The Flying Whiskey Fountain

[Dunames Lopez]

Dunames dreamed big for Star Tours: she dreamed of Star Tours being one of the preeminent spacelines in the galaxy. Star Tours already had a staggering 150 destinations on their books, which is a rather high number for a company Star Tours' size. She wondered whether Galtea was a viable destination for Star Tours. What she knew was that Galtea, being rather close to the Edge of the Galaxy, would at best be a stopover on a vacation package that would bring the passengers to the Edge itself, offered from Tomorrowland Starport, which was the closest Star Tours hub to that point in the Edge. But, in an attempt to survey possible stopovers for a multi-stop vacation package, similar to the Deluxe Action-Adventure Package, she went there anyway, and also looking at the planet's distillery for the purposes of contacting a potential supplier of alcoholic beverages that will be served on all flights, and not just that particular package.

But coming to what is largely an unknown planet to her, she had to have a taser pistol as well as her main sniper rifle on her back, with its bayonet off. Who knows what surprises this planet would hold. She knocked on the main door of Rywen's Distillery...

[member="Glavo Pahro"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

It wasn't your typical office. A handful of lightsabers, rifles, and more. Bits of armor, trophies of slain enemies and beasts in stasis fields. A towering and positively nasty looking black greatsword. A few pictures of him with a younger [member="Darius Sedaire"], both of them in Jedi Robes, the younger with a formal Padawan braid in his hair. It was outfitted in simple, but rather lush bits of furnishing in a Corellian style. Which is to say it would likely remind someone, if they had seen it, of Vito Corleone's office in the Godfather. Tasteful, but speaking of restrained power and style. A Rywens' logo was engraved on the front part of the desk, and the man behind it was dressed in spacers clothes of all things, feet up on the desk, a cigarra in one hand, a crystal cut rocks glass holding some sort of green liquor.

As Dunames entered, he turned and smiled, sliding up easily. Charm and a rakish, brisk sense of humor radiated from the Jedi, well former Jedi. Something anyway. Julius knew what he was. If others did or not was not his concern. He turned and offered a seat to the visitor with a waved hand a lightsaber hanging at his hip, and a pistol strapped in a low thigh holster that wasn't visible when he was seated. There seemed to be an almost boundless energy easily. But those who knew battle would see always the wariness, the calm. The weapons were let into his presence merely because his security, which consisted of a few crack members of the Underground now turned TKO SpecOps, had searched for explosives, but left the guns. With reaction times like his, guns weren't too often a threat. Especially not a sniper rifle.

"Ms. Lopez, come in, have a seat... Can I offer you a drink before we begin?"

Terrible at the numbers game, but he had accountants for that. This is where he shone in the business. That, and making the whiskey itself.

[member="Dunames Lopez"]

 

[Dunames Lopez]

"Please do" Dunames told Glavo, while being served a drinking vessel containing the green liquor. She also left her sniper rifle on the ground, because it was rather cumbersome to her to have that MR-73 sniper rifle on her back while seated.

"I am Dunames Lopez, CEO of Star Tours. It has been brought to my attention that not only customers would like some duty-free liquors, but that there is also a demand for vacationing on the frontier, and that Galtea is just one prospective stopover for a vacation package billed to take travelers to the Edge of the Galaxy. There is much to discuss, beyond the delivery of the whiskey across the galaxy and the procurement for Star Tours sale"

Dunames knew more about how to market travel packages or how to offer good in-flight service onboard passenger flights than about alcohol. Of course, she knew that not every passenger on a Star Tours flight would actually go to, or from, Galtea for vacationing on the frontier; some were just looking to go from point A to point B without vacationing in the process. The classical (i.e. Yavin-era) incarnation of the company offered several vacation packages but most flights offered at the time had no in-flight services beyond a washroom, not even meals, let alone duty-free shopping. Duty-free shopping onboard has to feature a number of goods: liquor, fashion items and accessories for the more innocuous side of the duty-free shopping. She knew that the Edge of the Galaxy vacation package, whatever it will ultimately be called and made up of, had to be different from the Deluxe Action-Adventure Package in more than just the stopovers. Nar Shaddaa and Tatooine were Outer Rim stopovers all right, but they were not quite up to Edge of the Galaxy standards, as far as their "frontier" character is concerned.

"I want to offer vacation packages that are different from the competition, who mostly stay among the tourist traps of the galaxy. But I have a question before we proceed further: was the green liquor one of your products? If so, would it be possible to have a supply of a thousand bottles a week for Star Tours use?"

Common tourist traps include Endor, Kashyyyk, Bespin, Tatooine, Naboo, Hoth, Coruscant, Berchest, Mygeeto, Felucia and, for those species who were more aquatic-inclined, Glee Anselm, Kamino, Mon Calamari. There were already tons of companies running those routes. Bespin Direct, which was under First Order control by virtue of the First Order controlling Bespin, was Star Tours' main competitor in that area of the galaxy, and Star Tours needed to serve destinations as close to the Edge of the Galaxy before Bespin Direct did. Keep Bespin Direct out of Galtea, and she'd keep the First Order out of Galtea as well.

[member="Glavo Pahro"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Glavo paused at the question, and looked down at his dataslate. The look was one of thought and consideration. Production he could do, he thought, but that much of this particular liquor could be.... Dangerous... It was well over 130 proof, clocking over 150 proof actually. It was something to sip in small glasses, slowly, and to savor. At this point, he had gotten a hold of an internal numbers specialist, a fiery red-head who reminded him vaguely of [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]'s holo-pics. She knew her data, and her numbers. When he received the verdict back from her he sat back for a moment and ran a hand across his chin, sucking his lip in slightly in thought. Then he shook his head.

"Numbers wise, yes.... But Absinthe Aing-Tii is...... Potent... And the Dathomirian wormwood and the high proof of the beverage make it unwise to consume in that amount. Plus, that particular vintage is.... Entry level, but still specialist, rather expensive, and takes a while to age. We are working on a straight Corellian whiskey, nothing fancy but with all the hallmarks. A Nar Shaddian rum that would pair nicely with a 'Edge of the Verse' tour.... And a Mandalorian tihaar style liquor. Those are much safer to drink in quantity, and much more logical in price. We could promise you four of our less impressive vintages almost barrel aged to full maturity, at those amounts a year in about a month. And say half that in the Absinthe Aing-Tii. Total of five options, and a rider to negotiate carrying each one, within acceptable parameters, of each of our products once we have them produced fully.... Also, I can have some samples brought in, if you wish? Let you sample each, see which you prefer?"

[member="Dunames Lopez"]

 

[Dunames Lopez]

"That Nar Shadian rum can sell pretty fast on our flagship vacation package, the Deluxe Action-Adventure Package, which is offered with departures from four locations: Coruscant, Spaceport THX1138, and Ringo Vinda in the version that flies to Nar Shaddaa first and Tomorrowland Starport (on Eriadu) in the reverse direction, that is, Tatooine first. I'm here not simply to sign a deal for selling such merchandise on Star Tours flights, but to deliver them to planets such as Coruscant and Nar Shaddaa... provided customers on Nar Shaddaa won't eat up the entire stock before the remaining stock makes it to Coruscant. Think about it for a moment: Star Tours is shipping alcohol with guaranteed repeat orders, and Rywen's Distillery products will be sold as far away from here as Eriadu, let alone Nar Shaddaa or Coruscant. Also, a tour that would take customers from Eriadu to the Edge of the Galaxy would also allow Galteans to go off-world or off-worlders to go to Galtea because not everyone that goes from Eriadu to here would be there for the tour"

Nar Shaddaa is known as a black hole of alcohol across the galaxy. Nar Shaddaa can easily consume tens of thousands of bottles of Absinthe Aing-Tii a week; on Nar Shaddaa such potent and dangerous alcohol products can command astronomical prices. 500 bottles a week wouldn't even make a dent into how much demand Nar Shaddaa would represent... But there were a few residual questions left to go: for nearly six thousand bottles a week being shipped off-world, taking up twenty tons of cargo space, how many people would even want to travel from and to that place, assuming a weekly flight? How many of these would go on the tour to the Edge of the Galaxy?

"Sure, since Star Tours is flying to that alcohol black hole called Nar Shaddaa, I can assure you the amount of alcohol you can supply will sell. Corellian whiskey, Mandalorian tihaar, Nar Shadian rum, you only mentioned four of the five vintages by name. Which one was the last of these... less impressive vintages? Whatever it is, it is part of the shipping deal. If I give one month notice to the vendors on Nar Shaddaa, they will buy years' worth of production during that timespan"

[member="Glavo Pahro"]

 

[Dunames Lopez]

"Oh, sure, I would like to sample the drinks for myself, but I may not be able to pilot myself for a while after having sampled all five. Regardless of how good they tasted, their total alcohol content would ensure that I would break the alcohol limit for piloting"

The legal alcohol limit would, in her case, amount to drinking five servings of tihaar that were about 20-40 ml in size, of which she already drank the equivalent of three just with the small serving of Absinth Aing-Tii she drank earlier. Last time Merrily had to pilot, the takeoff was a little rough and other aspects of flight were also rough around the edges. WA-7 units were just not designed for piloting spacecraft without any add-ons. Star Tours could always market an Edge of the Galaxy tour as a respite from the hectic life of the Core; that will surely attract would-be refugees, even though some would deboard before the tour is over, in which case the Edge of the Galaxy tour would require displacing one of the Bowsers that is currently running the Coruscant-Eriadu route to run the Edge of the Galaxy tour.

"It may not be a big deal for you, but I might be wondering which planets would be most likely to harbor refugees from the One Sith around here. Is Galtea one of them?"

Although seemingly innocuous, it carried logistical implications to her, and pretty serious ones at that: if the Edge of the Galaxy tour was to be served by a Bowser-class ship, 525 passengers a week would consume more of the alcohol stock as opposed to 166, driving up the prices of the stock destined to Nar Shaddaa even more, since the supply has diminished but the demand has not gone anywhere.

[member="Glavo Pahro"]

 

[Dunames Lopez]

For some reason Dunames mixed up breweries; there were two breweries she was scheduled to go to on that planet that sold tihaar, Nar Shaddian rum, to name the main things she was looking for on this world. In the alcohol world, there were two commonly recognized formats for spirits: 750 ml and 1.75 L, known as Coruscant and Nar Shaddaa standard respectively. Maybe Star Tours was becoming too big for her own good. Maybe it was the plethora of alcohol contained in the Absinthe Aing-Tii that she just drank.

"Oh, I misjudged what this brewery was about, and I got carried away: I mixed up which brewery and how many to get from each brewery on this world. But that's probably because of the Absinthe Aing-Tii. It's not like one of those breweries these Nar Shaddaa residents would gobble up without a second thought; maybe a smaller supply of, say, fifty bottles, ten of each vintage, would be more suited to what you can actually produce. I mixed up that brewery with another one. But with such boutique drinks, pricing on my end will have to be... adjusted. I may also inquire about whether each individual bottle could be gift-wrapped: they cost each a fortune to off-worlders, regardless of standard, so I may also be wondering which size of bottle I would get. If it is Coruscant-standard (i.e. 750 ml), then OK, 10 of each vintage would do. But if it is Nar Shaddaa-standard (1.75 L) five bottles of each vintage would suffice, and larger bottles are more expensive. Oh and it won't be a repeat order"

[member="Glavo Pahro"]