There are, according to the Internet (cough, cough), 76 side quests in Breath of the Wild. Some of them – A Home for Link, From the Ground Up – are important for game play. Others are merely fun to complete. And some, Dear Reader, are an excuse to drink.
Enter The Sheep Rustlers.
We didn’t complete this side quest in our first playthrough of BOTW. No doubt Itzal was shouting about keeping our eyes the prize, while Demelza was shouting about how fun it would be to hunt more Guardians on any given Sunday afternoon. In our second playthrough, however, Demelza arrived one day armed with more Internet information about these sheep that were being rustled near Hateno Village.
Demelza: You’re Basque, you ought to care about these sheep!
Itzal: Yes, my family is Basque, but we raised cattle in America and my ancestors in Spain were fisherman and whalers because they lived on the coast…
Demelza: But…but…what about pairing this side quest with a Picon Punch?
Itzal: Why didn’t you list that among our assets in the first place?
For the Ignorant Reader who may not know about the Basque people, or the cocktail known as a Picon Punch, allow us to explain. No, there is too much. Allow us to sum up. (Editor: Have any of you seen Princess Bride? Are these jokes even landing?!)
The Basques come from Northern Spain and Southern France, a region they’d much prefer to call by their original name, Euskal Herria. Many Basques immigrated to America, among them Itzal’s family, where – among many other fine contributions to this country – they herded a lot of sheep and popularized a cocktail known as Picon Punch. More on that in a minute. What’s important right now is the excuse to drink – umm, the side quest.
The Quest
Speak to Koyin near Hateno Village. You’ll find her standing by the pasture and a barn on your way to the Hateno Tech Lab. She’s dithering about a gang of monster thugs who are camped down on Hateno Beach but apparently love to make little excursions into town and steal Koyin’s sheep. Now, Itzal doesn’t know a sheep from a goat most of the time, but we visited these particular sheep – and their itinerant sheep dog friends – and pronounced them worthy of saving from monster sheep rustlers.
Off we flew to the Beach, where we made short work of a couple Moblins and some Bokoblins. We found a spear to be the most useful weapon. And, on a lark, we used a Flamespear, which proved to be rather a hoot, if we’re being honest. We killed the beasts and collected their treasure. Then we played with the sheep they’d rustled and were keeping in a corral. A grand time was had by everyone, not least of all the sheep, and we soon returned to Koyin at her barn. She was overjoyed at our prowess and looked as though she might even stop her dithering. In fact, she was so happy, she gave us a reward: ten bottles of milk.
Now, really, we don’t mean to seem ungrateful…but here we go anyhow. Milk? MILK?! Since when is that a reward, let alone a beverage of choice?
Enter the Picon Punch.
Amer Picon is a liqueur made in Marseille, France. Invented by Gaetan Picon in the early 20th Century (as a treatment for malaria contracted whilst in Algeria, mind you), the liqueur is notably strong and bitter. Itzal used to joke it was distilled truck tires, not knowing its origin. Demelza has since informed him it was extracted from oranges and spice plants grown in the aforementioned Algeria. #whatever
Basque immigrants to places like Idaho and Nevada combined Picon with brandy, soda water, grenadine, and lemon twist to create the Picon Punch. They then took the drink back to Euskal Herria. As time drug on, Amer Picon became harder and harder to find in the States, so Torani Amer has come to be an acceptable substitute.
The drink is still bitter. (Perhaps someone should point out that anti-malarial drugs are now quite readily available.) Indeed, drinking a Picon Punch is deemed a rite of passage for many the non-Basque who dines at a Basque restaurant in Reno or Boise. Legend has it that just two Picons will put non-Basques on the floor, in much the same manner as those evil monster rustlers were laid low by Itzal’s well-wielded Flamespear. And because a Picon Punch can taste a bit like distilled tires (or so we imagine) our recipe includes a bit more grenadine that is traditional.
It contains, however, not a drop of milk.