Alcohol
Almost every country I've traveled through has an alcoholic drink its people swear by - Armenians their brandy, Turks anise rakı, Basques patxaran made from wild sloes. Tasting them is as much a part of getting to know a place as walking through the local market. Otherwise, though, I prefer wine to spirits, and I'm drinking less and less these days.
I'll admit the "sober curious" thing has rubbed off on me, too. Lately I drink very little, and on the road I mostly just "taste" from fellow travelers' glasses when I can. And since my most beloved destination is the Middle East, where hardly anyone drinks, I know how to enjoy a trip without a glass in hand - in Iraq and Iran, tea takes over as the social drink.
Beer and Wine
I taste beer in almost every country I get to - in Dublin I headed straight to the Guinness Storehouse for it. But of all alcoholic drinks, wine is my favorite. Besides the classics from France, Italy and Spain, I've tasted Armenian, Israeli and Tunisian wines as well.
Brandy from the Caucasus and the Balkans
Officially, only distilleries around the French town of Cognac may use the word cognac. In the Caucasus nobody pays that any mind - brandy has been called cognac there for as long as anyone can remember. Most of my brandy tasting memories come from Armenia. In Yerevan I managed to tour both rival distilleries in a single day: the modern Ararat brandy museum - Churchill is said to have had their brandy shipped to him after the Yalta Conference - and the more old-fashioned Noy factory, where they poured me fortified wines from 1913 and 1924 (honestly, I probably wouldn't pay for the tasting a second time).
They age grape spirits further east, too. A seven-year-old Kyrgyz cognac called Kyrgyzstan completely won me over, though the scenery around Son-Kul lake, where I drank it, may have had something to do with it. I'd happily rank it alongside the five-year-old Albanian brandy Skënderbeu - that one traveled with me through the Albanian mountains. And in Bulgaria, on the Black Sea coast, I tasted Pliska brandy, named after the country's first capital.
Anise Spirits and Grape Brandies
Anise spirits are among my favorites, even though I'm not much of a spirits drinker otherwise. From my trip around Turkey I brought back a bottle of rakı Efe Göbek - göbek means belly in Turkish and refers to the middle, most prized part of the distillate. Add water and rakı turns milky white, which is why Turks call it lion's milk. In the Basque Country, wild sloes are macerated in anise spirit for months: the result is patxaran, which I first tasted in Alicante. For grape brandies, there's Albanian raki rrushi, which accompanies weddings, christenings and funerals there, and Georgian chacha.
Liqueurs: From Herbero to Limoncello
I can never turn down a digestif after a good meal. The best herbal liqueur I've ever drunk is herbero from the mountains above Alicante - they brought the four of us a round of it ice cold, on the house, and I've sworn by it ever since. Sardinian mirto, made from myrtle berries, surprised me: I was expecting something close to Becherovka, the Czech herbal liqueur, and got something gentler, faintly sage-like. And lemon limoncello from Sorrento is one of the loveliest souvenirs you can bring back from southern Italy.
If you enjoy watching producers at work, I'd recommend a tour. On Mauritius I went through the Rhumerie de Chamarel rum distillery, where a tasting of eight samples of Mauritian rum and rum liqueurs comes with the ticket. In Dublin, the Jameson Distillery is worth a visit - except there it's whiskey instead of rum.
Spanish-Style Mixed Drinks
Spain is my favorite for light daytime drinking. Tinto de verano, red wine with lemon soda, is something I gladly order on every visit to the country. In the Basque Country I go for kalimotxo instead - wine with cola, which I used to mix myself as a broke student in the dorms; back home we have our own name for it - but the quality of what goes into the Basque version is another thing entirely. Before lunch comes la hora del vermut, the vermouth hour with tapas. And sangria, declared the Spanish national drink at the 1964 World's Fair in New York, I enjoyed with my parents at Ojalá Restaurant in Madrid - traditionally macerated, it was perfect.
On the road I treat alcohol like a spice: a pinch is enough. One glass of a local specialty tells me plenty about a country - and where nobody drinks at all, I don't miss a thing.
Taste wisely. Cheers!
Divin: Moldova's Wine Brandy with a Divine Name
Divin is Moldova's wine brandy: a spirit distilled from white wine and aged for at least three years in oak barrels, sold under a protected designation that covers all of Moldova. The name, coined in the 1990s, is both an abbreviation of distilat de vin and the Romanian word for divine - a stand-in for the forbidden word cognac. Its grades from VS to XXO copy the cognac model, and unlike Romanian vinars, the blend may also include sugar syrup.
Trandafirată: Rose Petal Liqueur
Trandafirată is made by steeping Damask rose petals - first with sugar and lemon, then with brandy. This sweet liqueur is a homemade classic in Moldova and Romania, although in Romania the same word these days more often means a summer lemonade made from roses. In Moldova it's also bottled by a liqueur house in Bulboaca, from petals picked by hand in the Anenii Noi district.
Nucată: A Liqueur Made from Unripe Walnuts
Nucată is a liqueur made from unripe green walnuts, the way households in Moldova and Romania know it - a cousin of Italian nocino, French vin de noix and the Czech walnut liqueur. The Castel Mimi winery in Bulboaca turns it into a "princely" balsam: it adds wine from Traminer and Muscat to the walnuts, plus two kinds of wormwood and hops, so the sweet start ends in a vermouth-like bitterness.
Must: Grape Juice Halfway to Wine
Must is fresh grape juice from the new harvest, the way it's drunk in autumn in Moldova and Romania - sweet, cloudy and wilder by the day as the yeasts get to work. Once it starts to fizz, it's the counterpart of Czech burčák; the next stage Moldovans call tulburel, literally "the little cloudy one". Because it can't be transported, it's drunk only a few weeks a year, and only where it was born.
Marlène Bar: Signature Cocktails in Central Chișinău
Marlène cocktail bar opened in central Chișinău as 2019 turned into 2020 and today sits at the top of the local rankings. It occupies the ground floor of a historic house: three Art Deco-inspired rooms and a hidden courtyard with a pergola overgrown with grapevines. Its signature cocktails are built on local flavors, from quince brandy to linden honey, and it has its own gin distilled in Denmark.
Albanian Brandy Skënderbeu
Skënderbeu is an Albanian brand of brandy, known at home as konjak. It's made by a single winery in the port city of Durrës: the base is grape raki aged in oak barrels and flavored with extracts of mountain herbs, fruit and blossom honey. It's named after the national hero Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg, and you can buy it in supermarkets all over Albania.
Raki Rrushi: Albanian Grape Brandy
Raki rrushi is a clear Albanian grape brandy, with no anise and no barrel aging. Most of it is still distilled at home in a copper kazan after the grape harvest, and it's poured for guests as a welcome and a symbol of hospitality. It shares its name with Turkish anise rakı, but it's a completely different drink - and when Albanians just say raki, it's the grape kind they mean.
Rakı: Turkish National Alcoholic Drink
Rakı is a traditional Turkish alcoholic beverage made from grapes and anise. This distilled drink, often referred to as "the Turkish national alcoholic drink," is served with water or ice. The most prized part of rakı is called "göbek." Rakı has similar counterparts, such as ouzo in Greece or arak in the Middle East.
Kyrgyz Cognac
Cognac production in Kyrgyzstan has a tradition dating back to the mid-20th century. The largest producer, Kyrgyz Konyagy, follows classic methods and offers a wide range of cognacs aged from 3 to 20 years in oak barrels. The result is drinks with a rich flavor and aroma, which successfully rival foreign cognacs. Among the most well-known brands are the seven-year-old "Kyrgyzstan" cognac and the five-year-old "Bishkek" cognac, both of which I had the chance to taste myself.
Sangria: Spanish Wine with Macerated Fruit
Sangria is Spanish red wine in which pieces of orange and lemon macerate for a few hours with sugar and cinnamon, served ice-cold from a pitcher. The world sees it as the most Spanish drink there is, yet the name probably came into Spanish from English, and Spaniards drink it at celebrations rather than in a bar. Where it came from, how it differs from tinto de verano, and how to spot the homemade kind.