I just finished listening to the Whispering Lakes storyline (episodes 11-24) of the Tales of Asperran podcast. Tales of Asperran is a D&D 5e actual-play podcast set in the titular homebrew world of Asperran, a setting designed by Mike (the gamemaster). One of my favorite events in this story arc has inspired this cocktail. I will try not to spoil anything in case anyone else is as terribly behind in this fabulous podcast as I am, but I will briefly explain my inspiration and provide full directions to make this cocktail below.

I created my first version of the Araklast Investigations cocktail last year as part of a series of cocktails I crafted to represent each of the player characters in my ongoing Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder campaign. This is the cocktail inspired by my own PC, a psychic detective investigator named Danielle Araklast. Dani is the daughter of a spice merchant who runs her own private investigation service, Araklast Investigations, in her home city of Magnimar. Unfortunately, as part of the events surrounding her latest investigation into a series of apparently ritualized murders, Dani's small one-bedroom apartment/office was burned to the ground.

The Araklast Investigations cocktail draws on the spice of the Araklast family's merchant trade, the coffee and whiskey that are staples for long stake-outs and hours piecing together clues, and the smoke that is all that remains of the physical location of its namesake.

I'm breaking my unscheduled hiatus (life got the better of me the past month!) to revisit my first episode-themed drink for The Dimension Door Podcast. "Dark Midnight" is both the title of Episode 14 and a moniker for the significant NPC which is featured in the episode: Baba Yaga's Black Rider.

For a bit of a Black Rider lore drop & full instructions to make the Dark Midnight cocktail, keep reading below.

There are several components of Episode 24 that combined together to inspire this cocktail: a golden apple, a sweet-talking golden tongued cleric, and a flaming sphere all play important roles in both the happenings of the episode and this drink.

Whether or not you're caught up with the happenings of The Dimension Door Podcast (although you should be!), this cocktail is perfect for autumn. The fresh, crisp apple garnish sets nicely against the warm, aromatic caramelized brown sugar. Hints of cinnamon add to the pleasant scent, and then the drink itself is just-sweet-enough with the flavors of butterscotch and apple blossom set against a backdrop of a slightly-smoky scotch. Drinking it is a bit like sitting by a bonfire and enjoying a caramel apple.

Keep reading for the full recipe and instructions to make this cocktail.

September is International Podcast Month (IPM), and I was fortunate enough to be able to participate by playing in a TTRPG one-shot run by the wonderful Russ Wilde, gamemaster of the Prism Pals podcast. This game was my first experience with the new Quest TTRPG system, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to give a bit of a peek behind-the-scenes regarding what goes into creating a character and learning to play what ended up being a simple, enjoyable, and incredibly wholesome game.

You can find the IPM Episode for this one-shot here. Keep reading if you're interested in learning more about what goes into character creation for Quest, or if you just want to learn more about the characters we played.