DRINKS---AN ADVENTURE

                    A Few of my Interesting Drinks

     Traveling all over I have had many interesting drinks, some I liked and some not so much. When biking in Germany and Austria, I drank many a spezi, and I often drink one at home. A spezi is easy to make as it is a mix of half cola and half lemonade. A lot of people put a dash of lemon in their cola, but a spezi is special to me as it brings back lots of pleasant memories,

     A tundraccino is a take-off on the popular cappuccino. This was a welcome warming drink when riding in the tundra  buggy in the cold Canadian sub-arctic. Simply mix 3 parts instant cocoa to 1 part instant coffee and add boiling water to mix. It was a pleasant change from either hot cocoa or coffee.

     In  the English Cotswolds I learned a Lemon Shanty is a drink of equal parts  beer and lemonade. I understand it is a popular drink for women, but not being a beer drinker I cannot vouch for it.

     In Regensburg, Germany, at the oldest coffeehouse in the country, I ordered iced coffee. It was good but rather different. Cold coffee was poured into a tall  glass and  topped with two scoops of chocolate chip ice cream.

At the same time a couple  elderly German ladies  arrived and ordered blond angels. This was a combination of orange juice and vanilla ice cream---perhaps their answer to our root beer floats. They must have been good as they drank a second one before leaving.

     In Vienna kaffehouses, there is no such thing as  a plain cup of coffee. It comes in many forms, each with a different  name. In one such establishment we were served by a tux clad waiter.

     In England don’t even think about ordering a cup of coffee, it leaves a lot to be desired for a coffee lover.  The one exception to this might be large American chain hotels where their coffee makers use pre-measured coffee filters to cater to the American palate. The English drink tea and there are specific rules for doing so and drinking it with a meal is a definite no no!

     In Europe coffee and tea are served in china or porcelain cups, and of course there is no bottomless coffee cup. I concede to one advantage to an overseas fast food establishment and that is one can get a drinkable cup of coffee in a take away cup. Otherwise it’s consume on the premises. A young girl in the Copenhagen airport brought that to my attention.

     This is just the beginning as there are many more drinks but we’ll save them for another day.

GOOMBAY WHAT?

A Good Punch

      I’ve often mentioned that I always look for the different and unusual. The first time I was in the Bahamas I discovered Goombay punch. That was over 30 years ago and being that much younger I thought the fruit punch was good, but I always remembered and was fascinated  by their logo. My second short visit was on a wedding cruise and I was more interested in showing my traveling companion the sites than tracking down some Goombay. Her likes were much different than mine anyway so she’d probably have thought I was a little nutty..

     But when I took my granddaughter to the Bahamas last year for a high school graduation present I had my chance to indulge.

I can best describe the drink as very much like an Hawaiian Punch. Rum added would be good, but I never hinted at that to the young one(18). She liked the drink and often bought a can or bottle of it.

     I wanted to bring home a case to share with friends, but I wouldn’t be able to carry a case on board (new TSA rules) and since I don't check luggage, I wasn’t willing to ship it or pay the airline a baggage fee, so the best I could do was bring home an empty can and share the story while remembering fond memories.

Post Script

A year later that same granddaughter had a chance to make a quick cruise to the Bahamas and when she came home she brought me 16 oz bottles of Goombay punch. A thoughtful surprise!

POPULAR CUBAN DRINKS

A Meal Surprise

At lunch my first day in Cuba we were served our first mojito, a well-known local drink. At that point little did we know that we would be drinking a lot of mojitos, as one was served with every meal.

We were instructed,  "A mojito starts out with the juice of a half lime, an ounce of rum, and the rest of the glass is filled with lemon-lime soda.Fresh mint is a must for making mojitos The four-prong stirrer is to crush the mint leaves/sprig to release the essence of the mint.” 

Hemingway enjoyed Mojitos. Now I know why!

One day we had lunch in Old Havana at the lovely Floridita Restaurant. The ambiance was wonderful with the gorgeous wooden walls which were real wood, not paneling. The bar at Floridita was a special haunt of Hemingway.

This day we were served a daiquiri, another drink made famous by Hemingway, but that was originally concocted way south, just a few miles east of Santiago. In 1898, shortly after the Spanish-American War, a mining engineer arrived in town to find mine workers apprehensive about drinking the water because of malaria.

Being a creative man he added a bit of rum to boiled water and then topped it off with lime juice and sugar. The concoction was soon duplicated. It didn’t take long for  the drink we know as the daiquiri to move to the ‘refined society’ in the city. The rest as they say is history, but this is where  and how the daiquiri originated.

The Floridita restaurant has been serving food at the present location since 1819. In the recently refurbished restaurant waiters hovered in tux jackets and bow ties. It all was quite delightful. It is said that Hemingway’s ghost haunts the dark mahogany bar. The novelist’s seat is preserved as a shrine while his bronze bust watches over things from where Constante Ribailgua once served frozen daiquiris to the writer.

After the tour of a sugar mill we walked across the street to another building containing the lab. There we were given guarapo de cana (sugar cane juice). The gal added a good dose of rum to each glass of the tan colored liquid. I expected it to be sticky and very sweet, but it was not. Actually it was quite good. Maybe it was the rum!