Juice and honey in Vintage Story spoil quickly. Seal them in a barrel and they become cider, wine, or mead. The drink fills you less, and it keeps for months. When you want a liquid that does not spoil at all, you distill it.
The barrel
Juice is made in a Fruitpress. Juice has 200 satiety per liter, and it stays fresh for seven days. The barrel turns it into the same amount of drink, with 80 satiety and a life of 140 days. The nutrition stays fruit. The barrel stays sealed for seven days.
Honey is sealed for fourteen days. It becomes the same amount of Mead, still with fruit nutrition. Breadfruit juice also takes seven days, like other juice, but Breadfruit ale feeds you with grain.
Ale made from flour works differently. Each liter of water takes one flour, and you get 0.2 liters back. Five liters of Water and five flour make one liter of ale. A full barrel, 50 liters of water and 50 flour, makes 10 liters. The wait is the same fourteen days, and the nutrition is grain. The flours are Spelt flour, Rice flour, Rye flour, Amaranth flour, and Cassava flour. They become Spelt ale, Sake, Rye ale, Amaranth ale, and Cassava ale.
The barrel writes the name itself. Apple juice becomes Apple cider, pear juice becomes Perry, and Blueberry juice becomes Blueberry wine.
In a cellar, the fermented drink keeps longer than those 140 days.
Food preservation in Vintage Story
Distilling
A distilled drink does not spoil. A liter still has 80 satiety, but the recipe spends a lot of liquid, and the fruit or grain nutrition is gone. Cider, wine, and Breadfruit ale give one liter from ten. Mead and grain ale give one liter from twenty.
| What you pour in | What comes out | Input for 1 L |
|---|---|---|
| What you pour inApple cider, other ciders, and wines | What comes outApple brandy and the other brandies | Input for 1 L10 L |
| What you pour inBreadfruit ale | What comes outBreadfruit vodka | Input for 1 L10 L |
| What you pour inMead | What comes outDistilled mead | Input for 1 L20 L |
| What you pour inSpelt ale, Sake, Rye ale, Amaranth ale | What comes outSpelt whiskey, Rice whiskey, Rye whiskey, Amaranth whiskey | Input for 1 L20 L |
| What you pour inCassava ale | What comes outCassava vodka | Input for 1 L20 L |
| What you pour inAny drink that is already distilled | What comes outAqua Vitae | Input for 1 L2 L |
The still is a Boiler and a Condenser, soldered together. You need a Soldering iron, Copper plate, and solder: a Lead solder bar or a Silver solder bar. The boiler takes 5 plates and 5 solder bars. The condenser takes 2 and 2. The soldering iron spends durability: 3 on the boiler and 1 on the condenser.
Set the boiler on the ground. Set the condenser against it so the pipe meets the boiler. Put a Wooden bucket under the spout. The boiler holds up to 30 liters. The condenser holds 10 liters of water. Under the boiler, place Dry grass and four Firewood, then light the fire. One piece of firewood burns for two in-game hours. The boiler takes about half a minute to heat up, and after that each liter of liquid takes about 20 seconds.
With no water in the condenser, the liquid is still used up, and you get about half as much drink.
Aqua Vitae is the second pass, made from a drink that is already distilled. A liter has 40 satiety and no nutrition. It does not spoil either. 0.2 liters of Aqua Vitae and a Clean bandage make an Alcohol-soaked bandage. It heals for 7, and a clean bandage heals for 3. The alcohol dries in about an hour, and the bandage is clean again. The tooltip says: “The alcohol evaporates fast, so use quickly.”
When you drink
Each liter has its own strength. Cider, wine, ale, and mead add 0.15. A distilled drink adds 1.5. Aqua Vitae adds 3. The picture starts to sway, and letters in the chat get mixed up, so forging and chiseling are hard in that state. The drink’s line says “When drunk” and shows how much satiety you got.
Alcohol is described from the wiki Alcohol brewing.