The great library fortress of Candlekeep boasts a collection of lore and wisdom that calls to scholars far and wide. Many of its students spend years in the library's stacks, barely venturing beyond the fortress walls.
Thankfully, Candlekeep has its own fest hall to entertain its residents, a traditional tavern called the Hearth, with ink-stained blackwood boards, faded tapestries from long-dead kingdoms, and discrete nooks where patrons can hide away with an ancient spell tome or a trashy penny dreadful. Gin is a popular drink at the Hearth, with different botanical blends passed down like arcane lore and tattered handwritten recipes still sometimes found tucked into old books. Gin was first created as a healing juniper-infused tonic, with various alchemical scholars adding citrus, cardamom, angelica, and other botanicals like rose, coriander, lavender, or cinnamon to enhance the recipe. At some point the quest for medicine became secondary to the quest for a good martini.
Inkpot Negroni
To enter Candlekeep, a would-be scholar must present a written work that the library does not already possess—a significant challenge given that Candlekeep has perhaps the most extensive collection of books and lore in all of Faerûn. Whenever a new arrival comes to the gates with an offering, runners are dispatched to search the stacks and make sure the offered text is unique.
Experts in the culinary arts may have some advantage here, as a book of original recipes counts as a written work. At least one seeker has been granted entry to Candlekeep by sitting for 3 days on a rock in front of the keep and writing down recipes. All the recipes were his own innovations, and one was for this radical cocktail with dark vinegar and a tarragon garnish that was intended to resemble a Candlekeep inkpot with a quill.
Astral Plane
A group of young scribes studying under the archmage Sylvira Savikas were sent on a search in the outer planes to recover a disintegrating tome stored in a room that had become disconnected from the keep. While out on their mission, the scribes saw colors in the outer plane that they had never seen before. Overcome by a manic need to capture the experience, the young scribes rushed back to the Hearth to compare notes. Soon they were taking turns devising drinks from the bottles behind the bar that might capture the colors that haunted their minds. They were never truly able to re-create that dance of light and magic, but they agreed that the flavor of this cocktail came closest to the way the colors of the astral plane felt.
Necromancer
On a survey of the fauna of Toril, the powerful sage Kazryn Nyantani encountered a mad necromancer who kept a beautiful garden of wormwood, juniper, and bitter citrus. She discovered, to her great alarm, that the garden was sustained by the same corpses the necromancer called on to do his terrible bidding!
The necromancer crafted an intoxicating potion infused with the fruits of his garden that he claimed would grant him eternal life. He was wrong, but the drink was delicious, with elegantly balanced notes of citrus and anise and a pale pallor reminiscent of the ghastly flesh of the animated dead. Nyantani brought the recipe back to Candlekeep, where it has put more people on their backs than it has ever raised from the dead.
Library Martini
Varnyr, the senior scribe at Candlekeep, has watched over the books at the library for centuries with the doting attention of a loving mother. Her one overwhelming desire in life is to protect her books. In her earliest days at the library, she planted sage bushes all around Candlekeep. Oil and smoke from the leaves of the sage plant were a natural preventative against the moths and weevils that might have devoured the pages of her books.
Over time, the monks of Candlekeep devised magic means to protect the books instead. The sage plants are now part of the scenery and an integral feature of Candlekeep in many students' minds. Wearing a sage posy or sage embroidery is one way that students might identify each other. The sage-infused Library Martini is one of the most enjoyable ways that Candlekeep uses its excess of sage and honors its history, and it remains a favorite drink of Varnyr's to this day.
Emerald Door
The Emerald Door is an iconic sight in Candlekeep, the sole entrance to the Inner Ward and the rich depths of the library. Only the truly worthy can enter here, and most seekers at Candlekeep never make it through that door. Its throbbing green glow becomes a taunt and a promise to those students staring across the Court of Air from the windows of the Hearth.
Ordering the cocktail named for the Emerald Door is something of a statement of purpose. This effervescent glass flute of bright flavor and pale green light is a taste of the elevated life beyond the door, of the promise of great wisdom and learning that all seekers aspire to. They may never discover what the world is like beyond the emerald door, but they can experience just a taste.
Candlekeep Tea
Candlekeep Tea is not actually served at the Hearth but rather a few doors down at the smithy of Khe'ril Hammerbind. The story goes that on one particularly ferocious winter storm night, some students, on the brink of death in their drafty bunk rooms, struggled down to the smithy to beg to sleep by the blazing fires of the forge. The grumpy dwarven smithy took pity on the students, allowed them a place on the stones, and made them hot black tea to warm them from the inside.
Word spread of Hammerbind's kindness, and other students joined them that night, bringing with them gifts of strong liquor, exotic herbs, and even sugar and fruit. Hammerbind mixed the offerings to stretch the tea a little further, and Candlekeep Tea was born. Every time a storm hits, the poorest adjutants are welcomed to the forge for warmth, and together with Hammerbind, they make a new tea, a little different every time. The recipe below is a typical example, but everyone is encouraged to add what they can to the pot.
Magic Jar
Students of darker magic are closely watched by the senior scribes at Candlekeep in case they are tempted into wickedness. The stoic moon elf Vooshadi Moonriver is especially watchful of those adjutants studying Magic Jar, a necromancy spell that allows the caster to transfer their soul into a jar and then possess a nearby target, swapping the target's soul with their own into the same jar.
Magic Jar is a spell with many dangers, most especially the risk of death if the spell is disrupted and a high chance of spiritual corruption from taking control of another person's body. There is even a possibility of the caster or the target's soul becoming forever trapped in the jar.
Vooshadi did not react well when she learned a group of young scholars had devised a gin punch they dubbed "Magic Jar" because, in the words of a student, "It gets you out of your head." Their frivolous disdain for such a serious spell was alarming to the elder scribe. The students begged Vooshadi to at least try their creation, in the spirit of inquiry, and she reluctantly agreed. Vooshadi still won't refer to this drink by its official name, but she does enjoy a Magic Jar when she wants to let her hair down.
Rewards
Ulraunt, a former Keeper of the Tomes, was famously stingy with praise for his adjutants to the point it impacted their learning. They never knew if they were doing a good job, because "the Old Buzzard" (as he was known) never offered a word of encouragement. Called out for his reticence by his fellow sages, Ulraunt said that it was simply not in his nature to gush but promised to take steps to ensure his adjutants knew they were doing a good job. He still withheld from giving praises, but he started to send little boxes of strawberry rhubarb tartlets to his best performing students.
Ulraunt is long gone from Candlekeep, but his "rewards" live on at the Hearth and are still sometimes ordered by proud sages. The difference now, of course, is that students can also reward themselves, even when they're doing a terrible job, and now you can too.