Chương 149: Chapter 144 - Still soon

By the time the construction staff left, the still house had begun to feel like a place where work had happened. That was an important difference. Men working while avoiding a hot large copper still made the building feel unfinished by sheer force of noise. Boots dragged grit over stone. Timber was carried through doors at the wrong angle.

Someone always needed a wedge, a chisel, a strip of copper, a longer brace, a different rope, or a man named Grant who had apparently been in four places at once all day and useful in none of them when called for. Alric had overheard one worker say to another that the big copper thing was cleaning the river. He'd said it with such confidence that the others believed him. Now though the building had settled.

The large sliding doors had not yet been built, so the river wall remained, and the heat lingered in the stone. The upper windows had helped, Stromni had enjoyed making those apparently. So had the smaller openings Stromni had ordered knocked through after the first hot test, but the room was still warm enough that Alric could feel it in his shirt, under his collar and along the sides of his face. The big still stood on the river side of the building. Maggie had been running since morning.

Maggie had been running with only water but hadn't leaked all day. Alric reminded himself of that several times because his mind wanted to make it a bigger deal than it was. Water was safer than whisky wash in some ways but not others; water did not foam up with malty vengeance and attempt to climb into the arm, water did not become alcohol vapour.

Still, water had boiled, vapour had moved, copper had held, the thumper had thumped hard as they ran her at full blast, and clean liquid had come from the worm in a steady enough trickle that Alric had spent most of the afternoon staring at it like a man watching a child learn to walk. Stromni sat beside him now with his sleeves rolled up and his beard tied back, both were seated on the stairs watching Maggie from a safe distance.

There was stone dust across one of his forearms and a narrow smear of something dark near his temple. He had been walking around the still all day, listening, tapping, checking seams, and occasionally glaring at places that had not leaked as if he was daring them to try. A collection barrel sat near the far end, half full of distilled water. They had filled seven total. It looked ordinary.

A barrel of clean water produced by a four-metre copper beast, several months of dwarf labour, too much coin, and one man's memories of moon shining documentaries should have looked more impressive. Instead, it sat there, clear and useful and entirely without drama, it steamed slightly which was at least something. Stromni looked at the barrel, then at the still, then up along the copper arm toward the cooling barrels.

"All day," Stromni said, with a satisfied look.

"All day," Alric agreed, he grinned on one side of his face, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. Stromni gave him a sideways look to see if he was being sarcastic. He wasn't. Stromni made a pleased sound under his breath, before getting up to walk closer to the still, stopping at a distance that respected the heat. Alric got up and followed. The stones were still glowing beneath the belly. The water inside had been drawn down enough that there was no point pushing the run much longer.

Stromni folded his arms and looked up at the copper.

"So lad. How do we make 'er better?" Alric let out a breath. That was the question. Alric had been considering it for most of the day.

"There are things I would have done differently but they would also be more complicated," Alric said, he scratched the side of his neck, tilting his head at Maggie. Stromni's expression shifted to alertness.

"Aye?" Alric looked at the broad copper belly.

"The main issue is how we heat it. Direct heat is simple enough, stones under the kettle, heat goes into copper, copper heats the wash. It works, and I wanted something we could build, understand, and fix without extra headaches." As Alric spoke, he made open hand gestures with his fingers spread, pushing upward.

"I want to say sensible," Stromni said with a grin, "but then I look at ya scale." Stromni's beard moved slightly with his grin, but he kept his eyes on the still. Alric ignored the barb and pointed toward the lower body.

"The better way, or at least a gentler way, might be to heat around the kettle instead of straight under it. A water bath, maybe. But the best way is put the kettle in a larger jacket, heat the water to steam, and let that heat the wash through the jacket." Alric explained, his hands moved in a spherical motion as he explained further. Stromni frowned, already picturing it.

"A kettle around this kettle?"

"Something like that." Alric said with a grin, looking at him with a slight smirk.

"For this size?" Stromni asked, and the words carried more weight than the question itself.

"Yes," Alric said, he smiled properly but the smile faded too quickly.

"You see how sensible I was being?" Stromni looked up and down the still with the slow displeasure of a man being asked to imagine more copper around too much copper.

"It would take more metal," Alric continued explaining.

"A lot more space. So, so much time to heat. More places for water to leak. It should stop scorching, or reduce it at least, but it would make everything slower and heavier. The biggest gain is we would heat the water far away from it, no one needs to get close." He pointed to the still while speaking and then gestured to the building. Stromni nodded once, placing the idea on a shelf where it could be sworn at later.

"And steam?" Stromni asked, eyeing Alric sideways while grinning. Alric glanced at him in alarm. Stromni shrugged at Alric's expression.

"You said once we might use steam proper? Is that what you mean by a jacket?"

"Yes, that is what I meant," Alric said carefully.

"The steam could move through pipes, and it would make all of it gentler." He folded his arms and turned to Stromni, facing him properly. Stromni's eyes brightened in a way that made Alric immediately regret making steam sound interesting.

"No," Alric said, his expression flat, studying the dwarf.

"I didn't speak." Stromni said, holding his arms out in a helpless gesture but he was grinning.

"There is more I haven't talked to you about, it's dangerous and why I never sealed the brewery boilers. We need things like steam taps, vents, valves and I have no idea how to make something to measure pressure. All complicated, all deadly if done wrong." Alric said watching him carefully, he kept his arms folded but his head tilted further. Stromni rubbed at his beard.

"Aye, I hear ya. I'd like ta understand these things at least, even if we don't use em for years."

"We can do that but," Alric said letting out a deep breath.

"It's not today thinking. Today we have Maggie the still and she's great. We also can barely get near her once she's running, and enough headaches already. Piped steam is a whole new monster. It may be the right monster eventually, but not before we understand this one." He turned back to face Maggie. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Stromni grunted, while he spoke, he studied Alric out the corner of his eye, "You built this one thinking simple. Only you lad."

"I built this one thinking like men in the woods making spirits where the law could not see them," Alric said, then paused because that did not explain enough.

"A thing from my old world. Moonshiners they were called. Big kettle, heat underneath like Maggie, vapour goes up into thumper, comes back to us as spirit. Simple enough to hide, repair, and explain to someone who had no business helping." Alric pointed at the various parts as he spoke. Stromni turned to look at him properly.

"Terrible way ta design expensive equipment."

"It is also one of the reasons it worked." Alric said pointing at it but looking at Stromni as he spoke. That got a proper grin from Stromni, Alric also matched it. Alric looked back at Maggie; he frowned as he tried to imagine it.

"If I had started with the best possible version, we would still be drawing it, but I also think we'd get too confident. Then it blows and takes out so many buildings." The first heating stone dimmed. Both noticed and looked down. The glow softened, then faded until the stone sat dull in its cradle, the last of the heat slowly draining out. A few minutes later a second dimmed. Stromni watched each one with a craftsman's satisfaction.

At last, the last stone dimmed slowly, holding its glow longer than the others before winking out. Stromni grinned. Alric felt the same grin answer on his own face before he could stop it.

"You," Alric said, he paused trying to find the right words, "are a marvel." Stromni kept looking at the still as if the words belonged mostly to the copper.

"Don't ya forget it."

"I won't." Alric said smiling at him.

"Aye, you say that, then tomorrow you'll ask for something that turns corners twice, carries hot spirit, sings a lullaby, and fits where nothing has any right to fit." Stromni said eyeing Alric suspiciously.

"That sounds useful." Alric said, his eyes widened, he rubbed his chin pretending to think about it. Stromni turned his head. Alric raised both hands.

"Not today." He said chuckling but it faded quickly. Stromni grinned before the grin changed into a look of relief. He rubbed at the back of his neck, then looked up at the still again.

"Truth told, I was worried." Alric glanced at him.

"About what?" He asked studying the dwarf.

"All of it," Stromni said.

"Not the work exactly, work is work. Copper does what copper does, rivets are honest if ye know how to listen. But this..." He gestured toward Maggie, not grandly, but enough to include the height of her, the arm, the worm, the braced cooling barrels, and the hot tired room around them.

"This was a lot o' new gathered into one place." Alric said nothing, he listened carefully. Stromni continued, his voice lower.

"Thought she might fight us more. She leaked hot worse than cold but pulled through. I thought the arm might pull wrong, or the belly might start showing us every place I'd trusted too much. I didn't think she'd fail because I built her badly. I worried I didn't know it enough to know how she'd break." That was such a Stromni sentence that Alric felt a warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the room. He reached out and patted Stromni on the back.

The dwarf was solid under his hand, as if someone had built a man by beginning with a wall and working down.

"I never doubted you," Alric said, glancing between the dwarf and the still. Stromni nodded, he swallowed and nodded some more.

"Aye," he said.

"Good." They stood like that for a moment while the still ticked around them. The copper made soft settling sounds as heat moved through the plates. Eventually Stromni cleared his throat.

"What now?" Alric looked toward the collection barrel.

"Now we keep the water." Stromni followed his gaze.

"The clean water?"

"Yes." Alric said looking at where the worm was still dripping the water into the barrel.

"You want to keep water after spending all day making it ta stop being interesting?" Stromni asked looking at Alric and followed his gaze. Alric walked over to the opened barrel and crouched beside it. The water inside was clear enough that it caught the dimming light from the room.

"Distilled water is useful. It's the cleanest water we can get as well." Stromni came to stand near him, he glanced at the barrel as he spoke.

"Doesn't taste o' much."

"And that's the problem." Alric said looking up at Stromni. Stromni looked at him with suspicion.

"Clean water not tasting o' much is a problem?"

"For drinking spirits, yes. At least for what I want." Alric stood and brushed his hands against his trousers, then immediately realised he had touched nothing dirty and only made his hands dirty.

"Water matters if we want it as good as we can make it. Hard water, soft water, water with minerals in it, spring water from different places. It changes flavour." Stromni's face suggested that water changing flavour was not news but still had no business sounding important. Alric continued before the dwarf could say so.

"In my old world, some distilleries cared about water a lot. Where it came from, what stone it ran through, how much mineral it carried. I do not know enough to copy that properly, and here, if we asked merchants to bring us spring water, half of them would sell us well water." Alric frowned as he spoke, looking down at the barrel of water they had worked hard for. Stromni's suspicion vanished into immediate agreement.

"Royal factor or not, aye. They'd cheat ye if the lie had wheels."

"Exactly. So we make our own consistent water. Distil it first, run it through something with limestone, chalk, maybe charcoal. Not to make it pure really, just to put some character back. Minerals, mostly." Alric explained, he waved to the end of the worm where the water or eventual alcohol would come out.

"Meant ta ask ya, Why," Stromni asked carefully, he studied Alric as he spoke "are we watering down whisky or brandy before putting it in barrels?" Alric opened his mouth. No answer came out, which was probably for the best. He closed his mouth again. Stromni waited. He did not grin. Alric looked toward Maggie, then at the collection barrel, then down at the floor where heat had dried old spills into faint marks across the stone. His mind went through several scraps of memory at once.

Barrel proof, bottling strength, cask strength, dilution, different spirits, different choices, angel's share. Things he had read. Things he half remembered. Things that sounded right if not examined under pressure by a dwarf with a working still.

"No," Alric said finally, he rubbed at his forehead as he spoke, "No, that was wrong, I was thinking for sampling it but it was a bad thought." Stromni's eyebrows rose.

"We should not just water it down before aging because I said the word barrel too soon. Maybe there are cases where we adjust proof before casking, I'm not saying there aren't, but that is not what I meant, and I should not pretend I know that part well enough yet. The safer thought is that we age it strong, or at least stronger, then use treated water when we bring it down for sale." Alric explained, still frowning, he rubbed the back of his neck and looked upward as he spoke. Stromni watched him for a moment.

"Ya sure? I thought ya knew something I didn't."

"No," Alric said, looking at Stromni with a shrug.

"That is the point." The admission tasted unpleasant. A bit like old tea that had gone cold beside work he had not finished. He was the expert here because everyone else knew less, but that was not the same as being an expert. It was a dangerous kind of authority; the kind built on comparison rather than mastery. He had known enough to make beer, to improve cider, to guess at stills, to remember pieces of processes from a life that had never required him to build a distillery with mana stones and a dwarf.

But fragments could stand in a line and look like knowledge if he was tired enough. He looked back at the water.

"That was a cardinal sin," he murmured to himself. Stromni frowned.

"A what?" He said, his hands moved to his belt.

"Old phrase. Means very bad mistake. Or the kind of mistake someone should have known better than to make." Alric explained with a dismissive gesture.

"Did it break anything?" Stromni said tilting his head at Alric.

"No." Alric said shaking his head.

"Then it was thinking aloud." Stromni said lifting one hand, palm upward in a 'dunno' gesture.

"That is generous." Alric said with a small grin.

"Aye," Stromni said nodding.

"Enjoy it. I don't hand that out in barrels." He gave Alric a smug grin as he finished. Alric laughed softly. It helped, but not enough to remove the thought. He would need to be obsessive about notes on this. He would need to separate things he knew from things he suspected and things he had simply heard with confidence from someone in another world who had owned better equipment. That last category was much larger than he liked. He turned away from the barrel and looked around the still house again.

The practical problems returned quickly, which was almost a relief.

"She did well," Alric said. He nodded to the building and the whole arrangement.

"Aye," Stromni replied, and there was pride in the word now that no one else was there to hear it too clearly.

"She'll do better." Alric believed him. That should have been enough for the day, it had been a good day. A huge day, really. The still had run. The building had shown its flaws without killing anyone. Distilled water sat in a barrel, and somewhere ahead of them lay bulk spirits, if every problem between here and there could be bullied, bribed, understood, or repaired with copper. But Alric's mind would not settle. It went back to the herbs hidden in his office. To Rosa's hood going up over pointed ears.

To Pavise saying alchemy was so much worse. To the line between drink and potion, which looked less like a line the more he stared at it. To wickleaf, mana, exhaustion, and the way common things became valuable when someone used them differently. Alric let out a long sigh. Alcohol was one kind of danger; mana was another but both became worse when people wanted them badly enough. Stromni had gone quiet beside him. That was unusual enough that Alric looked over. The dwarf was not looking at Maggie anymore.

He was looking at Alric.

"What?" Alric asked, one eyebrow raising. Stromni leaned one shoulder against a post, far enough from the hot copper.

"Something's chewing at ye." Alric tried to smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"A lot chews at me."

"Aye, but most of it does so loudly. This one's quiet. I know ya happy bout Maggie but aint enough, go on, spit it out." Stromni said tilting his head at Alric. Alric took a deep breath.