"Damn, you caught me. Whatever shall I do."

Audrey smiles. "Alright, let's say I do want to try a drink, hypothetically. Since I was so wrong about what bars are like maybe I'm wrong about what alcohol is like too. What would you recommend?"

"Hot or cold drink?"

"There's such a thing as hot alcohol?"

"There is definitely such a thing as hot alcohol. Irish coffee, sake, mulled mead, hot cider..."

"Huh. Somehow I'd never really put that together."

"... Let's say I just want your top recommendation for me specifically, as someone who's never had alcohol before."

"You like apple juice, right?"

She blushes. "Um, yes..."

"Then I'd recommend a hard apple cider for your first drink. It's sweet and rich and hardly tastes of alcohol at all."

"Yeah, I've heard it... bites, they say?"

"It does, a little. It's kind of a hot sensation, more obvious if you're drinking something harder like whiskey. There are a good few drinks that you'd barely notice they're alcoholic."

"And I wouldn't get drunk from just one drink, right?"

"You're a pretty slim girl, so you might be something of a lightweight; still, even then a single drink isn't likely to get you drunk. You'd probably feel some light effects though."

"That "easing" you mentioned."

"Exactly."

"... You know what, I think I'll try it. What the hell."

"One mug of hot apple cider, please."

A white mug with a red rose pattern on it appears on the bar next to Audrey.

Hannah raises her shot glass. "To trying new things."

Audrey picks up her cider and carefully clinks it against Hannah's glass. "Trying new things."

Hannah tosses back her shot.

Audrey takes a cautious sip of her cider.

It tastes... sweet, and apple-y, and there's a complex undertaste she can't quite place, with a little of an unfamiliar harshness beneath it all. 

It's not bad.

"How is it?"