I looked at the four girls standing on the other side of the bar across from me.

"I just want to say that I am an amateur mixer at best, ok?" I warned them.

"Oh, I believe anything Tera makes would be delicious!" Amber assured me.

Come on now… You're exaggerating…

But I will admit I'm a little curious on what kind of alcohol they have and how it might taste if I mix them.

Once again, I have to say that I am seriously just an amateur when it comes to mixology. I do enjoy a drink now and then but it's not like I do it professionally nor do I do it often.

I would say that the most complicated drink I know how to make is a mojito which I might add in various different fruits to change the taste depending on my mood.

But then here comes the problem…

I looked at the bar where various different bottles were stacked on the shelves with labels that look completely alien to me.

What even are these? I don't even see anything that I know…

I even read some of the labels and I didn't even find anything that even remotely told me that the bottle I was holding was whiskey, vodka, rum or whatever.

The only good thing that I could find was that they at least had flavoured syrups and also what I guess were synthherbs or whatever they might be called.

Wait…

I opened up one of the containers and dipped my finger into the pile of white crystals before bringing it to my tongue.

This is…

"Is that White Powder?" Amber asked, her eyes sparkling.

"No, it's salt," I told her, putting the container back.

"Oh… And here I thought they gave us free White Powder to enjoy. What a bummer."

I raised an eyebrow, "This actually tastes like real salt though? Is this not a surprise?"

"Oh, no. Salt's not that hard to make, Tera. In fact, a lot of the salt mines are located in the outer colonies since they mine them from asteroids anyway. Ironically, it's cheaper to get salt in the outer colonies than it is in the inner colonies."

Ah… Ok…

I took down the next container which also had white crystals in them and tasted it.

"Sweet… This is sugar… Real sugar."

"Ohhh!! Ok! Organic sugar is expensive!! They actually have real sugar here?! That's really luxurious!!"

Hmm… Interesting.

"Captain? May I?" Lea asked with an outstretched hand.

I handed the container to her and she reached her hand in to take a pinch of the sugar before very carefully bringing it to her mouth to taste.

The other girls also crowded around the container and started to taste the sugar as well, leaving me to inspect the bar shelves again.

I searched through the shelves to see if I could find any type of alcohol that I would even recognise, which doesn't seem to be the case here.

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The only type of alcohol I could actually recognise from all these bottles was just… Well… Beer.

So if I just want to serve them beer straight from the tap or just from the bottle, I could do that… But they don't need me to do that for them since this doesn't need any mixing…

Hey… You know what? I've never really tried making beer cocktails before so this could be a chance to try?

I mean, I've heard of it and even tried them once or twice but never made them myself.

And if it sucks… Well… I wouldn't mind giving them a reason to think that I wasn't perfect instead since this was what they thought of me this entire time.

Let's see… I just need a glass… Oh, there we go. There's a stack of them right here.

I'm just going to fill them all up with different beers and try how each of them taste first, then maybe I could think about how to mix them afterwards.

I even opened up the canned beers as well just to try them out too.

Hey, they promised us free drinks for the entire duration of our stay so you bet your ass I'm going to make full use of this!

With several glasses full of beer, I started taking a sip from each of them to taste them all, using my Codex to note down what I thought about each of them.

Hmm… Ok… Since I was trying this out for the first time, let's just go with a safer combination first.

This one at the end has the taste of a lager, like a light beer, and this one near the end kind of reminded me of those amaro liqueurs.

I could try to mix these two into a spritz or whatever you call it.

I took another empty glass and poured over the beer first before just adding about an ounce of the liqueur and mixing them together.

Once I felt it was mixed enough, I took a sip of it and paused.

Huh… That's not too bad… But it just feels like it's missing something…

I looked at the row of beer glasses in front of me.

No, it doesn't need that… It needs a little bit more… Ah!

I went behind and picked up a few bottles of the fruit syrups and opened their tops to pour each of them out into a small glass to taste them.

I know they are labelled but the taste could be different since these are all synthetic drinks.

I honestly expected all of them to taste disgusting like the other synthetic food I ate but… Hey… They're pretty accurate? That was a surprise.

Ok, in that case, let's try the grapefruit one first.

I didn't measure this one and just poured it in and watched the liquid mix together until I felt that it was enough.

I found a stirrer which I used to properly mix the drink before bringing it up to my lips to take a sip.

Oh~ That's pretty good!

Heck, I wouldn't even mind just drinking this for the rest of the night too.

I placed the glass down on the counter and saw the girls staring at me with various different weird looking faces.

I was just about to ask why they looked like that until I realised the container that held the sugar was completely empty.

"Did you girls… Eat all the sugar?"

"It's my first time tasting real sugar, ok?" Amber mumbled.

The other girls also nodded, though they all shared the same shamefaced look. The same kind of look that one might have when they got caught eating the entire cookie jar.

Wow… Ok… I mean… You've all eaten sweet stuff before right? Wait… Have we actually eaten any desserts? I don't think we have… Shit… I don't think I've made any desserts have I?

Ok, now I suddenly feel like eating something sweet… But then these girls have already eaten all the sugar…

I gave them the best offended look I could muster, "You girls ate all the sugar and left none for me huh?"

I actually felt a little bad when the four of them reacted to my words immediately.

Ries was looking down and her hood drooped down which pretty much told me that her ears were also drooping as well.

Lea quickly started to apologise but her words were cut off when both Amber and Mara reached for the container at the same time while crying out simultaneously.

"I'll go and ask them for more, Tera!"

"I'll get them to give us more right now!"

What ended up happening because of that was both women knocking their heads into each other while trying to reach for the container and the crack from the hit was loud enough to make me wince when I heard it.

Ouch…

The two girls separated and held their heads in pain but tried to reach for it again so I placed my hand over it and pulled it out of their grasp.

"Ok, stop there. While I would indeed like to have more sugar, I want all of you to try this first and let me know what you think."

All of them perked up at the same time and crowded around the beer I had just mixed for them.

I left them to it and proceeded to mix another glass, this time trying it with another syrup instead to see if it would taste just as good.

Just as I was grabbing the beer from the end, I heard a squeal coming from in front of me.

"Ahhh!! What's this?! This is so good!! How did you make this, Tera?!"

"I… Literally just mixed two different alcohols together and added some syrup… Surely you've at least tried some cocktails before?"

"Oh, no, definitely not! I've only ever drank beer! This is delicious!! More, Tera!!"

Mara also took a sip from the mug and nodded, "Ah… That's nice. I've gone to bars where they mixed drinks before but I don't think they mix it that well since they use machines instead of people to mix them. This is indeed nice."

Oh great… Another thing that got screwed by machines… Is there anything related to food that isn't screwed up by machines here?

Has the standard for food dropped so low?