The Strong Stuff
| The Strong Stuff | |
|---|---|
| Type | Special Order |
| Board | Special Orders board |
| Giver | Pam |
| Time Limit | 14 days |
| Needed | Spring |
| Repeatable | No |
Pam has heard about a spirit brewed from potatoes and wants a batch of it brought round to her kitchen in the trailer. The order only goes up on the board in Spring, and it asks for twelve jars of Potato Juice, every one of which has to come out of a keg while the posting is live. That one condition is what makes it awkward: a farm without kegs cannot start, and a farm with a single keg cannot finish. The gold is generous for a fortnight's brewing, Pam gains a large block of friendship, and she posts the F.I.B.S. channel number afterwards, which turns the farmhouse television into a seasonal fishing almanac. It is a comfortable order for an established farm and a genuinely hard one for a first Spring.
The board reads: Heard there's a spirit made out of potatoes that really packs a whallop, if you know what I mean. Mind dropping a few taters into a keg and bringing me a batch or two?
Requirements
The juice must be collected out of a keg during the order. Jars brewed in advance and kept in a chest can be carried into the trailer and set down, yet the tally only moves when a keg is emptied after the posting was accepted. That makes the kegs, not the potatoes, the real requirement.
Potatoes themselves are relaxed about their history. A sack of them dug up last season works perfectly well, because nothing in the order asks when the vegetable was harvested. Only the brewing has to happen inside the window. That is the quiet shortcut on this posting and the reason a farm with stored potatoes can finish it in a few days.
A keg takes roughly four days to turn one vegetable into one jar of juice, and it handles one at a time. Twelve kegs running together therefore deliver the whole batch in a single four-day cycle, six kegs need two cycles, and three kegs need the best part of the fortnight with no room for a slow start. Working out how many kegs the farm has before accepting is the single most useful thing to do with this posting.
Kegs become craftable once farming experience reaches the eighth level, and each one swallows a stack of wood, one bar each of copper and iron, and a lump of Oak Resin. The Oak Resin is the slow part, since it drips out of a tapper on an Oak Tree over several days. A keg also comes free with the Pantry's artisan bundle for a farm working on the Community Center, which is often the fastest way to own the first one.
Potato seeds are sold at Pierre's General Store through Spring and the plants are ready in under a week, so a field sown on the first day of the season produces well before the order's deadline. A lifted plant sometimes gives a second potato, so a dozen plants usually yields a little more than a dozen vegetables.
The jars go into Pam's kitchen inside the trailer rather than being handed over in the street, so the delivery needs her door to be reachable.
The order asks for every item in this table.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Potato Juice | 12 |
Rewards
The gold is handsome for what amounts to a fortnight of machines working on their own, and it lands in one lump rather than being spread over a harvest. Pam's regard climbs by a whole heart the moment the order closes, which is more than a fortnight of loved gifts would deliver, and that brings her later scenes within reach.
The F.I.B.S. channel is the part worth planning around. Pam writes afterwards to mention channel 736, and tuning in gives a seasonal rundown of what is biting in river water, in the lake up the mountain and out at sea, with the hours each fish appears and the weather it wants. It covers the fish that come and go with the seasons and leaves out the year-round catches, the Desert and Ginger Island species and the legendary fish, so it works as a seasonal reminder rather than a complete list. For anyone filling the Fish Tank bundles or chasing the fishing collection it saves a great deal of guesswork.
The Potato Juice scene plays in the trailer once the jars are down, and a Prize Ticket can be collected from the board's box afterwards.
Finishing the order pays out all of this.
| Reward | Image |
|---|---|
| 3,000g | - |
| 250 Friendship points with Pam | - |
| "Potato Juice" cutscene in Trailer | 
|
| F.I.B.S. television channel | - |
Strategy
The preparation that matters happens before Spring. A farm that already owns a row of kegs and a chest of potatoes can take this posting on Monday, load every keg that morning and be finished inside the week. A farm that owns neither should treat the fortnight as a build project: tap an oak, smelt the bars, raise the farming level and craft as many kegs as the materials allow.
Sow potatoes on the opening days of Spring whether or not the posting has appeared yet. They are cheap, they grow quickly and they sell perfectly well if the order never comes up, so nothing is wasted. Speed-Gro under them shortens the wait further.
Brewing more than twelve is sensible. Potato Juice sells for well over twice what the raw potato fetches, so any surplus jars go to the shipping bin at a profit rather than sitting idle, and a spare jar covers a miscount.
The usual way this order fails is a farm that accepts it on the strength of having potatoes and then discovers the keg problem on day ten. The second way is a late reading of the board: a posting taken in the last week of Spring has barely one brewing cycle left, which caps the batch at however many kegs are already loaded.
Notes
A fortnight is only a fortnight if the board is read on a Monday, because the timer starts with the posting rather than with the farmer. There is no way to withdraw once the order is in the journal. Jars already set down in the trailer are safe from a failure, since Lewis's lost and found holds everything a lapsed order swallowed.
The posting is one-time, so the channel and the friendship are each available once. The twelve jars are consumed by the order, so a farm that wants juice of its own afterwards has to brew another round.
All Special Orders
Every special order from both boards, with who posts it and how long it runs.