Wine, Mead and Beer: Every Recipe, Buyer and Bottle Count

Every juice, cider, beer and wine is pressed, brewed or aged in one cellar, the Vineyard Basement. Alcohol is the exception: it drips out of the Distillation Cube in the Alchemy Lab. Normal sleep never lowers Insanity and Wine is the strongest cure there is, so these bottles are mostly about buying back maximum energy; selling them is a sideline. Figures are for patch 1.008.

Every drink at a glance

The three-number columns follow the grade: bronze, silver, gold. Both barrels run on their own once loaded and burn no Fuel. The Vine Press and the Brewing Stand are manual benches (2 energy per tick for Grape Juice, Beer and Mead), and the Brewing Stand also burns Fuel, so build a Firewood shed in the cellar: it turns 2 Firewood into 20 Fuel for every station in the same area.

How to make Wine, step by step

1. Open the Vineyard and its cellar

The Vineyard sits on the western edge of the base, across the Vineyard Bridge. Repair the bridge with a hammer: 4 Wooden Plank, 1 Polished Bronze and 4 Piece of stone at Building mastery 2. The repair needs no technology, but Polished Bronze needs Bronze Polishing. Trellises and beehives go up top; the stairs lead down to the Vineyard Basement, where the Vine Press, both barrels and the Brewing Stand are built. Light the Vineyard Milestone while you are there (2 Faith).

2. Research the drinks technologies

Everything sits on the Farming tab and is paid mostly in green points, with some blue from Fertilizers II onward.

Mead Making or Brewing, whichever comes first, hands you the Brewing Stand blueprint. Winemaking is the big bill: counting everything beneath it, it costs 655 green and 110 blue, and the press that makes the juice still needs Cold Pressing (40 green with Orchardry). Add Glass Blowing for Empty Bottles (45 red and 10 green, or 90 red and 20 green counting the nodes before it). The tech priorities page shows where this fits in a full research order.

3. Grow Grapes on Vine Trellises

• Dig each Vine Trellis at Farming mastery 6 for 5 Stick and 3 Peat. The Vineyard holds 12 trellises, 18 after the Vineyard Upgrade (6 Farming Fertilizer III, 6 Advanced Detail, 4 Oiled Beam).
• Plant 4 Grape Seeds per trellis. Bronze, silver and gold seeds need your Farming at 12, 14 and 16. Planting takes 4 ticks judged against your own Farming, and a failed planting tick is lost for the whole crop, so stack Farming first: shovels and fishing rods in your belt add to it, and a Muffin adds 2.
• Grow: once planted, your own Farming stops mattering and each growth tick is judged against the trellis’s Farming (6 at base, 11 with the Vineyard Upgrade, plus Peat and Farming Fertilizer). A trellis at 6 fills a bronze Grape cell on 51% of ticks; at 11 that rises to 92%. Silver and gold Grapes are slower (69% for gold even at 11). The ticks themselves come faster with your Garden Upgrades and with the God of nature blessing from a successful Harvest Prayer sermon (20 seconds off every tick).
• Grade up for free: bronze or silver seeds pay one grade higher from the 11th successful cell onward, so even a bronze crop ends on a silver cell.
• Buy seeds from the Brewery (bronze from tier I, silver from II, gold at III), the Trademaster (bronze and silver) or Herm (bronze, at his third level). Base prices are 50, 75 and 100 bronze.

4. Press, then age

At the Vine Press, 6 Grapes and 1 Empty Bottle become 1 Grape Juice of the same grade (Farming 10, 12 or 14). Bottles come from Furnace I or II: 1 Glass and 10 Fuel make 2 (3 with Glassworker) at Smithing 3. Then load the Wine Barrel: 4 Grape Juice age into 4 Wine of the same grade in 8 ticks while you do something more profitable, like digging.

One bottle of Wine therefore costs 6 Grapes and 1 Empty Bottle; a full barrel eats 24 Grapes and 4 bottles. To total a batch from raw materials, plan a full barrel in the crafting calculator.

How to get gold Wine

Gold Wine is the one bottle the world keeps asking for. Three roads lead to it. The other gold-grade items (gold Story, gold certificates) and the metal itself are in the gold guide.

The Kitchen Table upgrade works on Grape Juice too, which matters because the Brewery III restoration itself asks for 20 gold Grape Juice. Spices is cheap to brew (two Ash at the laboratory), but Umami needs three ingredients and therefore Laboratory II, and the Alchemist III pays about 11 silver for a single Umami. Pouring that into a bottle worth 1 silver 5 bronze is accounting only a gravedigger could love: keep the Umami road for quest and mercenary bottles, never for the shelf.

Once Brewery III stands, buying is the cheapest road: three gold Wine off a full shelf cost a little over 3 silver.

What gold Wine is for:

• Inflation: once the Merc Leader’s fee reaches 20 silver, haggle: hand over 3 gold Wine and their fee becomes 3 gold Wine per hire.
• The Lord’s Vintage: a monk in the Royal Foundry wants 2 gold Wine and pays 3 Town Gratitude.
• Supply: Wine: a crate takes only 4 gold Wine, against 6 silver or 8 bronze.

Beer, Mead and Soldier’s ale

All three come from the Brewing Stand, 10 Fuel and 6 ticks a batch.

Beer: the drink that pays

Hops grow on the same Vine Trellis from Farming 7, four Hop Seeds a planting, and a base trellis already fills a Hops cell on 86% of ticks. Five Hops sell raw for about 40 bronze; brewed with 5 Water into 5 Beer, they fetch about 1 silver 20 to 1 silver 30, and close to 2 silver with the Brewer talent (8 Beer). Beer is also the only drink with three buyers: Januarius, the Town Tavern and the Brewery.

Early on you will need it before you can brew it. Comrade Donkey wants 2 Beer for Larry, Yummies wants 2 Beer and a Berry Pie for the Village guards, and Tales for Ales wants 2 for the Captain. Januarius sells Beer at the Village Tavern from day one (36 bronze base), and a Simple Chest at home holds 1 bottle at the start.

Mead: the honey outlet

Honey comes from Beehives in the Vineyard (2 Wooden Plank, 1 Bronze Detail, 6 Bronze Nails; 3 to 6 Honey and 1 to 2 Beeswax per emptying, harvested by hand at Farming 3) and from wild hives (1 to 2 Honey). No trader buys Honey, so 5 Honey and 5 Water into 5 Mead at Farming 4 is how a hive turns into coin.

Who buys Mead? The Brewery, from its first tier, at about 21 to 22 bronze a bottle. Januarius buys Beer but no other drink. Mead lowers Insanity by 10 and distils into a single Alcohol, so beyond cashing in Honey it has no special job. The farming guide covers hives in depth.

Soldier’s ale: brewed for one reason

The recipe comes from Soldier’s food, a free cooking technology that only the Yummies quest teaches. 3 Red Mushrooms, 5 Water and 10 Fuel (5 with Heat Saver) make 5 bottles at Farming 4. Each one gives 5 energy and 20 Insanity, the worst trade in the game, and no trader buys it. Its single virtue is the Alcohol Baron counter, below.

Ciders and juices

The Orchard (10 Peat, Orchardry) holds Apple Trees (4 to 8 Apples every 20 minutes) and berry and blueberry bushes (2 to 4 every 20 minutes). Press 6 fruit and a bottle into 1 juice, then let the Fermentation Barrel turn each juice into a cider. As money this is poor: six Apples and a bottle for a cider worth about 15 bronze. Ciders earn their keep elsewhere:

• Tavern upgrades: Tavern II needs 20 Apple Cider, Tavern III 20 Blueberry Cider. Likewise Brewery II needs 20 bronze Grape Juice and Brewery III 20 gold Grape Juice.
• Likes: the Tavern pays weekly Likes for Beer and all three ciders (table below).
• Energy: juices are food, up to 60 energy for a gold Grape Juice.

Who buys each drink, and for how much

Three rules shape every sale:

• Each bottle pays a little less. A trader pays about three quarters of base while his shelf sits at its usual stock, and every unit you add lowers the next offer. Overnight the shelf drifts back by at most a fifth of its usual stock, so roughly a fifth of that stock sells near the first-sale price per shop per day (2 bottles on a shelf of 10). Beer has three shelves (Januarius 10, Tavern 20 and Brewery 10 at tier I), which is why it sells best.
• Purses are small. Town shops start with 1 silver and earn 20 bronze, 50 bronze or 1 silver a day by tier, plus whatever they resell overnight. If the Brewery cannot pay, take some of its stock in the same trade: only the balance is checked against its purse.
• The Brewery buys bronze Wine from tier II, silver and gold Wine only at tier III. Restore it with Artisans II (100 red, 75 green; 6 Building Kit I, 4 Wooden Kit I, 2 Iron Kit I), upgrade it with 10 Furniture Kit I, 6 Marble Kit and 20 bronze Grape Juice, then with 12 Furniture Kit II, 6 Building Kit II and 20 gold Grape Juice for tier III. The Town has a courtyard for each courtyard shop, so the Tavern and the Brewery never compete for space (town restoration lists every stage).

Is Wine worth selling?

Per bottle, Wine is the best drink you can sell. Per Grape, it throws money away. Six bronze Grapes sold raw to the Brewery bring in about 2 silver; turned into one bronze Wine, they bring in about 54 bronze. Gold is starker: at Brewery III six gold Grapes fetch about 4 silver, their gold Wine about 75 bronze. Wine Master’s fifth bottle does not close that gap. And buying Grapes to make Wine is pure loss: six bronze Grapes off the Brewery shelf cost over 3 silver.

So make Wine to use, not to sell: Insanity relief, Inflation and the mercenaries, the Brewery upgrades and Alcohol. For money, sell a few Grapes each visit and brew Beer, which roughly triples the value of its Hops. Even a perfect cellar earns pocket change next to Paint, gold rings or a good sermon: see the money-making guide.

Likes from drinks

The Brewery rewards its raw goods (Hops, Wheat, bottles, juices), not its Wine or Mead. Every trader also has a weekly Likes cap (15, 30, then 50 for these shops), reset on Pride. Town orders are the other Likes tap: Tavern II asks for 10 Supply: Beer (12 Beer per crate) and Tavern III for 10 Supply: Wine. The town orders guide explains the payouts.

Spirits: distilling Alcohol

Alcohol is the only spirit you can make. The Distillation Cube is unlocked by Alchemy, Distillation (5 red, 5 green), but a fresh cube cannot make Alcohol: that recipe comes with Reanimation Liquid (30 red, 40 green, 50 blue), which needs 20 reputation with Gunter and stays hidden until revealed. Each batch takes 1 drink, 2 Clay Urns and 20 Fuel at Anatomy 3 and runs on its own.

• Distil bronze Wine, never gold: the grade changes nothing.
• Per batch, Wine wins: half the urns and half the Fuel per Alcohol compared with Beer. Per crop, Beer wins: 5 Hops become 10 Alcohol, while 6 Grapes become 4.
• Clay Urns come from the Potter’s Wheel: 4 Clay make 2 at Building 5 (Ceramic Firing).
• Uses: Alcohol carries 3 blue runes and goes into Reanimation Liquid (Stone + Alcohol + Ash at Laboratory II), Umami, Third Eye Salt, Philosopher Stone, Zombie Motivator Potion III, Dynamite and the Solution and Injection for Zombies. The alchemy guide has every formula.

The Distillation Cube has no upgraded tier, and the Apothecary also sells Alcohol from its second tier if you would rather buy it. Moonshine exists in the item list, but nothing makes it, sells it or buys it in 1.008.

Batch counting: Alcohol Baron and the drink inspirations

Alcohol Baron asks for 100 bottles of alcohol in total (about 1 player in 10 has it). The counter adds what each batch yields, with one apparent exception:

The cheapest run is 20 batches of Soldier’s ale: 60 foraged Red Mushrooms, 100 Water from the well and 200 Fuel. Nobody buys the result and drinking it is self-harm, so park it in a chest. Whether Brewer’s or Wine Master’s extra bottles count is untested; plan on the base numbers.

Five inspirations also track this work, and each claimed level pushes a talent bar (see talents and inspirations):

Shopping lists for common goals

Every 20 Empty Bottles cost 10 Glass and 100 Fuel at a furnace (7 Glass with Glassworker). A crate is paid at its base price whatever is inside: 1 silver for Supply: Beer, 2 silver for Supply: Wine, against 4 to 6 silver of Wine at base. Fill Wine orders for the Likes, never for the cash.

Talents and zombie perks that pour more

• Keeper, Farming tree (1 inspiration point each, in this order): Master Brewer (its promised +2 Farming on Beer and Mead is unconfirmed in 1.008, but it guards the branch), Brewer (8 Beer or Mead per batch instead of 5), Grape Master (+1 Grapes per harvest), then Wine Master (5 Wine per barrel instead of 4) and Sommelier (+3 Farming when making Wine, working since 1.008).
• Keeper, other trees: Cube distillations (Anatomy) lifts Alcohol to 7, 3 or 2; Glassworker (Building) makes 3 bottles per Glass instead of 2.
• Zombie perks: Presser (+4 Farming on every juice, 200 green), Brewer (+3 Farming on Mead and Beer, 200 green), Winemaker (+5 Farming on Wine, 500 green) and Dead distiller (Alcohol 7 instead of 4, only 50 blue).

Automating the cellar

1. Gardening: Zombie Vineyard gives the Gardener Stand and the Grapes and Hops tablets. A zombie with a shovel plants 4 seeds from open chests and harvests every trellis its tablet marks (3 trellises per tablet; 4 tablet spots, 6 after the Vineyard Upgrade).
2. Carrying: a Porter Station in the Vineyard carries Honey, Hops and Grapes down to the cellar; one in the cellar carries Beer and Wine to the Factory’s drinks pallet once both blockages between them are cleared (4 Iron Detail and 1 Reinforced Beam each). Nothing is ticked by default, so tick your goods.
3. Feeding: a Zombie Supplier Station in the cellar fills the press, barrels and stand from open chests and empties their outputs. A crafting zombie only uses what is already in its station.
4. Packing: Kitchen I in the Factory packs Beer and Wine into Supply crates for the Tavern’s orders.

The factory guide covers belts and power, and the zombies guide covers perks and mastery.

Common mistakes

• Buying Grapes to make Wine. Six bronze Grapes cost over 3 silver; the Wine they make sells for about 54 bronze.
• Offering Wine to a tier I Brewery or to Januarius. Brewery II buys bronze Wine; silver and gold Wine sell only to Brewery III.
• Distilling gold Wine. It gives the same 4 Alcohol as bronze.
• Brewing Mead for Alcohol Baron. Use Soldier’s ale, or Beer, which should count all 5 bottles.
• Drinking Soldier’s ale. +20 Insanity for 5 energy.
• Finishing Inflation with an empty cellar. The quest data says the fee becomes 3 gold Wine per hire for good, so keep a supply first.
• Crating Wine for money. A Supply: Wine crate pays 2 silver for bottles worth twice that or more.
• Planting Grapes below their Farming requirement. Failed planting ticks are lost for the whole crop.
• Forgetting Fuel in the cellar. The Brewing Stand burns 10 per batch; build a Firewood shed down there.
• Sleeping off Insanity. Normal sleep does not lower it; only sleeping off Lack of sleep removes 20. While Lack of sleep lasts, every cure, Wine included, works at half strength. See energy and insanity.

For the crops behind all of this, read the farming guide; for the food side of the kitchen, the cooking guide.