Jagex started the month off with an interesting update that gives opportunities to build on many skills. They have cleverly dubbed it “Trouble Brewing”. It is located on Mos Le’Harmless, and consequently you must have the quest “Cabin Fever” completed to participate. Also, you are required to have at least 40 cooking. It is suggested that you wear as little armor and weaponry as possible, and to wear Boots of Lightness (obtained in the Temple of Ikov), as a lot of running is involved in this mini-game.

If you have the necessary requirements, head over to the far eastern side of Mos Le’Harmless and enter the building to begin. Basically, you are racing against another team to produce the most amount of rum in the allotted time limit. To accomplish this, you must resort to several sinister and pirate-y tactics to tilt the odds in you and your team’s favor. In your team’s building, there should be a tool table, which contains all the necessary tools to aid your team and to hamper your enemy.
Brewing the Rum

The main objective of Trouble Brewing is simply to create as many bottles of rum as you possibly can. However, this task is not as easy as it seems. To create a bottle, you need to obtain 5 ingredients, which are spread out across the playing field. You need colored water/water, sweetgrubs, scrapeytree bark, bitternuts, and wood.

Colored water is fairly easy to obtain, and has multiple uses. To create it, you must first retrieve colored flowers from the other team’s brewery (Note: If your team is red, the flowers will be red, and if your team is blue, the flowers will be blue). Return to your still with the flowers and use them with your kettle. Then use a bowl on the kettle and you will obtain colored water. To use it directly for the rum, use the bowl with the correct hopper. Three bowls of colored water are required for a bottle of rum. Another use for colored water is for “recruiting” monkeys. I’ll talk more about that later. Please note that, for use with the rum, either three bowls of colored water OR 5 buckets of regular water is sufficient.

Another required component is sweetgrubs. They are located on each of the three islands located in the middle of the map, and also to the east and west of your team’s building. The grubs hide in small mounds similar to ant hills. To draw them out, you must use a piece of meat (There is some on the tool table at your still) with the mound. You need one load of sweetgrubs for one bottle of rum.

Scrapeytree bark is the third of many ingredients necessary to create rum. Scrapeytrees are located on two of the three islands, and there are three extras nearby your team’s still. The trees require no woodcutting level, but a higher level is advised, as it will make chopping must faster. You can acquire an axe from the tool table in your still. One load of scrapeytree bark is required for one bottle of rum.

For the next ingredient, you need to put into use colored water. In the center of the map on the middle island, there is an abundance of monkeys roaming around. Once captured, they are useless. Unless, of course, you use a bowl of colored water on one. There are bitternut trees on each of the three islands. Use your colored monkey with a bitternut tree and it will scamper up the trunk and retrieve you some nuts. It takes one bitternut for a bottle of rum to be created. Congratulations, you have gained yet another element for your rum.

Wood is not needed for the rum itself, but instead it is used to keep the furnace at the right temperature so the rum can be distilled. On average, it takes 10 logs per bottle of rum to keep up the temperature.

When all the ingredients are added, the rum begins to produce. It takes about one minute for the bottle to be created, and before one is created, a player must be at the still to catch the bottle. If two bottles are created and the first one is still at the end of the still, then the one still there will fall to the floor and smash. Because of this, you need to have a player to take the bottle. It will then automatically be packaged, and your team will score a point!

Hopefully now you know all the components towards successfully creating a bottle of rum for your team, and you can honestly say that the rum will not always be gone (Ha-ha).

Sabotage and Repair

Creating the rum, however, is not all that you and your team can do. You can also perform treacherous acts of sabotage and wreak destruction on the other team’s still, bridges, and more. Trust me; here is where it gets fun. To go about sabotaging, you will need one thing: a torch. This can be found (I’m sure you already guessed) on the tool table in your team’s still hut. Using a tinderbox to light it (which also can be found on the tool table), it becomes much more than simply a torch. It becomes an ultimate weapon of sabotage-ination! Well, ok, it doesn’t. But the name is pretty awesome.
Most of the locations in the still hut, and most of the stills themselves, can be set on fire. Use your ultimate weapon of sabot- I mean, “Lit torch”, with the still, and it will catch on fire. The still can take 5 levels of damage before it is completely destroyed.
There are even more ways to impair the other team. And yes, to do this you can use your ultimate weapon on sabotage-ination. Or lit torch. Or whatever you want to call it. Use your torch with a tree to light it on fire. If it burns completely, it takes longer for the tree to regenerate, making production of rum slower.
You can also sabotage the bridges running between the islands and the main land. You can use your lit torch with a section to light on fire. Bridge sections are very difficult to put out, so make sure to have lots of buckets of water when trying to extinguish one.
If you are a victim of such crimes, be sure to get a lot of water to put the fires out immediately. Left to burn, fires can seriously hamper your team’s efficiency.
Experience and Rewards
This is an experience chart, taken directly from Runescape.com: