I just discovered an interesting new drink called Southern Comfort. This is a very busy week for me, so this new drink is a timely find. It tastes a bit like cough syrup but not even close to how much the Argentinean Fernet tastes of it. This reminds me of three funny alcohol-related stories I wanted to share with you.
Story 1.
My friend from Argentina always wanted to introduce me to her favorite Argentinean beverage. “Just wait till I bring real Fernet for you from Argentina!” she kept saying. “Then you will realize what good alcohol tastes like.”
After her trip back to Lujan, she asked me to her house and presented me with a bottle of Fernet.
“Oh, I’m so envious right now!” she said. “The experience of tasting Fernet for the very first time in one’s life is priceless.”
She opened the bottle and poured me a drink. I tasted it and gagged. It was the nastiest beverage I could have ever imagined.
“I’m sorry,” I told my friend. “I think they sold you a fake Fernet. Did you go to a licensed store to get it?”
“Really?” she asked. “This never happened to me before. Let me try it.”
My friend tasted the Fernet and gave me a look of a person whose most tender sentiments had been horribly insulted. “This is how real Fernet tastes. And it’s delicious.”
Nine years have passed since then, and I have a feeling she has almost forgiven me for that horrible faux pas. Almost.
Story 2.
In grad school, we were the hardest partying department in all of the Humanities. Our parties were legendary. Once, I arrived at one of our parties and discovered my male colleagues in a state of happy commotion. “We’ve been really lucky!” they announced. “We found some real aguardiente for our party. Aguardiente is so strong that very few people can drink it without dropping unconscious!”
As I observed my colleagues take small shots of this beverage, I realized it must have truly been a strong drink. After just one shot, each of my male colleagues would drop onto the floor and yell, “Oh my God! This is the strongest drink ever!” Within five minutes, they were acting extremely drunk. So, obviously, I also decided that I needed to try the aguardiente.
“Just take very small sips and breathe in before you do that,” warned me my colleagues who knew that I can’t drink undiluted hard liquor.
So I took a small sip of the aguardiente and felt nothing. Then I took a bigger sip and felt even less. I downed the entire shot glass of the beverage. It had a faint alcoholic taste but nothing more.
My colleagues were dumbfounded. They looked at me in horror.
“Wow,” one of them said. “These Russians really can drink. I’ve seen Latino peasants fall under the table after drinking this, and you seem completely sober.”
“Hey, everybody!” another colleague called out. “Come here! Clarissa will show you something amazing.”
Everybody gathered around me. I downed another shot and again felt very little.
“OK, give us back the bottle,” one of my colleagues said. “This aguardiente is wasted on you, Russians.”
After the bottle was finished, a quiet sober colleague picked it up and looked carefully at the label.
“Hey guys,” he said. “It says here that this isn’t real aguardiente. This is an aguardiente-based drink and its alcohol content is 5,5%.”
I’d never seen my macho colleagues look this embarrassed.
Story 3.
This story happened to my father when he was working on his dissertation. His thesis adviser lived in Russia, so my father had to travel to meet him. Once, when my father arrived at his adviser’s university, this kind old scholar took him to the university cafeteria for breakfast.
“So Michael,” the professor said. “How much should I order for you, 150 grams? Or let’s go all out and get 200 grams?”
My father was petrified. “I’m sorry, professor,” he said. “I don’t want to be bad company but I don’t drink alcohol for breakfast.”
“Good for you,” the professor responded. “I was just wondering how much sour-cream you wanted for your pancakes, but never mind.”
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m a bourbon girl myself. Makes me feel like a real American.
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I’m very ignorant. Is bourbon a type of cognac?
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It’s just sour mash whiskey, but it’s only true bourbon if it’s made in Kentucky. Tastes like gunfire on the plain, or devil’s barf, depending on your preference.
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I’ll take some devil’s barf, please. And go easy on the soda!
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I also love bourbon. I even went to a conference in Kentucky only to visit bourbon distilleries. Bourbon neat or sometimes a nice Manhattan: red vermouth, angostura bitters, bourbon… and a cherry. Divine.
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“I just discovered an interesting new drink called Southern Comfort.”
Um, do you live in a very, very remote part of the world where there are no televisions, radios or newspapers? Southern Comfort was ‘invented’ in 1874 in New Orleans. Like, as in, more than 100 years ago.
🙂
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Yes, make fun. 🙂 I’m just very rigid in my alcohol preferences, so I kind of missed the Southern Comfort altogether. However, it’s great to be discovering it today.
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I once heard that Janis Joplin used to go onstage holding a bottle of Southern Comfort that she would drink from during her performance. Could be a myth though (or an inaccurate memory).
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Wow. And here I sit, still unable to get through the first glass of a heavily diluted Southern Comfort. 🙂
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Oh, SoCo. I went through a lot of Southern Comfort last year, as a “nip of courage” to have before a really important test or interview. Probably not such a good idea, but I got the highest GPA in my entire academic history during that time, so…
Also: Sour cream on pancakes? What an… interesting idea. I usually save my dollops for borscht, but I’ll have to try it on my Saturday pancake now.
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They weren’t really pancakes. It’s just the closest English-language equivalent I could find. 🙂
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Were you talking about Blintzes then?
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No, these are called “syrniki” and they are made of this kind of non-salty cottage cheesy type of think mixed with flour and raisins. It sounds weird when I describe it.
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Rum is my best friend. Give me just about any drink under the sun and I can find a variation of rum to go with it (except for dairy products…that’s just nasty).
I recall the first time I had some. Decided it would be a good idea to drink an entire 1/5 in about an hour and half…solo. But the vomitting wasn’t as serious as I would have thought. But I was fine the next day. (I know different bodies work in different ways but I’ve learned that as long as I don’t go to sleep while Im actually drunk I’ll be okay the next day.) Captain Morgan has been my go to guy ever since.
If you can get your hands on some Captain Morgan Tattoo (its a dark rum) mix it with root beer. Awesome…
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I’m a Captain Morgan’s person, too!! I knew we’d have something special in common. 🙂
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That reminds me of a Russian orthodox easter celebration I shared once with my boyfriend’s best friend’s family years ago, when I was barely drinking age. We had blinis and sour cream and everyone kept drinking shots of vodka. After four or five shots everyone else was still acting completely normal when the room began spinning. I managed to ask my host where I could lie down and to get there before passing out. I was so embarrassed but they laughed it off, and thankfully I managed to pull it together enough to join everyone for ice-skating later in the afternoon.
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I think I’ll post a story about how I discovered alcohol at the age of 23. That was a funny experience. 🙂
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Is Argentinian Fernet different than the Italian one? I think the Italian one is delicious. Generally I am a wine person (red and white) but I do like good scotch, vodka, and bitter type drinks (like Fernet! and Campari.) 🙂
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After trying the Argentinean version, I wouldn’t dare to approach any other kind. 🙂
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My comment evaporated! Is it stuck in moderation for some reason? If so, I’ll repost.
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I hate Fernet with a passion. I did a lot of tequila in grad school, but I stopped the day I woke up and didn’t know why the skin on my knees was almost peeled off (a nice fall on the pavement at 5 am, apparently). Real Mid – Western beer and wine is my drink of choice nowadays.
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Now this is an Argentinean I like! 🙂
I can’t stand any kind of beer, to be honest. And wine is not for me either. Wow, I’m such a boring person.
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I don’t what’s happening. The two above anonymous comments are me: Evelina Anville. I don’t know why my name keeps disappearing though; it shows up before I post and then it goes away!
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I don’t know why that happened. Sorry for the glitch!
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Try Southern Comfort mixed with some Dr. Pepper, just to say you tried it. Then never drink one again, ugh. When I was in high school, Southern Comfort was what we would drink when we didn’t have anything else available, because you could steal it from a parent’s liquor cabinet and they wouldn’t notice it was gone until you were away at college.
i love spiced rum but Capt. Morgan’s gives me a wicked headache. Bacardi makes a decent spiced rum that I love, though. Have you ever had a Dirty Pirate? There are several versions, but the one I like is 1 ounce spiced rum, 1 ounce Kahlua, ice and coke. So delicious.
Also I’ve been into Gin and Tonics lately, preferably with Tangueray.
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“There are several versions, but the one I like is 1 ounce spiced rum, 1 ounce Kahlua, ice and coke. ”
-I never tried it but it sounds divine. Just my kind of drink.
I need alcohol to be very sweet to be able to take it.
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This will be sweet, I promise! And you can make it fairly weak if you need to with lots of coke and it will still taste like more than just the soda.
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I don’t remember a great deal of my first experience of intoxication; I was a total lightweight, gone in 3 vodka shots.
I recall sharing my innermost opinions of friends and singing pro-union song. Rather embarrassing really.
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I sing Ukrainian folk songs in a state of intoxication. 🙂
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Last year in high school, a classmate got himself shit-faced during lunch before an after class physics lab. Came to the lab, climbed on a table, and started singing The Internationale. Nowadays, he is one of the highest Latin American executives in a huge global corporation. People change.
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I think I’ll post a story about how I discovered alcohol at the age of 23. That was a funny experience
Please, do! I suppose you mean discovered different kinds of alcohol, right? Even in my house I was given a bit of cherry wine (my grandmother’s nalivka) on birthdays & holidays (New Year, etc). And we immigrated when I was 13, so it had to be iirc max 11 years old. Except holidays nobody drunk at all and on them it was a bit of wine, champagne.
I don’t understand in alcohol and don’t drink anything now, but that nalivka from cherries was the only alcohol beverage I liked so far and it was super tasty.
Story 2 is the best, LOL. And shows that there is something in the article I linked to this week, that people under influence behave as they think they should in their culture. That a huge part of it is psychological.
In your opinion, I never drunk even half glass of wine, but if I go on a date or with friends in the future and do drink a bit, will it badly influence me, as in behaving in a drunk way? What if I don’t want to become drunk, but it’s inpolite not to drink at all sometimes, and I would like to try 1/2 glass for company out of curiosity? What about 1 glass? How much is it your strength of will and how much it’s beyond one’s control, like poison and date rape drugs are? Drinking at home sounds 😦 and I don’t want to suddenly try at home without any reason, but becoming drunk on a date can be even dangerous and I want to be able normally go home / take a bus *alone*. I think I exaggerate here, but better safe than sorry and I hope for your advice on safe amount to drink 1st time. And also info how much % of alcohol max is OK in this situation.
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Forgot to add that one girl I knew tried to drink for the 1st time and threw up afterwards. I don’t want to throw up, fall asleep or do anything embarrassing, as Jaime said. I would like to enjoy the taste and know when you become *a bit* drunk, still behaving 100% as usual with all usual self control, but inside feel a bit drunk. How does it feel like? And how much is it safe to drink before even this happens? And when the limit to something beyond that is crossed (which I don’t want to do, unlike the first 2)?
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Everyone responds to alcohol a little differently but the trick to keep from blitzing is to go slow and pay attention to your body’s response. A good first time thing is to take your time just sipping at a drink, in part just to see if you even like it. When your legs get warm and tingly, you are properly buzzed, and it’s time to stop for a while unless you want to be shitfaced.
One time I was leaving a bar with my date and we were trying to find our car. We’d been there hours and I was never without a drink in my hand. I’d had to pee before we left but someone was in the bathroom being sick so there was a long line and we didn’t want to hang around anymore so I thought I could wait till I got home. Wrong. As we wandered down the street where we thought we’d parked I was about to explode, so being an ornery and irresponsible young cuss I decided, it’s late and the street is quiet, no one will notice if I go behind a bush. I stumbled off to the nearest clump of hedge and did what needed doing, but when I came out I found my date laughing like a hyena. Only then did I notice the cathedral across the street. I’d peed on the lawn of the bishop’s rectory.
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‘In your opinion, I never drunk even half glass of wine, but if I go on a date or with friends in the future and do drink a bit, will it badly influence me, as in behaving in a drunk way? ”
-The problem is that you never know before you try. I’d suggest starting with a small port after dinner (I’m a huge fan and a connoisseur of port) or one glass of wine with dinner.
“How much is it your strength of will and how much it’s beyond one’s control, like poison and date rape drugs are?”
– Again, you don’t know until you try. Alcoholism is tied into very low self-esteem. People enjoy it because it lowers their inhibitions. Also, it’s a way to self-medicate for a variety of psychological problems. Many people have a natural resistance to it. Many people have a natural inclination towards alcoholism. Drinking lots of cold water after you’ve had a drink is a good way of preventing drunkenness.
I wouldn’t start experimenting with alcohol on first or second dates, to be honest. As you say, that can be dangerous. Maybe it’s best to start trying a glass of wine here and there when you go out to dinner with a friend, for example. You might discover you don’t like it.
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I wish I were at that “so-called” aguardiente party. It cannot be the same party I went to where I had my own terrible experience with aguardiente, because that would hurt my macho sensibility:) Seriously, I passed out because of alcohol once in my life and it was because of Colombian aguardiente, at a friend’s birthday party.
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I still haven’t had a chance to try the real aguardiente. The stuff we drank that time was an American invention that diluted the beverage completely.
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Favourite drink? Caipirinha.
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I love SoCo too, glad I’m not the only one here. I also love Crown and Jim Beam mixed with a bit of Coke, heck, I’m drinking a Crown and Coke right now. I like the taste and the bottle looks like a big perfume bottle and it has the purple bag, purple’s my favorite color 😀 Off topic, I know. I actually prefer Canadian whiskeys over Irish and Scotch is good too, I’m still at the Johnny Walker Red stage, though, maybe I’ll try a single malt when I get some money. And I also like rums, I do drink the flavored Bacardi Silver and my fave one is the watermelon flavored, not totally pure but I like my booze with a bit of sweetness in it. Geez, I must sound like a right drunk 🙂
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Don’t worry, it seems like most of us here are not averse to getting slightly inebriated from time to time. 🙂
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@VanessaSosa: Forty Creek is actually a good Canadian whisky.
@Clarissa: alcohol is one of my favourite topics ever:)
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You don’t say! I would have never guessed. 🙂
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So here I was with my buddies drinking a bottle of Mezcal, we had all heard about the “worm at the bottom” but none of us were brave enough to eat it. I decided, or at least was drunk enough, to go for it. Shortly after I ingested it I felt it move. It couldnt be, was it, still alive? Nope but it wasnt too long before it quickly exited my stomach via the projectile. Nasty little fucker let me tell ya. 😉
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And I had to read this comment right after I finished eating. Here goes my digestive process. 🙂
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Ah a topic on your blog I feel I can engage with some degree of confidence, if we’re taking pints then being Welsh I enjoy real ale and bitter (even though some of my friends used to call me an old man for liking in XD). I tend to have expensive tastes when it comes to larger stuff like Peroni and Kronenberg 1664 this is for 2 reasons:
1) It tastes better
2) Over the years I’ve built up such a tolerance to cheep stuff like Carling that I might as well just drink lemonade when I go out.
Spirits wise I’m a Whisky fan but not shots, Whisky is meant to be sipped from a glass and enjoyed not thrown down your throat, that’s what jagermeister’s for. There’s an absolutely gorgeous Welsh Whisky called Penderyn which I highly recommend trying if you ever get the chance it’s got a very pleasant taste like honey, other than that I’d say my favourite Whisky was Jamerson’s.
I can’t even look at a bottle of Vodka without feeling a little queasy. I had a really bad experience when I was younger but its nice with a mixer like cranberry or orange juice even if you do get some odd looks as a man ordering it from the bar. Likewise with fruity Ciders like Kopparberg Raspberry flavour which is bright pink but hey I like it ( :
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