The Sundaran town of Kask, from Towns of Sundara, is known, amongst other things, as a centre for brewing and other fermented drinks. The town was built around the monastery of the Three Sisters, and the monks were known for their brews. Over time, many other brewers and vintners have set up in the town, and this list has ten different drinks to find there.
- Blackheart: Blackheart is a thick, black, treacly stout that is so thick it borders on being eaten rather than drunk; it’s not uncommon for a mouthful to need some chewing before it’s swallowed. The stout is so thick and strong that few are capable to stomach it, beyond dwarves, orcs and some Blooded descended from orcs. The drink does have a lot of calories in it and some dwarves have been known to keep going for several days on the stout alone; most other species would have passed out before then. Orcs, though often capable of matching the dwarves drink for drink, are less likely to drink Blackheart to excess.
- Bramston’s Cider Beer: This drink is a curious combination of apple cider and beer, but it’s rare to find it outside Kask. Cider Beer doesn’t travel that well as the mixture requires very careful transport and padding, as too much jostling will disrupt the careful balance of the mix. When it is found some distance from Kask, it tends to be either badly damaged by the journey, or expensive due to magical means of transport, which has made it popular with those rich who like to show off how much money they have.
- Capathiel Mushroom Ale: An unusual beer crafted by the brewery founded by the Malisus elf Capathiel, it uses the techniques of the Underworld-dwelling Malisus elves combined with those of the surface to craft a beer made from mushrooms. The mere description of it is not to everyone’s taste, yet the end result all would agree is surprisingly good once they’ve been convinced to try it. Mushroom Ale is a very filling drink, containing a lot of the nutritional value of the mushrooms it’s made from, and it can even substitute for food in a pinch.
- Clearwater: This beer’s most unusual feature is that it’s completely clear; it looks like slightly effervescent water when poured. The beer is made by a Gard’eri elf brewery in Kask, and is a very light beer, resting easily on the palate. Drinkers say it tastes of rivers running through a forest, even though it is definitely a beer. The alcohol content of Clearwater is, perhaps fortunately as it’s very easy to drink, lower than that of most beers.
- Feldspar Rock Biter: The name of this mead has little to do with the drink; it’s just a play on the name of the brewery’s Gannar’Gon dwarf founder. The mead is a strong one, as befits a dwarven drink, though its flavour is not as sweet as mead typically is. The sweetness of the honey the mead is brewed from is cut through with an astringent flavour, lemon to the knowledgeable, that creates a curious dichotomy on the tongue. Trying to make sense of the flavour has caused drinkers to drink one tankard after another until the mead catches up with them.
- Hardbottle Double Bite: Double Bite is a cider that has a deceptively smooth taste to it, thanks to the filtering process used. Deceptively, because the cider is unusually strong; the process presses the apples twice when extracting the juice, then greatly reduces the water content on fermentation. Those unfamiliar with the cider’s strength risk making a fool of themselves if they drunk too many bottles of the drink, and too many is a lower number than might be expected.
- Lavender Kiss: This is a pale purple spirit brewed by a Gard’eri elf, one of a number of flower-derived drinks that the small brewery produces. The spirit is created from lavender flowers and both smells and tastes of lavender, something that is not appealing to everyone, being most popular with the Gard’eri elves and the Ferruna orcs. The taste is quite delicate, but definitely there, and the spirit is only drunk in small quantities, as it possesses a kick that isn’t easy to notice.
- Midnight Wine: A wine of a definitely black colour, that almost seems like liquid night. It is unusually viscous for a wine, seeming to flow sluggishly from the bottle when poured. It’s said that Midnight Wine should only be drunk at night, but this is just a tale told, possibly to sell more of the wine. To go with its viscous nature, the wine is also full-bodied, far more so than even some reds. The Kask microbrewery it comes from uses a type of grape that they won’t tell anyone else about.
- Pale Green: Brewed from cabbages, this is a wine with a pale green tinge to it. The wine has a distinctive taste, and smell, of cabbages to it, and it’s rare for anyone other than a Ferruna orc to consider the wine to be particularly drinkable. Not because it tastes that bad; it just tastes a little too vegetative for the tastes of most drinkers. Outside of the Ferruna and others the wine appeals to, it is most commonly used in cooking, as it has been proven to be a good base for various vegetable-based dishes and soups.
- Strawberry Ale: This beer from the Three Sisters monastery has a curiously fruity taste, that of the strawberry in the name. It’s a very sweet beer, and it is definitely a beer, not a fruit cider, that is used in place of a dessert wine by those who prefer beer to wine, or simply can’t afford a dessert wine on a regular basis. The process by which the beer gets its taste is naturally not known, but it certainly doesn’t have any strawberries in it.