Chương 120: Chapter 117 - Whisky, finally

The city's day off had done very little for Stromni's forge. Outside, the streets had quieted. Fewer carts passed. Fewer voices carried. The city had been told to rest and had taken that as a suggestion. Inside, the prototype still sat near the side hearth. It was the small one, according to Stromni, which meant it only took two men to move badly and three to move without inventing new swear words.

The copper belly was dull from heat, the neck rose into a short arm, and the arm fed the coil sitting in a cooling barrel beside it. The thumper rested nearby on a stool, disconnected for this run and looking faintly forlorn. It did not look like a finished thing. It looked like a mistake that had been improved several times. Stromni crouched under the pot with one hand on the bracket he had fixed beneath it. Three slots had been cut for the heating stone, each a different distance from the copper.

The idea was simple enough. Move the stone closer or farther depending on how hard the still was running. In practice, the still treated the arrangement as advice.

"Try it there," Stromni said. Alric shifted the heating stone down one slot with the tongs. Heat rolled over his hand even through the glove. The copper ticked, and both men waited. Alric looked at the bracket.

"The big one shouldn't need this much attention. We just add or remove stones."

"The big one will have its own ways of being a bastard." Alric opened his mouth, then closed it again because that was almost certainly true. Stromni stood and wiped his hands on a rag. Behind him, the bench was covered in copper sheets, rivet stock, charcoal marks, and one hammer that had been placed in the middle of a drawing with the authority of a legal seal. The new still was coming together slowly. Copper was still arriving in pieces, and Stromni treated each piece as if it had arrived under suspicion.

Alric turned back to the prototype and sniffed. This run smelled better. No heavy wet-grain stink, no thumper confusing things, no strange heaviness pushing through the vapour too early. They had disconnected the thumper for the spirit run, leaving everything to travel straight through the arm and into the worm. Every tankard they owned had been lined up along the bench. Several cups had joined them. There was also a small bowl near the end of the line. Alric had not put it there. Stromni had not admitted to it.

The first tankard had already caught its measure, and the second was filling slowly, drop by drop, with the steady patience of something expensive wasting time. Stromni watched it for a while, then looked over when Alric reached for his item box.

"While we wait," Alric said.

"That the wine thing?"

"The wine thing." Stromni still said wine should not need help, and Alric still said it did when it was not very good. That seemed to satisfy no one, but it did allow him to pour a small measure into a cup and pass it over. The fortified wine was dark red and thicker than the original wine had deserved. Stromni sniffed it first. He always sniffed first. Then he took a proper swallow.

"Fwah." He looked into the cup, then at Alric, then back into the cup as if expecting the explanation to rise from the liquid on its own.

"This is dangerous," he said. Alric waited a moment.

"You like it?"

"It tastes like sweet wine and then stands up behind yer eyes with a hammer."

"That sounds like you like it."

"I didn't say I didn't." Alric explained that he had used the clean medical alcohol from the first runs to fortify it. Stromni's next sip was much smaller, which told Alric everything he needed to know. After a few more moments of suspicious respect, the dwarf admitted it was good, though he sounded annoyed by the discovery.

"Beer was enough," Stromni said.

"It is old-world knowledge, mostly. We call this port."

"Yer old world should have learnt restraint." Alric poured himself a little and tasted it. Still young, but the strong grape flavour carried it. It was sweet, certainly, but with enough heat to make the wine seem as if it had developed convictions.

"I've got two port butts of it." Stromni lowered his cup.

"Two, of this? Who are ya selling it to?"

"I don't know yet."

"That keeps happening around you."

"Moreen does not think the wine will sell quickly. Actually, he doesn't think it will sell at all, but this needs to age anyway." Stromni grunted, unconvinced but still drinking. Alric changed the second tankard for the third and said, almost too casually, "Besides, when it sells, you get a cut." The dwarf looked at him.

"The still, the spirit, the work," Alric said.

"We're partners. This used alcohol from the previous runs, remember?" The forge went quiet in the small way working rooms did when something had been said that was not work. Coal shifted in the hearth. A tool settled somewhere on the bench with a faint click. Stromni looked back into his cup.

"Aye," he said.

"That sounds expensive." He leaned back against the bench, cup still in hand, and nodded toward the still as if returning them both to safer ground.

"Speaking of expensive. The king," Stromni said, giving Alric an amused look. Alric closed his eyes.

"I was having a nice moment."

"I got a backstory for ya, lad. It's a lie, but more believable than a god no one has heard of sending you here." Stromni said it with a grin as he began to explain. The pair argued back and forth as the still continued to drip, the line of tankards growing as they were swapped out. Eventually, the smell changed. Beneath the alcohol heat and the grain sweetness, something heavier had begun to show itself. Damp, a little burnt, not strong yet, but there. Stromni noticed him go still and straightened.

"Tails," Alric said. He took the heating stone out with the tongs and carried it to the forge cradle. It glowed there, angry but useful. The prototype slowed at once, though it continued dripping, just enough to not let anyone leave with confidence. They started at the beginning of the line. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"Before we start, explain this all again." Stromni said pointing to the line.

"Alright, the still gives us a few things, some early, middle and late. Some good, some bad." Alric said eyeing him.

"Aye, that first thing ya threw away?"

"Fore shots. It has a lot of something called 'methanol' in it. It's bad but not useful poison bad. It can make you go blind, enough will kill you. Not fast enough that adventurers might buy it, I see how you thinking." Alric explained. Stromni grunted and nodded. Alric continued, "After that comes heads. Less methanol, tastes bad. Useful for a few things. Cleaning for one, we keep it."

"Aye, ya sure love ta clean." Stromni said looking at the early tankards.

"Not quite. It's... stronger than that. Like healers would want it to clean surfaces so people don't get... more sick."

"Aye, and then?"

"Then we get hearts. The good stuff. That's whisky." Alric said gesturing vaguely to the long line of cups and tankards.

"Then tails ya said?"

"Then tails. We keep it too, add it to the next run. It's flavor bad. All the oily, heavy and burnt flavors are there."

"Aye. Think I get it. We do the cuts ya said? So we figurin' out what's what" Stromni said pointing at the first tankard. The first tankard was clear and bright. It looked harmless, as unsafe things often did. Alric sniffed it and moved it aside. Stromni leaned in, pulled back, and said it was wrong.

"That's heads," Alric said.

"We don't drink that." Stromni picked it up anyway. Alric stared at him until the dwarf lifted one shoulder.

"I heard ya. But now I know not ta drink it. I don't know why."

"You can smell why." Stromni took the smallest sip Alric had ever seen a dwarf take. His face changed. He spat into the ash bucket, grabbed the cup of port, rinsed his mouth, and spat again with more conviction.

"Don't use the port for that."

"It was that or scrape my tongue."

"That was expensive."

"So was the lesson." Stromni wiped his beard and glared at the tankard as if it had betrayed a trade agreement.

"Alchemists. Sell it to alchemists."

"It is not safe."

"I didn't say taverns. Alchemists buy things that smell like punishment." Alric considered that and disliked how reasonable it was. He had intended to keep it for disinfectant. They moved on before it could become a business plan. The second tankard still had the sharpness. The third was better. The fifth made him pause, then shake his head. Stromni sniffed each one, occasionally frowning, occasionally looking at Alric as if expecting him to do something strange.

The bench had seemed long enough before they started. Now it felt crowded. By the eighth tankard, Alric stopped. This one was still raw and too strong. Young enough to make a fool of itself. But under the heat there was grain, sweetness, and something cleaner. He tasted a drop. It burned because the proof was still too high, but after the burn came malt.

"Here," Alric said. Stromni sniffed it first this time. Progress. He tasted, narrowed his eyes, and did not spit.

"That's drink?" he asked.

"That's the start of it."

"Still bites."

"It will. It's too strong and too young, but this is the heart. Somewhere around here is the cut." Stromni looked back toward the earlier tankards. Alric saw the calculation beginning and cut it off before it could become practical.

"We are not building a business plan on the part that made you spit."

"Shame. It had character."

"It had crimes." They worked along the row more slowly after that. Alric marked the likely hearts with charcoal beside the bench. Stromni watched, asked fewer questions, and began reaching for tankards before Alric handed them over. His nose was better than Alric expected. Or perhaps it was exactly as good as a man's nose became after years of hot metal, bad coal, oil, smoke, and merchants lying about materials. The forge settled around them. The prototype still dripped less and less.

The air smelled of copper, cooling stone, spirit, smoke, and the dark sweetness of the port Stromni had stopped wasting. Then Stromni lifted one of the later tankards and frowned.

"Burnt." Alric smelled it, then tasted barely enough to count. Heavy and oily now. Bitter in a way that would not become charming because he wanted more volume.

"Tails. Not poison bad. Flavour bad remember." Stromni studied the rest of the row as though they were pieces of metal with poor temper.

"How much do we lose?"

"Depends how greedy we are."

"That's a sentence that kills men." Alric nodded. They could cut later. Get more spirit. Barrels and time could hide some of it, and blending could help, but it would not be as clean. Saying it aloud made it sound simple, but the tankards did not feel simple. Each one held a different answer, and the answers were close enough together to be annoying.

"So," Alric said, "good drink or more drink?" Stromni gave him a look.

"Don't ask questions where ya already know the answer." Alric waited.

"We make it good, lad." There was no ceremony to it. Stromni moved the charcoal marker back one tankard, then another after smelling it again. Alric let him. The dwarf had caught the turn early, and Alric trusted that more than he trusted a neat plan. They poured the hearts into a clean copper pail first, then into the better cask waiting near the wall. It was not large or impressive. Just tight, clean wood.

Stromni had checked it twice and insulted it once, which seemed to have satisfied both craft and superstition. The spirit went in clear. Alric added filtered water slowly, watching the spirit cloud briefly before it settled again. He swirled the cask carefully, trying not to slosh it like a man who had no respect for his own work. Stromni watched the whole thing with his arms folded.

"How do ya know how much?"

"I don't. Not exactly."

"That's grand."

"I know the direction. If it burns blue, like with a blue flame, that gives me a rough idea, but rough is doing a lot of work there." Alric looked down at the cask and felt, not for the first time, the irritation of knowing exactly what tool he wanted and having no simple way to get it.

"I need a hydrometer." Stromni waited.

"A floating measuring tool," Alric said.

"For strength."

"Course ya do."

"It is a later problem."

"Aye. We've got a healthy crop of those." They sealed the cask. For a moment both men stood there looking at it. It did not look like much. That was the annoying part. Grain, heat, copper, careful cuts, all of it had become a sealed cask that could have held anything. A man could walk past it and never know it mattered. Stromni leaned closer.

"Still smells fierce."

"It will for a long time."

"How long?"

"Years, ideally." Stromni looked at him.

"For one drink?"

"For good whisky." The dwarf considered that, then shook his head.

"Humans are strange about time."

"Dwarves are not?"

"We are strange properly." Stromni picked up his port again and turned his attention back to the sealed cask.

"What changes next time, then? How do we make it better?"

"Better grain would help." Stromni's expression became less hopeful.

"I said help," Alric added.

"Not happen. The grain is fine for beer. Whisky is less forgiving. Bad grain does not vanish. It waits until you've spent money."

"Thought barrels hide that."

"They can help." Alric tapped the sealed cask lightly.

"That is the plan for the early batches. Seasoned barrels." Stromni frowned.

"Explain."

"Whisky takes flavour from wood. If the barrel held something before, it can take flavour from that too. Wine barrels. Port barrels. Later, beer barrels."

"Beer barrels?"

"Strong beer. Heavily hopped beer. It seasons the wood. Then whisky goes in afterward and pulls something different out." Stromni stared at the cask, then at Alric.

"Ya are telling me barrels remember?"

"In a way."

"That sounds like trouble."

"It is useful trouble."

"Most trouble is useful after you've decided to keep it." Alric smiled despite himself.

"Wine barrels give fruit. Port barrels give sweetness. Beer-seasoned barrels give something else. We fill different barrels, age them, then blend them."

"Because the grain's not good enough. Say that first next time."

"Fine. We are hiding flaws." Stromni nodded.

"Better."

"And building flavour."

"Also better."

"And creating a storage problem." Alric looked around the forge, then thought of the new inn cellar and the still house that was about to become a problem with walls.

"A large one. Might need another warehouse." Stromni looked at him oddly.

"Why would ya keep it?"

"To age."

"Yourself?"

"Yes?"

"That's a rich man's hobby, lad." Alric paused to glance at him. Stromni took another sip of port and gestured with the cup.

"Nobles buy young spirit by the cask. Some merchants too, if they're trying to become furniture in better rooms. They put it in their own cellars and age it there."

"Why?"

"Because then it's theirs. Their cellar. Their cask. Their year. Their table. They get ta feel involved without doing any work that ruins boots." Alric stared at him long enough for Stromni to frown.

"What?"

"That solves storage," Alric said slowly.

"And it gets coin in sooner."

"Some."

"It means I'm not storing unfinished whisky," Alric said slowly.

"They are storing their own casks." A moment ago, the cask had been a promise he had nowhere to put. It made sense though, it was an investment that would gain value. Alric looked over the bench again. Heads. Hearts. Tails. Not waste, exactly. Just things he did not yet have safe uses for, which was how several bad ideas had started. The thought irritated him because it was useful, and useful thoughts tended to bring friends.

"Do they blend it themselves?" he asked.

"Some. Most pretend. Stewards know more than them, same as always." Stromni finished the last of the port and set the cup down with care.

"This is still dangerous."

"The port?"

"The whisky. The port. You. All of it." Stromni tapped the sealed cask with one knuckle.

"But the drink's good."

"It isn't whisky yet."

"It will be." The words sat there, simple and solid. Alric looked around the forge. The prototype still was cooling. The copper for the larger still waited on the bench. The tankards stood in a line, each holding evidence that the process worked if treated carefully and did terrible things if trusted too soon. Outside, the city remained on its day off. Inside, Alric realised they had just made themselves busier. He sighed. Stromni's mouth twitched.

"What now?"

"Now I need more barrels and more grain, the big still is going to want a lot of both."