DRINK
How to Make Kuvana Rakija: Comforting Mulled Brandy From Serbia
Winter in Serbia means wild nights in smokey kafanas (taverns) or staying cosy at home with delicious, endless sarma (meat rolled into pickled cabbage). Either way, you’re going to want some mulled brandy too. Here’s how the Serbs make it. If you’re confused and you need a primer on this classy beverage, we have other articles that explain what rakija …
How the Caipirinha Is Ruined Around the World
Everyone loves this Brazilian cocktail, and each culture seems to see a need to ruin it in their own way.
The Orthodox Caipirinha: The Only Correct Caipirinha Recipe Ever Published on the Internet
The caipirinha is a religion. We hold as articles of faith how the limes should be chopped, how the ice should be crushed, etc., and these beliefs are handed down from one believer to the next, from reveler to reveler, generation to generation. There are denominations and sub-denominations, lapsed believers and absolutists. What has been missing until now …
Exploring Espresso and Brandy: Spain Meets Serbia
How can you bring together Serbia and Spain in a single cocktail? Can/should espresso be combined with some of the most … challenging brandy on the planet? How can I film myself drinking such a manly thing and still come off rather effete?
The Jacqueline
The World’s Sissiest Summer Cocktail of Course Comes from France
Mapping Out the World’s Dicks and Booze
The internet offers somewhat reliable maps on these important subjects
American Sex Columnist Critiques Fellow Writer’s Pissing Style on NYC Street
Writer Christopher Ryan receives an important critique
An afternoon of tasting top-notch wine for free in Paris
Tipsy Pilgrim recently attended the Salon des Vins des Vignerons Indépendants — The Independent Winemakers’ Expo in Paris. This cannot be more highly recommended. First, it’s free, or pretty much free. Officially, it will run you €6 (worth it), and that goes down to €3 for students or if you arrive in a group of …
Make gourmet espresso on the cheap — even after the apocalypse
When electricity runs out and the world descends into chaos, you’ll presumably be soaking whatever coffee beans your slave scrounged up in the runoff from a sewer crater. A properly roasted, ground and pressurized espresso will seem a distant luxury. But not so for Nate Miller, who has perfected off-the-grid, gourmet espresso. Nate is an …
Cloyingly juiced: Revealing upper-class Brazilian girls’ ultimate cocktail
The ultra-sweet caipiroska de abacaxi
Vodka-Red Bull is bullshit — opt for the caffeinated cocktail of Spanish sailors
TP is visiting Barcelona this week and just discovered the carajillo, Spain’s espresso/alcoholic shot mix. Oh, carajillo, where have you been all of my life? As with anything worth putting in your mouth, the carajillo is storied. The word supposedly derives from coraje (“courage”) and the tale goes that Spanish sailors in Cuba drank this …
The rare and wonderful things to get drunk on in Catalunya
You’ll recall that in Catalonia, the women are hot, the sailors are drunk, and the grandparents get started on their vermut before noon. I assume, darlings, that you have absorbed this blog’s wisdom quite nearly become Catalans. But how, you ask, scratching your mulleted heads, nervously twisting your pantalons cagats, should we get drunk in …
How to drink while dancing: Traditional Catalan wisdom for prancing drunks
If you’ve read my other advice on Catalans, you presumably now have a hot Catalan girlfriend and have mastered drinking wine from your porró, the squirty Catalan wine pitcher. The obvious next step is to dance with your Catalan gal while drinking from your porró. Fortunately, drunken Catalan dancing has a storied past; and I found …
Pour your cocktail over fresh ice — and delve into America’s all-out drink geekery
Certain impending life changes here at TP HQ threaten to make us a bit less American in the coming years, so we’re delighted to start looking at what we love about the fatherland. The new America posts will highlight the world’s brashest, most flamboyantly ignorant and also most creative culture by looking at how these cowgals …
Drink proudly on Berlin’s streets and trains, especially if you’re Polish
Berliners tend to get a jump on their after-work drinking; it’s quite common to crack open a beer on the U-bahn train home. Also frequently seen, a little later in the evening: teenagers drinking and vomiting to the swaying of the trains. American and British tourists, meanwhile, go bar-hopping with bottles of taquila in hand, …
How do Brazilians “take beer in the ass”? And, more importantly, is it tasty?
The expression tomar a cerveja na bundinha can be translated as “to drink the beer by its bottom” or, more literally, “to take the beer in the little ass”. It is a challenge for certain young Brazilians to say the expression without giggling; in fact, the drink is probably propagated mainly for the opportunity to ambiguously …
What is beer etiquette in Brazil?
Brazilians hardly consider themselves to be a polite people, but they do love to lecture each other on manners anyhow, especially when drinking. The following are the standard rules for correct consumption of Brazilian beer. 1. A man should pour beer for the ladies. I learned the intricacies of this while drinking with several cariocas …
What Catalan tradition gives us the excuse to drink before lunch?
Lunch happens late in Catalonia, 2pm at the earliest, so you might get a bit thirsty or peckish. Older Catalans, however, will let you in on a wonderful tradition that solves this problem (though it has unfortunately been dying out a bit over the last few decades): fer el vermut, or the hour of the vermouth. …
Brazilian beer is awful. Should I attempt to drink it anyway?
Yes. The major Brazilian beers may be offensively devoid of character, and served estupidamente gelada (extremely, “stupidly” chilled) in the hopes you won’t notice, but drinking beer is an important Brazilian social event with lots of fun rules. How should you choose what to drink? Since all of your options are terrible, the only important …
Brazilian wine is awful. Should I attempt to drink it anyway?
Easy answer: No. Ff you’re in Brazil, you can’t even drink the stuff imported from proper wine countries like Chile or Argentina; upon crossing the Brazilian border it undergoes a mysterious process wherein it is rendered undrinkable (presumably, customs procedure involves leaving the bottles out to bake for a few years in the sun). Opt …
What are the medicinal uses of rakija (Serbian brandy)?
None, according to reputable doctors. Reputable Serbian grandparents, however, prescribe rakija for the following conditions: Toothache Heartburn Stomach ache Sore throat Depression Menstrual cramps Anxiety To make a newborn baby boy more of a man (only feed him a few drops) Help babies fall asleep (let them suck on a rakija-soaked finger) Disinfectant Pretty much anything …
Why does everything I drink remind me of murder?
People living on these lands have been dominated by murderous foreign powers for longer than they’ve even considered themselves Albanian. They’ve also gotten most of their ideas about what makes for good social drinks from these same powers. The result: some very disturbing associations with each drink, as below. Popular Drinks in Albania Associated Atrocity …
Become a connoisseur of fine Serbian rakija
So you’d like to come across as a connoisseur of fine rakija, the brandy of the Balkans, nationalism in a bottle. First, we’ll talk about what you’re drinking, then how to be a snob about it. 1. What type of rakija is it? Rakijas are generally named for the Serbian word for the fruit they …
How do Catalan sailors take their rum?
On fire. Catalan sailors have brought a lot of rum back from Cuba over the last few centuries, and tradition dictates celebrating sailors’ return with a beach party fueled by the cremat, Catalonia’s flaming caffeinated rum cocktail. Folks crowd the beach, sing songs called havaneres (also of Cuban import, though with Catalan lyrics) and dance, waving white handkerchiefs over …
I don’t feel like drinking, but I’ve just been offered a glass of raki by a boisterous group of Albanians. What is about to happen?
You are about to get extremely drunk. You cannot refuse a glass of raki. Doing so is considered extremely rude. You must at the very least drink a little bit. But of course, that’s just the beginning. The group will likely have already selected its krye dolli bash, or the leader of the drinking. …
It’s five in the morning, we’re on fire, and the party is still rolling. What should we do?
Start chopping onions. For the fêtards (partiers) who make it until the wee hours, French tradition stipulates that you whip up a soupe à l’oignon (onion soup). Salty and very delicious after a long night of dancing and drinking, this is the quintessential end to a long soirée. For some reason, foreigners think of this …
How can we all get sloshed from the same pitcher without getting cooties?
Welcome to the porró, the traditional Catalan wine carafe that gives you all of the pleasure and convenience of drinking from a squirt gun. A porró is a little like a glass watering can; there’s an opening in the top where it is filled, and a long snout that tapers to a small opening — when you tip …