How come there's no drinkable water in the whole of Skyrim? Surely they can't live off solely Wine, Ale and Mead, everyone would be dead from liver failure or something.

You're underestimating Nords.

They must have adapted over hundreds of years, they now have livers of steel

Dovahkiin is above drinking water.

In fact, is there any drinking water in Cyrodil?

Has there ever been drinking water in a TES game? O.o
But anyway, I'd assume its because water is more of a necessity than something you'd drink in an inn. Mead, wine and ale were likely originally added to enhance the atmosphere of inns. Water is something you'd add for swimming in or admiring!

It just seems odd when im going to travel. I go and buy supplies and instead of buying water, i stock up on about 20 bottles of mead to "keep me hydrated", for RPing purposes

Taken from disease thread :

Perhaps there's something with the water in Tamriel that makes purifying it impossible? Besides, who worries about liver when you got healing potions and many other healing sources?

almost any house has a well,wich is where water is usually kept in a historic/fantasy setting.
Go to any bar or inn in such a setting and ask for a cup of water.
Most likely the answer will be something along the lines of 'there's a stream outside'.

Also,as there isnt any type of preservatives yet to pour into the water,only alcoholic beverages could be kept in jars,flaggons and bottles for a longer length of time.

Tho the option to drink water from wells,streams or lakes would be nice.
Throw in a stamina refill when drinking,and the occasional poisoned or diseased source,to keep ya on your toes.
And for the love of Talos,bring back the effects of alcohol.
After 25 bottles of mead and wine i excpect to have at least SOME sense of inebration.
Now alcohol only replenishes stamina.
Even Skooma has no use no more...
No wonder all those addicts are going nuts.

I mentioned this one time while playing and my significant other remarked "Well it makes sense given the time period the game is trying to emulate (Medieval europe) when people drank ale and beer almost exclusively because thats all there was."
To which I remarked "But you cant live on alcohol!" and they replied "People wernt known to LIVE very long back then!"

I burst out laughing.

Yeah, even just the option to drink from a stream would be good. And i agree, effects from alcohol should be back.

lol

To be more serious on the topic, the whole water business could be similar to what went on in the early Middle Ages. As they didn't have proper water ducts and sewers, everything got dumped right into the nearest patch of water without any sort of filtration. Excretement, bath water filth, dead animals, sometimes dead humans, garbage. So rivers running near a bigger settlement were usually only used by the poor to bathe, drinking was out of the question.

That was what the wells were made for. But a lot of well in a town either dried up easily or became lethal when a few animals or an unfortunate kid fell in and drowned, poisoning the whole thing. As said wells were deep, they couldn't really know if there was a corpse down there until a bunch of folk died drinking the water. That probably raised suspicion. Or not. People died all the time back then.

Drinking alcohol was considered much safer so people learned to live with the taste and negative effects of it.

they drank ale because water near any settlement was full of crap,and ale was safer and cleaner. mead was an upper class drink not really for the great unwashed.

would be nice to be able to drink from streams and fill waterbottles when out questing,and getting negative effects from dehydration.(and the cold for that matter!)

and 'you cant live on alcohol'??? plainly you've never been to a british rugby match! cheers

Lol i have actually , just not any important ones. I wonder if the Dwemer had any sort of water system, considering their advancements in tech, although even they didn't have the fabled toilet

water in medevil times usualy didnt keep very well (it was pretty nasty) but alcohol keeps fresher longer.

try a harleqins\barbarians game,man those fellas can drink!

know what you mean about the dwemer,their stuff all sounds steam driven so there must be water systems somewhere in those ruins. cheers

There's only one thing for a true Nord, Juniper berry mead and disappears with it now.