With the World Adventures expansion pack came the ability to make (and enjoy) nectar.  Sims 2 had "juice," of course, in the form of juice bars where you could get a sugary drink that would make you have to pee a lot.  Nectar ups the ante, by giving you a positive moodlet for good nectar, plus no significant bathroom effects.  (Flame fruit nectar will give you an extra boost of the "warm fuzzies.")

Nectar comes from France (oui oui!) where you can purchase a Nectar Maker (a still by any other name…) for your very own.  Although it costs $1,500 so be sure to budget accordingly!  Nectar making is a skill just like Photography or Fishing, and it is about as lucrative.  Which is to say, "not very."  Not compared to a "real job," anyway.  

You can make nectar with a wide variety of fruits, and the game has decreed that some combinations are better than others.  Why, and how?  The logic behind it is a mystery, but I found a great article that lays out the monetary value of the combinations here.  I always appreciate it when people use math and experimentation to lay bare the Sims secrets!

The better the fruit you put into it, the better the nectar you get out.  Considering the limited supply and quality of fruit at the grocery store, this means that you will need to grow your own.  A Sim who enjoys gardening can garden all day, and make nectar all night.  Although from a practical perspective, I find that with a medium sized garden (about 20 plants) there is only enough time to make one batch of nectar before the Sims start complaining of exhaustion.

If you really want to expand your nectar making ability, you could have one gardening Sim working on the crops, and one nectar making Sim cranking out the nectar.  If you use multiple machines you can juggle several batches of nectar at once, which will definitely help the income.  

I have found that an average bottle of nectar is worth about $40.  Considering that you only get a few bottles per batch (4?) in a world where waffles cost $11, this just isn't going to last long.  And think of how long it's going to take to pay off that darned nectar maker!

The value of nectar increases with age, so we are told.  According to Carl's article, it increases by a factor of 10% of the base price per day.  Since this seems to be computed against the base (original) price, you can see how this will cause a situation of diminishing returns.

However, there is something odd that I don't understand about nectar.  I have been playing my family for about 46 Sim weeks.  (You can see this number if you hover your pointer over the date/time readout on your in-game toolbar.)  Every time my Sim makes nectar, the game labels it "So-and-so's nectar, aged 46 weeks."  I'm not really sure what's going on there!  I obviously need to start tracking bottle prices and see what happens.  It makes it look as if every bottle is aged from the first day you started playing that family, which makes no sense, but hey.