The order of toasts at a supra

I stopped counting toasts somewhere around the eighth

We had been at the table for maybe forty minutes when I realised I had lost track of how many times we had raised a glass, and that the host — a man I had met three hours earlier through a friend of a friend — was showing no sign of running out of things to toast to. Nobody had explained the rules to me beforehand, and I spent most of that first supra a half-step behind everyone else, unsure when to drink, when to stand, and when it was fine to just sip. What follows is the version of that explanation I wish I had been given first.

What a supra actually is

A supra is a formal Georgian feast, built around a long table loaded with far more food than anyone present could reasonably eat, and structured — this is the part that surprises most first-timers — not around the food but around a sequence of toasts led by a single person. It can mark a wedding, a funeral, a birthday, a business deal, or simply the arrival of a guest; the occasion changes, but the underlying format holds. The supra and the tamada explained covers the fuller picture of how a supra is organised and what dishes typically appear.

The tamada’s job

The tamada is the toastmaster, chosen — usually by the host, sometimes by consensus, occasionally self-appointed by the person clearly most invested in the role — to lead every toast of the evening in a set, if flexible, order. A good tamada is doing something closer to storytelling than simply proposing “cheers”: each toast is a short speech, sometimes genuinely moving, sometimes very funny, building toward the raised glass rather than opening with it. Being asked to be tamada, or even to give a single toast within someone else’s sequence, is treated as an honour, not a chore, and turning it down outright can come across as odd if you are a guest of some standing at the table.

The order, roughly

The exact sequence varies by region, family, and occasion, but a fairly standard structure runs something like: a toast to peace, early on, followed by one to the meeting or occasion that has brought everyone together, then to the host’s family and ancestors, to parents, to the homeland, to children, to women present, to love, and — later in the evening, often more subdued — to those who have died. A toast to Georgia itself, and often one to the guests specifically if you are a visitor, tends to appear somewhere in the earlier half.

Do not expect rigidity here; a family supra moves through this looser and faster than a formal business one does, and some tamadas skip or reorder freely. What stays constant is that the wine itself — usually made in a qvevri, the buried clay vessel Georgia’s winemaking tradition is built around — is treated as part of the ritual, not just the drink accompanying it. Qvevri wine explained: 8,000 years in a clay pot covers what makes that wine distinctive if you want the fuller picture before your first supra.

Tbilisi: Unforgettable Georgian Feast with Tamada and Music is a structured way to experience the full toast sequence with an experienced tamada if you would rather see it done properly before attempting to follow along at someone’s family table.

Alaverdi: passing the toast along

One term worth knowing before you go: alaverdi, the practice of passing a toast — or the obligation to add to one — from the tamada to another guest at the table, usually with a nod or a direct address by name. Being handed an alaverdi is a moment of mild pressure if you were not expecting it, since you are then expected to add something, however brief, before drinking. A short, sincere sentence is entirely acceptable; nobody expects a guest, especially a foreign one, to match the tamada’s fluency or length.

A few etiquette points that actually matter

Glasses generally do not sit empty for long — a host or a designated pourer keeps them topped up through the evening, and leaving is generally the far more meaningful signal than declining a specific refill. Toasting with water is considered bad luck in Georgian tradition and is worth avoiding even as a joke.

Most toasts call for at least a proper sip rather than a token touch of the glass to your lips, though nobody is realistically tracking whether you finish every glass across a long evening; a handful of the more significant toasts — to the host, to parents, sometimes near the end of the evening — are more likely to be treated as ones worth draining. If you genuinely cannot keep pace, saying so early and simply sipping through the rest of the evening is accepted far more readily than trying to match the table and struggling visibly later on.

Women as tamada, and how the role is shifting

Traditionally the tamada role has been held by men, and in more conservative or rural settings that is still the default. It is no longer a rule, though — women lead supras regularly in Tbilisi and in plenty of families elsewhere, particularly at gatherings among friends rather than at the more formally structured events, and nobody at a modern urban table is likely to raise an eyebrow at it. If you are trying to read a specific supra’s conventions as an outsider, watching who the host defers to at the start of the meal tells you more than any general rule will.

Business supras versus family ones

The version most visitors encounter through a tour or a restaurant leans toward the family and celebration end of the spectrum — warm, food-heavy, relatively relaxed about pacing. A business supra, the kind that still genuinely happens around deals and partnerships in Georgia, tends to run longer, more formally, and with toasts more deliberately tied to trust, partnership, and mutual respect rather than family and homeland. Both share the same underlying structure and the same tamada-led format; the tone and the stakes are simply different, and a foreign business visitor invited to one is generally given more latitude on pacing than a family supra guest would be, precisely because the host understands the format is unfamiliar.

The morning after, and the vocabulary that helps

A long supra has a predictable second act. Surviving a supra: the morning after covers that half of the experience with the same honesty as the toasts themselves, and A supra vocabulary: twenty words that help is a useful pocket reference if you want to follow along with a few actual Georgian phrases rather than relying entirely on a translated toast. How Georgians actually eat, meal by meal sets the supra in the context of everyday Georgian eating habits, since a supra is closer to a special-occasion peak than a typical weeknight meal.

Chacha and the closing toasts

As the evening winds toward its end, wine sometimes gives way to chacha, Georgia’s grape pomace brandy, for a final round of shorter, sharper toasts. It is considerably stronger than the wine that preceded it, and pacing yourself through the earlier toasts matters more if chacha is likely to appear later. Chacha: what it is and how not to overdo it is worth reading before a supra you expect to run long, purely for the practical advice on pacing.

Food that outlasts the toasts

The food at a supra is abundant enough that it rarely runs out before the toasts do — khinkali, Georgia’s dumplings, eaten by hand and never with a fork, alongside multiple styles of khachapuri and a long list of vegetable and bean dishes that keep the table full for hours. Khinkali: how to order and how to eat them covers the etiquette specific to that dish, including the twisted knot at the top that is traditionally left uneaten, and Every kind of khachapuri, region by region is worth reading if you want to recognise what is actually in front of you.

If you don’t drink

Declining alcohol at a supra is entirely possible and increasingly common, and a good host will accommodate it without much fuss — lemonade or grape juice poured alongside the wine works as a substitute, and you can still take part in every toast by raising whatever is in your glass. The social pressure to drink specifically is often gentler than visitors expect going in, though it helps to say so early rather than let the assumption run unchallenged for several rounds.

Where to experience a supra without an invitation

You do not need a personal invitation to see this culture in practice. A cooking class built around a full meal, several restaurants that run something closer to a staged supra, and guided feast experiences all give a genuine, if slightly more curated, version of the same structure. Cooking classes in Tbilisi: what you actually learn and Where to eat in Tbilisi both point toward places that take the format seriously rather than performing a diluted version of it, and Tbilisi wine bars worth a second glass is a lower-commitment way into the wine side of the culture if a full supra is more than you are looking for on a given evening.

Tbilisitraditional Georgian Feast Master Class All Included and Tbilisi: Retro Car City Tour Georgian Supra Feast both build a version of the format for visitors specifically, complete with a tamada leading the toasts, which is a reasonable way to understand the structure before you are handed an alaverdi at someone’s actual family table.

Frequently asked questions about supra toasts

What is a tamada? The toastmaster who leads a Georgian supra, responsible for proposing and structuring every toast of the evening in a roughly set order, usually chosen by the host at the start of the meal.

How many toasts happen at a typical supra? There is no fixed number, but a proper supra can easily run to a dozen or more toasts over the course of an evening, covering peace, family, the homeland, love, and the dead, among other recurring themes.

Is it rude to refuse to drink at a supra? No, not if you say so early and simply raise a non-alcoholic drink for each toast instead — most hosts will accommodate this without making it awkward, though it helps to mention it near the start of the meal.

What does alaverdi mean at a Georgian supra? It refers to passing a toast, or the obligation to add to one, from the tamada to another guest at the table, who is then expected to say a few words of their own before the group drinks.

Do you have to finish your glass at every toast? No, a sip is generally sufficient for most toasts, though a handful of the more significant ones — often to the host or to parents — are more commonly drunk in full.