BootsnAll Travel Community

OK, can anyone recommend some interesting spirits or drinks they've had which were unique to a certain place, or which they associate with a certain place?

Here's a couple of mine

1. China - Maotai
a clear 55% alcohol drink which co-workers in Shenzhen plied me with on my last night in China. They had been so kind to me that I couldn't refuse each shot, even though the taste made me nauseous. Finally I started swallowing the shots, then taking a swig of water during which I craftily spat the Maotai into the water glass. Then the water went into a potplant.

2. Germany - Hefferweizen & Eiswein
Hefferweizen is a smooth, creamy, sweet and rich beer. Great after a squash game, in the evening at a bier garten, whenever.
Eiswein is a dessert wine made from grapes that are left on the vine until the frost arrives and they freeze. This produces a very concentrated, intense fruit taste. Delicious.

3. Dallas - Margueritas
Made by my Texan buddy Dave using limes we squeezed ourselves. I've never been hit harder by booze than by these wicked margueritas.

4. Running of the Bulls - Sangria
Cheap & cheerful, it's probably responsible for almost every hangover in Pamplona. Red wine sweetened with... something cheap.

5. La Tomatina Festival - Non-alcoholic beer.
Some company was doing a promotion and beer girls were handing out cans of this non-alcoholic stuff by the crate-load at the Tomato Festival. Nobody was drinking it but we invented some fun games to play with the cans.

6. Sweden - Glog
My Swedish friend Magnus was always saying that Gluewein, the hot, spiced wine from Germany, was not as good as the Swedish version. Well he was right. Glog is good :-)

7. Los Angeles - Sake Bomb
We spent so many hours in sushi restaurants like Miyagis and Tokyo Delve that this drink was probably the most popular one.
You put two chopsticks across a mug of Sapporo beer. On top you balance a shot glass of Sake. Then you bang your fist on the table. The shot glass drops into the beer and you have to drink the lot before it fizzes up over the lip of the glass.

8. Australia - Lemon, lime & bitters
A non-alcoholic drink but popular, refreshing and served almost everywhere. I was surprised when bartenders in the US didn't know of it.

The journey is my home

Absinthe: Czech Republic, Aus, and a few other places in the world. Bright green liquid that *used* to have crazy associations (see: Green fairy in Moulin Rouge) but I've never gotten any visions...just very, very drunk. Terrible taste, but one of those things everybody does....

Kava: Tastes like muddy water, Fijian traditional drink that slightly numbs your mouth. When large quantities are consumed, it has some unusal affects, however, most tourists can't really get there because the taste is so rank.

Pims: My cousin that I had never met made me a Pims and lemonade my first afternoon in England. Although it is sold in a lot of places all over the world, this was the first time I had ever had it.

Court

"The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see." ~G.K. Chesterton

Negra Modelo: dark beer from Mexico... remember sitting on the porch of a restaurant on abeach on the Sea of Cortez (Zipper's if I remember correctly) drinking this wonderful beer with a lime and watching hot surfies.

Stella Artois: funny, this reminds me of London rather than Belgium (which is Leffe Braun or Kriek Lambic). I was trying to find every Fox and Hounds in London. Hell, you have to have a hobby.

Boxes of cheap ass wine/Sangria: anywhere in Spain. Mostly walking through the streets and along the beach in Barcelona.

Just another travel addict getting Out of dodge...

Court - what is Pims? Is it Gin?

I've heard of kava but never plan to try it :-)
Although I'd drink kava before that stuff the South American Indians make by chewing leaves - its basically a lot of fermented spit and these leaves...

Prague is an hour or two away from me here, and I just found out Australians don't need a visa to go there anymore, so I'll definitely try it.

Delara - For some reason they don't sell many foreign beers here in Germany so I'll have to look out for the Negra Modelo & Stella elsewhere.

Another one I remember is some kind of potent Danish schnapps called Aquavit which we had in Copenhagen.

And whatever you do, when you're in Germany for the love of God avoid a drink called Stroh. It's an artificial rum with 80% alcohol content. It smells bad, it tastes bad and it will grab you by your throat and send you to the floor of the nearest toilet quicker than you can believe.

The journey is my home

Tequila with orange and cinnamon, in Germany.

Cachaça (aka Pinga), sugarcane spirit from Brasil. Main ingredient in the caipirinha. My tip is drink it with little honey in a shot glass. Or even pure. Hmm. Makes me homesick.

Important advice: Stay away from the cachaça brand called Pitu, it's exported to europe. It's crap.

Forgot the name of that greenish thing that tastes like cinnamon, from Czech.. Berechovka or something like that. Many Berechovka Tonic piss ups in Cesky Krumlov.

(Tequila with orange and cinnamon, in Germany.)

Yeah, yeah! What is it with that? Its the same in my part of Germany too. The orange doesn't have enough bite.

And I've seen Pitu in the supermarkets - thanks for the tip, I'll avoid it like I avoid Fosters.

The journey is my home

Rakiya.
Serbian or Turkish, it doesn't matter..

but, with avoiding shameless bulgarian replicas..

and chilly Vodka, from Russia.. Just ordinary vodka with hot chilly peppers, to give it the colour and the hot taste

I forgot to mention.. The beer from Banja Luka (capital of Republic of Srpska, one of two entity of Bosnia&Hercegovina)

it's some sort of beer with 30-35% of alcohol.. so, in fact, you feel it's a beer, by it's taste, but after one bottle, you could be deadly drunk

MMMMMmmm - Hierbas! A speciality of the Balearic Islands, particularly Ibiza. My own favourite is Anita's (c1975) from the world famous Anita's Bar in San Carlos. It's a delicious, sweet liqueur and can easily be made if you know which of the dozen or so wild herbs which grow locally to pick and stuff into an empty, clean bottle. All you then need to do is pour your chosen brand of Anise over the herbs, bung a cork in and wait for around a year!
Oh yes, and Sloe Gin made by myself every September.

Arkansas Moonshine a/k/a White Lightning

A clear liqour made from either a corn or rice mash, flavored, I suspect, with moldy jockstraps. Aged at least twenty minutes. Must be served in glass because it well melt plastic and corrode most metals. Know to cause frequent YAHOOOO's and ocassional (usually) temporary blindess. Tastes a little like aviation gasoline smells. Being a manly man, I drank mine straight out of the Mason jar, but girls can mix it with cherry kool-aid, or, if you can afford it, Hawaiian Punch.

Free your mind, your ass will follow. - Oliver Stone
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Romania - two different brandies
tuica (pronounced tzuica) - made from pears, plums or mixtures of different fruits, about 35% alcohol (the one found in the markets), 45% alcohol for friends, 55% for family and 60% for the professional blue blooded drinkers
the second one is palinca, much stronger, tastes somehow like tequilla but much more flavored.

--
www.spirit.ro - liberation of the moment

Borderland-
Pims is a liquor, I think? I'm not quite sure...put it with lemonade and it's fabulous!

Court

"Travelling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, 'I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.'" Lisa St. Aubin de Terán

Yep, Pimms is a liqueur (25% by volume ), one of those eternal British things that others may not understand. It's generally served in pitchers with lemonade (the sparkely kind) and a slice of orange, lemon, cucumber, apple. Toss in some gin and vodka and it's actually alcoholic!

Just another travel addict getting Out of dodge...

Chicha!

How could I forget the glorious Chicha from Peru, a sort of a fermented corn drink? Like a 'cort beer'. Delicious. Even better when you buy it homemade from the ladies in remote corners of cities.

A couple of Canadian contributions:

Newfoundland Screech: A dark (demerara) rum. It's often served as part of an entertaining "screech-in" ceremony, and its prevalence in Newfoundland comes from the days when sea-trade was common between Newfoundland and the Caribbean islands. Salted cod went down to the Caribbean and rum came up to Newfoundland.

the Bloody Caesar: The ultimate breakfast drink. Similar to a bloody mary, but made with Clamato (a mixture of seasonings, Tomato and clam juices.)

Boukkha - a Tunisian spirit distilled from figs - it's VERY strong, most palatable when mixed with coke, otherwise it's pretty harsh stuff.

My knapsack on my back...

There is a south korean drink i think called soju that was decent and pretty nicely priced. It did the job well.

Jason

OK, I just got back from a week on Milos, an island in the Cyclades, and here's what I can recommend:
1. Mythos
A Greek beer which I guess is nothing particularly special, but when you're lying on the beach with transparent aqua water lapping on the shore and the blazing Greek sun tanning you nut brown - it's heaven.
2. McFarlands
An import beer from the UK I think. It's a red beer, very smooth and tasty.
Also, every beer you buy in a taverna or bar on Milos is served with a dish of pistachios, hazelnuts and peanuts. It may be the same on other islands but this should be a worldwide habit :-)

Court & Delara - thanks for the Pims info. I'll be in London at the end of the month so I'll try it.

The journey is my home

1. Brittish Real Ale, If you're in a brittsh pub, and they don't manually pump your beer into the glass, find another pub. JOIN CAMRA!

2. Rye Whiskey, a lovely... and cheap, Kentucky delicacy.

3. Another vote for moonshine.

4. Single Malt Scotch anyone?

5. Canadian Ice Wine, this stuff is outrageously expensive, but its magic on the palate.

6. Tej, Ethiopian Mead (fermented honey) thats spiked with hop shoots.

7. Most any beer in, or from, Belgium - aka Beer Eden.

On the topic of Kentucky miracles, mad props to Knob Creek, the best Kentucky bourban I've ever tasted (after KB, Jack Daniels = panther piss).

Matthew, regarding eiswein, is there a "season" for it (drinking, not making) or is it generally available. I've read about it and I'd really like to try it sometime.

I liked it better when bombs were dumb and the President was smart
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