So when were we gonna get those first drops of delicious, creamy sweet pod-
Alright, Urist, focus. Booze. We need booze.
...I like booze.
Alright, good. Let's get started. First, you, go digging. We can't make a fortress in this... dirt. Take us down to get into some actual stone so we can live like proper dwarves!
Dig a bit upwards, for distance from the initial stairs.
From that position, place stairs like so, vertically. The uppermost should lead down, and the bottom-most should lead up, with every layer in between being up+down. Use > and < to change layers do go deeper. It works best to place Up+Down until you hit stone, then finish it with an Up on the next level. Don't be afraid of going a few layers too deep!
Once you get down to depth (I stopped at level -10) then expand some hallways and room for workshops. This is a somewhat orderly construction, open cavern spaces work too, but there's nothing wrong with building a little fancy either!
When finished, unpause the game and let your miner get to work.
Alright I'm digging the thing what's next for the booze syrup?
Well, we're gonna take some of that stone ye mined up, and make some workshops.
That's great, what else do we need?
Just the stone. What do you think a workshop is anyways, one of those nably-pambly human huts with all the tools and benches and shit? Urist we be Dwarves. Ye've got a beard, ye can do the job. This here stone just lets everyone know what this area's set aside to be used for.
The first stone found here is Limestone, a valuable flux stone used in the production of steel, but also a 'layer stone' which means it covers the entire map's area for several layers deep (sometimes as many as 50 solid layers!) and despite its value as a crafting material in steel, is more than plentiful for regular construction.
The first thing we're going to construct is a Mason's shop. Raw stone is fine, but if turned into Stone Blocks, ever 'boulder' will produce 4 'blocks' and be much easier to build from.
We're going to put the mason's shop over here, and we only have one building choice, so select it. This will select the closest item of that material and earmark it for THIS SPECIFIC job. This boulder may now only be used for this workshop, and this workshop can only be constructed with this boulder. If for some reason the boulder moves, or a closer boulder is supplied, the construction dwarf will still use the previously marked boulder.
We can confirm that we have a mason. Building jobs using stone can only be performed by a dwarf with the masonry labor enabled.
When the construction is done, press 'q' to select it (the same way as the farm!) and 'a' to add a task. We want stone blocks, and we want a lot of them. So add the task for blocks, and then press 'r' to leave it on repeat. The mason will now produce blocks until he runs out of stones!
Alright, so, do we... drink the stone?
What? No! What are you even talking about?
We're working on booze right?
We... will build the still next, to make the booze.
Oh, right right.
Once some blocks have been produced, you should be able to build a Still (b, w, l) using one of the blocks (use + and - on the numpad to select different material types). Build a Carpenter's Shop as well (b, w, c)
Once your carpenter is built, produce some beds. I'm building 9 of them, so they'll fit in the same footprint as a workshop and accommodate the size of these starting rooms. When those are produced, add some barrels to the list. If you run out of wood, simply order some wood to be chopped on the surface (d-designate, t-fell trees) and simply cover some area of land by using shift+arrow keys to order a vague number of trees to be retrieved. By default jobs, your farmer is also your brewer, and your woodcutter, so expect some of these orders to take a little time. Luckily, the dwarf who turns logs into wooden products is a different dwarf, and will work while your farmer is cutting down trees.
After producing a few barrels, and perhaps waiting on some crops to mature, order drinks from the still (using the 'q' menu, this is one you'll use a lot!) and enjoy your first homemade wine! With a farm and still secured, your fortress will now survive, so long as you order more drinks to be produced every so often, and leave invaders turned off.
Next: Utilizing DFHack and Dwarf Therapist to shuffle jobs and automate drink and food stocks.