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Are drinks considered food that generally comes as part of the meal and therefore drinkable without an additional blessing during a meal on which the only blessing recited was the blessing for bread? If so, is it because even a beverage can be in the category of a food which is eaten with bread or for some other reason?

Note: In general food that comes generally during the meal is covered by the opening blessing for the bread as it is all considered supplemental to the bread.

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You can't eat without drinking! That is the idea of drinks being secondary to the meal and exempt from a bracha. (Psak of the [Shulchan Aruch 174:7][1], see there for the machlokes). An exception is wine which, although it is part of the meal, retains its bracha because of its prominence (SA OC 174:1).

There is a debate on the practical usage of hard drinks. Many acharonim say to make a bracha since you don't drink them for quenching the meal. The minhag is like the Magen Avraham that says that you don't make a bracha as it is an appetizer. The Aruch haShulchan takes the latter idea as obvious.

Something thick like a milkshake may have a different halacha.

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    I thought everyone agreed to say a bracha on wine.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 0:14
  • @DoubleAA, yes, I corrected that omission. Strange language in 174:7: If he doesn't have any wine and is drinking water...
    – YDK
    Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 16:24
  • Strange indeed. I imagine he says that because ideally one would drink wine first to avoid the safek he mentions later regarding water, because wine (as in seif 2) exempts all drinks.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 16:32
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    @DoubleAA, or because people tended to drink wine? See also judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/11412.
    – msh210 ♦
    Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 17:15
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other than wine, ialcut iosef brings that we don't say a beracha because is a mahloket if the beverage is covered by hamosi, so he brings a humra to say sheacol over some drink before on the place you will be eating, but to drink less than reviit so not to go into another mahloket

if I'm not mistaken the ben ish hai suggests the same humra also

[edit] using the link from the other answer, maran himself brings this humra: http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14164&st=&pgnum=137 [/edit]

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  • Yes, he does, but his language does not suggest this chumra strongly. Besides quoting the first, lenient, opinion as stam, he doesn't say "baal nefesh yachmir", but "someone who wants to avoid the safek should...". (In addition, for those of us who spell it "Yalkut Yosef", the Rema qualifies the first, lenient, opinion as the minhag, and such it is today.)
    – YDK
    Commented Apr 6, 2011 at 14:44

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