You knew when Kirk and McCoy broke out the Romulan ale in Classic TREK, things were about to go south. If they were sipping Saurian brandy, the subject was deep and personal. And if Scotty went for the centuries-old Scotch—or, worse, something he identified merely as “green”—the Enterprise was in dire straits indeed.
 |
| A tete-a-tete over Saurian brandy. |
It’s
safe to say that as we humans move out into the galaxy, exploring and
colonizing, we’ll take our taste for intoxicating spirits with us. And, judging
by our most popular screen visions of the future, the aliens we encounter will
have their own versions of wine, beer and hard liquor to share with us.
The
crew of Kirk’s Enterprise begged,
traded for and, yes, even occasionally stole their precious bottles of personally preferred potables, much as Navy crews did in war times
on Earth. The engineer of Captain Jonathan
Archer’s Enterprise (ST:ENTERPRISE)
was even rumored to have a still in Engineering. What he used for raw materials I
don’t remember.
And
finally we come to the heart of this week’s post. What will our intrepid space
adventurers drink at the end of a
long hard day of space adventuring? Storage is limited on ships; it’s not
like they could carry an infinite supply of Budweiser or Jack Daniels with
them, replicators notwithstanding.
If
you’re thinking beer, wine and grain alcohol, you’d better think planets,
preferably ones with human colonies. In the newest, roughest colonies all you’d
likely get is some local wine, corn liquor maybe, or home-brewed ale.
Distilling fine whiskey takes a few centuries in place, or technology and
knowledge dedicated to the task. The good news is that often, historically,
farmers on Earth have distilled grain of all kinds into whiskey in order to
transport it economically, converting a relatively low-value, high-volume crop
into a high-value, low-volume one. So an agricultural colony with a lot of
unwanted corn might be tempted to sell corn whiskey to passing ships, for
example.
Now,
of course, there can be alien cultures that have compatible potables. Here
anything goes as a base material. As the creator of your universe, you can come
up with your own Saurian brandy and Romulan ale, with any characteristics you
want to give them. I’ve always loved the fact that Romulan ale causes Jim Kirk
to lose control and gives him such a hangover the next day.
In
Fools Rush In, the third in my Interstellar Rescue series, we meet
pirate captain Sam Murphy. Murphy and his crew spend weeks at a time onboard
his ship the Shadowhawk. When they do
get a shore leave, it may only be at a remote space station, or a sunless
planetoid circling a jump node (the entrance to a kind of wormhole) in deep space. At those
places ale made from mushrooms is often on tap. The flavor is, well, earthy at
best, and it takes a few mugs to have any real effect.
If
you have a few more credits to spend and a few more brain cells to lose, you
can buy synthohol in most drinking establishments, too. Murphy often indulges in
a shot or two at the end of a rough day aboard ship. This synthetic equivalent
to grain alcohol is produced in a chemical lab and flavored artificially, in
either light or dark versions. It has a characteristic sour smell and tastes
like hell, but is sufficiently potent to be worth it.
Take
a decent ’shroom ale, add some synthohol and you get grog, the favored libation
of the spacers’ mash (party). Grog is guaranteed to get any party started (and
ended in a riot).
Like
most space captains, Sam Murphy saves the good stuff—generally rum from the planet
of Paradon (where you can get anything), or bourbon filched from secret runs to
Earth—for special occasions. You can join him for a drink when Fools Rush In comes out October 18.
Pre-order it NOW on Amazon!
TWO WINNERS!
I
had such a great response to my COVER REVEAL GIVEAWAY, I’ve decided to award
TWO prizes! Congratulations to Donna
Owens and Dina Stornello, winners of the audiobook version of Trouble in Mind, Book 2 of the Interstellar Rescue series, AND a $10
Amazon Gift Card each!
Cheers,
Donna
Fun post. I'm sure there will be intoxicating brews out there - certainly on any of my ships. And there will also be the equivalent of mind-altering nasties like ICE. But that's another story.
ReplyDeleteVery fun post, Donna. Remember the days when we served up Billins all around here at Spacefreighters? Okay, it was virtual Billins, but the spirit was there. :D
ReplyDeleteYeah, Greta, I didn't even want to get into the possibilities of drugs out there! Crews will have a LOT of time on their hands . . . And, yes, Laurie, this IS a virtual bar, isn't it? LOL!
ReplyDelete