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Fenspace' Favourite tipples...
03-13-2014, 08:50 PM
Or what is there to drink in space that's good?
There's been some touching on it - I recall the GC crew making homebrew, Brubeks , Crystal Sapporo and somebody going around in the Whisky business (I can't recall who), but what exactly is there, out there?
Including various attempts at a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and the few bottles of Rocket Fuel that got released into the wild.
Why do I suddenly want to create a page called "Alcoholic beverages of Fenspace'? It may have something to do with the Laphroaig...
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As mentioned in the Fenspace Travel Guide, Manny O'Kelly's Bar and Grill always has Crystal Sapporo Dry on tap, and the restaurant on Stellvia serves Crystal Sapporo Dark and (occasionally) Grovers' Corners Cream.
That's pretty much it for the named "Solar System's Finest beverages," at least on the wiki. I agree that this needs more content.
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I really ought to come up with some names for various GC brews, although the timeline divergence is not so early that one of them wouldn't be "Copper Pipe".
And I'm pretty sure someone must be brewing http://tomsmith.bandcamp.com/track/307-ale]307 Ale.
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There's at least one bottle of Klatchian Habanero liqueur out there somewhere, but whether or not anybody drinks it I'm not sure. It might be like those '16,000,000 Scoville Special Reserve' hot sauces that people buy for the novelty value rather than use.
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Microbreweries and personal stills are probably endemic to Fenspace at this point. There may well be a "moonshine barter sub-economy" in many places.
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The whisky business is Andy's hobby. Note that what gets sold is the stuff that doesn't meet Andy's very high standards (80% of people would consider the leftover as very good themselves; there are collectors in Earth who'd pay significant amounts for certain batches). He also does small amounts of Firewhisky, which the Wizards want a lot of. Occasionally he does Vodka as well.
In this case he doesn't get enough demand to put together a full time business, but what he does get is more a specialist market.
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Time to start putting something together. As a rough outline.
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Good alcohol makes for a good trade. As something that can be both enjoyed and easily transported, but at the same time requiring extensive resources, biomass and clean water to properly produce. Many of the more settled fen, with space or energy to spare may dabble a hand from time to time, with the results varying wildly from stunningly good, to potential poison.
Wines are much less common, with proper vinyards requiring a large land area and good soil to properly establish. (It might be possible with a Wonderland-type setup, but hideously expensive). Grains are 'reasonably' easier to source for beers or whiskies. Further out past the main belt, there are those will take any source of sugar and yeast, and work with the results to try and make 'something' drinkable, with levels of success varying as much as the ingredients. Distilled spirits tend to be popular - especially at higher ABV - simply because it simplifies transport, by reducing the volume and mass required.
Some settlements frown on alcohol to a point, many banning stronger spirits, with various 'dry' stations and towns being dotted around the main belt- especially those with more puritanical settlers. Outright prohibition tends to be about as effective as it was a century ago and smuggling to dry towns is rife. (And lucrative. And generally ignored by all but local lawmen)
Law enforcement takes a dim-view of being drunk in charge of a spacecraft - though with most people's spacecraft also being their home it tends not to come up unless someone specifically causes trouble or an accident.
There're three main sources of alcoholic refreshment in Fenspace:
The various homebrewers and distillers.
Bars and restaraunts that have their own unique styles from attached microbreweries or distillers.
The larger, dedicated brewing and distilling companies
==Commercial===
Big commercial groups that're in it for profit - and probably being courted by some of the bigger names in the mundane industry keen to step offworld.
Crystal Sapporo
Crystal Sapporo is one of the largest breweries off-Earth, though compared with some of the Earther breweries it's on a capacity-par with some of the smaller regional breweries. Rumours of an upcoming purchase by either AB InBev or Heineken Group continually surface, as do trademark concerns. Aside from producing it's own styles of beer (Dry, a strong Dunkel, a Stout ....etc..) , the Sapporo brewery also produces some common mundane beers on contract for off-Earth consumption.
Master Brewer is Jan Haur - headhunted from a mundane munich brewery as part of the owner's expansion plans. It imports most of it's grain and hops from Earth, and has a very European character.
All Crystal Sapporo beer is produced at a naturally high ABV for shipping - to reduce transport costs - before being properly diluted to the correct levels on arrival, prior to bottling or drinking.
Serenity Brewing Company
Serenity Brewing Company, a Blue Sun subsidiary, is steadily growing out in Serenity Valley.
Red Planet Distilleries[b]
Mars-based, and one of the first commercial whiskey distilleries established off-Earth. Uses lowered air-pressure to allow distillation at a lower temperature (originally implemented solely to reduce thermal energy requirements), giving the resulting triple-distilled spirit a 'unique' character. Already assimilated by international (now interplanetary) drinks-conglomerate Diageo, some of the distillery's output ends up blended somewhere within the vast conglomerate, but a few of the newer bottlings from the distillery have been noted for their 'unique' Martian character when compared with Earth whiskies, and sell for far more to collectors than they should be worth in a sane world. The newly-released ten year old pure pot still is quite nice, though not worth the price it goes for.
=== Brewpubs and the like ==
Brubeks. Brubeks everywhere.
Restaraunts on Stellvia Hotels facilities.
Ale Blue Dot:
Selling it's own IPA, Witch Head Nebula and 307 Ale.
Three Broomsticks of Hogsmeade, selling Butterbear.
=====Homebrew and Moonshine ==
Then there're the home distillers and brewers - people putting out their own drink either as a form of trade good, or just something to be enjoyed and shared. Usually fen who've settled down and have the space and energy to put into brewing and distilling, either as a hobby, or just trying for something unique. Spacecraft-based fen tend not to have the space to brew or distill safely, though this still hasn't stopped some. Quality varies wildly (From the sublime and purw , to 'fermented under a warm diesel-engine block in a plastic milk jug' horrible that's good only for getting drunk), as do levels of commitment, but a few consistently good names -or just plain 'unique' beverages - have become trade items in their own right. Some of the best or rarest can demand fantastic premiums.
One of the more noteworthy source of good quality beer - or even good-quality ingredients for good-quality beer- would be Grover's Corners. Grovers Corners Cream is occasionally served in Stellvia's restaraunt.
(More detail maybe?)
Whisky especially is a hobby of Andy McMurdo. What does gets sold is the stuff that doesn't meet Andy's very high standards (80% of people would consider the leftover as very good themselves; there are collectors in Earth who'd pay significant amounts for certain batches). He also does small amounts of Firewhisky, which the Wizards want a lot of. Occasionally he does Vodka as well. In this case he doesn't get enough demand to put together a full time business, but what he does get is more a specialist market.
At the other end of the scale there is the just plain bizarre and unusual - one-off bottles of various liqueurs, poitins and wiskies that by accident or design may have come to include various wave-effects, unusual ingredients or just plain bat-shit reputations. Most fade quickly into obscurity, but a few have become known in their own right - divorced from whomever originally created them - becoming notorious for flavour or for side-effect. Most only ever exist as single-bottlings, made by some fan to celebrate a special occasion or just to pass out amongst friends, and only ever become known after the majority has already been enjoyed, leaving only jealously-guarded single bottles than can fetch surprising amounts considering their erstwhile humble origins.
Typical of these would be 'Rocket Fuel'... a Klatchian Coffee liquer. Produced as a one-time-only attempt at an interesting Christmas gift, and now valued more for its sheer rarity and by reputation as being an entertaining drunken blue-hair day in a bottle, than for any intrinsic value or flavour quality. Maybe only two-dozen bottles or so ever existed, though the resulting videos scattered across the interwave will survive for far longer.[/b]
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=== Non-alcoholic drinks ===
The canteens of Catgirl Industries are known to supply a huge diversity of carbonated beverages. The catgirls always seems to have a small stock of most kind of this drinks and are normally willing to share them with visitors. A long series of blue hair days also ended with the construction of an 'universal soft drink' machine, which accepts encoded plastic cards with a recipe and produce a drink within a few moments. The machine is often a bit quirky which leads to soft drinks that are not exactly what the user had in mind.
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Anywhere there are victims of the Catgirl Machine, there you find carbonated soft drinks. However, some of the Lunar Root Beers are better known for their high sassafrass oil content. Non-catgirls will find them very earthy and old-timey. Catgirls will get piss drunk on par with a high ABV malt liquor.
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Foxboy Wrote:Anywhere there are victims of the Catgirl Machine, there you find carbonated soft drinks. However, some of the Lunar Root Beers are better known for their high sassafrass oil content. Non-catgirls will find them very earthy and old-timey. Catgirls will get piss drunk on par with a high ABV malt liquor. "I know this damned stuff, some people really like it to take a catgirl into a bar and get it really drunk... but be careful what you wish for, some catgirls like to scratch things when they get drunk, some don't cannot tolerate and might puke on you, others become very aggressive cuddlers. Don't complain if the next morning is more embarrassing to you than to the catgirl with the hangover."
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One of Serenity Brewing's sidelines, past the specialty beers and whiskys, is a range of creme liqueurs. Reportedly originally requested by a special client (many of the SMOFs suspect - or know - who it was, particularly because the first shindigs it debuted at were thrown by Jupiter Mining Corporation staff), it has turned into a nicely popular sideline for those who don't care for the more common libations, but can't (or won't) justify paying the cost for wines. So far, they have Normal, Strawberry, Orange, Amarula, and Banana.
There have been rumors of one of the Trekkie subfactions attempting to modify a Blood Orange tree to produce fruit that will enable the creation of a "proper" Blood Wine. To date, all it remains is a rumor, with most Trekkies vehemently denying it, and the Klingon subfaction members merely saying, "you know, that would be nice."
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Dartz Wrote:Three Broomsticks of Hogsmeade, selling Butterbear. (raises eyebrow) Black, brown, or grizzly butterbear?
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Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
I really ought to come up with some names for various GC brews, although the timeline divergence is not so early that one of them wouldn't be "Copper Pipe".
And I'm pretty sure someone must be brewing 307 Ale.
Now that is a song for "Area Effect: Falling Down Drunk".
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any knowledge of Mead making, i'm sure the SCAdians are up to it whereever they're
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Rajvik Wrote:any knowledge of Mead making, i'm sure the SCAdians are up to it whereever they're Well, there are Renfaire folks on asteroid Gubbio... but I don't know whether they have any bees, let alone honey.
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Oh trust me, John Freiler's avatar on the Corners is quote adept at mead. The real one gave bottles out as a Christmas present ten or so years ago.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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