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When you’re crowded around a table with a smattering of friends, all with a new drink in hand, an unspoken feeling usually swells amongst the group that “clinking” everyone’s glasses together is necessary to start the round or event. Whether the action is committed with a “cheers,” “kanpai,” or “santé,” it’s a tradition that’s followed by cultures all over the world. With friends, loved ones, or a stranger you’ve just met on your travels, we all appear to enjoy toasting one another. So where did this all begin?
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One theory suggests that the tradition stretches back to the Medieval Ages and Viking times, where participants in a social gathering would clink glasses hard enough together to spill part of their drink’s liquid into another’s cup as a safety mechanism against poisoning (nothing like paranoia at a party). While popular, historians are skeptical of this reasoning, pointing out that at the time, it was more about honoring guests and sharing community.
Historical records actually point to “cheersing,” going back even further, stretching back thousands of years to the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Toasting to one another would include an offering to the gods and a blessing on the group. Sharing glasses with one another was a sign of loyalty and kinship. Using the word “toast” actually traces back to this time, when a piece of toasted and spiced bread would be dipped in the wine when first poured in order to balance the bitterness of the cup. While we’re no longer dipping bread into wine (on most nights at least), the word now carries on the former tradition of blessing the group.
The expression of “cheers,” however, is a more modern take on the age-old phenomenon. The earliest record of the word’s usage comes from 1919. The word’s current form comes from the French word “chère,” meaning “face,” alluding to the fact that drink participants are looking at each other as they toast one another.
While a relatively young word compared to the custom it is now associated with, everywhere one travels near and far, a take on “cheersing” one another is always present and a timeless tradition. In a world where screens are omnipresent and the virtual can appear to dominate attention, toasting each other provides an in-person bond and connects us on a human level, as it has for thousands of years. We’ll drink to that.
