I Be Makin' MOONSHINE [Research/Solo]

[Tobin]

(OOC: This is likely to be a solo thread. If you wish to join however, mainly if you got something to spice the wine up, send me a pm and I'll see whether it's worth figuring out.)

Word Count: 444

Tobin sighed as he breathed in the night air and strode into the station at the dead of night. At this time of year one could already taste the lingering hint of the northern winter winds, a sign of the steady decline of the summer days. Even so the cool air was sweet, it steadied his nerves for the unrequested commission he was about to do.

The dwarf paused at the entrance, the cuboid shape melted into the shadows as he peered into the faint lamplights of the now clear train station. Satisfied that no one he knew was currently there, the cuboid darted out of the shadows with a swift stride, the loud clunk of heavy boot masked by the work of devoted smiths as he darted into one of the unoccupied craft rooms and drew the curtains behind him. It was a humble quarter with a broad, empty table and a floor, kept simple so that the crafters could carry out their own work.

-Jeez, I feel like a ninja, or a naughty school boy. Still, I couldn't have done this at the guild house, Kyuu would probably be on it like a bloodhound on body odours, or a sniffer hound on crack.-

The dwarf shivered as he drew his cloak open and his interphase flickered on. The broad shovel hands danced nimbly on the panels as he deposited several items on the table, including a sturdy lamp, a broad bucket and several bags of freshly picked red apples. Research crafting had been an activity he had avoided like the plague up to now, the intensive labour involved and the often absence of company made it a lonesome activity compared to serving at a bar or Cafe. The sudden announcement of an upcoming wedding at such short notice had forced his hand. True to form the outgoing biped was going to pull out all the stops for this big occasion! Though whether that was in their best interests was questionable. Furthermore more the dwarf, in the power couples infinite wisdom, had been appointed their marriage adjudicator!

-By Lord Biscuit, I hope they know what they are getting themselves into. Marrage is already crazy enough.-

The dwarf gave a tired chuckle as he whipped an apple out of the bag and took a firm bite out of it, the lamp was brought closer as he flipped open an archaic textbook and began to adopt the practice of reading.

I know. The Dwarf as a priest, that's pretty crazy even by my weird standards, do you agree avid readers? Though there was a certain irony in being the priest that bestowed spirits. Most delicious.

[Tobin]

(OOC: Bored.)

Word Count: 479

-Tobin, you are aware that someone researched this already, right?-

-Wait what... I thought you were meant to be tellin' me that? You daft sod?-

-Sorry. This is seriously the first bit of research I've ever commisisoned. I am a disorgansied sod at the best of times. >_>;-

-Damn author! Now what do I do?! Wait a second-.

The dwarf paused as he pulled his head out of the literature and cast his glance over to the apples, and flicked out another piece of recent parchment and a jar of clear, pure fluid. A simple list of ingredients from a previous, unofficial bit of handiwork he had done earlier. Though he had been unaware of it at the time, when he worked on the farm lands he had helped establish a unique, distilled brew that had a much greater potency of alcohol then anything that had come before it. The principle really had been quite simple, create alcohol, heat it up and run the alcohol vapour it through a distiller. Possible as ethanol had a lower boiling point then water and other impurities, thus in principle the final product would be mostly pure ethanol. The result was a concentrated product that one probably run a car with, though more likely it would be used to go from zero to drunk in 3.2 seconds.

-That’s it! Distilled Spirits! The perfect gift! Though got to take care of all these apples somehow.-

The lazy blue eyed stare turned towards the apples as his bushy eyebrows rose. Sure, he was going to make apple wine anyway for the party, but it seemed a shame to use all of them for a brand that already existed. The more pressing keyed problem with the distilled spirits is it tasted terrible, something he doubted that the Samuari cared about hugely, but it would be nicer if it could be actually enjoyed rather than endured.

A loud crunch the dwarf ripped another chunk out of the apple and ground with a sharp, then savoured the flavour as it filtered out of the pauperised flesh. The apples flavour had a sharp citrus tongue that was offset by certain sweetness. A gentle scratching of ink on parchment broke the silence as he recorded the observation, perhaps masking the power of the liquor with a bit of flavouring would provide a potent punch that wouldn't be like drinking petrol, though the theory was often the simpliest part.

"Well, I dun't hav' much time fa this in any case. Gonna hav' ta shop tomorrow and try and brew within the next few days."

There was a heavy sigh as the dwarf stretched against the chair with a shiver, before he filled the bucket with red apples and put it on the ground, pulling a bonze knuckleduster as he prepared to pound the crap out of the harmless orbs of joy.

[Tobin]

Word count: 539

The dwarf returned the next night with an inventory just over his encumbrance threshold, the large dwarf staggered back into the room with a barrel slung up on each shoulder, only when they were slammed loudly onto the table did the dwarf allow himself to release the wind out of his lungs.

"Bugger me, tha' were hard work."

With a sharp jerk of his hand he ripped the top of both barrels off, packed to the brim with corn and wheat that had been carelessly stuffed in. The merry creature gave a chuckle as he lit the lamp and allowed his fingers to dance over the interphase once more as more barrels were pulled out, by the end there was six total that probably weighed between 140 to 180 kg. Thankfully the inventory system was such a convenient Mary Sue device of the lifting world, especially since the manly dwarf had chosen to pump strength to satisfy his personal inadequacies. In addition he pulled out one, huge hallow copper container, rectangular in shape that had been hammered and shouldered together to house the ingredients, that was twice the size of the gnome sized barrels he had bundled in and as wide as himself. Not that anyone knew how tall a gnome was, but the broad brass container came up to the dwarfs chin when placed on a sturdy metal stand.

With the room now beginning to look like a witch doctors office, the dwarf got to work, hoisting the barrel of corn between both palms before he roughly tipped the entirety of its contents within the brass container. He repeated this with several more barrels of the corn/wheat mixture. Then, he systematically dismantled all the barrels by tearing the bands off and placed the wood under the container. The metal could be recycled, but the wood had a more immediate use as firewood. He then opened each of the remaining barrels that contained water, and he poured it in, a few times the load groans of the brewer made his eyebrow quake on the final barrel, though thankful it held silently.


"Errrm hopefully not lost mah touch."

The dwarf pulled out a pitchfork and rammed it into the congealed mixture of crop and water, his muscles strained as he stirred the entire mixture, once or twice flinching as the prongs scrapped against the foot of the barrel. It was at this point that the dwarf added yeast and a small bundle of mashed apples leftover from earlier to provide easy sugar. Last, but not least up to 6kg of yeast was poured into the mixture and the plate was sealed with a firm pair of hands, a little tinder was light and the fire was set to hasten the rate of conversion from sugar to alcohol. The dwarf let a content smile as he pulled up a chair and stared blankly into the flame, he would just have to monitor this over next 48 hours or so, if he recalled correctly, before he could move onto the next stage.

Well, that and Tobin was utterly bored, this aspect of brewing was like watching paint dry, or videos of cats on youtube. Did the author mention he hated writing solos?

[Tobin]

(OOC: Oh no I posted before I meant to, one minute. Yeah, not happy with lacking quaility of this post.)

Word Count: 615

"Gahh... This is like carryin’ mah mother on me back."

The dwarf grumbled as he trudged down the farmland path with a slow, relentless stride, the immensely large copper box strung up on his back. Unfortunately as distilleries were yet to be commonly available the dwarf had resorted to going back to a place that had one of these devices constructed. This had meant lugging the container, manually, to it's new location. The last time he came the pig had scoffed some of the corn, so he resorted sneaking in by the dead of night, with the silent prayer that the slight sloshing wouldn't draw attention. The dwarf found the irony in the name of Moonshine mildly amusing, since like the real world equivalent it was going to be distilled in the light of only the moon and flame.

"I donno 'bout white, but all them better be red by the time this weddin' be over."

With a heavy hand the dwarf forced open the barn door and was confronted by stacks upon stacks of golden corn, yet with a bit of effort he managed to navigate his way around to a hollow clearing, made clearly to conceal the instrument the illicit instrument there. The dwarf let a loud sigh go as he freed the container and slammed it down, loud cracks and rumbling groans left the squat’s body as he contorted out of his hunchback shape.

The distiller itself was a relatively simple device consisting of a large, iron barrel containing water. Within it ran a copper coil that had been fed into the bottom and poked out of the skin of the barrel at an angle and curved down to a open tap. The principle was quite simple, a container was attached to the bottom of the copper pipe and sealed shut. The container was then heated with an open flame to between 60/70 degrees, this would boil the ethanol, and the resulting vapour would travel up through the distiller. From there the water would absorb the heat and cause the gas to rapidly lose heat, so that any lower boiling impurities would be condensed sooner. Of course this required a precise length of copper coil to be used, as otherwise a lot of alcohol would be lost as vapour, but an acceptable risk in the grand scheme of things.

So the dwarf connected the mash container to the distiller and, with some time and with the aid of a fist full of dried corn lit a flame under under container. To that he added wood and let the flame burn stronger and stronger, the copper soon heated with loud creaks and crackles as a good heat conductor. With that the dwarf settled down to a long wait, a novel was flicked upon and for a breif period, he imagined puffing on a cigar while in a dressing gown. Before long, a gentle jingle accompanied the first trickle of pure clear fluid with a flick of his finger into his mouth the dwarf let out a loud sigh.

"OOOooooweee Tha' be strong liquor right ther'"

A chuckled rumbled from his stomach as he blew the vapour out his chest. Soon the trickle became a steady stream and soon all the dwarf had to do was keep the flame steady. After 5 hours had passed, and after around 30 glass jars of the liquor had been collected, the stream of clear moonshine dried up. The dwarf gave a satisfied chuckle as he finally slumped back against the hay and pulled out another 5 glass jars, containing clear water with apple slices floating within.

"I'll add this in a minute, just need an hour's kip."

[Tobin]

Word count: 279

"Gahh... Well, ta process has certainly worked, but it tastes too strong, lika battery fluid."

The sound of smacking lips filled the barn as he tasted the batch. Unfortunately, without a way to monitor temperature more precisely or actually measure the concentration of the ethanol content, there wasn't any way of introducing quality control to ensure he knew what was getting in his batches. Thus the final process of making this raw distilled spirit tastier was difficult. The dwarf held the container up and a glass jar of patriated apple juice. The juice itself was made from a simple concoction of 20 or so mashed apples and a small bag of brown sugar, to prevent all the particles getting into the spirits, the dwarf used a rag of silk brought from the market (for a high price) and poured directly into the glass jar. After adding roughly 50ml, the dwarf sipped again, a sharp cough confirmed it was too strong and he continued to pour. Until, after adding roughly 250 ml to a 750ml jam jar, that the taste of the raw spirit was muted enough to be pleasant, yet still have that raw kick that he desired.

"Guess ta's the best I can do with this equipment. Ya would have thought someone would be smart 'nough ta actually construct some tools by now."

The dwarf grumbled, bringing the next flask close to him. Principally the research was over, though he would likely add food dye and other flavours in later to add a bit more colour to this otherwise crude product.

Yes, this author really hates writing solo posts, it's comparable to levelling one handed skill in skyrim.