Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Touhou characters, settings or any other original material created by ZUN or any other affiliates. All Touhou copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Suika continues on her quest to find a substitute extract for sake. Now… what is sake made of anyway?
Enjoy.
Ch. 6: Ume Ume
"Hmmm… is this it?" Suika said, looking up at a tree heavy with green, unripe fruit. Suika was back above ground, and had tracked the root she saw before to this plant. "Now what?" Suika asked herself. Parsee had suggested using fermented plant material to create alcohol, but to tell the truth, Suika had not the smallest idea how to brew sake. She only knew how to drink it…
All around her, spring was in full force throughout the land, and was fast drawing to a close. Fields of flowers stretched about her and the tree in all directions, all competing aggressively for space and pollination rights, before their season ended and the summer season began. Suika turned away from the tree, it was of no help to her, and squatted down to examine the flowers. Sniff… the flowers had a nice fruity scent, kind of like quality sake… Suika brutally rooted out a bunch of them for closer examination. Maybe they would provide the extract needed to recast the unlimited sake spell?
"No…" Suika tossed them aside disappointedly. They did not quite have the same smell. She again forcefully uprooted another bunch, and tossed them aside when they too did not quite satisfy her. She repeated, bunch after bunch after bunch, and the sky got progressively darker and darker and darker… A menancing round shadow had now swallowed up the patch of grass Suika was squatted over.
"My… my…" a seductive but venomous voice licked at Suika's ear. "Killing innocent flowers now are we? And when they are in their most vibrant part of their lives no less..." the voice crooned with sadistic pity for the Oni squatted before her.
…! Such powerful killing intent! Suika quickly grabbed a spell card from her pockets and whipped around and- Wham!
… Was greeted by the sight of a certain Kazami Yuka sprawled on her back, her giant pink umbrella thrown out of her hand by some blunt force.
"Yuka! Y-Yuka?" Suika's panic was replaced with confusion. "What are you doing?" she asked the short green haired lady, still splayed out on her back.
"Y-You whacked me with your horns, dammit…" the flower youkai slowly pulled herself out while rubbing her head, her face showing a red imprint that coincided with the shape of Suika's horns. "T'ch… you totally threw me out of character…" the normally terrifying youkai pouted.
"Haha… Sorry," Suika apologised grinning.
"Whatever…" Yuka dusted her clothes, straightened her red chequered waistcoat over her rather shapely body, and picked up her umbrella. "So, why are you killing my precious darlings?" she asked, anger still reverberating in her voice.
"Was I? Sorry, I'll stop," Suika apologised again sheepishly. "But I was looking for sake… or rather, something to make sake out of."
Yuka blinked her eyes in confusion, and stared puzzled as Suika stood up to survey the fields around her for a suitable sake-making candidate. Suika had come to a field of flowers, in search of mash to make sake, and not a single rice stalk in sight…
"Suika."
"Shush Yuka, don't disturb me."
"Suika…"
"Fine, what is it?"
"Do you know where sake comes from?"
Suika stood up from squinting at the horizons, and wiped the sweat off her brow. Sigh… This was tiring… "Where does sake come from you asked?" Suika addressed Yuka's question. "Doesn't it come from gourds and bottles?"
"That's… not what I was asking about, Suika."
"Shops then. Sake comes from shops."
"… Try again."
"Breweries? Sake comes from breweries?" Suika tossed up, now feeling highly unsure of whether she was capable of making sake.
"Suika, why are you even here?" Yuka asked.
"I don't know! It was Parsee that suggested using fermented plant extract or something…" Suika said exasperatedly.
"Well, Parsee got that part right… which makes her smarter than you… no big surprise…" Yuka said under her breath. "Well Suika," Yuka spoke up, "Parsee's right. You can make alcohol from fermenting certain plant material, like grain, or fruits, or even flowers," Yuka gestured towards the fields before her. "But the plant you're looking for is not here. And besides, don't you have an unlimited gourd of sake? Why do you want to make more?"
For the second time today Suika unlatched the empty gourd at her side, and tossed it to Yuka sadly as a response. Yuka took the gourd and examined it. "It's empty," she observed. "How's that possible?"
"I drank it dry, apparently," Suika boasted.
"Huh… impressive…" Yuka looked at Suika with a bit more respect. She did like her women to be able to hold their alcohol… Unfortunately she also liked women that were a bit taller and fuller. And wiser.
"So, what are you trying to achieve?" Yuka continued.
"I don't know. Maybe the gourd just needs to be recharged? Like, given a shot?" Suika shrugged her shoulders. "I'm hoping that's the case. Maybe if I just squeezed some extract into it, the sake will come back?"
"Yah, but the problem is there's nothing here to make sake out of," Yuka pointed out. "The only thing that comes closest to a sake ingredient here is…" Yuka looked up at the tree full of unripe green fruit that she and Suika were standing close to.
"Hmmm… yah, but," Suika looked unsurely at the fruit. "Will that give me exactly sake?"
"What sort are you looking for?"
"Premium quality, pure sake."
"… Will you be terribly upset if something else other than sake is produced?"
"Yes."
Yuka looked at the plum tree again. Premium quality, pure, unadulterated sake made of polished rice huh?
"Yes, you would get sake using this fruit," Yuka said deviously. Wanton herbicide had to be duly punished, after all.
"Really?" Suika asked, a little doubtful. This green fruit will give me sake?
"But of course," Yuka said with convincing conviction. "Where else do you expect sake to come from? Paddy fields?"
Suika scratched her head. As much as she hated to admit, Yuka probably knew a lot more about brewing alcohol from plants than she did. Suika aimed an expertly precise kick at the tree, and shook loose a few plums on the lower branches, catching them before they hit the ground. She sniffed them. They smelled rather sour. She bit into them, and then promptly spat the chewed bits out. They were sour!
"Are you sure these fruits will give me sake?" Suika turned back to Yuka. "They don't even taste ripe!"
"Look," Yuka advised, "Alcohol comes from fermentation, the breaking down of sugar. Things change during the process," she said matter-of-factly.
"Sigh," Suika stared at the fruit long and hard. If Yuka was right, then she could be drinking sake right here and now. There was no time to waste. Suika crushed one of the plums in her hand, and squeezed the juice into the gourd. Hopefully whatever magical properties the gourd had, would take the juice and make it into sake. Unlimited sake.
Yuka watched on with great curiosity. Would simply doing this produce unlimited drink? "So… how can you tell if it's worked?" she asked.
"I don't know," Suika shrugged. "Maybe we should just wait for a sign-" All of a sudden, the gourd began to glow with a warm, greenish yellow, and a strong, fruity smell emanated from the gourd. Suika took a big whiff of the vapours now gushing out richly from the gourd. "Hah… it's sake alright!"
"Really?" Yuka said, knowingly skeptical of Suika's diagnosis.
Suika turned the bottle upside down, and a faintly greenish yellow liquid poured out onto the ground. After a few minutes, the bursting river of alcohol was still going strong. "Ha! The magic has returned!" Suika celebrated.
"Congratulations!" Yuka said, smirking. "Go ahead and drink it!"
"Thank you! I will!" Suika was still holding the gourd upside down. She now brought it above her head, not minding the alcohol splashing all over her body, and tipped her head back and mouth open to welcome her new batch of sake.
"Glug glug glug glug… Pfft!" Suika spat the 'sake' out, and threw her gourd to the ground.
"That was not sake! That was umeshu!" Her infinite gourd of hardcore rice wine had just transformed into an infinite gourd of flavored kiddy liqueur.
Hahahaha… oh, sorry, shouldn't be laughing at poor Suika.
Might seem a little silly, this chapter, but it was partly inspired by three personal incidents, involving people who thought that rice came from wheat, wheat came from trees, and coffee came from cocoa. Wonder if any of you had come across people like that.
Oh, and just to defend myself, in case any of you misread, yes I know Umeshu is not made from plums, it's just alcohol flavoured with plums. Yah, just to clarify. Although you can criticize me on everything else, because frankly I've never drank sake or umeshu before, so I don't really know how they taste. My first hard alcohol was…Surprise! Pure Vodka… It burned…