asia beverage wrapup (getting too old for this shit)

From thailand! bangkok and beaches

since we arrived in asia, i've been trying every local alcohol i can find. i attribute this tendency to my father, who has always said its safer to drink beer than water in foreign countries (or something to that effect). beers have been pretty tasty everywhere- except they're sorely lacking in porters, stouts, or anything with big flavor. as far as hard alcohol goes, there's been some good ones, but most of them have been terrible. this has something to do with our travel budget... its way cheaper to buy a small bottle of local whiskey for a week than it is to drop 3 night's lodging money on a few import drinks in an english-style pub.

here's the summary so far:
-singha beer (thailand): good tasting beer. nothing special, but consistent and satisfying. a little pricey compared to the alternatives.
-chiang beer (thailand): sometimes good, sometimes bad... sometimes it costs 50 baht, somtimes 100. rumors are theres no quality control in the factory and that the alcohol content can vary from 4-10% regularly. buying chiang is like playing russian roulette.
-beer leo (thailand, cambodia): a happy medium of taste and price in thailand. my beer of choice here.
-mekong whiskey (thailand): not good, not good at all. mekong and coke was my 'go to' drink when we first arrived in thailand. i would have 1 or 2 drinks in a night and the next day wake up with a headache. it took a while to connect the dots. i should have been tipped off when the old thai ladies running the markets would laugh at me when i asked for mekong.
-sangsom whiskey (thailand): not bad. sweet like a rum, but they call it whiskey. its palatable. and comes best served in a bucket, mixed with coke and soda and ice.
-hong thong whiskey (thailand): not terribly bad. similar to sangsom, but with a little more bite. goes well with coke and gingerale or soda water.

From northern thailand

-'38 whiskey (thailand): disgusting. got this up near the burma border. we were in a market and eating noodles when the cook offered us a small drink of mulled '38 that was marinating in wood chips of some sort. it tasted good. so i bought a small pop-top bottle (see above). turns out you need to mull it with the wood chips to make it taste anywhere near palatable.

From cambodia

-X.O. (cambodia): this liquor, advertised in the airport (above), reportedly makes you strong and healthy. i found neither to be true.
-klang beer (cambodia): the name says it all. klaanggg!
-beer lao (laos): best beer in southeast asia, hands down. don't let anyone tell you different.
-dalat red wine (vietnam): surprisingly good wine. its locally made in dalat, vietnam. we were wine starved and took a chance on a bottle that costs about $2.50. it was delicious. we also tried the more expensive "superior" dalat wine which turned out to be mostly vinegar. avoid superior at all costs.
-hanoi vodka (vietnam): decent when mixed with fruit drinks.
-bia hoi (vietnam): tasty local brew served on street corners in all parts of vietnam. low alchol content and very little hops. at ~20 cents a glass, its been the brew of choice in vietnam.
-tiger beer, beer hanoi, beer halida (vietnam): mediocre substitutes for bia hoi. when in a bind, halida is your best choice. if its anywhere near room temperature, it won't be good.

and, saving the worst for last: lao lao! its rice moonshine! its terrible! you can find this everywhere in laos, cause everyone with leftover sticky rice can distill it. we got some from a little ole lady shopkeeper who poured it from a 5 gallon tank into a small soda bottle for us. capped it with a plastic bag and rubber band. high class.

From laos part 2 (the other side of laos)

one night in muong ngoi village we wandered into a big going away party. a good quarter of the village was there to send off a young woman to vietiene, the capital. we found all the men drinking full glasses of lao lao, and they were all the worse for it. the men gave us glasses of lao lao and wouldn't leave them empty. lkm wasn't a fan- she thought we were going to go blind on the moonshine.

this is how the lao get down on lao lao:

lao lao dance party from kevin smith on Vimeo.