Spike is greatly surprised when Mayor Mare comes to the library to ask him and Twilight for two little favors. See, Ponyville's tri-annual Homemade Beer And Wine Festival is due in two weeks, and she wants him to be a judge. That's odd enough, although reasonable in light of his immunity to alchohol, but why does she want Twilight Sparkle to assist the police?
As it turns out, there's a very good reason for that...
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Tropes found in this story include:
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: The cornerstone of the story; as the liquor starts flowing, and Ponyville's population gets increasingly drunk, ponies start getting stupid. Real stupid.
- Bizarre Alien Senses: Invoked: because Spike eats gems, his sense of taste allows him to pick up flavors that ponies can't and which he can't readily translate into pony terms. In-story, this creates some of the more obscure terms which real wine-tasters use to describe things, such as "cigar box."
- Foreshadowing:
- Spike decides that it's best to visit and sample Flower Wishes' (aka Daisy's) product first, just so he can get that nasty little bit of business out of the way: the Trio treats him more as threat than sapient, and it's not exactly something he's happy about. One of the first clues to something being off at Festival is given when she addresses him by name — courtesy of the two mugs she drank before he arrived.
- Applejack mentions that she finds Snowflake fascinating to look at, despite his notorious ugliness, but she "shouldn't want" to look at him. This plays out in Triptych, when it's ultimately revealed that Applejack has a crush on Snowflake, but has always kept it hidden because her beliefs about the need for blood purity in the family mean she's been forcing herself to only date earth pony stallions — so once she gets over those beliefs, she asks Snowflake out.
- Gargle Blaster: Downplayed: Spike's immunity means it can't be involved too much, but it's implied that this trope is why very few ponies want to try Rainbow Dash's White Lightning or Flitter's Moonshine. It's initially said that pegasi alcohol is an acquired taste, then noted that the aforementioned items are considered to be the strongest drinks in Equestria. The brewing/drinking contest leads to the pegasi involved becoming smashed after six mugs, and they're both still out cold when Spike comes back to check on them — with Flitter having fallen asleep on top of Rainbow.
- In Vino Veritas: Applejack and Rarity reveal a bit more of themselves to Spike when drunk.
- Applejack admits she still misses her parents and wonders when it stops hurting — and unsure if she wants it to stop hurting. She also makes a comment about ponies who are so ugly, it's hard to look away from them, even though she "shouldn't want to look at them". This turns out to be hinting at her crush on Snowflake, which she finally decides to act on in the final chapter of Triptych.
- Rarity reveals she's secretly jealous of Twilight over the fact that she has brothers, since her father always wanted a colt and she's always wanted a brother. There's also an implication that ultimately, she views Spike through the lens of her wish for a male sibling relationship.
- Punny Name: In the real world, "White Lightning" and "Moonshine" are common nicknames for illegally homebrewed and often low-quality liquor. In Equestria, they're actual names for two pegasus-brewed liquors.
- Coincidentally, White Lightning is also a real cider in the UK that started as a relatively strong (8.5%), cheap cider.
- Coincidentally, White Lightning
- Regularly Scheduled Evil: Severely downplayed — but it's still the ultimate purpose of the Festival. Ponies who get drunk in public are going to take out their petty frustrations on each other — on a day where the police are actively patrolling and ready to stop everything before it goes too far, followed by taking the dispute to arbitration. Multiple settled zones use Festivals as a social pressure valve, releasing some of the steam before it builds to the point of a magic-backed explosion.
- Too Dumb to Live: Daisy pushes her Conspiracy Theorist nutjob angle to a new low by revealing that she believes that alcohol is naturally harmless, and some mysterious evil force secretly sabotages every drop of liquor sold in Equestria with the poisons that really induce drunkenness and hangovers. By the time her thoroughly-soused self is arrested for attacking a tree, she's convinced herself that, since she knows she guarded her own mix this time, "they" must have gotten to the dandelions.
