Game Help:Sims 3 Skills/Nectar Making

Nectar Making

The exterior of The Nectary in Champs Les Sims, France.

Does your sim have a knack for cooking or trying new things? Or do they want to try a traditional French activity? Then Nectar making is for you! EP1: World Adventures has added the much-wanted feature from The Sims 1 back into the game and made it more interesting than ever.

Starting Out

When you first start out on this skill, head down to Champs Les Sims in France. You'll need two things to start making nectar:

• A Nectar Maker: You can purchase this from the Nectary in France from the vendor for 1500 Simoleons.
• Fruit: France has several different varieties of grapes (some better than others) available from the Nectary vendor, the Special vendor, and from vines growing around France. Any fruit (except tomatoes) can be used to create nectar.

You can also purchase racks to store your nectar bottles in from the Buy mode catalog under Surfaces > Storage, or just keep them in your sim's inventory.

You can also purchase Skill Books to learn Nectar Making from the Book Merchant in France so you don't waste your produce on a low-level sim's practice nectars.

Nectar-Making for Tightwads

For the Sim who has more time than money, a little planning before the first trip to France can give a great head start in this fun and lucrative hobby.

First, get your produce together: the higher the quality, the better. While you can hand-pick items to load into the nectar maker in order to use up the lowest quality fruit first, it is EXTREMELY tedious. It's easier to sell the lowest-quality fruit to the grocery store before leaving for France. It is quite easy to make ten or more batches of nectar per day without overstressing the Sim; ten fruits per batch require at least a hundred fruit total per day of the vacation. Plan accordingly.

Sims with high gardening skill are at a distinct advantage when starting this hobby, BUT, because your first bottles will be your least valuable, it's worthwhile even for the beginning gardener. Save life fruit and flame fruit in the refrigerator for your return; these fruit have special effects best used after the Sim has a high level of skill in nectar making.

Plan a short trip with nothing but nectarmaking in mind. Take some showers in a can, your tent, and some veggies along to eat. Bring skill books, a laptop, or a guitar. Go to the basement of the Nectary, turn on the stereo to your sim's favorite music, park your tent in a clear space near the stairs, and sample a bottle of nectar for an additional mood boost. Then get to work: just jog between the two downstairs nectar making machines, starting with batches of one-fruit nectar, then moving to 1/9, 9/1, 8/2, 2/8, etc combinations of the same two fruits, whatever you have most of, in order to get the Mix Master achievement. (There is a known bug which causes this to reset when returning from a trip or going to a new location.)

In between, while the nectar is fermenting, stay near the stereo/bar areas: socialize with other visitors(playing guitar is a double boost here), read skill books, play chess on the computer or work on a novel, visit the bathroom (brush your teeth as well for a small additional mood boost). When you need to sleep, your tent is already there.

Once your Sim has the "Mix Master" achievement, you can predict the taste of the combination before crushing the fruit and fermenting it. The information isn't particularly helpful: "these fruits go well together", "these won't mix well at all" or a few vaguely-worded variations of "so-so". Pay attention to the "don't mix" announcement, but make changes systematically rather than randomly; sometimes all it takes is changing a single fruit for one of another type to create a very profitable recipe. Armed with this ability to pre-test recipes, you're ready to dig in and skill up with 'great' or 'amazing' finds until you run out of fruit. An easy mix with 'amazing' quality results: 5 apples, 5 renoit grapes.

There is also a set of quests (found via the Adventure Board or phone calls) that get the Sim making nectar; each gives cash and coin rewards along with visa points. While very helpful for introducing nectar-making, the quests can be done even if your sim is already level-10 in nectarmaking.

When your Sim returns from vacation, sell a few bottles from each batch made to get enough Simoleans to buy the expensive nectar racks needed to store the bottles 'properly'(and increase its value significantly). Stock the racks with the remaining nectar and let that age for a week or two, then sell bottles in order to get enough simoleons to buy a nectar-making machine for the home.

Making Nectar

A female sim squishing fruit to make nectar.

To be more successful in nectar making, having your Nectar Maker in a basement is recommended - the value of nectar stored in a basement is higher than that stored on the ground floor or higher.

To start making nectar, click on the Nectar Maker and select 'Add fruit'. You need 10 fruits to make nectar successfully and it will taste even better if you use more than one fruit. Stomp the fruit, and then Make Nectar. The Nectar Maker will chug away for 2 sim hours, and then you'll get a popup that tells you how it tastes, with an option to name it. After that, you can pick it up from the Nectar Maker and store it in a rack or your inventory. The Nectar Maker will let you choose previous recipes for nectar, so you can remake your favourite blends easily.

Variations on Making Nectar

As your sim grows in skill at making nectar, they will be able to do different things with the Nectar Maker.

• Basic - 0 Nectar Skill - Make 3 bottles of basic nectar. Sims at 0 nectar skill make nectars worth 25% less than the base price.
• Concentrated - 4 Nectar Skill - Nectars are worth 25% more, but you only make 2 bottles instead of 3.
• Mass Produce - 7 Nectar Skill - Nectars are worth 25% less, but you make 5 bottles instead of 3.
• Extended Nectaration - 9 Nectar Skill - Nectars are worth 15% more, but take 50% longer to make.

Nectar Values

Each of the fruits in the game (excluding tomatoes) can be used to create nectar, and has a Nectar Value and Ancient Nectar Value which factors into how good the resulting nectar is. These values are listed below.

Icon	Produce	Base Price	Nectar Value	Ancient Nectar Value	EP	Additional Info
	Apple	4	3	2	Base Game
	Lime	9	7	0	Base Game
	Flame Fruit	10	18	1	Base Game	25% Flame Fruit will make flame effects when pouring the nectar, and when drinking.
	Grapes	4	3	0	Base Game
	Watermelon	9	7	0	Base Game
	Life Fruit	25	22	1	Base Game	25% Life Fruit will give the "Full of Life" moodlet.
	Avornalino Grapes	4	5	12	(France)
	Gralladina Fran Grapes	4	5	12	(France)
	Cherimola Blan Grapes	7	8	12	(France)
	Cranerlet Nuala Grapes	8	10	12	(France)
	Meliore Grapes	10	12	12	(France)
	Renoit Grapes	13	16	12	(France)
	Pomegranate	8	6	3	(Egypt)
	Plum	7	7	5	(China)
	Pomelo	15	12	3	(China)
	Cherries	12	9	3	(Egypt)
	Plasma Fruit	20	18	10	Late Night (Egypt)

Making Valuable Nectars

Nectar making is a complex process, and there are a lot of factors involved in the outcome of your nectar. There is some randomness involved, but here are some of the things that increase your nectar's value:

• Use Quality Ingredients: Use ingredients with a high Nectar Value (as listed on the above chart) that are as high a produce quality possible (Perfect quality is best). Perfect quality ingredients provide a 250% value increase over Normal quality.

• Combinations: Using combinations of different ingredients can result in up to 75% greater value (though it can make your nectar worth less too).

• High Skill Level: Nectar made by Level 10 sims is worth 50% more than the nectar of lesser skilled sims.

• Improved Flavor: Get a sim with a high Mechanical Skill to Upgrade the Nectar Maker for a 15% increase in value.

• Flavorful Feet: Complete the Flavorful Feet skill challenge (details below under Nectar Making Challenges) to increase nectar value by 10%.

• Concentrated: Make your nectars Concentrated instead of any of the other types for a 25% increase in value over Basic nectar.

• Age It: Store your nectar in the large nectar rack, purchasable from the Nectary in France. This is preferrable to storing it in the two nectar racks purchasable in Buy Mode, or in your inventory as there is a greater value increase on the large rack. One of the Tips on the in-game loading screens suggests that nectar ages better in a basement, and this has been verified during in-game experiments.

Storing and Aging Nectar

Nectar bottles stored in racks.

Nectars, once stored, increase in value. Aged nectars can be extremely valuable. Placing your nectar in a nectar rack, instead of your inventory, increases the amount that the nectars increase in value by a small amount - 2% for the small nectar rack and 3.5% for the larger rack. (Note, this seems to be calculated PER DAY, so that "small" amount is in practice quite lucrative!-ocg)

In testing, the practical application of this is that nectar value generally doubles after two weeks in the more expensive nectar rack, while it took three weeks (or more, depending on the bottle's quality and taste) in the basic nectar rack. For example, a known "amazing" recipe of 5 appples, 5 renoit grapes valued at 105 simoleans out of the maker for one bottle, and after three weeks in the basic rack, was 304 simoleans. The deluxe rack valued the same bottle at 337 simoleans.

Nectar Maker Upgrades

The Nectar Maker can be upgraded by sims with handiness skill. It has three upgrades:

• Unbreakable
• Flavor Enhancement
• Improved Pressing - Adds 1 bottle to the number made in a batch.

Nectar Making Challenges

There are several Nectar Making challenges to complete so your sim can earn new rewards!

• Master of Nectar Making - After making 200 bottles of nectar your sim can make an extra bottle for each batch.

• Mix Master - After completing 15 combinations of fruit which allows you to see the outcome of fruit you combine.

• Flavorful Feet - After stomping through 40 bins of fruit, the value of your nectar increases by 10%.

Related Pages

• Gardening
• Books
• Upgrades