Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF General Discussion => Topic started by: Asin on September 24, 2016, 10:23:28 pm
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I desire to know what the community thinks certain alcoholic drinks would taste and look like, such as sunshine, sewer brew, the "dwarven" set (dwarven wine, dwarven beer, dwarven ale, and dwarven rum), whip wine, and banana beer. So would you be a good guy and help this lone guy figure out about these oh so strange brews?
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Dwarven wine is made from a mushroom. Mushrooms do not photosynthesize, so they do not "make" sugars. However they do produce enzymes that can break down complex carbohydrates into simple sugars. Some species sequester these simple saccharides (sweet tasting compounds) inside their flesh. For instance, one species of truffle from Hungary is said to taste sweet like honey. (http://sploid.gizmodo.com/this-is-the-only-mushroom-in-the-world-that-tastes-swee-1728320530) I do not think that there is a really good direct analog to plump helmets in the real world.
Being made from a mushroom, I expect an above average protein content, and a dark brown color, rather than purple, after fermentation. I would expect it to have a kind of "meaty" taste (strong "Umami" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami) flavor.)
Dwarven rum, made from sweetpods, is likely to taste a fair bit like normal rum, but the fact that it is not a distilled alcohol means it would be more like dark rum, with lots of plant flavinols present. I would expect it to be similar to the "Beer" created by many ethnic populations, created from the sugars found in the seed pods of various species of legume trees. I expect that the part that is brewed is the pod itself, which would explain why the seeds are not used up in the reaction. Many species of legume produce a sticky syrup or jelly like substance around the seeds inside the pod, such as that of Tamarinds, and Honey Locusts.
Banana beer is probably quite possible. Bananas contain a LOT of starch. The yeast that produces beer would break down that starch, and turn it first into simple sugars, and then into alcohol. Again, the flavinols of the plant matter would be present. I would expect a light amber color, with a strong banana flavor.
Whip vine is also its own thing. Without knowing more, I cant really guess too much about flavor. Personally, I would expect a clear liquor, and my imagination suggests something slightly cucumber flavored, or perhaps asian melon flavored.
Dwarven beer is likely to taste like any other beer. Especially if the cave wheat has a low protein content.
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Okay, but what about sewer brew and sunshine?
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Oh, and I almost forgot about swamp whiskey.
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Ingredient Beverage Produced Beverage Value Type Source
Plump helmet Dwarven Wine 2 Plant-based Indoors
Pig tail Dwarven Ale 2 Indoors
Cave wheat Dwarven Beer 2 Indoors
Sweet pod Dwarven Rum 2 Indoors
Muck root Swamp Whiskey 1 Outdoors
Bloated tuber Tuber Beer 2 Outdoors
Prickle berry Prickle Berry Wine 1 Outdoors
Longland grass Longland Beer 2 Outdoors
Rat weed Sewer Brew 1 Outdoors
Fisher berry Fisher Berry Wine 2 Outdoors
Rope reed River Spirits 2 Outdoors
Sliver barb Gutter Cruor 1 Outdoors
Sun berry Sunshine 5 Outdoors
Whip vine Whip Wine 3 Outdoors
Beet Beetroot Wine 2 Outdoors
Wild carrot Carrot Wine 2 Outdoors
Cassava Cassava Beer 2 Outdoors
Parsnip Parsnip Wine 2 Outdoors
Potato Potato Wine 2 Outdoors
Radish Radish Wine 2 Outdoors
Sweet potato Sweet Potato Wine 2 Outdoors
Turnip Turnip Wine 2 Outdoors
1-G wheat Single-grain Wheat Beer 2 Outdoors
2-G wheat Two-grain Wheat Beer 2 Outdoors
Soft wheat Soft Wheat Beer 2 Outdoors
Hard wheat Hard Wheat Beer 2 Outdoors
Spelt Spelt Beer 2 Outdoors
Barley Barley Wine 2 Outdoors
Buckwheat Buckwheat Beer 2 Outdoors
Rye Rye Beer 2 Outdoors
Sorghum Sorghum Beer 2 Outdoors
Rice Rice Beer 2 Outdoors
Maize Maize Beer 2 Outdoors
Quinoa Quinoa Beer 2 Outdoors
Kaniwa Kaniwa Beer 2 Outdoors
Pendant amaranth Pendant Amaranth Beer 2 Outdoors
Blood amaranth Blood Amaranth Beer 2 Outdoors
Purple amaranth Purple Amaranth Beer 2 Outdoors
Pearl millet Pearl Millet Beer 2 Outdoors
White millet White Millet Beer 2 Outdoors
Finger millet Finger Millet Beer 2 Outdoors
Foxtail millet Foxtail Millet Beer 2 Outdoors
Fonio Fonio Beer 2 Outdoors
Teff Teff Beer 2 Outdoors
Apple Apple Cider 2 Fruit-based Outdoors
Apricot Apricot Wine 2 Outdoors
Banana Banana Beer 2 Outdoors
Bayberry Bayberry Wine 2 Outdoors
Carambola Carambola Wine 2 Outdoors
Cherry Cherry Wine 2 Outdoors
Custard-apple Custard Apple Cider 2 Outdoors
Date Date Wine 2 Outdoors
Durian Durian Wine
Guava Guava Wine
Lychee Lychee Wine
Mango Mango Wine
Papaya Papaya Wine
Peach Peach Cider
Pear Perry
Persimmon Persimmon Wine
Plum Plum Wine
Pomegranate Pomegranate Wine
Rambutan Rambutan Wine
Sand pear Sand Pear Cider
Artichoke Artichoke Wine
Tomato Tomato Wine
Tomatillo Tomatillo Wine
Passion fruit Passion Fruit Wine
Grape Wine
Cranberry Cranberry Wine
Bilberry Bilberry Wine
Blueberry Blueberry Wine
Blackberry Blackberry Wine
Raspberry Raspberry Wine
Pineapple Pineapple Wine
Strawberry Strawberry Wine
Honey Mead
For reference.
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Oh yeah! And longland beer.
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Humans are almost as fond of alcohol as dwarfs so just google any of those real world ingredients followed by wine or beer. Chances are someone somewhere has made some somewhere, either as an experiment, joke or just due to desperation.
"Mushroom Wine
What? A mushroom wine. Brilliant clear yellow. It tastes almost like a conventional white wine made from grapes.
How? Cook & liquidise 1 kg of normal edible mushrooms until they are rendered down to a blackish slimy mass. Put it in the demijohn, add water & follow the basic recipe.
Why? After finding some people unexpectedly liked the chocolate wine, I was determined to make a really outrageous wine. Mushrooms were selling very cheap in the local market so I made a mushroom wine expecting it to be foul black in colour and musty tasting. I was surprised when it came out a clear elegant yellow and not very bad flavoured. I've even had a friend who did not notice this wine was not a normal white grape wine until told."
http://duramecho.com/Food/NoveltyWines.html
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Huh. I always thought of mushroom wine as some sort of vodka. Chop up some 'shrooms, let them rot up a bit and burn out the alcohol out of the mash. I think the wine part led me astray, made me think of burnt wine, which basically is vodka. I'd never thought you could make actual -wine- from the stuff.
Thanks for the link, Purdurabo, I might've found myself a new hobby.
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Huh. I always thought of mushroom wine as some sort of vodka. Chop up some 'shrooms, let them rot up a bit and burn out the alcohol out of the mash. I think the wine part led me astray, made me think of burnt wine, which basically is vodka. I'd never thought you could make actual -wine- from the stuff.
Thanks for the link, Purdurabo, I might've found myself a new hobby.
theymake mushroom wine in korea
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I am really curious about sunshine (the booze). It obviously cannot be real because it is made from sun berries which have an inner light. What would that be like? Would the drink glow?
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How? Cook & liquidise 1 kg of normal edible mushrooms until they are rendered down to a blackish slimy mass. Put it in the demijohn, add water & follow the basic recipe.
...
http://duramecho.com/Food/NoveltyWines.html
The basic recipe in question calls for (dwarven) sugar.
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the truffle i pointed out might contain sufficient sugars to brew without sugar.
I do wonder about brewing shitake mushrooms this way though. those have a floral bouquet, and might be interesting.
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I would expect it to have a kind of "meaty" taste (strong "Umami" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami) flavor.)
The word savoury has existed since the middle ages.
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Hello?
I am curious on sunshine's look and flavor.
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Sunshine tastes like Sunny D, obviously.
Or perhaps it tastes like a ray of sun? Ambrosia-like to the point where it simply cannot be imagined. I guess we'll never know what it tastes like.
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Sewer brew & swamp whiskey is moonshine/battery acid taste
Longland sounds like a golden/pale/pilsner
afaik you can get banana beer in real life
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=58167
2 pages on Sunshine and what it could be.
I personally imagine it to be a very strong fruity white wine that tastes good no matter what your tastes actually are.
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I'd imagine plump helmet wine would taste like psilocybin mushroom juice.
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I'd imagine plump helmet wine would taste like psilocybin mushroom juice.
Which tastes like?
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Muck root is of a lower value than most other crops though it can be eaten raw; so I figure it either tastes nasty, doesn't fill you up, or doesn't tend to sit right. I always thought given the name that it has an extremely earthy taste, like catfish have but without really having anything else to it. The swamp whiskey made from it would probably also be earthy, and not in a good way for most people.
Sliver barb makes a drink called 'gutter cruor.' It also makes black dye. Cruor is an older word for dark coagulated blood, so I'm guessing from that that nobody really has the means of completely removing the black dye without making it unbrewable for whatever reason. The drink would end up being very dark, and having a sort of thick consistency compared to other drinks - not as though it were full of sand, just viscous like chowder or syrup. Sliver barbs can't be eaten raw or cooked, so it probably doesn't taste all that great either, but there's not really any room for speculating on how it would taste. The result is that it'd just be viscerally unpleasant for people except those few who like the taste.
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Muck root is of a lower value than most other crops though it can be eaten raw; so I figure it either tastes nasty, doesn't fill you up, or doesn't tend to sit right. I always thought given the name that it has an extremely earthy taste, like catfish have but without really having anything else to it. The swamp whiskey made from it would probably also be earthy, and not in a good way for most people.
Sliver barb makes a drink called 'gutter cruor.' It also makes black dye. Cruor is an older word for dark coagulated blood, so I'm guessing from that that nobody really has the means of completely removing the black dye without making it unbrewable for whatever reason. The drink would end up being very dark, and having a sort of thick consistency compared to other drinks - not as though it were full of sand, just viscous like chowder or syrup. Sliver barbs can't be eaten raw or cooked, so it probably doesn't taste all that great either, but there's not really any room for speculating on how it would taste. The result is that it'd just be viscerally unpleasant for people except those few who like the taste.
Muck root...
When I think nasty, I think most things bitter.
Earthy, bitter... Ugh.
Gutter cruor... Nope.
What about river spirits, dwarven rum and ale, whip wine, fisher berry wine, and prickle berry wine?
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I've always thought sewer brew literally tasted like piss and shit. It just sounds like a generally nasty drink nobody would drink unless nothing else was available. If you've ever heard of prison pruno, I'd imagine that's how it tastes. I haven't tasted it, but if you Google it and look at it, you can practically taste it through the screen.
Sunshine would just be absolutely delicious in a way that nearly everyone would agree, hence its high value.
Do dwarves ever have a preference for the really terrible sounding beverages? I know those preferences start out hidden until they actually encounter such a beverage, but I've never seen a preference for sewer brew or gutter cruor or these other terrible sounding beverages.
I also don't know why mead has such a low value. It's delicious.
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I've always thought sewer brew literally tasted like piss and shit. It just sounds like a generally nasty drink nobody would drink unless nothing else was available. If you've ever heard of prison pruno, I'd imagine that's how it tastes. I haven't tasted it, but if you Google it and look at it, you can practically taste it through the screen.
Sunshine would just be absolutely delicious in a way that nearly everyone would agree, hence its high value.
Do dwarves ever have a preference for the really terrible sounding beverages? I know those preferences start out hidden until they actually encounter such a beverage, but I've never seen a preference for sewer brew or gutter cruor or these other terrible sounding beverages.
I also don't know why mead has such a low value. It's delicious.
I think the dwarves can like the terrible drinks.
May Armok have mercy.
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Most mead today is "spiced" mead, meaning it has some sort of fruit added in along with the honey to give it some flavor. I understand it's rather bland made with just honey.
River spirits are made from rope reed, and have an average value. Rope reeds grow next to water in the wild and their only other use is to make cloth, so they're probably literally just some tall fibrous reeds. They can be brewed so they must have a good deal of sugar in them, but since they're inedible it probably isn't any kind of sugar sentient creatures can use for anything. My guess is that river spirits are smooth and refreshing but very neutral in terms of taste.
Dwarven rum probably isn't meaningfully different from IRL rum. Sweet pods are a plant and not a mushroom (they have seeds instead of spawn) and can be made into sugar/syrup as well. You could probably tell the difference, but there's not really room to speculate on what that difference might be.
Whip wine is made from whip vines, and it's more valuable than the average drink but less so than sunshine. The vine can be milled into flour too, which is also more valuable than other grains. Whip vine could be a play on the shape of the plant (Urist likes them for their length) but I like to think that the name is also evocative of the flavor. It's got some bite, like a whip, so it's got a sort of peppery/spicy undertone to it that makes it much tastier than regular grains. Whip wine would probably be like a hoppy beer, then, but without the bitter aftertaste.
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Most mead today is "spiced" mead, meaning it has some sort of fruit added in along with the honey to give it some flavor. I understand it's rather bland made with just honey.
I can't imagine a wine made out of mushrooms being terribly appealing by comparison, but that's worth twice mead, which is only worth the base value 1, on the level of sewer brew and gutter cruor.
It just seems to be cutting it short shrift, since unlike any of the other brews, you actually need to set up a dedicated industry with special equipment (well okay hive boxes anyway) to even have it. I guess there are other advantages like wax (for crummy crafts), nearly useless royal jelly, and nearly worthless honey.
I usually do set it up because there's always some dwarf sitting around with that skill, but it just seems it should be slightly more rewarding.
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I'd imagine plump helmet wine would taste like psilocybin mushroom juice.
Which tastes like?
Well psilocybin shrooms taste kinda bitter and earthy. So I imagine the juice tastes similar. I haven't had anyother kinds of shrooms so idk, they probably all taste similar at least. :)
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They use mushroom wine extensively in the Fallen London universe by Failbetter Games, because Londoners love their wine but after being brought to a cavern with no sunlight they had to make do.
The game implies it is as diverse as normal wine, just... not as good, generally speaking. Less intense and less awesome while still having a full range of flavors.
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Most mead today is "spiced" mead, meaning it has some sort of fruit added in along with the honey to give it some flavor. I understand it's rather bland made with just honey.
I can't imagine a wine made out of mushrooms being terribly appealing by comparison, but that's worth twice mead, which is only worth the base value 1, on the level of sewer brew and gutter cruor.
It just seems to be cutting it short shrift, since unlike any of the other brews, you actually need to set up a dedicated industry with special equipment (well okay hive boxes anyway) to even have it. I guess there are other advantages like wax (for crummy crafts), nearly useless royal jelly, and nearly worthless honey.
I usually do set it up because there's always some dwarf sitting around with that skill, but it just seems it should be slightly more rewarding.
That makes sense, I hadn't really considered the whole production chain. Maybe it was an attempt to balance out the value of the industry? I'll certainly go ahead and mod the value higher in my game, heh.
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since Sun berries are, well, berries, I'll hazard a guess and say Sunshine is a wine.
if we are to take "inner light" literally, it implies bioluminescence. if we are talking luciferase, the enzyme found in fireflies and marine life, it might have a savory taste.
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Yeah, even somewhat bland honey-only mead would, in my haphazard guesses, taste better than swamp whiskey, sewer brew, and gutter cruor.
Prickle berry wine has always sounded to me like it'd have some sting to it, and not in a pleasant way, like Baffler's idea for whip wine. Like a tongue-stinging, semi-uncomfortable-to-drink wine. Rubbing alcohol-tasting bum wine, but less artificial cough syrup flavor, and more throat burns.
I'd agree that swamp whiskey would probably be very, very earthy, to the point of being rather unpleasant to drink. Cheap scotch with WAY more soil and peat-smoke undertones than you'd normally get from IRL whiskey.
And dwarven wine might be somewhat palatable, though it is strange to have it better than mead. What I'd guess from this is that dwarves probably have different tastes comparative to humans, which isn't much of a stretch. To them, I'm guessing, wine made from grapes probably sounds like wine made from mushrooms to humans, heh.
Gutter cruor would probably be semi-solid in a chowdery way, yeah, and I'd always thought that sewer brew wouldn't taste like actual sewage; just bad in a comparable way, otherwise I doubt it'd really even be a thing from a sensible point of view.
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Well, if I were a dwarf, I'd never go for prickle berry wine. At all.
Also, what do you think longland beer's like?
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Prickle berry wine has always sounded to me like it'd have some sting to it, and not in a pleasant way, like Baffler's idea for whip wine. Like a tongue-stinging, semi-uncomfortable-to-drink wine. Rubbing alcohol-tasting bum wine, but less artificial cough syrup flavor, and more throat burns.
Well, if I were a dwarf, I'd never go for prickle berry wine. At all.
I suspect it would be like raspberry wine, or blackberry wine. Both of those are delicious, and have prickles. Or possibly something to do with prickly pear fruits, which would also be lovely. Prickly pear fruits are worth the prickles.
But if it was "prickly" to the taste, then why not fiery like a chili-flavoured vodka? Why does it have to be predicted to taste foul?
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Why does it have to be predicted to taste foul?
Because it's low value?