Chương 178: Chapter 173 - Barrels

"You ready?" Alric asked, gesturing toward the courtyard area.

"I've been ready, lad," Stromni said, walking alongside.

"Ya were the one who said morning." He glanced up at the sky as he said it. Alric ignored that and led him down the stairs to the cellar. Alric had suspected the cellar would need a campaign before losing to his horde of barrels; it had fought bravely, but the cellar had lost. In the center stood twenty wine barrels; ten were red, and ten were white. These Alric was keeping for barrel seasoning.

Forty other barrels were stacked two high in neat rows; these were future brandy stock, and the rest of the wine to become brandy was in the brewery cellar. On the left wall were the aging brandy casks and the port pipe. On the right wall, which had been staff quarters, was the section Alric kept insisting in his mind was the flavor extraction area. The smell in the cellar had become complicated. The scent of herbs mixed with the aging brandy and the many barrels, giving a faint wooden scent.

The pair stood at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, taking in the cellar. Stromni, however, noticed the herb bundles and pointed to one.

"This from ya studies?" Stromni asked, to which Alric nodded.

"Barrels first, we can talk about that after," Alric responded, gesturing to the closest barrels.

"These five are from the first brandy run."

"Dry," Stromni said with a frown.

"I was a bit too excited about the brandy that I didn't think about it," Alric said with a sigh. Alric had noticed that the outside wood lost its dark shade when the barrels were in use, and the hoops looked a lot looser.

"We also didn't give the wine enough time to season the barrel properly, but that will be next year's problem," Alric said with a shrug.

"Aye well, we weren't gonna get it right straight away, lad, the other barrels from the other brandy runs?" Stromni asked. He approached the barrel and ran a hand over the top.

"They're in my item box. We're going to need to run whisky some days and brandy others if we want to use the barrels that way." Alric explained. He understood the basic idea. A barrel that held wine still had wine in the wood; when whisky went in after, it would pull some of those flavors out when it aged. Leaving the barrel empty and letting it dry out was an excellent way to lose the reason he had done it in the first place.

"Hmmph. Like ya say, lad, whisky some days, brandy when we need barrels. We plan round that, take the barrel, clean it, fill it." Stromni nodded to Alric, straightening up.

"And these? The wine ya keeping for barrels?" Stromni said, pointing to the collection of twenty barrels.

"That's them." He said, nodding at the wine.

"Only you think like that, lad, ya make wine by the barrel ta make whisky by the barrel," Stromni said, nodding at the wine, his shoulders dropping.

"Don't give me that. How fast will we run out of casks? You made the biggest still on the continent, and you want to move things in little casks?" Alric asked with a frown, crossing his arms.

"Hmm… Aye, ya got me there, lad. Barrels it is then." Stromni said with a small shrug and glancing at the rows of barrels. They moved onto the next group. Eight barrels stood together, separate from the rest. Each marked with an IPA in Alric's handwriting.

"So, these are beer barrels for aging whisky." He said, looking down at them with a frown. He had asked Mara to organize these when they first started building the distillery; between the wine, Maggie, and everything else that had happened, he had forgotten about them until recently. They had been sitting in the brewery cellar for over a month.

"Beer barrels for whisky? Lad, ya need ta explain this one." Stromni said, but his face had a smug grin.

"I'm glad the idea is new to you," Alric said with a grin. He took a deep breath, "So, this was modern even from my old world. We make a specific beer that has a strong profile. The issue is..." Alric began and then stammered to find the right word, "We are years away from making the best whiskies, at least anything like my old world. We need sherry casks; those need to age for a year or two. The port as well, and the king already took half. IPA barrels though? We can do that quickly.

Maybe we cannot make the best whiskies straight out the gate, but we can make something new and novel." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Stromni was silent for a time, then he nodded, "Ya, a clever bugger, Alric. What's beer whisky like?"

"It has a fruity flavor to it, a slight bitterness. We will need to blend the right amount, but we are hiding grain flaws and barrel issues here," Alric said with a relieved smile.

"Only problem now, the beer itself." Alric stared at the barrels, his brows furrowed. They would need to be emptied and go into the item box immediately. Having the staff slowly work through it defeated the point.

"Lad, in what world is extra beer a problem?" Stromni asked, tilting his head at Alric, "Throw a party."

"For who?" Alric asked, giving the dwarf a sideways glance, "Everyone?" Eight barrels, at roughly three hundred liters each, came to around two thousand four hundred liters of beer. Not to mention it was IPA, not the easiest binge-drinking beer.

"Winter about ta hit lad, less work outside the walls, people buyin' supplies. Adventurers will be broke?" Stromni said, spreading both hands toward the barrels, "Tell em there is free beer, then challenge em to finish it. Let them fight ya beer dragon." Alric looked from Stromni to the barrels and realized Stromni was being completely serious. He imagined for a moment several dozen adventurers being told that defeating the dragon involved drinking copious amounts of IPA and could no longer see a flaw.

"Headquarters is too small." Alric said, looking at the barrels, his lips pulled to the side, "The brewery street maybe?" Stromni shook his head.

"Ya get half the district if ya do that." Stromni said, running his hand through his beard, "Lad, make it Pavise's problem. You offer the beer, they deal with the rest."

"Think they will do it though?" Alric asked, looking at Stromni who was still grinning.

"For free beer, lad?" Stromni said, his eyebrows climbing at Alric, "Ya be lucky if they just stop there at food."

"We can have the brewery guards too," Alric said, peering at one of the grates, "They marched across the countryside, give them a proper night off I guess, rather than say so and have them guard a party." Stromni nodded approvingly. Soldiers could definitely help with the beer dragon. Alric thought about the brewery staff; not all had been there very long, but they never complained about the work. Extra buildings and soldiers had never slowed them down.

As he considered it, he wasn't even sure they had properly celebrated the brewery.

"Yep, it's definitely overdue," Alric said, nodding. Stromni was still grinning when they moved toward the royal barrels. These were much nicer, the color and grain coming together neatly. The staves were even and the hoops fitted snugly. Stromni's amusement changed as they approached; he went to the nearest one and began inspecting it from top to bottom. He ran his hand along it.

"Hill dwarf work, these are good," Stromni said, tapping the barrel top.

"Same maker?" Alric asked as Stromni moved to the second barrel.

"Aye, looks like it, whoever got these knew what they wanted," Stromni said, shifting the barrel hoops and finding them still tight, even when empty. Alric grinned at the twenty barrels with more satisfaction; Calvern had made good on his promise, they had arrived the day before, and they seemed to be good aging barrels. For once, something involving the royal intelligence had solved more problems than it caused. It had cost him one of his better brandy casks, but he still felt it a better deal.

"They should be good though, they came from the royal cellar," Alric said, pointing to them.

"Royal doesn't always mean good, lad. It should, but it doesn't always," Stromni said, looking over the next barrel. The barrels had numerous marks burned into the ends; even with his reading ability, he couldn't understand them. He had guessed they belonged to vineyards or merchants or simply to whatever system the royal cellar used to make inventory. Alric stopped near one in the center.

"Let's see inside then," Alric said, getting a firm grip on the bung. Stromni came nearer, bringing his face to it. The bung resisted before shifting suddenly. They both inhaled deeply. The smell hit Alric so hard it felt like a physical blow; recoiling came before understanding. A strong scent of rotting eggs followed by something that smelt like burnt hair. His eyes watered as he backed away from it, still holding the bung.

"By the gods!" Stromni exclaimed, pulling his shirt over his nose.

"What did they put in there?"

"I don't know," Alric said, his eyes still watering. He tried to wipe them with his sleeve using the hand still holding the bung when he noticed it. Somebody had fixed a stick or wick beneath the bung; he held it farther away from his face and squinted. It was darkened along its length. A memory finally surfaced, naming the smell. Sulphur.

"It's this thing; it's called sulphur." Stromni approached carefully, eyeing out the stick suspiciously. His eyes narrowed before his shoulders started shaking. The dwarf made one scoff noise before bending over and howling with laughter.

"What now?" Alric asked, squinting at the dwarf.

"The king," Stromni said, waving at the barrels and laughing again.

"The king's been saving his farts for you." Alric blinked rapidly, trying to clear his eyes before the mental image fully settled. The king sitting on top of one of the royal barrels like a throne. His trousers around his knees, looking furious and cursing the bloody brewer.

"Pffft…" was all Alric managed to say before he turned away from him. Doubling over with laughter. Stromni pointed at him, and the cackling got worse. It took some time for the pair to recover. Eventually Alric managed to take a deep breath through his mouth. The sulphur makes sense—more than the grape vinegar or sour wine stink I had expected. Someone had gone through the trouble of preserving the royal barrels before sending them over.

Alric had no desire to pull every bung from the royal barrels; they had been treated the same way, one royal fart had taught him all he needed. He approached one of the old, dried wine barrels from the original brandy run before crouching beside it. He pressed on the stave and felt how loose it was. The royal cellar considered barrels as something to be looked after. Alric had treated them like they were a container he wasn't using.

"I have a lot to learn about barrels," Alric said with a frown. He would need to investigate how the royal cellar used sulphur to preserve the barrels, how long it burnt, whether they needed to be rinsed, and what the process was.

"You have a lot to learn about the king's farts, I suspect," Stromni said, pointing at the bung and giggling again. Alric couldn't help but scoff.