Drinking alcohol because water was unsafe is a modern myth. Prior to (and for a long time after, too) the germ theory of disease, water was evaluated purely by

Drinking alcohol because water was unsafe is a modern myth. Prior to (and for a long time after, too) the germ theory of disease, water was evaluated purely by taste. They drank lots of water. Thus the whole "cholera epidemic because one well in London was near where poop ran off" thing. https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/the-myth-of-medieval-small-beer-19763/ https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/the-myth-of-medieval-sm...