A recent study trip with Avinet’s “corporate mother”, Asplan Viak, took me to Berlin in the company of about 60 merry colleagues. Following a similar experience in Turin, Italy, last year my expectations were split. Happy, as always, when thinking of the opportunity to enjoy evenings out in good company – but at the same time fearing the quality of the food which usually suffers greatly when traveling in groups.
My doubts were however put to shame and I had some of the most enjoyable evenings out in a European city ever accompanied by good, solid German food. My thanks go out to Pål, chairman of the board of Avinet (and on other occasions excellent drinking pal), for urging me to come along. (more…)
During my three trips to Iceland I’ve had an exceptional dinner at Sjávarkjallarinn every time. The name means sea food cellar which is an excellent description of what we’re dealing with.
The restaurant is located in a dimly lit cellar in downtown Reykjavik and is fitted with a modern yet comfortable interior design. The food is excellent and the event-meal Excotic Menu is a safe choice for the pallate although painful on the wallet!
A Tasca Tequila Bar is little more than a hole in the wall, located in a narrow street in Lisbons Barrio Alto district. Still, this is where I find myself coming back to every time I visit the city.
At A Tasca I usually find myself drinking Tequila slammers. A Tequila slammer, for those who aren’t familiar with the idea, is equal parts fizzy drink (7-up or similar) and Tequila poured into a shooter glass. The drinker then uses his hand as a lid on the glass, slams it violently on the bar counter so the thing stirs properly and downs the content in one fell swoop while it is still fizzing!
Slamming is a remarkably efficient and painless way to consume a bottle of Tequila and get you in the right mood for a night out on town!
Of course, A Tasca has a lot more to it than shooters. They prepare a mean Caipirinha (cachaca, sugar, lime and ice) for those who have fallen in love with the Brazilian national drink, or a Caipiroska (substituting cachaca for vodka) for those who have bad experience with the aftermaths of sugar cane rum.
This little bar is also a salsa place. While I am not a dancer (by a good margin) I enjoy the latin music and rythms as a backdrop for drinking and as a starting point for a good night out on town in Lisbon!
Tractor driver chatting up woman from old Zetor-tractor at one of Zetor’s characteristic pub tables.
After visiting Helsinki’s tractor pub Zetor, named after the Czech tractor brand popular during the Cold War, my interest for Leningrad Cowboys came to life again after years of slumber. The pub, owned by Aki Kaurismaki, was decorated with Zetors fitted with a bar counter so you could sit on or around the tractors enjoying your beer. Almost like home.
My first meeting with Leningrad Cowboys was through Kaurismakis 1989 cult film, Leningrad Cowboys go America (which I didn’t see until 1996). I was immediately intrigued by the pack of strange characters, the lack of continuous dialog and their highly original and irregular interpretations of rock’n roll music!
As with so many things, the contrasts are what makes the band ingenious. The cooperation between the Cowboys and the Alexandrov Red Army choir see to it that contrast is in plenty! Together they do covers such as “California Girls”, “Happy together” and balalaika renditions of “Sweet Home Alabama”, “Knocking on Heavens door” and “Stairway to Heaven”.
Great stuff!
Those of you who are familiar with Western Norway, know that there are some pretty shady products brewing in the pots and stills below the steep mountains by the fjords. However, compared to Brinjevec – the main objective of this article – “our” moonshine tast like fresh apples.
It was in September in the year of the Lord 2006 I first came to encounter Brinjevec. The occasion was a business trip to Slovenia and an evening of high spirit in the captial of the said country, Ljubljana. In the company of my two excellent accomplices, Torbjørn and Tommy, I entered in a bar where we asked the waiter to keep the drinks flowing until further notice. Closing time, however, came first.
At some stage it became evident that good quality would be wasted on our anasthetised taste buds and so we changed the strategy to asking the waiter to bring the worst alcoholic fluids on sale in his establishment – with the purpose of making a top – or rather bottom – five list of Slovene alcohol.
Intrigued by the challenge he set out for the bar and returned time and time again with one drink fouler and more evil smelling than the previous one. Just as we thought it couldn’t get any worse he brought Brinjevec.
There is no means to describe the taste, smell and characteristics of Brinjevec merely by using an ordinary vocabulary consisting of words. The closest one might get in a regular human life would be terpentine. The mere shock of still being able to see after gulping down the first little sip of the drink was almost too much for me.
It was then that it dawned on us that we had a winner. Brinjevec. For the interested a bottle of the said substance can be procured at a cost of about 5000 Slovene Tollars – to be converted to Euros by 1st of January 2007. It is allegedly based on juniper berries and ethanol but I would believe anyone who said it was made from a random mix of terpentine and methanol.
Other than that – go to Slovenia immediately. Go to Trebnik Castle in Slovenska Konjice and buy all their cool stuff – don’t miss the love potion which – if nothing else – is a sturdy herb liqueur.
