The solar was warm, thanks to the newly routed pipes beneath the floorboards, but Ned Stark's mood was cool as he stared at the ledgers spread across his weirwood desk.
Maester Luwin stood beside him, hands tucked into his sleeves, looking equally grim.
"The glassworks are operational, my Lord," Luwin said. "Lord Benjen reports that production has doubled in the last week. We have enough panes to glaze the first acre of the new gardens."
"Good," Ned said. "And the cost?"
"Significant," Luwin admitted. "The sand barges from the coast, the coal from the Wolfswood, the extra rations for the workers... the treasury is bleeding, Lord Stark. We have the tax exemption, yes, but we are spending gold faster than we are generating it."
Ned rubbed his temples. Infrastructure was expensive. In the Civilization games of his past life, you just clicked a button and waited a few turns. In reality, you had to pay for every nail, every meal, and every hour of labor.
He needed a trade good. Something high value, low weight, and non-perishable. Something that could be exported to the South, or even across the Narrow Sea, to bring gold flowing back into the North.
Glass was the long game. The food it produced would keep his people alive, but it wouldn't make them rich, not yet.
He needed something faster.
Ned stood up and walked to the sideboard. He poured himself a cup of ale. It was brown, thick, and tasted faintly of yeast and old barrels. It was sustenance, not pleasure.
He looked at the cup.
Alcohol.
The North drank ale. The South drank wine. The Ironborn drank seawater (mostly). But no one in Westeros had mastered the art of high-proof, clean distillation. There were rumors of "firemilk" in the East, and crude moonshines made in hill tribes, but nothing refined. Nothing industrial.
Ned smiled.
Grain was heavy to transport. It rotted. It was eaten by rats.
But if you fermented that grain, boiled it, captured the vapor, and condensed it... you turned a thousand pounds of wheat into a hundred bottles of "Water of Life." Liquid gold that never spoiled, warmed the blood in winter, and got people drunk enough to forget the cold.
"Maester," Ned said, turning back to Luwin. "How much barley do we have in the stores?"
"A fair amount, my Lord. The harvest was good."
"And potatoes?"
Luwin frowned. "Potatoes? You mean the earth-apples the mountain clans grow?"
"Yes. Earth-apples."
"They are... peasant food, my Lord. Fit for stews, mostly."
"Fit for empires," Ned corrected. "Set aside a hundred bushels of barley. And get me as many earth-apples as you can find."
"May I ask why, my Lord? Are we expecting a famine?"
"No," Ned grinned. "We're opening a distillery."
---
Ned spent the rest of the morning sketching.
He drew a Pot Still. It was a beautiful shape—a large, bulbous copper kettle narrowing into a "swan neck," which then fed into a spiral condensing coil submerged in a tank of cold water (the "worm").
He sketched the specifications.
Material: Copper. Essential. Iron leaves a metallic taste and reacts with sulfur. Copper purifies.
Heat Source: Direct coal fire or steam jacket.
Cooling: Constant flow of cold water from the springs (cooled first) or snow packing.
He designed a thumper keg—a secondary chamber to refine the vapor before it hit the condenser, increasing the proof without needing a second run.
It wasn't just about getting drunk. High-proof alcohol was a disinfectant. It was a solvent for medicines. It was fuel.
But mostly, it was about getting drunk. Specifically, making a vodka so clean and smooth that the lords of the South would pay ten times the price of Arbor Gold for a bottle of "Northern Frost."
Ned rolled up the parchment.
"Time to see Mikken."
---
The smithy was louder than usual. Since the success of the glassworks, Mikken had become a very popular man. He had three apprentices working the bellows now, and the clang of hammers was a constant song in the courtyard.
When Ned entered, Mikken was inspecting a pile of iron frames for the glass casting tables. He looked tired, his face streaked with soot, but there was a pride in his posture that hadn't been there before.
"My Lord," Mikken nodded, wiping his hands on a rag. "More tools for the glass?"
"The glass is doing fine," Ned said. He laid the new parchment on the anvil. "This is something else."
Mikken leaned over the drawing. He squinted.
"It looks like... a giant onion," Mikken observed. "With a long neck."
"It's a still," Ned explained. "For making spirits."
Mikken frowned. "Like a moonshine cooker? The clansmen make those out of old pots."
"This is to a moonshine cooker what Ice is to a butter knife," Ned said.
He traced the lines of the diagram.
"It needs to be copper, Mikken. Pure copper. Beaten smooth. No leaks. The joints must be sealed tight."
Mikken whistled. "Copper is soft. Tricky to work large sheets of it without tearing. And expensive."
"Tell me how much copper you need," Ned said. "I will buy the copper from White Harbor. I don't care about the cost. I care about the craftsmanship."
Mikken looked at the coil—the worm. "And this tube... you want me to spiral a hollow copper pipe?"
"Yes. It needs to be long enough to cool the vapor back into liquid."
Mikken scratched his beard. "I can do it. Sand-fill the pipe before bending it so it doesn't kink. Old trick."
"Exactly," Ned smiled. "You're a master, Mikken."
"I'm a busy master," Mikken grunted. "My Lord, with the glass frames, the horseshoes, the repairs... I have four hands, counting my apprentices. You're asking for twelve."
"Then hire twelve," Ned said instantly.
Mikken blinked. "My Lord?"
"Expand," Ned ordered. "Send word to the winter town. To Cerwyn. Any man who can swing a hammer or work a bellows. I'll pay them. Build a second forge if you have to. A third. I want Winterfell to have the finest metalworking shop in the North."
Ned leaned in, his voice low and intense.
"I need this equipment, Mikken. I want to start production before the snows deepen. Can you do it?"
Mikken looked at the plans. He looked at the Lord who was transforming the castle into a factory.
"If you give me the men," Mikken said, a grin splitting his beard. "I'll build you a copper dragon that spits firewater."
"Get the men," Ned said. "And get the copper."
---
While Mikken hammered, Ned brewed.
He took over a section of the kitchens, much to Gage's confusion.
"You want to... boil the barley, my Lord?" Gage asked, holding a sack of grain.
"Mash it," Ned corrected.
He directed the cooks to grind the barley into a coarse meal. They mixed it with hot water in massive wooden tuns, creating a thick, porridge-like slurry.
Wiki: Enzymes. Malted barley converts starch to sugar.
Ned had ensured a portion of the barley was malted—soaked and sprouted—to activate the enzymes. He stirred the mash himself, a Lord Paramount with a wooden paddle the size of a shovel, sweating in the heat of the kitchen.
"It smells like porridge," Ashara commented, walking in with Cregan on her hip. She wrinkled her nose.
"It's the precursor to magic," Ned said, wiping his forehead.
Once the mash had cooled, Ned added the yeast. He didn't have modern turbo-yeast, so he used the barm from the castle's ale brewing. It was slower, but it would work.
He sealed the tuns, leaving only a small airlock to let the carbon dioxide escape without letting bacteria in.
"Now," Ned told the confused kitchen staff. "We wait. Let the yeast eat."
---
For five days, the tuns bubbled. The smell in the kitchen annex changed from porridge to something sharper, sourer. The smell of alcohol.
Ned checked the specific gravity (by floating a calibrated wooden stick in the liquid) daily. When the bubbling stopped and the stick sank to the mark, he knew it was ready.
The "Wash." A weak, sour beer, about 8% alcohol.
Now came the alchemy.
---
Mikken delivered the still on the tenth day.
It was a thing of beauty. A gleaming copper bulb, five feet wide, polished to a shine. The swan neck rose gracefully, curving down into the thumper keg, which connected to the condenser coil housed in a large wooden barrel.
They set it up in the courtyard, near the well.
"It looks like a musical instrument," Arthur Dayne said, circling the contraption. "Or a torture device."
"Hopefully the former," Ned said.
They filled the copper pot with the wash. Ned sealed the cap with a paste of flour and water—a simple dough that hardened with heat to create an airtight seal.
"Light the fire," Ned ordered.
Benjen, now an expert fireman from his time at the glassworks, lit the coals beneath the pot.
Ned watched the temperature. He didn't have a thermometer, but he used the Force.
He needed to hit the boiling point of ethanol (78°C) without hitting the boiling point of water (100°C). It was a delicate balance.
"Steady," Ned murmured to Benjen. "Not too hot. Low and slow."
They waited. The copper heated up.
Then, the sound changed. A low rumble started inside the pot, like a beast waking up.
"It's boiling," Mikken said, stepping closer.
Suddenly, the rumble turned into a violent shudder. The copper swan neck groaned.
"Ned!" Benjen shouted. "Something's blocked!"
The foam from the grain had risen too high, clogging the neck. Pressure was building. Fast.
The copper sides of the bulb began to bulge ominously. A seam hissed, steam jetting out.
"Run!" Mikken yelled, grabbing an apprentice and pulling him back. "It's going to blow!"
Benjen scrambled backward, tripping over a bucket. The pot was ticking now, metal stretching under the immense pressure of the expanding vapor. If it exploded, it would send shrapnel and boiling liquid across the courtyard.
Ned didn't run. He stepped forward.
He reached out with his mind.
Force Grip.
He didn't try to stop the reaction. He reinforced the container.
He visualized the copper atoms. He visualized the seams holding. He clamped his will around the swelling metal, creating an invisible vice that held the structure together against the explosive force inside.
The bulging stopped. The groaning metal shrieked, but held.
Ned gritted his teeth, sweat popping on his forehead. It felt like holding back a landslide.
"The valve!" Ned roared, his voice strained. "Open the valve, Ben! Now!"
Benjen, seeing Ned standing his ground, scrambled up. He grabbed a pair of tongs and hammered the emergency pin Ned had designed on the side of the neck.
HISSSSSSS.
A jet of steam and foam erupted from the valve, screaming into the air.
The pressure dropped instantly.
Ned relaxed his mental grip.
To the others, it just looked like the copper had miraculously held until the valve was opened.
"Gods," Benjen gasped, wiping foam from his face. "That was close."
"Too close," Mikken agreed, eyeing the still warily. "The metal... I thought it was gone. It stopped bulging."
"Good craftsmanship," Ned lied, patting the hot copper flank. "You build them strong, Mikken."
Mikken looked at the pot, confused, but took the compliment. "Aye. I suppose I do."
"Clear the blockage," Ned ordered, his heart still racing. "And let's try again. Gentler this time."
Ten minutes later, a clear liquid began to trickle into the glass jar.
"Methanol," Ned warned. "The foreshots. Poison."
He let the first jar fill up, then tossed it onto the coals.
WHOOSH.
A blue flame exploded upward.
"Now," Ned said, placing a fresh jar. "Now we get the Hearts."
The liquid that flowed next was crystal clear. It smelled clean, sharp, and sweet.
---
The raw spirit was rough. It was essentially moonshine.
Ned wasn't satisfied. He wanted Vodka.
He ran it through the still again. Double distillation.
Then, he did something the North had never seen. He built a charcoal filter.
He took birch charcoal from the Wolfswood, ground it fine, and packed it into a tall glass cylinder. He poured the spirit through the charcoal.
It took days to drip through.
But what came out the bottom was different. The harshness was stripped away. The fusel oils were trapped in the carbon.
The liquid was impossibly clear. Smooth. Viscous.
Ned tasted it.
It was clean. It burned, yes, but it was a warming burn, not a scouring one. It tasted of nothing but faint grain and purity.
"Winter's Breath," Ned named it.
---
Ned mobilized the glassworks.
"I need bottles," Ned told his glass team. "Not sheets. Bottles. Square ones. Thick glass."
They made molds. They blew the glass into the iron forms.
The result was a heavy, square bottle that looked like a brick of ice. It was distinctive. It looked expensive.
They filled fifty bottles. They corked them with wax.
Ned held one up to the light. The clear spirit inside magnified the world like a lens.
"It looks like water," Ashara said, examining a bottle.
"It's dangerous water," Ned warned. "Best alcohol in the world. It doesn't spoil. It doesn't freeze."
---
That night, in the solar, Ned poured a small glass for himself , Benjen, and Arthur.
"We have fifty bottles," Ned said. "It's a start."
"What's the plan?" Arthur asked, swirling the liquid.
"We send a crate to King's Landing," Ned said. "A gift for the King. Robert will drink it, love it, and tell everyone in the court. The demand will create itself."
"And the rest?" Benjen asked.
"We sell it in White Harbor to the Braavosi merchants," Ned said. "They appreciate purity. Once they taste this, they'll pay gold for it. Real gold."
Ned took a sip. It was crisp, cold, and fiery all at once.
"It's the fuel," Ned said, looking at the map of the North on his wall. "This pays for the roads. This pays for the walls. This pays for the future."
"You're turning Winterfell into a merchant's guild," Benjen teased.
"I'm turning it into a powerhouse," Ned corrected. "Winter is coming. And I intend to buy it off."
He set the glass down. The square bottle glinted in the firelight, looking like a block of ice that held a fire inside.
"To the North," Ned toasted.
"To the North," Benjen agreed.
"To the North," Arthur agreed.