Drink/propose a toast

Origin of: Drink/propose a toast

Drink/propose a toast

Has the social ritual of toasting one another with drinks anything to do with the toasted bread that we sometimes eat? The answer is most certainly yes. There is evidence dating from the 16th century that spicy toasted bread was often served with wine and was sometimes floated in the wine itself. Today of course, the toasted bread- with-wine custom has fallen away but the raising of glasses as ‘toasts’ remains. It would seem that the practice of consuming bread and wine in communion, with salutations to deities and to one another, is much older, which makes the Christian Eucharist commemorating The Last Supper a relatively modern phenomenon. Similar ritualised drinking customs are recorded in many ancient cultures throughout the world. The prime concern here, however, is the origin of drinking or proposing a toast, without any reference or allusion to the bread or toasted bread that used to go with it, and it would seem that this relatively modern habit dates from the late 17th/early 18th century.