Anyways let's get down to business...to defeat the Huns
Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons?
You're the saddest bunch I've ever met
But you can bet before we're though
Mister, I'll make a man out of youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
The saddest part about that is that I didn't have to look anything up...
And yes, listen to it! He should have just given them akvavit and they'd have manned up real quick.
Moving on. So akvavit is a Scandinavian drink that's similar to vodka but better! I lived in Norway for four and a half years so you bet there is a story at the end of this. The European Union has actually said that in order for this drink to be called akvavit it must have at least 37.5% ABV. Yeah I'm learning things here too, ABV is alcohol by volume, never really bothered too look up what it meant exactly. The root of akvavit is from the latin term aqua vitae, meaning water of life. These guys knew what was up. The earliest known reference of this drink is in 1531 was in an exchange of letter involving some royal fucks from Denmark and Norway. They didn't do anything ever, they just sat their fat, pompous asses on their respective thrones and got drunk of akvavit. I mean why would you ever do anything else, ever. In the spirit of hangovers the Scandinavians usually chase akvavit with beer. Why haven't I ever thought of this before, all alcohol is missing is more alcohol. Like I said akvavit is similar to vodka and I did a post about vodka a few days ago but just in case you alcoholics have already wiped that part of your memory clean, I'll go through how akvavit is made. In Norway they use potatoes but it is also possible to make it from grains. Just speaking from experience, distilling it from potatoes is by far the best way. Depending on the brand it can be flavoured in a number of ways. The most common is caraway but other flavours used include the addition of cardamom, cumin, anise, fennel, dill and lemon or orange peels.
Oh right, story time. So akvavit is most commonly drunk during celebrations. When my family first moved to Norway we were invited by one of my dads colleagues to attend some birthday or other. I wasn't really paying much attention to whose event it was or where in Oslo this event was being held. Cut me some slack, I was 12 and had just started discovering girls so you can imagine. Anyway so when we got there I noticed a cute girl named Emma. Yeah sue me, her name wasn't very foreign, you'll get over it. I noticed she was drinking something that smelt like shit but I wanted to keep talking to her and fit in so I grabbed a glass. I knew it was some sort of alcohol so to show off I downed the whole glass... See what I failed to realise was that a) I'd taken from the adult table where the serving was a whole wine glass whereas the kids table was more like a shot in a wine glass, b) I was 12 and this shit was 40% ethanol. Needless to say I made quite an impression of everyone. I tend to get excited and happy when I'm drunk, right before I crash, kinda like a sugar high. So everyone thought I'd just been into the sweets that were there... Emma ended up being my first kiss, behind some tree in the back yard. I was a very happy camper that night. I didn't even call back. I know right, what a player.
That's my time for today. I'm actually kind of getting bored about writing about different types of alcohol. It's the same mundane list I tick off every time. Some shitty intro, followed up by a bunch of smartass humor about the history of the drink and fairly similar cheesy jokes from post to post. I may start my new blog sooner than expected. I'll keep you guys updated on that though. Hahah look at me, talking like anyone actually reads this. Ah well, see you later.
-Bassam
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