Chapter 778: Wine Part 4
Eisen watched as Millicent and Lucy went on her way, with that little girl excitedly waving at him as they turned around the corner. After explaining the techniques that he was using to Millicent, Eisen had invited her to come back later so that she could have a taste. But for now, he had to do some other things. After cleaning up the workshop together with his doubles, Eisen started to change this place into a different kind of setup, so that he could start gla.s.sblowing.
After all, he didn"t only need the wine, but also bottles to put them into. And so, he quickly started coming up with a few ideas for designs to make the bottles stick out a bit more. For the flower wines, that decision was rather simple; he would use regular white gla.s.s in a normal wine-bottle shape, and then mould some flowers on the outside depending on what was used for the wine. And after he made that decision, the rest of the designs came quickly too. For the grape wines, he would create small bulbs on the outside of the bottle to make it look like the bottle was made of gla.s.s grapes, and for the iceberries, he would try to recreate the bush that these berries grew on, sprinkling some of the berries here and there.
The Lemon wine"s bottle would simply be given the texture of a lemon, and he would add some small dots onto the outside of the bottle of the strawberry wine. Since a Rock Peach had skin that gave it a sort of rock-like texture at first glance, he could follow that sort of texture too. The only bottle that would be given a slightly different shape would be the bottles for the apple wine. He wanted to play around with it a bit and simply make the bottles in the shape of some apples. Since that was going to be mulled wine anyway, it was fine for the shape to be a little different compared to the others.
While he had figured out the designs, the doubles already got out all the materials that were needed. Silica, soda ash, limestone, as well as some mana crystals, on top of the different pigments he would use to dye the gla.s.s.
Eisen snapped his fingers and spread his mana throughout the workshop. Since he was now working with high heat, he wanted to make sure that he could properly separate the section with the fermentation containers from the area with the kiln, since the fermentation process would be messed up if the temperature randomly went up and down rapidly.
Of course, Eisen also quickly set up everything that he needed for the gla.s.sblowing with the help of his elemental mana, and was able to quickly get started. He mixed and melted the ingredients for the first batch of gla.s.s, and once that was done, simply gave the task of paying attention to the rest of the gla.s.s to one of his doubles, while he himself scooped out a handful of molten gla.s.s. Bai turned into a gla.s.sblowing pipe as the old man quickly got to work.
With the help of alchemy, this process was ridiculously easy as well. He could simply use his mana to make a mold around the gla.s.s, using trans.m.u.tation to hold the gla.s.s back. That way, he simply had to evenly blow into the pipe, and before he knew it, the gla.s.s had reached the shape of the bottle that he wanted. After cutting the gla.s.s off at the bottleneck, he quickly molded the bottleneck into the right shape, and already brought the bottle into the annealer. This process didn"t even take a couple of minutes, but he had to make quite a few bottles. Sure, he wouldn"t be selling everything here, or even close to it, but he still wanted to have at least a few dozen bottles for each of the types of wine that he was making. If he wanted to bottle everything right here, then he would need more than a thousand bottles per type of wine, so that wasn"t something that he had the time to do.
But that was fine; he could just make more bottles as they traveled to the other clan chiefs, and then spread more of the alcohol at each of their destinations. It should be enough to get people speaking about it, even if he might have to help a bit using his royal charisma.
Even so, it was clear that Eisen couldn"t do this alone, so he was working in tandem with a few of his doubles. To make sure that they were working as precisely as they could, Eisen infused them with "Blazing Core of the Mountain" mana, which did generally help in improving their craftsmans.h.i.+p abilities a bit beyond what they already were. The doubles were generally quite precise, but it was still a little lacking to reach Eisen"s standards.
However, it didn"t take long until they were able to finish the bottles for the first type of wine, and then the second and the third. Just a few hours later, they were done. It was exhausting and monotonous, but it was exciting work nonetheless. It was the kind that Eisen could get indulged in without any worries, and before he knew it, he was finished with what it was that he wanted to do, practically disappointing him.
Since he had a body that didn"t mind this glaring heat, combined with the fact that he could literally touch the hot, molten gla.s.s with his bare hands incredibly improved the efficiency of this work, and made it much more enjoyable. It meant that he didn"t have to be pulled out of it at all, which was more than just pleasant. It was also nice to be working alongside others, even if they were just his own doubles. Nonetheless, Eisen couldn"t continue this forever; he had to stop at some point.
Soon, Eisen got up, and with a snap of his finger, the gla.s.sblowing workshop disappeared without a trace. He walked over to the fermentation pots and opened up the first one. He quickly got a scoop and pulled up some of the Golden Morningbellow wine, placing it against his lips.
Immediately, Eisen felt his body be filled with a wave of heat, more than just from the alcohol that was in this wine. It was like he was wearing a layer of cozy wool. But even if it was already quite hot in here right now, the warmth didn"t become suffocating in any way. It was pleasant all the way through. This was the level of cold resistance that this wine gave to you, and it was nothing but delightful. With an excited expression, Eisen quickly moved the pot to the side and told the doubles to fill the wine into the aging barrels. This was the single step that still had to be done before he could finally bottle everything. He went around the other pots as well, and was completely delighted with each and every one of them.
The Robingrowth wine in particular was fun, even if seeing his skin turn completely purple for a short while was pretty unnerving at first. The wines" colors were all incredibly vibrant, and while the white yellow grape wine looked like normal white wine, it tasted quite different still. The regular yellow grape wine did look sort of poisonous considering how opaque it was, but it was still delicious.
Although, the single wine that looked unfit for consumption was most certainly the Black Apple wine. It looked like Eisen had just mixed together a pot of ink. He was convinced that if he removed some of the water, it could probably be used for exactly that as well. But nonetheless, the wine had a strong taste of apple, and despite its color, it had a wonderful taste that reminded Eisen of the times that he made apple wine in the past. It was a sort of nostalgic flavor to him. He couldn"t wait until this was fully ready to be turned into mulled wine later. Eisen was convinced that this would be popular.
Maybe completing Gordon"s quest was just an excuse to Eisen at this point, so that he had a reason to play around with a hobby that he wasn"t able to indulge in for a while. Whenever he made alcohol, he was trying out new recipes for whiskey that could be sold. And even if he was still planning on selling this, albeit for a rather cheap price, Eisen enjoyed this quest quite a lot.