alcohol Giving a use to alcohole

[Thorfinn]

14 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

It's mostly added just for the flavor, and typically in small amounts at that.

I don't use alcohol in my cooking, but officially, yes, that's the story. Personally, I think it has more to do with having an excuse to open a bottle of wine, and it would be a shame to have it go to waste. An ounce or two in the spaghetti sauce, the rest right down the hatch.

[MKMoose]

2 hours ago, jerjerje said:

2. Alcohol (Aqua Vitae) can be used as a fuel source. This could be implemented as a new type of stove. I'm not sure if this would really be helpful, though.
Maybe sprinkling some alcohol over a fire pit could temporarily increase the heat of the fire pit and allow ingredients to get to temperature faster?

Alcohol hasn't seen practically any use as fuel until the 19th century or so, from what I've seen, and even then it tended to be mixed with other stuff and not used by itself. Unless it's some sort of Jonas tech portable stove shenanigans, this particular use doesn't make much sense for VS. And even if you do add something like this, it would have to be absurdly efficient to be worthwhile, considering the investment of time and resources that goes into making aqua vitae in the first place.

As for sprinkling alcohol over a fire, that tends to be dangerous. You're gonna cook yourself or your house much easier this way.

 

2 hours ago, jerjerje said:

1. Alcohol inhibits the growth of bacteria. So adding it to a meal, would allow that meal to last a lot longer

Now this is a pretty cool use I can get behind, though realistically it's also a pretty modern thing as far as I can tell, and more about spraying produce with ethanol than adding it to food. Regardless, it would make enough sense and serve as a neat gameplay incentive for food preservation - use some of your fruit or grain to extend the shelf life of other stuff.

 

I think I would point to three primary ideas that would be most beneficial for the game and quite sufficient to give alcohol a distinct spot in the game:

• modify the effects of intoxication to make it in any real way useful to drink alcohol on its own, and make the effects less instant and less annoying, primarily with increased pain tolerance, potentially similar to the SlowTox mod as mentioned by @LadyWYT, and including a couple of its other improvements like smaller serving size and ability to sleep through intoxication,
• allow adding alcohol to soups and stews in small quantities, potentially instead of water, more for the sake of it than for any specific purpose, and perhaps for longer shelf life,
• potentially add miscellaneous uses for strong alcohols and aqua vitae in the context of other mechanics like herbalism or combat (as a solvent and due to its flammability respectively).

[Pungent Pickle]

Wine and Ale could be used to replace Water as Stock for Soups, to gain the aforementioned extended Shelf life, while adding their respective nutrition types. That way, one could both get a sophisticated Meal with a decent shelf life AND get a nutrient concentration similar to a porridge or vegetable stew.

 

Edit PS: Another potential use of high-proof Alcohol could be temporarily slowing hunger rate, as a nod to the practice of taking an alcoholic drink after a rich meal. In addition to the cultural background, there are indications that alcohol consumption decreases certain digestive functions, or competes with them, especially fat uptake.

Edited February 16 by Pungent Pickle

[LadyWYT]

With a status effect system, I'd say it could also be used to mitigate the effects of certain injuries. Historically, strong alcohol was used to dull pain, I do believe, so players suffering from a lingering injury(like a broken bone or serious gash) might consider a stiff drink of brandy, whiskey, or other strong liquor to reduce the negative effects for a time. 

Also important to note that reducing the effects is not the same as making the injury heal faster. That would be a job for herbalism.

59 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

1. Alcohol inhibits the growth of bacteria. So adding it to a meal, would allow that meal to last a lot longer

Or tying in into the above idea, use stronger alcohol as an option for cleaning wounds so they don't become infected and get worse. 

[The Lerf]

Personally I'd like to see the drunk effects get worse. Someone mentioned it before, but drinking alcohols with a bucket makes a seraph consume it in 1L increments at a time. I say increase drunkenness effects, add tripping and falling, and a "blackout" state identical to sleep if you consume the whole bucket. Reinforce responsible consumption using bowls. 

Increase satiety from alcohols with this change, because otherwise the time/productivity loss is too great. Turning berries into wine for preservation doesn't need to be that inefficient if there's a significant downside to drinking it as alcohol. Even brining vegetables is what, 30% loss of satiety? 

Alcohols should make the tradeoff of 'preservation' vs 'ability to be productive' instead of 'preservation' vs 'satiety'. This makes them more likely to be invested in during the late game when players are self sufficient. Hell, I'd even go so far as to make Distilled alcohols have more satiety than their raw ingredients altogether considering the time and effort involved to make them, and that you're turning multiple barrels of berries into a single jug...

[Calmest_of_lakes]

On 1/30/2026 at 4:13 PM, LadyWYT said:

While much of this is true, I would also say that it depends on the time and circumstances in question. Drinking alcohol was pretty standard in the past, since it was often safer than drinking water. Unless I'm mistaken, the typical alcoholic beverage had a lower alcohol content than much of what's brewed today. In addition to being safer to drink, it was also a source of calories for those out working the fields and whatnot.

I just wanted to pop in and say that I think the "drinking alcohol was safer than water" part is a myth.
in the medieval era at least, they knew that boiling water made it completely safe (from disease) to drink

 

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Calmest_of_lakes said:

I just wanted to pop in and say that I think the "drinking alcohol was safer than water" part is a myth.
in the medieval era at least, they knew that boiling water made it completely safe (from disease) to drink

 

Not exactly. It depends heavily on the where, who, and when. Boiling water was certainly an option, and certainly one that would have been utilized, but if the local water sources weren't very tasty or otherwise known to make people sick, the denizens of those regions would likely opt for alcohol or other beverages if they had the choice. Likewise, cultural practice and beliefs can also influence the decisions as well, even if the local water is rather safe and tasty.

A fairly solid overview of the times and beverages: https://newhistories.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/volumes/2018-19/volume-8/the-medieval-beverage-of-choice-alcohol-or-water

[Chuckerton]

9 hours ago, The Lerf said:

Personally I'd like to see the drunk effects get worse. Someone mentioned it before, but drinking alcohols with a bucket makes a seraph consume it in 1L increments at a time. I say increase drunkenness effects, add tripping and falling, and a "blackout" state identical to sleep if you consume the whole bucket. Reinforce responsible consumption using bowls. 

I remember making an entire discussion asking for cups to be added so you can drink a reasonable amount of alcohol without having to drink it from a bowl like a weirdo lol.

...I typed out a big message hear about using different alcohols as bases in "potions", and how potions aren't unrealistic because they kind of did exist, only they weren't magic they were just drugs, then I had a realization, so I cut that all out and left that last paragraph...

Alcohol doesn't even need to be realistic, just authentic. I feel like people (not here specifically, just in general) really try to match game suggestions to reality too much. It doesn't have to be realistic, just let something fit the theme of the game while solving a problem the game has. If drinking (a reasonable amount of) nice cool alcoholic beverage gave you some "refreshed" buff that let you work in a forge or field 10% faster or something, I wouldn't be like "wow this game is so unrealistic". Id honestly be super immersed, a nice refreshing ale in the morning to start the workday sounds like a dream. If I was a blacksmith or farmer in ye olde medieval times that sounds like what I'd want to be doing. Any alcohol should do it to, different types of alcohol having different effects would maybe start to get a bit immersive, it should just be whatever alcohol you can make at your climate works. 

[The Lerf]

11 hours ago, Chuckerton said:

Alcohol doesn't even need to be realistic, just authentic. I feel like people (not here specifically, just in general) really try to match game suggestions to reality too much. It doesn't have to be realistic, just let something fit the theme of the game while solving a problem the game has.

This is what I resonate with. Vintage Story has a simplicity surrounding every single mechanic, that makes you feel the authenticity of the actions performing it, even if it's not 1-to-1 with real life. Obviously things are going to be much more complicated in real life compared to how we do it in game, but there is a line to draw on "how simplified should it be?" The 1.22 pre release just moved that line for smithing, and with the game still in development, I hope other systems get that too. I'm not sure if you're suggesting that an alcoholic blackout is too realistic for VS, but hallucinogenic mushrooms were just added, so it's feeling less out of the realm of possibility now. 

I do think drinking wines out of bowls is weird too, but it works as a solution for "how to transfer this liquid into my mouth without a 10L bucket". I hope goblets get added eventually specifically for alcohols. 

[Chuckerton]

10 hours ago, The Lerf said:

 I'm not sure if you're suggesting that an alcoholic blackout is too realistic for VS, but hallucinogenic mushrooms were just added, so it's feeling less out of the realm of possibility now. 

Im not suggesting anything about blacking out. If i had to: I feel like it would be a sensible thing if you absolutely drink too much but i can also see it being pretty frustrating, especially in single player. Like in multiplayer if you black out you might have someone to watch over you while youre unconscious incase some creature shows up but in single player if you drink too much and blackout you might just get killed while youre out. Obviously you shouldnt be drinking that much that you get to that point but i can see it being an issue new players could run into. Maybe blackouts as a multiplayer only thing or as a toggleable setting would be cool. 

But yeah as for the mushrooms i think that it honestly leaves potion type beverages and poison type mixes to be less out of the realm of possibility. Which i hope for. Not like skyrim "magic" particle effects swirling around you and you shave off several fatal blows but like, you drink this and it makes you hit harder while making you hungry? You make this poison that slows enemies so you put in on your arrows so you dont have to chase a deer across several thousand meters? That kind of stuff. Id love it because it would make me happy to find things id normally never use or be interested in. 

Edited February 26 by Chuckerton

[LadyWYT]

37 minutes ago, Chuckerton said:

Im not suggesting anything about blacking out. If i had to: I feel like it would be a sensible thing if you absolutely drink too much but i can also see it being pretty frustrating, especially in single player. Like in multiplayer if you black out you might have someone to watch over you while youre unconscious incase some creature shows up but in single player if you drink too much and blackout you might just get killed while youre out. Obviously you shouldnt be drinking that much that you get to that point but i can see it being an issue new players could run into. Maybe blackouts as a multiplayer only thing or as a toggleable setting would be cool. 

I think it could work, provided that the "drunk" system is tweaked a bit so the player can have a few drinks before they get roaring drunk, but blacking out is a fair tradeoff for being able to down a few stiff drinks to mitigate some damage. That being said, I think SlowTox's system is probably better; rather than blacking out, players that drink too much end up with alcohol poisoning and start taking damage until their body can properly process the alcohol. So the player remains conscious and able to react to threats, but they may or may not survive the poisoning.