Our Lady of Perpetual Inebriation

in nomine lagoena et crapula et ebrietas sancta

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Drunk in a Tiny Little Nation

In preparation for my Iceland vacation, a friend tipped me off about a traditional drink out there: rotted shark with a schnapps chaser.

The shark is called "hakarl" and supposedly it is stored to rot because in its original state it is far too tough for anyone to chew. Rotting softens it up and makes it digestible.

The schnapps is called Brennivin and tastes very herbal, almost anise-based like absinthe, which makes sense since the black licorice of which they are so fond is so freakin' strong.

They serve this combination up in Isafjorður, but we never made it up due to inclement weather. Isafjorður is up on the 66th parallel north, very cold and blustery, and even under clement conditions it's a dicey plane trip: the locals advise you not to look out the window when landing, it's too harrowing. However, it was raining in Reykjavik when we were to take off and storming pretty badly in Isafjorður, and the airport kept kicking back our flight in increments of hours, and after three hours we decided not to waste any more time in the airport.

Like I said, missed out on the meat/drink combo, but I did have the Brennivin on a couple occasions. I also made it my duty to check out some other local drinks: light golden beers called Thule, Viking, and Leffe. They were fine for socializing, where you're talking so much you don't notice the taste of what's in your glass, but I'm a fan of darker or spicier beers and found them uninteresting.

Behind the bar at the club called Dillon (imagine the Triple Rock if it emerged in a fishing community) I saw a tall white bottle. In huge bold letters it read "FISH" and had a picture of a fisherman, and slogans in smaller print: "the original" and "favorite classic" or something like that. I asked the cute Icelandic bartender what was up with it and in broken English she explained there was a series of liquors based off of popular breath-freshener candies and cough syrups. Not unlike Germany's Jägermeister, FISH was based on the Fisherman's Friend brand of throat lozenges, and it tasted like Halls Mentholyptus.

On the other end of the spectrum, the bar Vegamot featured a very friendly vodka called Reykavik, which was at least as smooth as Grey Goose. On the rocks it was as smooth and flavorless as Chopin. If I didn't have so much other booze churning in my gut I would've gotten messed up on that alone, and I'm not usually a fan of vodka.

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