Editing Customs of Jhelum (section)

== Drink ==

Most people drink water, yogurt drinks, or fruit beverages. Alcohol is common enough that no one is surprised by it, but drunkenness in a temple, noble household, or public audience is disgraceful.

=== Water ===

Water is the everyday drink. Good households serve it cool from porous clay jars, sometimes scented with flowers, citrus peel, or herbs.

=== Lassi and Buttermilk ===

'''Lassi''' is made from yogurt and water. It may be sweetened with fruit or honey, or served salted and spiced.

Spiced buttermilk is a cheap and refreshing drink favored by laborers, travelers, and anyone suffering through the heat of midday.

=== Sharbat ===

'''Sharbat''' is made from fruit, flower, nut, or herb syrup mixed with cool water. Rose, pomegranate, lemon, tamarind, and almond are common flavors.

A wealthy household serves sharbat chilled with mountain ice. The price of such ice in summer can be astonishing.

=== Sura ===

'''Sura''' is Jhelum's ordinary tavern drink. It is a cloudy fermented liquor made from grain, rice, fruit, or sugarcane. Its quality ranges from pleasant and mildly intoxicating to something capable of removing paint.

When someone in Jhelum simply orders a drink, sura is usually what arrives.

=== Arrack ===

'''Arrack''' is a strong distilled liquor made from sugarcane, grain, fruit, or palm sap. It is clear, fiery, inexpensive, and strongly associated with soldiers, sailors, thieves, and unfortunate decisions.

A tavern that advertises unusually cheap arrack is either watering it or using it to disguise something worse.

=== Wine ===

Grape wine is a prestigious drink associated with nobles, rich merchants, foreigners, and expensive pleasure houses. The best wines come from western vineyards and cool mountain valleys.

Wine may be spiced, sweetened with honey, or scented with rosewater. Sealed jars of an acclaimed vintage are valuable goods and occasionally worth stealing.

Cheap taverns may describe almost any fermented fruit drink as wine.

=== Toddy and Mead ===

'''Toddy''' is fermented palm sap. It is inexpensive and refreshing, although much of that sold in Jhelum is brought from warmer country.

'''Mead''' is made from honey. It is less common than sura or wine but may be found at festivals, country inns, and the tables of wealthy eccentrics.

=== Bhang ===

'''Bhang''' is prepared from cannabis, milk, nuts, and spices. It is associated with festivals, holy persons, and particular drinking houses rather than ordinary tavern life.

Its effects are unpredictable, especially when someone has already been drinking arrack.