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Gametitle-FO3 PL
Gametitle-FO3 PL
Well, I - oh, fine. Maybe you're no hogsfool, but I reckon we both come out better if you can help me cook up some tonic.Marguerite

A Spoonful of Whiskey is a Fallout 3 quest that is added to the game with the Point Lookout add-on.

Quick walkthrough

Side Quest: A Spoonful of Whiskey 
Locate Marguerite's shack and speak to Marguerite
Diagnose Marguerite's illness (Medicine), and convince her she's not sick (Speech). 
Commiserate with her about orange fever. 
Reward: 20 XP 
Accept her bottle of moonshine, and get the list of ingredients she needs. 
Search for 10 refined punga fruit, 3 bags of yeast and 6 fission batteries
Ask about the still in her shack. 
Agree to fix it. 
Agree to fix it for 100 caps
Agree to fix it for 200 caps (Speech). 
Ignore the still 
Fix the still (Repair). 
Reward: 100 or 200 caps. 
Return to Marguerite with the items. 
Reward: 50 XP, 300 caps and 6 moonshine. 
Wait 3 days. 

Detailed walkthrough

Marguerite will try and convince you that she is sick with "Orange Fever", and she needs these items to get better. If you pass a Medicine check pointing out that Orange Fever does not exist, you will then have to pass a Speech check. After this, she will admit that she makes moonshine and will ask you to gather these items for caps as well as a share of the moonshine.

You need

The required items will total a massive 82 pounds, or 92 pounds if you're carrying wild punga fruit.

Since carrying all of the items at once may prove troublesome, you can drop the items in her kitchen as you collect them and retrieve them later once you have them all. The yeast, batteries and fruit can be given to Marguerite separately if enough of each ingredient is gathered to fulfill the recipe's requirement.

The best place to find the required amount of both yeast and fission batteries is the panic room under Calvert Mansion, though it is only accessible if you've completed the Thought Control quest. If you haven't, then head over to Blackhall Manor, which holds plenty of yeast, and reportedly 6 fission batteries, though some scrupulous scavenging is required to find all 6. Yeast and batteries can also be found in the trapper's shack, and exactly 6 batteries and 3 yeasts are located at Turtledove Detention Camp.

As for the punga fruit, a ridiculous amount of refined punga fruit can be found at the Ark & Dove cathedral, though you must complete the Walking with Spirits quest in order to access the church. If you haven't completed the quest, then plenty of wild punga fruits can be found at Grower's shack. Of course, wild punga can be found all around the island, so it won't take you long to collect the required amount.

  • If you want to do the quest fast you can buy 20 wild punga fruit from Tobar at the Point Lookout Pier.
  • Haley usually stocks multiple fission batteries.

After you return to Marguerite you will need to turn in each ingredient separately (by group, not one by one). Once you have given her all of the needed supplies you must wait a day for completion of the moonshine.

  • Marguerite's bed is close by and isn't owned so you are able to sleep in it to wait the day; or you can just simply use the wait command.

You can repeat this quest infinitely for more experience and moonshine.

Rewards

You will receive 300 caps and six moonshine. You can also repair her still for good Karma (10) or an additional 100 caps (200 with a speech check).

Notes

  • If you do this quest after Thought Control you will have access to Desmond's Panic Room in Calvert Mansion which is a very good place to pick up the quest items quickly. On the shelves in the very back, there are 6 fission batteries and 3 bags of yeast. Just grab some refined punga fruit from the Ark & Dove cathedral and you're all set.
  • You can do this over and over, getting more moonshine and caps; with a Barter skill of 100, this means a maximum of 300 caps worth of moonshine each time.
  • If you truly value the effects moonshine gives you when consumed, or if you're in it for the +50 XP gained for each batch of moonshine collected, then repeat this task as often as you like. But if you're just trying to turn a profit, do not repeat this task if you have a barter higher than 63. The collective sale value of the ingredients may be greater than the sum of the 300 cap reward and sale value of the resulting moonshine.
    • Total reward (not counting the one-time repair job) is 600 caps [300 straight + 300 worth of moonshine].
    • Cost in raw materials is 713 caps using wild punga fruit, or 813 caps using refined punga fruit!
      • 450 [6 fission batteries x 75] + 63 [3 yeast x 21] + 200 [20 wild punga fruit x 10] = 713.
      • 450 [6 fission batteries x 75] + 63 [3 yeast x 21] + 300 [10 refined punga fruit x 30] = 813.
  • At 59% price (30 barter, without perks or merchant-specific discounts), completing the quest using refined punga fruit becomes unprofitable. Completing the quest using wild punga becomes unprofitable at 73% price (63 barter, without perks or merchant-specific discounts).

Behind the scenes

  • The practice of adding battery acid to moonshine is intended to make it taste more alcoholic than it actually is. It does not actually improve the finished product, and can, in fact, make it dangerous to consume.
  • The original draft of this quest had the player bringing in an additional 24 bottles of purified water to help brew the moonshine. This can be seen on the GECK's list of quest entries.
  • The title of this quest is an allusion to the song from the movie Mary Poppins, titled "A Spoonful of Sugar". Marguerite pretends to be ill and originally says the ingredients will be used to concoct medicine. In the Mary Poppins song, "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down".
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