DRINKING IN CATALONIA
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …