Drinks Around the World
When The Spirit World came online Rosanne was our writer for this column. When she left I took over the column and unfortunately we had a little snafu that caused her columns to be deleted which was really too bad. The site is now missing some really interesting and informative posts. Hopefully that won’t happen again!
Anyway, this column has turned out to be such a great learning experience for me. Each week as I research a country to find out what might be a common or iconic liquor or drink in that area my research often takes me all over the place. You end up seeing a very tiny bit of that here but in the background I’ve learned things about agriculture, history, geography, city sights - all kinds of other things.
I sometimes find myself searching through non-English sites looking for a few words that will validate something I’ve seen somewhere else and that has taught me a lot about the business of the world. Many countries are still very self-contained and websites about those countries are likely to be only in the local language. Or some countries have a history or relationships that affect how their non-native language sites are localized; perhaps the other language I find is French, for instance.
It has been frustrating to often not be able to taste what I’m writing about to have more first-hand experience but there are lots of things I now know to look for when I travel. It has been really fun noticing the similarities in liquors across certain blocks of countries or in countries that had colonial relationships.
I know that not many of us have lots of “spare” time but if you ever find yourself with an odd moment, pick a country and then go out to see what you can find out about the food and drink of the area. You may be surprised at the journey you will take right from your PC. I know that in the future when I travel I plan to do this sort of research because I’ll then make sure I catch any specialties or things that are not commonly available outside the country. While figuring that out I’ll be exposed to all kinds of other information that will make the trip more interesting. It will help move me from tourist to traveler - one of my personal goals when I travel.
So I encourage you as you are out and about The Spirit World to think about the elements in that cocktail you are enjoying. You may find yourself taking an interesting journey of another kind.
Salut!
