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This page is about the soft drink. For the pre-War company, see Sunset Sarsaparilla Company. |
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Sunset Sarsaparilla (also known as the Beverage of the West Coast) is a well-known consumable item in Fallout: New Vegas.
Background
According to Festus, a saloon owner one day decided to make a new type of soft drink. He asked his customers what flavor they would want it to be, but they were of no help. A stranger at the end of the bar suggested him to make a sarsaparilla flavored drink, and would give his family's recipe to the saloon owner if he got to sample a bottle to make sure the recipe was being followed to the letter. The saloon owner agreed, thinking it would make him rich. The stranger then left to meet him the next day at sundown. The following day, the saloon owner was told by the sheriff that the stranger was killed by bandits on the side of the town road. Cursing his luck, the saloon owner closed his store early, just as the sun began to set. After he locked the doors, he found a bottle with a note under it sealed with blue wax in the shape of a star. Opening it, he found out that it was a recipe of a sarsaparilla-flavored drink. After sampling the contents of the bottle, and finding it singularly delicious, he began selling Sunset Sarsaparilla. However, this is likely to be largely a promotional story which may only have a hint of truth in it. The drink is, apparently, 126 years older than Nuka-Cola.
Characteristics
Sunset Sarsaparilla is a root-beer-type carbonated beverage found around New Vegas. With its easy availability and low cost, it is an excellent consumable that provides a high health regeneration effect. Thanks to these factors, it supplements the somewhat-scarce stimpaks as a primary healing item in the Mojave. Company spokesbot Festus provides a comical list of potential side effects, but only while playing in Hardcore mode does drinking Sunset Sarsaparilla have the negative effect of mildly dehydrating the Courier.
Survival Skill effect
| Skill | Effect | Hardcore effect |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | +2 Hit Point for 25s | +6 Dehydration |
| 20 | +2 Hit Point for 25s | +7 Dehydration |
| 30 | +3 Hit Point for 25s | +8 Dehydration |
| 40 | +3 Hit Point for 25s | +9 Dehydration |
| 50 | +4 Hit Point for 25s | +10 Dehydration |
| 60 | +4 Hit Point for 25s | +11 Dehydration |
| 70 | +4 Hit Point for 25s | +12 Dehydration |
| 80 | +5 Hit Point for 25s | +13 Dehydration |
| 90 | +5 Hit Point for 25s | +14 Dehydration |
| 100 | +6 Hit Point for 25s | +15 Dehydration |
Crafting
With the Honest Hearts add-on installed, the player can obtain a recipe and make a home-brewed version of the drink. This is identical to the standard variety.
Creation requirements
| Materials: | Requirements: | Produces: | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
bottle cap (1) xander root (1) |  | Survival: 30 Honest Hearts add-on |  | Home-brewed Sunset Sarsaparilla (1) |
Variants
Notes
Sales figures for the USA and Canada.
- The in-game explanation to why there is no Sunset Sarsaparilla in Fallout 3 is that sales in the northeastern USA were virtually zero.
- Unlike Nuka-Cola, drinking Sunset Sarsaparilla will not give you Rads. The only exception to this rule are the irradiated Sarsaparilla bottles found in Camp Searchlight and The Courier's Mile.
- With each bottle you drink, the bottle cap has a 5% chance of being a Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap, which can be collected for the quest The Legend of the Star.
- The company's "Silly Ol' Advisory" names these possible side effects: "Kidney damage, nausea, digital numbness, anxiety, loss of visual acuity, dizziness, occasional nosebleeds, joint inflammation, tooth decay, sore throat, bronchitis, organ rupture and halitosis." However, in order for those effects to happen, Festus says you must drink "a helluva lot." These side effects are not present in the game, regardless of how many bottles you drink.
- Strangely enough, when you drink a Sunset Sarsaparilla, you get bottle caps. The bottle caps, upon looking at the icon on the Pip-Boy or removing them from your inventory, are Nuka-Cola caps.
- After completing the quest The Legend of the Star, any Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle caps that you pick up or obtain from drinking a bottle will be added to your inventory as normal bottle caps, and will not show up as a star bottle cap.
- The story Festus tells you about the origins of Sunset Sarsaparilla does not fit with the information he gives you. He tells you that before Sunset Sarsaparilla was invented, the main choices people had for drinking were water or Nuka-Cola. Nuka-Cola was founded in the year 2044, but according to the large bottle at the entrance of the Sunset Sarsaparilla headquarters, Sunset Sarsaparilla was founded in 1918, over 125 years before Nuka-Cola was. This may be due to the fact that Sunset Sarsaparilla was a family recipe before a corporately sold beverage, and was first made by the Stranger's family in 1918.
- Apparently Canadians like Sunset Sarsaparilla about just as much as Americans do, judging by the sales chart.
- As with Nuka-Cola, you do not keep the empty bottle after drinking it.
- As of 2281, the drink is 363 years old, and any bottles dating from before the Great War are at least 204 years old.
Behind the scenes
Sarsaparilla is a type of bitter root found in Central America which was originally used for medicinal purposes; owing to the root's bitterness, it was combined with sweetened water to make dosing more palatable. In America, the bark and oil of the sassafras tree was added to the formula; this "root beer" eventually became a popular drink in the late-19th-century Old West. The similarity of the two roots' names led to the informal nickname of "Sasparilly."
Gallery
