307 Ale and Other Drinks for Lightweights
The Sunrise Plaza had been the stage for the Summer Sun Celebration for the better part of a millennium, a wide platform of white marble before an elevated stage backed by the eastern sky. Berry Punch had attended a few Celebrations after Princess Twilight’s ascension, wanting to support the mare she'd adopted as a local hero along with the rest of the town.
Well, a local hero and a reliable source of street theater. Now, surrounded by everything from yaks to hippogriffs to small dragons, she stood eager to see what Twilight did next.
Twilight strode to the center of the stage, wings flared as the crowd cheered and stomped, shadowed by the morning sun. With only two rows of creatures between her and the princess, Berry couldn’t help but think the poor mare looked like a teenager going through a growth spurt, burdened with more leg and horn than her body knew what to do with.
“Hello, everycreature,” Twilight said, because of course she was going to open with a speech. “I have to admit, I had some concerns going into this. The ponies in the audience know my luck with these big events isn’t the best. Nightmare Moon, the plundervines, the Storm King… Terrible things always seem to happen during major festivals.
“I don’t put much stock in omens. That whole branch of divination is post hoc rationalization, with only a few notable exceptions.” Berry couldn’t even see Pinkie Pie from where she stood, but she still heard the giggle. “But it’s hard not to think there’s a pattern. So this time, I’ve decided to do something different.
“A Festival of Friendship that commemorates a single pony, even the Princess of Friendship, is missing the point. Better that we appreciate all of our friends, old and new. Better that we unite this growing global community in celebration of everything about it worth celebrating. The Convocation of Creatures served as my inspiration, but Mount Metazoa is far from every nation by design, and only diplomats and their aides can truly appreciate it. I want everycreature to experience the wonders we all have to offer."
Twilight beamed and leapt into the air like Celestia raising the sun. But she kept her eyes on the crowd, forelegs spread out to them rather than up to the heavens. “And so, I am delighted to open this, the first World’s Fair!”
Berry knew it was coming. Some of the negotiations for this had taken place in her own bar, between Twilight, a wingless version of her with glasses, a unicorn named Sunset Shimmer, assorted nonpony dignitaries, and a rotating collection of at least five different Rarities. Berry might well have been one of the few creatures who knew why there were two apostrophes in the “World’s’ Fair” banner that unfurled with Twilight’s announcement. But she stomped her applause all the same. Customers were customers, and nopony could make it through Twilight’s time in Ponyville without learning to welcome friendly faces regardless of their shape.
Of course, that had been Berry’s logic before she’d really thought about how the booths were arranged.
Twilight hadn’t sorted the Fair’s vendors by nation or species, but by what they were offering. In theory, it meant creatures could look for what they already liked, move one booth down, and discover variations of it they'd never heard of.
In practice, it meant a stretch of stalls offering every adult beverage imaginable, like an incredibly boozy version of a typical Ponyville farmer's market, saw very little traffic in that first morning.
“Well,” Berry said after checking the magical refrigeration on her white wines for the ninth time, “this is dull.”
That got a chuckle from her left. She turned to the shaggy, crooked-horned unicorn operating the stall to her left. “What?”
The creature shook their head, tan coat blending with a leonine orange mane and… Oh. That wasn’t a saddle; those were scales. “Nothing. Just… nostalgia.”
Berry leaned against the wall of her booth, chin resting on a forehoof. “Do tell.”
"Um..." The creature cleared her throat and gave the uncertain grimace Berry usually saw on first-time customers. “Kind of a long story.”
“We’re not going anywhere, and neither are any customers. We’ve got time." Berry extended her other foreleg. "Berry Punch, by the way. From Ponyville, just down the mountain.”
The creature's eyes widened when she heard "Ponyville." She bumped Berry's hoof with her own cloven one. “Fern Flare, Peaks of Peril.”
Berry held back her snort. Mostly. “Really?”
That got an eyeroll. “Well, that’s what you ponies call it. The place sounds a lot nicer in Kiringo.”
“Ah." Berry nodded as the pieces came together. She'd gotten that story secondhoof; Fluttershy always needed something to settle her nerves after an adventure. In her most innocent tone, she said, "You know, you hear rumors about kirin beer…”
Fern smirked. “Really? Let me guess, it’s about the same going out as coming in?”
“That’s the polite way of putting it.”
“The funny thing is that we hear the same rumors about Equestrian beer.”
They shared a laugh at that. “Blame the griffons?” Berry proposed.
Fern nodded. “Blame the griffons.”
The hen on Berry’s right cleared her throat.
She stuck her tongue out at the old buzzard. Well, old buzzard-panther. “I can smell the disinfectant you’re calling vodka from here, Ginevra.”
Berry wasn't sure how a beak could peel back in a sneer, but Ginevra found a way. “Oversensitive herbivore palates, the both of you.” She spat off to the side and very nearly shot one the breezies on her right out of the sky.
“Don't mind her," Berry told Fern. "She comes by with the mailhen from Griffonstone sometimes; she's always like that."
Fern nodded at that, and the conversation died down for a few moments of further tedium. Berry considered a tenth check on the cooling enchantments, but soon got a better idea. "We could compare brews.”
“It’s not even noon,” said Fern.
“And we’re both experienced brewers. Neither of us should even notice one taste of beer. And it's not like we've got anything better to do.”
After a bit of consideration, Fern nodded. “Fair enough. Just save some for the customers.”
Berry rolled her eyes as she got out a stein and a shot glass. "Only pouring you a sample, Fern."
"Ah. Right."
After each tapped a keg, they exchanged filled glasses. The internal crimson glow of Fern Flare's horn (antler?) did fascinating things when filtered through a glass of beer, but Berry had always found that to be the case.
She shook those thoughts out of her head. Her partying days were behind her. And ahead of her, once Ruby was out of the house, but that was still a ways off. For now, she focused on the sample of kirin beer.
“Light, citrusy notes…" Berry muttered around the first sip. She nodded and tilted back the glass. "Practically a shandy on its own. Perfect for a summer day by the lake. So, what did you think of mine?”
She turned to see Fern looking at her half-full glass like she'd never seen one before. “I’m confused. Did you pour me a beer or a loaf of bread?”
“It’s a Seaddle dark ale, so yes," Berry said, grinning. She started cleaning the one she'd emptied. They were all identical anyway; the Fair had provided a lot of the supplies so creatures wouldn't have to carry even more glassware across the world. "Want to try anything else? You know, spirit of the Fair and all.”
Fern finished the ale and licked her lips, but her ears had drooped. “I’d love to, but I don’t have much else I can offer you.”
Berry nodded. “I guess it’d be a hassle to haul a wide assortment of drinks all the way from wherever the Peaks of Peril are.”
“No, I’ve got a decent assortment. You just couldn’t handle any of it.”
Berry paused midwipe, slowly turning to face the kirin. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t mean any offense, Berry." Fern cleared her throat on the other end of the dead-eyed stare. "Is it okay if I call you Berry?”
“Another crack like that and I’ll have you call me Brewmaster." Berry cracked her neck. "I have fermented things that barely resemble sugar. Ghost pepper. Durian. A typewriter.”
After a few false starts, Fern got out, “How and also why.”
“Long story. Short answer is earth pony magic. Now that Twilight's moved out of town, I may be the best chemist in Ponyville. I definitely have the strongest liver." Berry stomped for emphasis, throwing up a few chips of the pavement. "Trust me, anything you’ve got, I can take.”
Fern just sighed. “If it were just alcohol, I’m sure you could.”
That got Berry to blink. “What do you mean?”
“What do you know about kirin?”
Berry shrugged. “Not much besides dirty lies about your beer.”
“Heh. Well, our physiology is a bit... different from the typical creature."
"I've got some experience there," said Berry. "My daughter's a unicorn. So are several of my regulars. I've scrubbed the raw essence of magic off of the floor more than once."
"I've seen some unicorns. Not quite what I meant." Fern raised a foreleg and scowled at it. As Berry watched, hoof and flesh both blackened like scorching wood. When the black spread to the kirin's cannon, vivid red flames flared out along the edge of her hoof.
Fern shook it out, taking deep breaths as smoke wafted up from her unscathed leg. "I'd demonstrate further but, well..."
Berry gave a shaky nod. "Yeah, I get it. Must make distilling a lot more exciting."
"My master always said to never trust a thin chef or a brewer with eyelashes. Either way, they're not doing enough." Fern shook her head. "We're getting off-topic."
"Hey, I'm all for friendly conversation." Berry gave the best smile she could given the circumstances. Which, given life in Ponyville, was pretty darn good. "Wouldn't run a bar if I weren't."
"Yes, but you need to understand why I can't offer you anything else. Alcohol in its own doesn't really do much for us. It burns off so fast that we barely feel it."
"Ah. Yeah, I've had a few dragons in the Punch Bowl. They liked how the hard stuff changed the color of their flames, but didn't get what I saw in it." Berry nickered as the memory played out in her mind. "And salt was a lost cause from the start."
Fern tilted her head, confusion clear on her face. "Salt?"
"Not everypony develops a taste for alcohol. Salt's a popular alternative, especially in frontier towns when there's not much food to spare. But for dragons, it's just another rock."
"Huh." Fern dug through the storage space of her booth, coming back up with an opaque, soft pink wine bottle "Well, in the grove, we have acid."
Berry furrowed her brow. "Like what Timothy Hay kept trying to push?"
"What? Look, I'll demonstrate" Fern took the bottle's lid in her teeth and tugged on it.
"Not using your magic?" Berry squinted and leaned closer as more of the stopper revealed itself. "That isn't cork," she said of the cloudy crystal.
The stopper came off with a pop, Fern handling the recoil with practiced ease. "Qingsongite. Immortal peach wine eats through just about everything other than it, glass, and kirin. Including magic." She didn't pour any of the wine; she just pointed the bottle's mouth in Berry's direction.
The sharp chemical smell still made Ginevra's vodka seem like perfume. Berry flinched back and ducked under her booth. "Okay, yeah, I see what you mean."
She heard the stopper squeeze back into place. "Legend has it the recipe only works because of the Stream of Silence."
Berry risked peeking back up. "The what?"
"That's an even longer story. Put simply, the Stream's magic deadens reactions, emotional or alchemical. Pretty sure the wine would explode if I shook it otherwise." Fern shrugged. "So I can't exactly offer you a glass. I'm not sure if I'll even serve this stuff to dragons, much less ponies."
Berry looked at the bottle of wine and brought a hoof to her chin. "Hmm."
Fern looked back and forth between the two. "Hmm? What hmm? I don't think this is a situation that calls for a hmm."
"Peach, you say?" Experience and talent had come together in Berry's mind, and minor concerns like surviving the experience were fading at the promise of discovery.
"Well, yes. Among other things." Fern slid the bottle further away from Berry. "We call it immortal peach wine mostly because anycreature who isn't a kirin would need to be immortal to drink it."
Berry nodded to herself as the last details of her idea resolved themselves. "Yeah, I can work with that."
Fern's jaw dropped. "You can what?"
"Trust me, this will be amazing." Berry moved to her own storage area. "I brought a few things just in case I came across something with this much potential."
"Potential? Potential to do what, melt your muzzle off?"
Berry chuckled as she gathered her supplies. "Don't threaten me with a good time, Fern."
The kirin didn't say anything for a few moments. "You said you were from Ponyville, right?"
That got a terse nod as Berry considered what she had on hoof. And, more importantly, what she didn't. "Born and raised."
"I haven't been around much. Are all ponies as crazy as you or just the ones from your town?"
Berry grinned. "Oh, we're all a little crazy. Most of us just don't notice. But the thing about our crazy is that it gets results. Hey, Ginevra."
The griffon rolled her eyes. "Oh, so now I'm part of this conversation?"
"You are if you've got something over one-eighty proof."
"Easily," Ginevra scoffed. She narrowed an eye at Berry. "Why?"
"I need nearly straight ethanol as a base for this idea, and I didn't bring anything that pure." Berry grinned. "And I'm offering free samples if it works."
Ginevra clacked her talons against her booth for a few moments. "One bottle. If you botch it, you're not getting more."
"Deal."
"I feel like I should stop you," said Fern Flare.
Berry turned back to her. "Will you?"
Fern just smiled and pushed the bottle of immortal peach wine back to the corner closest to Berry. "After what Applejack and Fluttershy did in my village? I just want to see what miracle the Ponyvillian does next."
Berry took the bottles offered by both her neighbors. From there, she walked among the other vintners, distillers, and other recreational chemists lining the street, falling into a flow state as she gathered components. Parrot grog, whole yak vanilla beans, zebra coffee strong enough to send the drinker back to sobriety and out through the other side, breezie garnishes neither identifiable nor pronounceable without ill-advised fae pacts, a quick bit of glassblowing from a dragon offering even more caustic liquids than Fern Flare, all of it and more made sense as she acquired it. The purpose for each item fell back to her subconscious once she'd checked it off her mental list, but she trusted her mark and her intuition.
She returned to her booth just as the thirstiest creatures made their way to sample the assorted wares. And in the case of the Ponyville booth, to watch the pony measure, blend, and occasionally focus her will on the in-progress cocktail until it stopped foaming and hissing. Ponies recognized a mare in perfect harmony with her talent. Other creatures just tried not to disturb her for fear of whatever might happen when that harmony was disrupted.
Finally, Berry slid a slice of pineapple onto the rim of a modified Maretini glass containing a little something from every corner of the world, and then some. The liquid within was clear to the eye, but she knew she was just too sober to see its true form. Prismatic vapors rose from the glass and discolored the awning of her booth.
She blinked her eyes clear—it felt like she hadn't been doing much of that for a while—and wafted some of the fumes to her muzzle. The smell was... more like a memory than anything specific. A medley of the best nights the Punch Bowl had seen, full of loyal customers and raucous songs and generous tips. Berry beamed and took the glass in a fetlock.
"You know, I wanted to see what you'd do with the wine, but after seeing everything that went into that..." Fern shuddered. "You can't possibly think that that's a good idea."
"I'm with the scaly unicorn," said Ginevra. "I'm all for watching some creature fall victim to their own overconfidence, but not when I'm expected to clean up after them."
Berry rolled her eyes. "Oh, relax, you two. What's the worst that could happen?"
Fern, Ginevra, and a good half of the crowd ran or ducked for cover before Berry even finished tilting the glass back.
To Twilight's credit, after the proverbial smoke had cleared, the festivities had adapted with incredible speed. After a quick check-up and a few tips on what to expect, Berry returned to slinging drinks at a replacement booth less than an hour after the incident.
She was, Twilight had to admit, getting the hang of her wings a lot better than Twilight herself had. To say nothing of multitasking with her horn.
"Could've been worse," said Sunset.
"Well, yes," Twilight allowed. "A new alicorn undermines my intent for the day, but it's still an incredible occasion."
"Sure, that, but that isn't what I meant."
Several doomsday scenarios flashed through Twilight's mind before she dared say "What did you mean?"
Sunset tilted her head towards a booth next to Berry's. "I checked the rest of Fern Flare's stock with a few chemical analysis spells. Kirin hard liquor is about one part plum juice to nine parts kerosene. Bad enough that Berry managed to create new magic through mixology. I'm pretty sure she's got everything she needs for literal rocket fuel."
Twilight sighed. "It's only going to get crazier from here, isn't it?" she said with a smile on her face.
Sunset matched the expression. "You wouldn't let me invite any humans until next year, so yes. Yes, it is."