What Is a Tamada? Georgian Toasts and Supra Rules Explained

Quick answer

A tamada is the toastmaster of a Georgian supra: the one person who proposes every toast, speaks on its theme, decides when the table drinks and passes the toast on to others (alaverdi). Toasts are short speeches, not a clink, and they follow a rough order from God, peace and Georgia through parents and the departed to friendship and the future. You drink when a toast ends, never between toasts, you do not talk while someone is speaking, and you will be asked to give one toast yourself: four sentences and gaumarjos, which is how you say cheers.

Cheers: Gaumarjos
Toasts a night: Ten or more
Who proposes: Tamada only
Your job: Listen, then drink

Plenty of countries are hospitable. Georgia built a set of rules around it, and the clearest place to see them is a table with a tamada: the toasts, their order, the pauses, the shift from a solemn opening to a man talking sincerely about his grandfather while everyone nods into amber wine. Our supra guide covers the whole feast, the food, the wine and how to find one. This page is the mechanics: what the tamada does, how a round of toasts actually runs, what alaverdi means, when to drink and what to say. The history is from Wikipedia's sourced articles on the supra and the tamada, checked 28 September 2026; the etiquette matches our Georgian etiquette guide, verified this month.

What a tamada is

The tamada (თამადა) leads the toasts, and at a Georgian table that means leading the evening. Only the tamada proposes a toast; everyone else develops it. They decide the themes, the order and the pace, call on people to speak, start the singing when the toasting flags, and keep a table of twenty from splintering into six conversations. Georgians like to say the tamada is the dictator of the table. Teacher is closer: the job is to hold the room together according to a logic everyone else already knows.

The role is younger than the feast. Drinking scenes fill medieval Georgian literature, but the word tamada, which Wikipedia traces to Circassian, and the ordered toast do not appear in the written record until the 19th century, and the philologist Levan Bregadze dates the modern supra to the decades after the Russian annexation. The word for a toast, sadghegrdzelo, literally "for long life", first turns up in a poem of the 1840s. None of that makes the ritual less serious; it makes it a living one.

What a good tamada needs, in the order Georgians give it: words, the ability to say freshly what is said at every table; organisation, a sense of rhythm for when to toast and when to let people eat and sing; sensitivity to the mood, noticing who has drifted and drawing them back with a toast or an alaverdi; enough force to get a table to stop talking as the night goes on; and the ability to empty a glass on every toast without ever appearing drunk. That last one is the qualification people mention first, and losing it is the one disgrace.

How a tamada is chosen

At a small family dinner nobody chooses: the head of the household takes the role. At a wedding or a wake the family asks someone known to be good at it, often weeks ahead. At a mid-sized table the guests do it themselves: one of them, usually the oldest, proposes a name, the others agree, and the proposer raises the first toast to the new tamada, who then leads every toast after it. If the person refuses, another name is put forward until someone accepts. When the tamada has been chosen in advance, the senior member of the family simply opens by toasting them. The role is still almost always male at traditional tables; in Tbilisi and among younger friends that is loosening.

Why the toasts are different

In most of Europe a toast is a trigger: someone says cheers, glasses touch, everyone drinks and the conversation goes on. In Georgia a toast is content. It is a short speech with a theme, and the table is expected to listen to it. Some are funny, some are blunt, some go on too long, but each one names something worth honouring: peace, the guests, parents, children, the dead, friendship, Georgia, the reason everyone is there. That is why a Georgian table feels emotionally denser than visitors expect. You are not just eating khachapuri; you are at a dinner where people repeatedly say in public what matters to them, and mean it.

How a round of toasts works

The tamada names a theme and speaks on it. While the tamada speaks, guests lift their glasses and hold them; nobody drinks. When the tamada finishes and drinks, the toast passes round the table, usually to the right. Each guest who wants to speak takes up the same theme, adds something of their own and drains their glass at the end of it. Someone who does not want to speak simply drinks after a line that lands for them. When everyone who wanted to has spoken, the tamada proposes the next theme and the cycle begins again. Eating through all of this is normal; talking is not. Between themes the tamada may also name a particular guest to continue a toast, which is alaverdi, below.

The usual order

There is no single script, and any two tamadas will order the evening differently. But traditional tables move from the large and formal to the small and personal, and the same themes appear at most of them.

When	Theme	What it does
Opening	God, peace, or the occasion itself	Sets the tone. At many tables the host first toasts the tamada, which is how the role is conferred.
Early	Georgia, the guests, parents and elders	The things that outrank anyone present. A foreign guest is often toasted here, by name.
Middle	Friendship, love, children, absent friends	The table warms up and the toasts get longer and more personal.
The quiet one	The departed	Glasses are raised, often not clinked, and the table is silent for a moment. Then children or the future, so the mood lifts.
Late	Health, luck, the host, whatever the room needs	The tamada reads the table and improvises. Singing usually starts about here.

The toast to the departed surprises visitors from cultures that keep grief and celebration in separate rooms. Here it sits in the middle of the party, glasses are raised and often not touched together, and a minute later the tamada toasts the children and the table is laughing again. Both the tamada and the guests are also expected, over a long evening, to toast every person present, naming what is best in them. Georgians do not consider this flattery; the idea is that someone told they are generous will find it harder to be mean.

A carved drinking horn full of red wine resting on a laid table beside two glasses of amber wine — The kantsi at a supra. A horn cannot be put down until it is empty, which is why it comes out for one toast, not all of them.

Alaverdi

Alaverdi (ალავერდი) is the tamada handing the toast to a named guest, who is granted the right to speak straight after the tamada and is expected to elaborate on the same toast, not start a new one. It is how a tamada draws a quiet guest back into the table, honours someone whose story fits the theme, or, with a foreign guest, gives them their moment. If the toast is to parents, talk about parents. If it is to friendship, do not pivot to your own country's beer.

The formula for a foreign guest: thank the tamada, honour the theme in two or three sentences, say one true and specific thing, finish with gaumarjos and drink. Georgia rewards sincerity far above rhetoric. Nobody wants a philosopher after two glasses of homemade wine.

When you drink

Visitors imagine a Georgian table as a full-glass endurance event. The rule is simpler and less frightening: wine follows the toast. You wait for it, raise your glass with everyone else, and drink when the speaker finishes. You do not sip halfway through because your mouth is dry, and you do not pour for yourself between toasts as if the tamada were background noise. The old ideal is that the glass is emptied on each toast, and at village and formal tables it still has teeth for the Georgian men present. Guests and women are given room to sip, and a foreign guest gets more room than anyone, but room is not invisibility: if the table stands for a toast, stand.

Cheers in Georgian, and the words around it

Word	Meaning
გაუმარჯოს gaumarjos	Cheers, literally a wish for victory. To one person: Giorgis gaumarjos, to Giorgi.
სადღეგრძელო sadghegrdzelo	A toast, from the words for "long life". Sadghegrdzelo gaumarjos closes many toasts.
ალავერდი alaverdi	Over to you: the tamada passes the toast to someone to continue it.
მრავალჟამიერ mravalzhamier	Many years. Said or sung after a toast to a person; the name of the table song.
შესანდობარი shesandobari	A toast to the dead, at a wake or at the memorial moment of a festive table.
თამადა tamada	The toastmaster. Also a compliment: a good host is "a real tamada".

Six words carry you through the evening, and the pronunciation is flat and even, with no strong stress, so they are easier than they look. If you want to go one step further and understand what the tamada is actually saying, the set phrases of a Georgian toast are formulaic enough to learn in an afternoon: EasyGeorgian's post on the structure of Georgian toasts takes them in the order they come at the table.

Your own toast

You will be asked, usually early, when the tamada toasts the guests. Stand if others have stood. Hold the glass. Thank the host by name, say what has struck you about Georgia or about the people at the table, wish the family one specific thing, and finish: sakartvelos gaumarjos, or the host's name and gaumarjos. Then drink and sit down. Four sentences is a complete toast; a minute is long. One line in Georgian at the end gets a bigger response than anything you could say in English, and a whole toast in Georgian is not expected.

What foreigners get wrong

The common mistake is watching the toasts as entertainment rather than joining them as a duty. The second is trying too hard: two Georgian words and a booming speech that gets away from you. The third is assuming more wine means more authenticity, when the whole culture of the tamada is built on control. The rest are small and avoidable.

Mistake	Why it lands badly
Talking while someone toasts	The one thing everyone at the table will notice. Eat, but do not chat.
Drinking between toasts	Wine follows the toast. Water and lemonade are there for thirst.
Clinking on the toast to the dead	Watch the table; if glasses stay down, yours does too.
Starting your own toast	Only the tamada proposes a theme. Wait to be given alaverdi.
Treating it as a show	It is not being performed for you. Listen the way the Georgians listen.
A long speech	Four sentences. Sincere beats clever, and short beats both.
Matching the locals glass for glass	You will not, and nobody is asking you to. Raise every glass; empty it when you choose.

Should you be tamada yourself

Almost never. If a small group of Georgian friends appoints you tamada for a relaxed dinner as a joke and everyone wants the bit, enjoy your short reign. At a real supra, with a family, elders, a wedding or a wake, the answer is no: the role carries weight you have not earned in a weekend, and the table knows it. What you can do is participate well, which is all anyone asks. Georgia rewards good-faith effort over perfect performance; understand which part of the evening is yours, and take it.

Frequently asked questions

What does tamada mean?

The tamada (თამადა) is the toastmaster who leads a Georgian supra: the one person who proposes each toast, decides its theme and when the table drinks, and hands the toast on to other speakers. Wikipedia traces the word to Circassian; it does not appear in Georgian writing before the 19th century, when the modern form of the feast took shape. Georgians also use it as a compliment for anyone who runs a table well.

How do you say cheers in Georgian?

Gaumarjos (გაუმარჯოს), pronounced roughly gau-mar-JOS with an even stress. It is a wish for victory rather than a word for drinking, and it ends almost every toast. To toast a person, put their name first: Ninos gaumarjos. Our Georgian phrases guide has the pronunciation of the words around it.

What is alaverdi?

The moment the tamada passes the toast to another guest, who is expected to continue the same theme, not start a new one. If you are given alaverdi, thank the tamada, say something on the theme in a few sentences, raise your glass with gaumarjos and drink. Wiktionary describes it exactly that way: the person chosen speaks right after the tamada and elaborates on the toast.

Do I have to drink at every toast?

You have to raise your glass at every toast and drink when it ends, not between. Georgian men usually empty the glass; guests and women at most tables sip, and nobody counts. If you do not drink alcohol, say so once and early, and toast with water or lemonade; the gesture is what matters. Pretending to drink from a glass that never goes down is noticed more than a plain no.

Can a woman be tamada?

At a traditional family, village or wedding table the role is still almost always held by a man. Among friends in Tbilisi it is increasingly ordinary for a woman to lead, and a woman guest asked to give a toast is following the same rules as anyone else. Nothing about the toast itself changes.

Should I try to give a toast in Georgian?

One sentence, yes. Learn the host's name, say "Ninos gaumarjos" or "Sakartvelos gaumarjos" (to Georgia) at the end of a short toast in English, and you will get a warmer reaction than any speech. A whole toast in Georgian is not expected, and a long attempt that goes wrong is harder on you than on the table.

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