By the time the evening glow mingled with the streetlamps, the front yard of a Westwood mansion was already packed with people. The “Winter Mixer,” hosted by UCLA film students. Supposedly, it was a gathering during winter break where students who loved movies could party and talk about film, but that was just the pretext. It was simply a party.
Off to one side was a tub filled with ice, and poking their necks out of it were bottles of RTDs—ready-to-drink cocktails—like Smirnoff Ice, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, and Bacardi Breezer.
It was not much different from any other college party. The DJ, playing 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop,” wore gold headphones as he worked the turntables.
“How about a beer?”
Lisa frowned at Clayton, the male student who approached her with a can of beer and a smile.
“Beer’s a little... filling.”
Clayton glanced at the Smirnoff in Lisa’s hand and said,
“I like Smirnoff too. It’s like soda.”
“Right. Vodka’s too strong, and beer isn’t my thing. This is just right.”
At her words, Clayton hurried off and brought back another bottle of Smirnoff. As if to say he wanted to drink the same thing as her, he popped the cap, clinked it against the bottle she was holding, and brought it to his lips.
After that, they kept up a pleasant mood, chatting about this and that, until Clayton’s hand touched her thigh. Lisa flinched and immediately pushed his hand away.
“Don’t do that.”
“Oh, sorry... I didn’t mean to...”
“I know. I know you didn’t mean to. It’s just... I’ll drink by myself.”
At her firm words, Clayton looked regretful before drifting away. Lisa shook her head and was sipping her Smirnoff alone again when—
“Want me to give you something good?”
It was an Asian male student who looked like an international student. Lisa, who had never been particularly interested in Asian guys, shrugged.
“I’m not interested in drugs.”
“It’s not drugs. It’s a drink that’s seriously hot these days.”
“A drink? I’m fine with this.”
When she lightly shook the Smirnoff in her hand, the Asian male student grinned.
“That’s too sweet. Kids who like RTDs like you are all drinking this now, you know?”
What the Asian male student smoothly held out was a brand she had never seen before.
“The One Peach Light Soju? I’ve heard of ‘The One’... but what’s soju?”
“Ah, you don’t need to know about that drink. It’s like an Asian vodka. People who like it like it, and people who don’t just think it’s whatever. But this is different. It doesn’t taste like some forced Jungle Juice. It’s completely clean.”
“Really?”
If it had just been some drink poured from who knew where, she would have refused outright, but since it was a new bottle with the cap still sealed, curiosity stirred in her.
“Let me see.”
The Asian guy opened the cap and handed it to Lisa.
“Here.”
After hesitating slightly, she drank straight from the bottle. Then her eyes widened, and she looked at the Asian guy.
“Mmm~! This is pretty good.”
She liked this drink a lot. When people said they were making alcohol taste good, they mixed all sorts of things together, which felt unsanitary, and sometimes people even put drugs in it, so she had been reluctant. But there was no risk of that with this, and it had an extremely clean taste on its own.
“Pretty good, right? If you want carbonation, you can just mix it with sparkling water and drink it like soda without it being heavy at all. Want me to make it that way?”
“...... Should we?”
“Wait right here.”
The Asian guy dashed off and soon returned with a plastic container that held about one liter, several 500ml bottles of sparkling water, and two empty cups. Then he poured the Peach Light Soju in her hand and the sparkling water into it, stirred lightly, and poured it into the empty cups.
“Try it.”
Lisa took a sip of the clear drink and nodded with a satisfied smile.
“It’s good.”
In truth, even though she had been drinking Smirnoff, she had not finished even half of it yet. It was tasty, but the sweetness was too strong, and above all, she was a lightweight, so she had been pacing herself. But when the sparkling water and fruit soju were mixed together, the alcohol became milder, and the subtle fruit aroma combined with the refreshing carbonation made it taste just like an actual beverage.
Of course, even without the carbonation, she liked it very much, and she held up the new bottle of fruit soju and stared at it for a long while.
“Right? I’m going to suggest it to the company. Ask them to release fruit soju with carbonation too.”
“That would be nice... By the way, what’s your name?”
“Lucas. I came from Korea to study film.”
“Huh? Lucas? Your name is...?”
“That’s right. I made the surname of George Lucas, the director who made Star Wars, my first name. My Korean name is complicated, so I’ll tell you in class later.”
“... Okay.”
The two continued talking quietly amid the noisy party. And scenes like this were unfolding all across the West and Midwest.
---
January flew by in an instant, and around February, Jacob stood in front of the new building behind the factory and took off his helmet.
It was the newly built second plant of Golden Grain Soju House. In that place, where the smell of brick and metal mingled, two stainless steel tanks brought in a few days earlier gleamed.
“The valve connections on that line are finished!”
At the worker’s shout, Jacob waved his hand.
“Got it. Good work. We’ll just do a test run and make sure everything works.”
The small brewery was now gradually growing in scale, and there was so much work that it was no longer something one or two people could run. More than ten workers were rotating shifts, and hot steam continued to billow from the stills.
Inside the factory, the sweet scent of peach lay thick in the air, and at the end of the bottling line, the sounds of “tick, tack, tack” continued in a steady rhythm.
Jacob stood still and watched the scene for a moment.
Last spring, this small brewery had been nothing more than a rural factory that brewed soju from rice, but now it had become a production base for liquor that would be shipped all across the United States. Just then, the flip phone at his waist rang.
The screen displayed the name “Malcolm Lee.”
“Malcolm? What’s going on?”
“Jacob! It’s chaos right now!”
The voice coming through the phone was almost a scream.
“LA, San Francisco, Chicago—they’re all sold out! Clubs, pubs, markets, everywhere! We don’t even have two hundred cases left in stock. Can you produce more?”
Jacob paused for a moment and looked toward the tanks.
“No. I’d like to do it right away, but we still haven’t gotten approval from the federal government and the state. They say it’ll come soon, but... I think it’ll take another week or two.”
“Damn it... that’s too late!”
“I know, but we can’t run the additional plant without government approval. For now, we’ll have to manage with the existing brewery facilities.”
In the United States, a distillery was a licensed production facility, so whenever expanding facilities or adding new equipment, one absolutely had to file an amendment with both the TTB, the federal agency, and the state liquor authority, the ABC. If they violated that and recklessly added equipment and produced alcohol, they would inevitably face legal punishment.
Fortunately, thanks to Brian’s advice, they had immediately brought in experts, drawn up blueprints, filed the paperwork, and the period for bringing in the equipment had been extremely short, which was why the facilities had been set up this quickly.
If they had run the factory without any expectations, they might have been having a complete mental breakdown by now.
“We need to ride this momentum and really set it on fire...”
“The fire’s already hit the brewery, you know. Do you know how much we’re already paying the workers in labor costs...?”
“That’s how explosive the sales are. Don’t worry too much.”
Though he sighed at the thought of labor costs, Jacob’s face was bright.
“I know. At this rate, I’m starting to wonder if we’ll consume all of last year’s rice in less than half a year...”
The results of last year’s cultivation had been excellent, but this time, instead of selling the rice as it was, they had piled it all up in storage. Even if they sold it, it would not have brought in much money, so they had stored it away just in case, and now he thought it had truly been the right decision.
“Then when do you think you can get it running?”
“I don’t think it’ll be that late, so in two weeks at the latest, I think we can run it.”
“Okay, got it. Then I’ll assume that in a month, every market out there will be restocked. And let’s double this quarter’s target. In two weeks, Unity will send two trucks. The club kids are going crazy. They keep asking when ‘that peach liquor’ is coming in.”
“It’s that much?”
“It’s cool! Oh, and this Peach Light Soju is clear, but could we change that a little?”
“How?”
“Make it have a faint pink tint.”
Jacob tilted his head, then answered.
“I think that’s possible. But we’d have to add food coloring... Young people would probably like that more, actually.”
He had not thought of it at first, but once he remembered it was party liquor, he wondered why he had not thought of Malcolm’s suggestion sooner.
Kids his age deliberately mixed in things like juice just to add color, and even though he had seen that before, he felt pathetic for not having thought of it himself.
“Good. Then once the expansion of the additional facilities is complete, let’s add approved food coloring and give it a slight pale pink tint. It’ll look much more delicious.”
“Understood.”
“And when are you planning to release other flavors?”
“Right now, we don’t have the capacity to release any flavors other than peach.”
“Ah, right... After the additional facility expansion is complete, then?”
“Then...”
“How about lemon?”
Since Americans naturally enjoyed lemon, Jacob had no reason to dislike lemon soju either.
“Sounds good. It won’t be hard to get lemon concentrate, and this time I’ll try adding yellow coloring from the start.”
“Good. It’ll be tough, but think of it all as money and keep pushing harder.”
“Yes, I understand.”
After hanging up, Jacob immediately went inside the brewery. He had to lend a hand himself and produce even one more bottle.
---
At that moment, I was heading to Brentwood with Chloe in the newly purchased Z4.
“How can the situation change that much? I was most worried about Jacob, but now it feels like he’s the one doing the best.”
Seeing her lips jutting out in a pout, I found a smile forming on my face without realizing it.
“Why? Are you jealous?”
“Mm... no. Honestly, I was just the tiniest bit jealous, but I’m trying not to be.”
“I think you’ll be jealous if he does even better later.”
Chloe tilted her head, then spoke honestly.
“If he does incredibly well, I think I might be a little jealous, but you’re going to make us do well too, aren’t you? It’s fine. That’s why we’re going to the farm now.”
Just as she said, our destination was the almond farm we had newly acquired. Mr. Frederick, who had taken over a large farm of over two hundred acres, had established a company with his son Brandon, each holding half the shares, and was now seriously studying almond farming.
The loan Brandon had taken out to establish this company exceeded five hundred thousand dollars, so he was probably not thinking of simply relying on Mr. Frederick and coasting by. Rather, since Brandon had staked every asset he had inherited and taken out the loan, his determination was surely no less than Chloe’s.
“Yeah. Some of us might earn more money than others, but let’s just congratulate each other. All of us are making at least middle-class money now.”
“I know. That’s why part of me wants Armando to do better too.”
“Oh— I didn’t know you thought of Armando that way.”
“Of course I do. As long as he doesn’t make that disgusting, greasy expression and talk that way in front of me.”
“Kekeke...”
Armando, who had once come to our department every day saying he would try talking to Sienna, had been a little gloomy lately because it was break and he could not see her.
Now, while devoting himself to winter work for next year’s farming, he was also occasionally coming to Redwood Winery to learn about wine.
“We’re all going to do well. Armando will too, and so will you. Almonds are a crop that can’t help but do well. Cherries and pears are the same.”
“But there’s something like that. With Jacob’s place, the changes are fast, and the results show up quickly too. But farming isn’t like that...”
“That’s true. With farming, there are parts where the results don’t show immediately.”
Chloe looked at me quietly.
“You understand how I feel, right?”
“Yeah. But life moves at different speeds for everyone. Chloe’s prime just hasn’t come yet.”
“Ooh— then when is my prime?”
“Three years from now. I promise. Just work hard for exactly three years. Then I’ll make you the cherry queen of Brentwood.”
“Hehehe. Good. I’ll be waiting.”
Her mood suddenly lifted, Chloe smiled and looked out the window.