PHOTO: TIYIALIC
MODEL: ANNOUGH LYKIN
MODEL: BENJAMIN BANE
PHOTO: RAIN SAXONDALE
From the moment the holy Patriarch Noah decided to celebrate the end of the Universal Flood by gulping down fermented grape juice, the fate of mankind became tightly entwined with some kind of beverage, be it fermented, distilled, macerated, or any combination thereof. You can take fruits, cereals, or grains and let them ferment, have them distilled, brewed, or any other process to make the sugar turn into alcohol, and… cheers! That’s all there is to it.
Every culture in the world has their particular version of alcoholic drink. Ancient Aztecs fermented the maguey mead and obtained pulque, still a very popular beverage in modern Mexico. If you distill mead from blue agave –a special variety of maguey– you get tequila, without which we couldn’t imagine college life as we know it from the movies. And by fermenting pineapple peels you can make tepache, a deliciously refreshing beverage also very popular even if its alcohol content is as low as 1.5%.
In the Far East, the grain of choice is rice with which sake is prepared in Japan, soju in Korea, baijiu in China, sombai in Cambodia, and lao-lao in Laos. But of course, in other Asiatic countries, they use several different plants, trees, and herbs to distill a wide variety of alcoholic beverages: alak from the sap of palm trees in the Philippines; from the flowers of the coconut palm, they make arrack in Sri Lanka, India, and other countries where they also use rice, fruits, or sugarcane.
In Europe, we find wine, of course, in a variety that depends on the kind of grapes used for the
fermentation: cabernet, riesling, pinot, graciano, merlot, shiraz, and zinfandel, among many others.
But grapes are not the only fruits we can ferment to get us tipsy. You can use most fruits to make alcoholic beverages: apples to make cider, pears to make perry, or plums to make the delicious Slivovitz if you live in central Europe and have at hand damson plums or, if peaches are what you have, you may make broskovice, a highly appreciated liquor in the Czech Republic. The possibilities, as you can see, are endless.
Being so important for our human civilization, it was only a matter of time before alcohol reached the digital realm. And I am not talking about a bottle-shaped prim with a suitable texture. No, I’m talking about a veritable process for growing, brewing, fermenting, distilling, and finally bottling a wide variety of beverages. All this from the comfort of the piece of land you happen to own or rent. Does this sound like something you’d like to try? Keep reading.
This process is known as Guardian de las Sombras, or G&S for short. Originally devised for the Gorean world, it eventually permeated to the outside, general population and acquired an enthusiastic following. Nowadays you may find vendors and markets to buy and sell every conceivable product, not only wines and liquors, but also produce, fowl, livestock, meat, and whatnot. And this has given rise to a thriving secondary market: smiths to craft the tools you need to grow your vineyards and care for your animals, and coopers to make the barrels where you keep your wine, among many others.
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PHOTOS: COCO ST. GEORGE
If you want to try your hand at this fascinating trade, let’s begin with something simple, like rence beer. Rence is a plant akin to papyrus, from which several products are manufactured: papyrus for writing, baskets if you weave it, flour to bake bread if you grind it, and beer if you ferment it. That’s right, you can have a kegger with your own beer! Let’s see how it is done.
First of all, you need rence, of course. You can buy it (as cheap as $L1 a bale, enough for one barrel) at the Co-op Market. Now that you have rence, you need to ferment it. For that, you use a fermentor. You don’t need to buy it, of course, since you may use the one at the market. You only need to join the group and you’ll be able to use it.
Rez the rence bale next to the fermentor and click the fermentor. You’ll be asked if you want to ferment grain or rence. Choose rence, and in the next menu, click Fermenting to start the process. The fermentation process may take a while, maybe a little over one hour, so you may want to use that time to look around the market and check all the products that are available.
You may see some animals designated with a name other than the one you know, like bison are called bosks, goats are verrs and boars are tarsks.
Remember G&S originated in Gor? Well, some of the original names in Gor stuck and are still widely used. You even may see a dinosaur called tharlarion, which is similar to a velociraptor. Its meat, I was told, is delicious.
Time to go back and check the fermentor. Your beer is ready! Click the fermentor to have your freshly brewed beer delivered to you. One barrel will give you ten jars of beer. Big jars, mind you, so you can get a good buzz.
One final word. In order to keep it real, all G&S products are no copy (and transferable, that’s how you can sell the stuff you make) and are also perishable. This means that the beer jar you are drinking will be gone after you gulp it all down. You rez the barrel, click it, receive a beer jar, add
it, drink it, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. It will detach from yourself and, if you try to reattach it, you’ll notice how it disappears immediately. That is how it is. But don’t worry. Now you know how to make all the beer you and your friends will need to have a sensational party. Bottoms up!
This process is knownas Guardian de las Sombras, or G&S for short. Originally devisedfor the Gorean world
Rock Your Rack is the annual charity event put on by Models Giving Back here in Second Life. The event raises funds for the National Breast Cancer Foundation providing mammograms and early diagnosis treatment information to all in need. BOSL is a proud sponsor and partner with Models Giving Back and their founder, Jamee Sandalwood, to present this event each year. In this edition of Best of SL magazine, let’s take a look back over the ten years of this event.
Rock Your Rack started in 2013 on just ¼ of a sim, with 34 designers, 4 DJ’s, 7 singers, 1 dance troupe, and five fashion shows making up the five day event. Jamee Sandalwood had a vision from the start, being a breast cancer survivor herself and diagnosed at the age of 38, to make this an annual event. Early detection and decisions made with current treatment information available through the National Breast Cancer Foundation is what saved Jamee’s life and allows her to still be with us today. With the help of the Models Giving Back team that steps up each year to not only walk in fashion shows, but do most of the behind the scenes work, hosting of musical events, blogging and so much more, this event has become a fixture on the grid. One of our models came up with the title “Rock Your Rack” to name the event and Lua Vendetta created the iconic logo and color scheme we used for the first 9 years of the event. Year 10 brings a refresh to the look and logo from another Models Giving Back model, SC Tracy. The talented individuals Jamee has the privilege of working with on this event is unprecedented and there is no way this event would have made it to 10 years without every one of them.
Over the next couple of years the event grew to over 60 designers participating at various levels of sponsorships and moved to a full sim for the first time that included an entertainment complex. The 10L hunt and silent auctions also made their way to the event. Be sure to hunt for those 10L wire hangers in each booth at the event! Great gifts and 100% goes to the charity.
If we had to pick a year that put the event on the map so to speak, it was 2016. The partnership with so many creative individuals allowed us to move away from the décor and build we had used for the first three years. Every year since has seen a new build theme, and evolution of the entertainment complex with the addition of the amazing Brad Tylman to the Rock Your Rack build team. This was the year we saw the addition of tribute bands to the concert schedule thanks to the Hiess Project joining the event.
Another milestone was reached in 2017 with the addition of art to the event and the Kultivate Art Expo at Rock Your Rack. Thanks to the Kultivate team we were able to partner with 2D and 3D artists to also reach more of the SecondLife grid. The art show has steadily grown each year from 12 artists the first year to over 35 this 10th year.
In 2018 with some suggestions from participating designers we began to pick a theme for each year’s event. That year “Music through the Decades” brought a 70’s style runway and 50’s diners to the art area. 2019 allowed SecondLife to “Celebrate Diversity” with a different theme in each area of the event.
2020 brought a variety of challenges, as real life struggled with a global pandemic that made the event uncertain at the start. It was the perfect year to fit with the “Gardens of Hope” theme. A partnership with Digital Farm System as the sim sponsor that year brought beautiful, lush gardens and waterfalls with seating areas to the landing point area with their décor, and it felt like you were walking through a tropical paradise. So what seemed a first like it would be a problem year, ended up seeing the event grow in many more ways than imagined, with donations soaring.
And 2021 was a continuation of that success with over $8000 USD raised and donated thanks to some connections made between inworld DJ’s and their real life followers donating into MGB’s real life portal for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. “A New Beginning” it sure seemed to be for the event after almost 18 months of people being shuttered in their homes and looking for something to do that was meaningful and helped them feel normal once again. The wrecked plane at the landing point let an entire new society emerge from it. The build moved from primitive to sophisticated as one walked through the event matching the way society had morphed over the previous 18 months. People wanted to get out and they did with traffic soaring during the event.
So here it is.
10 years of Rock Your Rack in SecondLife, and they are “Takin’ It To the Streets” this year with the old New York inspired build complete with central park and the Statue of Liberty looking on. Participating this year: 36 Artists, 8 Media Partners, 42 DJ’s, 3 Tribute Bands performing 7 Tribute concerts, 2 Dance Performance Troupes, 24 live singers, 12 Music Event Hosts, the Spirit of BOSL Competition, 24 models walking in 6 fashion shows, 18 amazing bloggers, and the 60 designers/sponsors to the event. It’s going to be the best year ever!
The event runs through October 16th. Visit the website for all the schedules and the SLURL to the event. http://rockyourrack.org
ROCK YOUR RACK is a Models Giving Back Charity Event raising funds and awareness for the National Breast Cancer Foundation
Mostpeople call me ‘Poppy.’I found SL by accident. I was entering RL photography challenges in Flickr, and was struck and inspired by the creativity shown in the entries from SL that I saw there. I had the occasional RL photo in Flickr Explore and had been exhibited in several UK art galleries, and I was eager to experiment with this medium that was new to me.
I’ve been a photographer in SL from my very earliest days here.
My thanks to those that have supported me and helped me on my journey , especially August who shows unlimited patience and encouragement in my creative endeavors. Most of my exhibited art has been to causes such as Relay for life towards the American cancer society . I create art to share what I see, and am pleased that you have chosen to bring my work into your lives and your homes.
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BOSL FASHION TREND
PHOTO: SHANTAL GRAVOIS
MODEL:
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PHOTO: GINPHX
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PHOTO: GINPHX
MODEL: BENJI BANE
BOSL FASHION TREND
PHOTO: TIYIALIC
MODEL:
GRAVOIS
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PHOTO: TIYIALIC
BOSL FASHION TREND
PHOTO: SHANTAL GRAVOIS
BOSL FASHION TREND
PHOTO: SHANTAL GRAVOIS
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PHOTO: TIYIALIC
MODEL:
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BOSL AFTER DARK
PHOTO: RAIN SAXONDALE
MODEL: BENJAMIN BANE
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MODEL: CAESAR LANGER
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DARK
MODEL: JAMEE SANDALWOOD
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MODEL: WYATT FROST
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MODEL: RAIN SAXONDALE
