Sunset Sarsaparilla

Sunset Sarsaparilla is a consumable item in Fallout: New Vegas.

Characteristics
 Sunset Sarsaparilla is a sweet carbonated sarsaparilla-based beverage that is found around the Mojave Wasteland. With its easy availability and low cost, Sunset Sarsaparilla is an excellent consumable that provides a high health regeneration effect. Thanks to these factors, it supplants the stimpak as a primary healing item in the Mojave.

In the company's "Silly Ol' Advisory", Festus provides a comical list of potential side effects, which include "kidney damage, nausea, digital numbness, anxiety, loss of visual acuity, dizziness, occasional nosebleeds, joint inflammation, tooth decay, sore throat, bronchitis, organ rupture and halitosis". In order for those effects to happen, Festus says you must drink "a helluva lot". However, you can have as many drinks as you want, and not suffer from those side effects in-game. Only while playing in hardcore mode does drinking Sunset Sarsaparilla have any negative effect – consumption produces mild dehydration.

With each bottle you drink, the bottle cap has a 5% chance of being a Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap which can be collected for the quest The Legend of the Star. Otherwise, as with Nuka-Cola, when you drink a Sunset Sarsaparilla, you get a normal bottle cap. Though oddly enough, the Pip-Boy icon and texture of said caps always depicts them as Nuka-Cola caps.

Crafting
With the Honest Hearts add-on installed, the player can obtain a recipe and make a home-brewed version of the drink. This is identical to the standard variety.

Variants

 * Irr. Sunset Sars.

Locations

 * Goodsprings - sold by Trudy in the Prospector Saloon and found in multiple Sunset Sarsaparilla crates surrounding the Goodsprings general store and the Prospector Saloon. Also found within the Prospector Saloon in Sunset Sarsaparilla crates. Most of these will lower your karma if taken. Out in front of the gas station in Goodsprings, there is a Vending Machine with 3 to 4 Sunset Sarsaparillas inside. Taking these will not affect your karma.
 * Sunset Sarsaparilla Headquarters - found in numerous vending machines and Sunset Sarsaparilla crates throughout the entire building.
 * Boulder City - sold by Ike in the Big Horn Saloon. Also, found in Sunset Sarsaparilla crates and on shelves near and behind the bar.

Behind the scenes

 * Sarsaparilla is a type of bitter root found in Central America which was originally used for medicinal purposes; owing to the root's bitterness, it was combined with sweetened water to make dosing more palatable. In America, the bark and oil of the sassafras tree was added to the formula; this "root beer" eventually became a popular drink in the late-19th-century Old West. The similarity of the two roots' names led to the informal nickname of "Sasparilly."

Bugs

 * The healing buff the drink gives, depending on unknown circumstances, will never disappear and provide constant healing.