Why did old timers drink so much?

>>2060833

There wasn't anything else to do. May as well go through your whole life smashed.

>What is water purity?

Until the very recent modern era, it was downright fucking dangerous to drink water due to disease.

Modern technology allows us to purify water and make it safe for drinking.

The best way to purify water in the past was to make an alcoholic beverage with it.

>>2061144

And yet people evidently still drank water, due to them dying of waterbourne diseases.

>>2061144
My grandmother used to drink only cider when she was little, before clean water was widespread

>>2061144
>Until the very recent modern era, it was downright fucking dangerous to drink water due to disease.
This is a myth.

>>2060840
pretty much this!

i'm really happy that i can just play vidya all day because alcohol tastes disgusting

>>2061192
> What is dysentery Alex?

>>2060833
No the question is just why aren't you drinking so much?

>>2061192
It's still downright dangerous to drink tap water even today depending on the area, let alone places without indoor plumbing.

>>2061144
Hate to break it to you, but it is common knowledge that alcohol dehydrates its consumers. While they may have drank slightly less water, they still had to drink similar amounts of water to the modern amount to stay hydrated to counter their massive alcohol consumption.

Also not all of the water was dangerous. Well water is pretty darn clean. Plus their rivers weren't as polluted as ours were.

>>2060840

I found this post funny

Thanks for the chuckle anon

>>2061192
It's only sort of a myth. It depended on where you lived, in what era. Well-water in the sparsely-populated countryside? You're fine. Ancient Greece? Well, it might not have killed you, but the water was probably pretty fucking gross and gritty, because it sucks in Greece (seriously, how a great civilization developed there I have no idea). A large urban area in the middle ages? Please don't drink the water (Or ensure that they're piping it in from a cistern or pure source outside, which plenty of cities certainly did. But not water from the river.)

The Greek obsession with drinking very well-watered wine certainly might've had something to do with the grossness of their water, although it wasn't diseased. Honestly, though, the ubiquity of beer etc probably has a lot more to do with the fact that it contains calories and carbs than anything about the accessibility of water.

>>2061144
This doesn't hold up because even after widespread clean water in the early 20th century city dwellers still drank that your grandaddy. And they drank straight liquor, not the soft shit we drink nowadays.

Honestly OP I think the reason past generations drank more is they were tougher. It just didn't bother them as much. Also driving is probably a factor, we can't have a dram before work nowadays because we have to commute by car to the city

They may not have known about disease but they could taste the shit. Alewives and alehouses were commonplace in urban areas.