True, however the Nords are only based (quite heavily I'll admit) on the Norse. They aren't replicas of them or anything.

In real life medieval times people generally drank beverages with at least some alcohol in them, since the alcohol killed bacteria and prevented spoilage. Of course they didn't know about bacteria, they new that you can get sick from drinking non-alcoholic beverages. Water could be safe if from running water (eg a stream) or well, but standing water could be bad. Milk before pasteurization could certainly be bad.

Of course Skyrim is not Medieval earth, but the prevalence of alcoholic beverages fits in with the setting.

Well who's to say the water hasn't been boiled first ? It could easily be, look at all the cooking pot's and kettles lying around.

You're assuming that they would know that.
Boiling water to kill bacteria is a mental leap that IRL certainly would not have been made in the anologous time period.

I know. Still, the old Norse culture was a warrior culture, much as the Nord of Skyrim (but also mechants, of course). AND milk-drinkers.

But it's not real life.. It doesn't follow the same timespan or anything as our planet. When was the last time you seen a doctor here on Earth wave his hands and magically heal a person back to life after being hacked nearly to death by a battleaxe ?
To suggest they wouldn't know to boil water to kill bacteria on Nirn because they didn't in real life at these times (well you know what I mean) is ludicrous in my opinon.

Prior to Pasteurization or Refrigeration, the only safe beverages were alcoholic. However, the alcohol content was not that high as the consumption beverage was not aged long, so not as much fermentation.

Sure, there was fresh water in places to drink, but the storage and transport of clean water to everywhere else is what is lacking in the world of Nirn.

So we could still get a skin to fill up with water at streams like hunters would have no doubt carried ? That would be pheasible would it not ?

Municipal water wasn't considered safe to drink until they began chlorinating it in the early 1900s.

Or in Nirn 7E 567 (have no idea if that's accurate at all).

Nords dont drink milk? For the love of Ruptga....imagine how strong they'd be if they got their calcium! On a more serious note, I was wondering this as well. If not water, then why not some sort of berry juice? There has to be SOMETHING these people drink other than alcohol. Speaking of alcohol, who else thinks the alcohol svcks in this game? No drunk effect or addiction chance or really ANY benefits....I thought they would have learned from and improved upon Fallout 3....

There should at the very least be a blurring of vision after that 5th Nord mead.

Exactly. In a culture so centered around alcohol you'd think they would have included that

You cannot buy water because it is free as it gets.

You're thirsty, you just go to the nearest stream or well and drink.

Except you can't actually drink it.. Can we buy a skin then ? That we can fill up at streams and drink. That's a better idea probably.

Sounds like a good idea to me, and some juice or something.

Edit: Oh, and the people of Nirn do seem to know a lot about boiling. They seem to think that dwemer automatons work because there's a small boiler inside of them. Regardles of whether or not they're right or wrong about that, if they can theorize that boiling liquid can do something like that, it's just logical that they'd know how to boil water

From all this "milk-drinker" talk, I assumed that milk was what one drank at the tavern instead of juice, lemonade or straight coke. Like if one was des. or whatever the TES equivalent of that is. I suppose the fact that nobody drives means that nobody has an excuse not to drink. Do you think Nords would drink Bailey's or White Russians?
In any case, playing an Elf who walks into Nordic tavern, then sits down and takes out his own flask of jagga (that's fermented pig's milk) would be excellent.
Still, whether or not they invent pasteurisation, they need to invent lager. The climate's right for it. Get to it alchemists! Unless the're being held back by some sort of ale supremacist faction: "That ale is superior to lager is an established fact. It is immoral to prefer bottom fermented beer and it is also illegal. Do you have anything to confess?"

Mixing wine with water is a classic.

Hidden in the white gold concordat,in small print,it says that nords can no longer drink lager.Those damn elves.

Here's a thought for everyone. You know that crisp, refreshing looking water flowing through Whiterun?

You don't see it in the game, but I can almost guarantee you that every morning, or night, or whenever they get full, that the people of Whiterun take the buckets in their homes that they use as chamberpots and empty them into the streets. Then the rain comes and washes all that filth into those lovely looking streams. The streams then carry it all out of the city. That or they just dump the buckets directly into the streams. Either way, you're not going to want to drink that water in Whiterun.

Yes but I would drink water from a running stream out in the wilderness. I have done in real life, it would add an element of realism when hunting deer, to take out my skin and fill it up at a stream, then gulp it down and continue stalking my prey.

Now you mention it, Maven Black-Briar deals with the Thalmor. That [censored] must have lobbied for it to increase her own mead sales. Hang Talos, this is why the Stormsloaks have the right idea.

You and I will never agree.
Although we both accept that it's NOT earth - I think fundamentally we differ in how we perceive Nirn in terms of physical laws. The fact that Niamh can fire sparks from her fingers does not, on our Nirn, preclude her from being poisoned by dodgy food and drink. Just because one thing is true does not mean the other is.
The problem with discussions of this nature involving fantasy worlds is that you can pretty much justify anything.

In our Nirn, food and drink conform to rules anologous to early earth - water is fundamentally dangerous, and beer is not.
Because that IRL is how it would have been.

In RP terms, we add that in to our experience - because like you, many "hardcoe" mods do not view water as dangerous.

True there's no way to settle a dispute over the cleanliness of Skyrim's drinking water really.

How would you feel about the skin idea though ? Surely a small, running stream way out in the wilderness would be clean enough would it not ? Like I said I've drank out of such a stream before and I was fine, I'm certain hunters in that particular time period would have done so as well.

I'm fine with my ale, thanks.