After we discussed what we would do next, we made our way to our underground wine cellar. Driven by curiosity, I am being accompanied by Mom and Sophia.
"I am excited to see what Raphael is going to do again."
"I can't wait to take a sip of this new drink named "spirit" that you've been producing these last three weeks."
"Sorry to cut your hopes, Mom, but that liquor will be aged in the barrel for years."
"Is that so? What a shame."
"Be at ease, Mom. I already had taken care of that."
Mom and Sophia showed their interest in my new activity. We are currently walking side by side through the wide corridor as they intertwined their arms with mine. Same as our arrangement on the bench, Mom grabbed my left arm and Sophia on the other side.
"Will Mother and Sister join us?"
"I asked them, and they said that we could start without them. They will soon join us later."
I asked Mom about Mother and Sister, who are currently in the bathhouse to cleanse their bodies. We can wait for them if they want to witness the process from the beginning. But they said we could start working without them.
Before I realized it, our march had already reached the door to the wine cellar. The door was constructed in the room under a three-meter-high landing between the two flights of stairs.
The stairs had a width of two meters, making the landing have a width of four meters. It is located at the far northeast corner of the mansion and is one of the four stairs to access the second floor.
With my arms still locked behind Sophia, I grabbed the doorknob and twisted it clockwise. After the clicking sound, I pushed the door inside and opened it with a creaking noise.
"You go first, ladies."
"Fufu. How manly."
"I will take your offer, Raphael."
Mom chuckled at my words as she and Sophia let go of their bindings on me. I bobbed my upper body and gestured like a gentleman while holding the knob.
Mom goes first, followed by Sophia. They took a U-turn and used the stony staircase to descend to the underground floor. I closed the door and followed their pursuit.
We walked along the stairway until we stepped onto the dim corridor. There were doors aligning the corridor, but we approached the first door that leads to the wine cellar.
The next door is where we went when using the Warp spell in our bracelets—the Teleportation Room. We could just teleport to the said room to save time, but we didn't.
Mom opened the door, and then we entered the room sequentially. The room is quite spacious and filled with wooden barrels and shelves of bottled alcohol. This room is where we store and age our alcohol.
"Let's see how it's going."
After I closed the door, since I was the last to enter, I approached a huge metallic washback standing at the right corner of the room. This tank is where the mash was stored and fermented. I opened its lid to check its contents and used Appraisal to inspect it.
"Good. This wash has 10% alcohol content."
"Is it good?"
"It's good." I put a thumbs up to respond to Sophia's inquiry.
Since we can't go to the forest to hunt monsters, we have a lot of free time. To entertain myself, I thought of something to do to kill my leisure time.
We harvested crops this autumn and accumulated a lot of them. Barley was one of the grains that we got, and I have an idea of what to do with it. I want to create a spirit.
It has been fermenting for four days, and the results are good. I am currently fermenting barley mash to convert it into wash. Now, it is ready for the next step.
"I will store it in my Inventory now."
I opened my Inventory inside the washback and sucked the whole wash into it.
"Done. Let's move to the distillery."
We marched out of the wine cellar. We passed the teleportation room and went inside the third door, which led to the distillery.
I approached a thing that was fully covered with a white blanket. I pulled the blanket back, and what unfolded before our eyes was an apparatus for distillation, a spirit still.
"You didn't fail to make me amazed by your inventions."
"My homemade distiller. It's still a prototype, though."
"Even so. This article used complicated technology by combining magic and science."
I made a still on my own to have equipment for distillation. Since there's almost no concept of the water cycle in this world, that means distillation hasn't been invented yet. Using my access to my past world's internet, I create a prototype of a still.
"Let's start the first phase of distillation."
I poured a portion of the wash into the still and turned the burner on. The liquid started to boil, then slowly turned into vapor.
After waiting for a while, the distilled wash or low wine started filling the receiver.
"To think that you can extract alcohol from the liquor by just heating it to become vapor and then condense it with cold water. I cannot believe that you got the concept of it by just observing the droplets under the lid."
"That's also the concept behind the formation of clouds."
To explain how I came up with the idea to my family, I just told them that I got it from observing the lid while cooking.
Water cycle is one of the knowledge that I thought to my family. Mom applied the concepts of it to magic and was able to create her own original Magic spells. Now, Mom has the power to control the weather.
(Those Level 10 Magic spells were indeed scary.)
Of course, my sister knew that it was from my previous world, including the liquor that I am making. But that's our little secret.
As I am having a conversation with Mom, the door opens and makes a creak. It looks like they finally came.
"You started already?"
"Are we late?"
"No, Mother. The first phase of distillation hasn't finished yet."
The figures of a newly dressed Mother and Sister entered the room. Their fresh scent gains dominance over the lingering smell of alcohol in the room.
"Good! I got some treats if I want!"
"Thank you, Mother."
I took a bite of the cookie that Mother brought as we waited for the first distillation to finish. It took long before all the wash was distilled into low wine. It took hours just to distill all the wash. We already ate our dinner before I stored all of the low wine in my Inventory.
"Now for the second distillation."
I burned the low wine by portion to vaporize the alcohol, leaving the water liquid. The vapor will condense in the condenser and be collected in the spirit receiver. I repeated the process and waited for hours until I distilled all the low wines.
"This concentrated spirit is called high wine. It contains around 60% alcohol by volume, which is four times stronger than the wine."
I informed them of the details of the spirit as I was holding a glass of it between my fingers. The ladies sniff on the liquid as their nostrils savor the strong aroma of the spirit.
"Ack! It's quite strong. This is why you need to dilute it, right?"
"That is right."
Sixty percent is too strong. Even people with Poison Resistance barely tolerate that level of alcohol content. It should be diluted to make it easier to drink.
I diluted the liquor with water and lowered its alcohol content to around forty percent. Of all the barrels of wash I've been fermenting for days, I only casked one barrel of diluted high wine.
"All we need to do is mature it for a long time. While maturing, the liquid becomes smoother, gains flavor, and draws its golden color."
"It would take years in the cask to mature, right? If that's the case, would we wait for years to have a taste of it?" asked Sophia while raising a hand.
"Normally, that's the case. But only by normal means. That's why it will be aged inside my newest invention."
"Could it be that compartment over there?"
"It is. The Time Chamber."
What Mother pointing out is a small room at the top left corner of the distillery room. It was a three-by-three compartment made out of iron walls.
"With this chamber, we can take a sip of it as early as next year!"
"Not only have you surpassed me in Space-Time Magic, but you have also learned how to manipulate time, which was only a tale of the legends."
"I am your son after all."
"Indeed. We were wondering how you forged Louise's sword in such a short time. Your Mom left speechless when we knew it was a legendary spell."
Manipulating time was no easy feat. Even Mom, the Sage, doesn't know any Time Magic spells. Just as the name stated, it is a chamber where the flow of time is faster than the outside world.
The floor of the chamber had an inscribed magic circle of Time Accel. Since it uses mana continually, I asked Mom to give me an S-ranked magic crystal. It has a higher MP restoration rate than the consumption of the chamber.
"Just put the cask inside the chamber and closed the door. Adjust the time speed to ten... and done! A year here is a decade inside the chamber."
With that, the spirit had been completed. We just patiently waited for a year until we got a taste of ten-year-old... alcohol.
If possible, I want to store it inside my Inventory but that only slows the flow of time.
We leave the room and then ascend to the first floor. As we walked, Sophia asked me an obvious question.
"What will the liquor be called when it's done?"
"Hmm…"
I thought for a while about what the liquor's name would be. Then I noticed the bright moon that was shining in the night sky as I peered out of the window.
"Moonshine. The liquor will be called moonshine."