, 2019
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…most common/popular beverage, overall), with the various coffee and cocoa variants and equivalents being “acquired tastes” drunk on special occasions or by the slightly more wealthy or by those who’ve traveled far (aside11)
…from water, the ingredients are more expensive because not local).
Suzail doesn’t have a unique local drinkables scene/preferences; it’s a wealthy, busy, cosmopolitan trading port between Sembia and the Dragonreach, and the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 15, 2019
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…Sword Coast, so fads, fashions, and influences swiftly travel back and forth. Residents of Suzail do drink more imported wine because they can readily get it, and because the nobles of Cormyr, all having “city houses” in13)
…Suzail even if their main residences are elsewhere, set the tone by what they order in bulk for their cellars and tables. Cormyrean fads and new fashions in matters drinkable and otherwise most often begin in Suzail and…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 15, 2019
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…spread throughout Suzail because merchants are always trying to introduce new things for the Suzailan nobles and wealthy wannabe-nobles to buy—and they are trendsetters for the rest of Cormyr, just as Cormyr and15)
…Sembia set trends for the Dales. This has been the overall situation from the mid 1100s DR up to 1500 DR, so applies to your campaign. The recent trend: sherries and almond-flavoured liqueurs from Chessenta and the Vilhon.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 15, 2019
My pleasure! Enjoy.
Hugs,
Ed— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 16, 2019
The level of detail you have in your world building is truly awesome. Heh. First my players asked questions, then the world did, and with every answer it grows richer and feels more real, and I LOVE that.
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 17, 2019