Why Italy

What alchohol would they have drank in 15th to 16th century Venice, Italy?

I'm writing a story and need an alchoholic beverage that they would have drank in Venice in the 1400s and 1500s.

Public Comments

1. Wine or maybe even absinthe
2. wine ... and vodka was first invented in the early 1400s in eastern europe and then spread to italy
3. Beers and wines mainly.
4. Besides the obvious wines, they had Brandy and other cordials. Keep in mind that many of their wines were not necessarily from grapes but also from pears, apples and other fruits. Stay away from Vodka as that was Russian and people did not travel all that much except where there was waterways and even away from Whiskey or the such. There was some wheat ales as well though, but that was for the poor working class and army personnel.
5. They may have had what is known as a digestif, a mix of wine, alcohol, honey herbs and spices like Jagemeister now a bitters type. And they would not have drank them with meals, but at night time to help sleep, cure bad colds or stomach aches or even headaches and other aliments, wine would have been a daily drink the Romans had wine around the time of Christ. The distillation process would have ben crude and dangerous so there was very little made in small batches, "mead" a wine made with honey (sugar was still a few centurys off) and spices was popular to.
6. Limoncello!! I was in Italy not so long ago and drank it, its made of lemon skin in pure alcohol. An Italian specialty!
7. Wine and beer where known and popular in ancient Rome (and even before the Romans) and Italy had a primary importance in developing a distillation process (XI-XII Century) and ditillation became very popular bewteen 1400 and 1500; a popular alcoholic drink which was born in current Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions was Grappa (and actually still is) along with "vinaccia" (marc).