Roman drinking culture was essentially the original party scene, minus the Instagram stories and with significantly more togas. Long before craft cocktails and microbreweries, Romans were perfecting the art of drinking, creating a sophisticated booze ecosystem that ranged from high-end wines for the elite to budget-friendly options for the common soldier. This article breaks down what the original party animals were drinking, how they consumed it, and why their approach to alcohol was more refined than you might expect from people who also enjoyed watching lions eat people for entertainment.
Roman Drinking Culture: Wine as the Nectar of Gods and Mortals
Wine wasn’t just popular in ancient Rome – it was practically a constitutional right. Romans drank it with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, making modern-day wine moms look like casual enthusiasts. The crucial difference? Romans weren’t downing bottles of Cabernet at 14% ABV.
Their approach was more measured. Most Romans diluted their wine with water at a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 (water to wine), partly for health reasons and partly because their wines were concentrated and often syrupy. Drinking undiluted wine was considered barbaric – the equivalent of chugging straight from the bottle at a dinner party today.
Wine quality varied dramatically based on your social status. Romans considered Falernian wine equivalent to a high-end Bordeaux, while they reserved cheap plonk for slaves and soldiers. The average Roman drank around a liter of wine daily, which sounds excessive until you remember Romans significantly watered down their wine.
The Original Craft Cocktail: Mulsum
Before there were mixologists with waxed mustaches charging $17 for drinks, Romans were creating their own craft concoctions. Mulsum – a mixture of wine and honey – was their version of an aperitif, served at the beginning of meals to stimulate digestion and probably to make awkward dinner conversation with your senator father-in-law slightly more bearable.
Recipe quality varied wildly. High-end mulsum used good wine and the finest honey, while cheaper versions might use whatever wine hadn’t quite turned to vinegar yet. Some Romans aged their mulsum for years, suggesting they understood the concept of flavor development well before modern mixology caught on.
Making it is simple: warm some dry white wine (don’t boil it), dissolve in some good honey, add a pinch of pepper and a few herbs if you’re feeling fancy. Let it cool, and you’ve got a drink that would be at home at either an ancient Roman feast or a modern “artisanal” cocktail bar charging too much money.
Roman Drinking Habits: Practical Booze for Practical People
Not all Roman drinking culture revolved around wine. For the legions keeping the empire’s borders secure, posca was the beverage of choice. This mixture of sour wine or vinegar with herbs and water was the Roman equivalent of a sports drink – hydrating, containing vital nutrients, and making questionable water supplies potable.
Posca has been called the “Gatorade of the Roman army,” though that comparison only works if you imagine Gatorade tasting like vinegar and preventing scurvy. Soldiers would carry vinegar tablets with them, mixing them with water from local sources to create their daily posca. It wasn’t delicious, but it kept you alive on campaign, which was the point.
Posca also highlights an often-overlooked aspect of Roman drinking culture: practicality. Elite Romans hosted elaborate wine tastings, while average legionaries focused on drinks that served specific purposes – hydration, nutrition, and safe water alternatives. Sometimes drinking doesn’t focus on pleasure; people drink to survive.Retry
Beer: What Romans Drank When They Had To
Romans had strong opinions about beer: mainly that it was for barbarians. Beer was considered a lower-class beverage, popular in the provinces (especially Britain and Egypt) but scoffed at in Rome proper. This wasn’t entirely without reason – early beers lacked hops as a preservative and often spoiled quickly, making wine a more practical option in the Mediterranean climate.
Roman writers described beer as causing “flatulence and headaches,” which suggests they were drinking it wrong or just hadn’t discovered the joy of a proper IPA. Despite their snobbery, archaeological evidence shows widespread beer consumption throughout the empire, particularly in military outposts far from wine-producing regions.
The Roman bias against beer eventually faded as the empire expanded, proving that even the most stubborn cultural preferences eventually give way to practicality – or just good beer.
Lora: The Ancient Roman Box Wine
If you’ve ever bought wine based solely on price, you’ve spiritually connected with the ancient Romans who drank lora. Romans made this “second wine” by soaking already-pressed grape remnants in water, fermenting whatever juice remained, and creating a weak, slightly vinegary beverage that cost little and everyone could afford.
Lora was the drink of slaves and the poorest Romans, but it served an important purpose in Roman drinking culture – ensuring that even those at the bottom of the social hierarchy had access to something safer than water and marginally more pleasant than sobriety. It was the original “reduce, reuse, recycle” approach to winemaking, ensuring nothing went to waste.
Modern equivalent? That box wine you pretend not to buy but definitely have stashed somewhere for emergencies.
The Roman Drinking Experience: Rules, Recliners, and Revelry
Roman drinking wasn’t just about what was in your cup – it was about the entire experience. Proper Roman banquets (convivia) featured guests reclining on couches, elaborate drinking protocols, and a designated “king of the feast” (symposiarch) who dictated the water-to-wine ratio for the evening.
Despite their reputation for excess, Romans actually considered public drunkenness shameful. The goal wasn’t to get wasted but to reach a pleasant state they called “Hilaria” – basically being just drunk enough to be witty and philosophical but not so drunk you were puking in the impluvium. See my article about Can You Train Your Brain to Function Under High Doses of Alcohol?
Drinking games were popular, particularly one called “Cottabus” where participants would fling wine dregs at targets – proving that throwing things while intoxicated has been entertaining humans for millennia.
Lessons from Roman Drinking Culture
The Romans understood something fundamental about drinking that we sometimes forget: context matters. They adapted their drinks to their environment, their social situation, and their practical needs. Romans displayed sophisticated thinking in how they approached alcohol – they watered down wine to stay sober longer at social events and created posca to make questionable water sources safe to drink.
They also recognized that moderate drinking could enhance social bonds and conversation – the symposium was as much about exchange of ideas as it was about exchange of drinks. At the same time, they acknowledged alcohol’s darker potential, with numerous writings warning about the dangers of excessive consumption.
Final Thoughts: Drinking Like a Roman
Roman drinking culture offers a fascinating window into a society that, despite its ancient status, sometimes feels surprisingly modern in its approach to alcohol. They understood moderation, appreciated quality, created occasion-specific drinks, and recognized alcohol’s social utility while acknowledging its risks.
Next time you’re enjoying a drink with friends, consider raising a toast to the Romans. Their sophisticated drinking culture laid groundwork for how we socialize around alcohol today – minus the togas and with significantly better plumbing.
Salve and bottoms up.
