INTERESTING DRINKS

               Fun Drinks from Different Places

Iced Tea, not in Europe

      Forget about ordering iced tea in Europe. (There is some possibility you might find a vending machine that that has a bottle of Lipton.) Overseas mentality: Tea should be drunk hot!

       In Linz, Austria after a particularly hard day of biking I was dying for a big glass of iced tea. I went to the hotel bar and bought a cup of tea. Then I asked the bartender for a large container of ice.

     With a strange look, he did oblige me. I took the tea and ice to my room telling the bartender I’d return the cup and container when I came down for dinner. I made the best tasting and refreshing iced tea ever!

When staying on Turneffe Atoll in Belize, I asked the kitchen for a large jar so I could make sun tea. This was a new technique for many. The sun was hot, so it didn’t take long to brew.

Mojitos

    A mojito is a rum fruit drink popular in Cuba. We were served one with nearly every lunch and dinner. Combine the juice of a half lime with one ounce of rum, then fill the glass with lemon-lime soda. Add mint leaves.
   In Cuba a four-prong stirrer is included to release the essence of the mint. Ernest Hemmingway not only enjoyed the drink but made it popular in his literature. Sweet and fruity it goes down easily.

Now mojitos are a popular drink most anywhere.

Origin of the Daiquiri

In 1898, shortly after the Spanish-American War, a mining engineer arrived in Santiago, Cuba to find mine workers apprehensive about drinking the water because of malaria.

He added a bit of rum to boiled water and then topped it off with lime juice and sugar. The concoction was soon duplicated and refined moving to ‘society’ in Havana. The rest as they say is history, but this is where the daiquiri originated.

Vodka

   The Russians take their vodka seriously. We visited a vodka museum where there were 2600 different brands of vodka on display. Vodka is often mixed with a fruit liqueur. In Kiev we learned the five rules for drinking vodka. It should be drunk chilled, but never iced. It is drunk from a small shot glass and with food. A little vodka, a little food prevents a headache. Never mix it with anything bubbly, and avoid bubbly drinks after drinking vodka. Do not switch vodka with another liquor. Finally always drink with friends.

Wine on the Ghan Train

In Australia we bought a bottle of wine in Hahndorf for the overnight ride on the Ghan train to the Outback. The bottle opened easily, but there wasn’t a glass in our stateroom. We stared at the couple of Styrofoam cups on the sink.

Well, these two old Girl Scouts used of what was available. The wine was excellent, but I have to admit, it was the only time I’ve ever drunk wine from a Styrofoam cup!

Wine Bar

At the hotel restaurant at Mt. Cook, New Zealand, I ran into my first and only wine bar. For a nominal flat fee, you could help yourself to the well stocked wine bar as many times as you wanted. The wine bottles were sitting in iced buckets, and you had to pour your own. That was not a problem, and what a bargain!

Mate de Coca

    One day while walking in the neighborhood I ran into a fellow who asked where I was going next. When I told him Peru, he launched into a horror story about a relative who got altitude sickness yada yada yada. What would I do if that happened to me? Flippantly I said, “I’d drink coca tea, like the natives do.”

     You can imagine my surprise when I found plenty of hot coca tea always available in hotel lobbies and on all restaurant menus. Our porters brewed it for us on the trail. I drank a lot of it. I think it tastes like most any herbal tea and was no big deal. However, I did not chew any coca leaves!

Smoky Beer

The city of Bamberg, Germany is known for rauchbier, smokey beer. In 1678, a fire in a brewery sent smoke into the area where the hops and other beer ingredients were stored. Not about to lose a whole years’ harvest, the beer was brewed anyway. It had a distinctive smoky aroma and taste, and as they say the rest is history. I think one either loves it or hates it, but is is different!

Guarapo de Cana

Perhaps sugar cane juice is more easily understood. At the sugar mill in Cuba the gal added a good dose of rum to each glass of the tan colored liquid. Actually it was quite good, maybe it was the run? I expected it to be sticky and very sweet, but it was not.

Scotch

There are so many brands of Scotch in Scotland that one must name his brand when ordering his drink. Just asking for ‘Scotch’ will produce a blank look from the bartender.

Irish coffee

From 1939 to 1945 air travel from America was by flying boats that landed at Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland. After a long 18 hour flight, passengers were chilled from the boat trip from the seaplane to the terminal, often in cold, damp weather. They appreciated a hot cup of coffee or tea. The youthful manager of the Foynes catering service believed that passengers would welcome something stronger. The head Chef at Foynes rose to the occasion, developing, after some research, what is now known as Irish Coffee.

Lakka

Lakka, a cloudberry liquor schnapps, is strictly Finnish. It is a pleasant drink and I liked it.

Brits and their Tea

Although tea is the drink of Britain it is not drunk with or after a meal. Tea time is generally 11AM and 4PM. Tea is also a crisis drink; any time one has a problem it is talked about over tea. Tea drinking is pretty much the center of the family.

Delightful Drink

    When in Regensburg, Germany I kept an eagle eye out for the Café Prinzess. Dating back to 1686, it is the oldest coffeehouse in Germany.

      It was an extremely hot day so we opted to sit outside rather than in the warm room upstairs. Our iced coffee was served with chocolate chip ice cream. It was different, but good, resembling a float.

A pair of older German women seated near us were drinking blond angels, which was orange juice with ice cream floating in it. They looked refreshing. In fact they ordered a second one before continuing on their journey.

SOME SCOTTISH TRIVIA

                                                Fun Tid Bits

v  The thistle has been the symbol of the country for 500 years. Legend has it that sleeping Scots were awakened by invading Vikings when they cried out after stepping on thistles in their bare feet. The Scots won the battle and the guardian thistle made it into history.

v  Language originally was Celtic based with some Gaelic and a smattering of Norse dialects.  By 1980 less than two percent of the population understood Gaelic. Gaelic is most popular on the Isle of Sky where 60% of the population speak the language. Accents and dialects have not developed in Scotland as they have in England.

v  The Highland games started more than 1000 years ago. Bagpipe playing and dancing are always part of the games.

v  After a wet harvest centuries ago, finding a way to use rain soaked barley resulted in the national whisky known as scotch. Scotch is the whisky, not the name of the people who inhabit the country. They are Scots, and the adjective is Scottish.

v  Big Bertha, a huge shipbuilding crane, is now a monument to the vast and prosperous ship-building industry that made the city of Glasgow famous. The last ship built on the Clyde was the Q E 2 in 1962. During W W II a warship a day rolled off the rails into the River Clyde. The 24-hour a day operation was incredible when 2000 ships hit the seas in a six year period. Before the war most of the ships built were passenger ships including all of the Cunard line ships. At one point the shipbuilding industry employed over 200,000 people. The ships were not only built here, but fully outfitted here as well. To say something is Clyde built means that it is quality and built to last. The River Clyde is but 78 miles long and has as much as a 20-foot tide here in the city.

v  In Dornoch. we visited the 1239 Presbyterian Church where a couple of elderly docents told us this was where Madonna had her son christened and that Prince Charles also had visited the church. The ladies proudly told us that the hotel across the street was once the home of Andrew Carnegie,

        They forgot to tell us that Dornoch is the area where the last witch burning in Scotland took    place in 1722. An old woman was accused of turning her daughter into a pony and riding it around town. She was sentenced to be burned alive in a pot of boiling tar.

v  All the museums in Glasgow are free.