theme for a fantasy campaign

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by Brett

Elves I think make wine, cider, and perry where they can, fermenting other fruit juices where they don't have grapes and pomes. Could they make beer out of some low-fat nut such as a chestnut, and what on Earth would it be like?

Some nuts are a source for beverages now; the most common, from what I can tell, is the cashew. Urrac ("oorak", apparently) and feni are distillations of the cashew apple; single-distilled urrac is about 15%, and double-distilled feni is about 40%. In South America, they make soft drinks from the cashew fruit. The cashew apple travels really poorly, so such drinks tend to be limited to places that grow cashews.

Other tree-borne sources for beverages are maple sap (the last sap of the spring is quite dark and not usually used commercially; but it can make a really rich ale); birchbark (either alcoholic or not); spruce buds (spruce tea is an excellent cure for scurvy, as it contains up to 50mg of vitamin C per 100g). And, of course, coffee and chocolate.