Appaerently, femented horse’s (or at least mare’s) milk is a popular drink in Mongolia.
Two questions
Is this the weirdest thing ever?
How can you ferment milk anyway? I didn’t think it had any carbohydrates in it.
Is it the weirdest thing ever? Nah.
And it certainly does have carbohydrates in it, assuming its like cow’s milk. Lactose is a carbohydrate and an intergral part of milk. Ever heard the term lactose-intolerant? Thats what it refers to.
I’ve tasted the stuff. I don’t know how it’s made but, when offered a bowl to drink, I was quite nervous. I chugged it fast and it wasn’t too bad. Just like drinking milk with a sort of yogurt-like zing to it.
My boss is Japanese; the last time his secretary went back to Japan, he requested that she bring him a bottle of traditional Okinawan liquor, which is some kind of fermented rice wine.
The catch is that there’s a three foot poisonous snake in the bottle, coiled from the bottom up so that it’s head floats in the middle, just below the neck of the bottle. The bottle may be refilled three times; that’s as long as the snake’s “potency” lasts.
It tastes like shit.
Hmm, sort of like tequila, for Real Men. I don’t suppose that you care about the taste, when you can brag it’s got a viper in it.
Yea the snake drink really sucks! I spent a year in Okinawa and my landlord offered me some. It is impolite to not accept it so I drank it down. Just about one of the nastiest things I’ve ever had pass my lips.
Many cultures still know that saliva is quite good at converting vegetable matter into simple sugars–an essential ingredient for fermentation. Therefore many “primitive” alcoholic beverages are composed largely of spit. Paiwari, the Budweiser of certain Amazon tribes, is one example.
The Masai enjoy a mixture of milk and cow’s blood. Other cultures enjoy drinking coffee from beans that have passed through the digestive tract of small mammals. Still others enjoy drinking the ashes of their loved ones. Revoltingly (to some), some cultures enjoy drinking chemical concoctions which are intended to emulate naturaliy flavored beverages, but in fact are almost wholly of human manufacture–to the point where even the sweetener is a simulacrum of natural sugars.
Scary, ain’t it?
I think I’ll pass on all of that, including (especially?) the last.
On second thought, I think I’d rather keep to the chemicals and skip the rest.
good one sofa king. we often think of others as wierd, withoutthinking of how they percive us.
Seal wine.
Lanted Ale is ale flavoured with a dash of stale urine. Double-lanted Ale is ale flavoured with more than a dash of it.
For more on the uses of human urine, see the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy article.
There’s tons of drinks made from strange things that some culture probably finds disgusting, but nothing is as weird as the pousse cafe. This is a multilayered and multicolored drink made by carefully pouring the heaviest liquor at the bottom and working your way up. It may not be made out of strange ingrediants but it is weird looking and mixing 6 or 7 different liquors can’t be terribly tasty. Photo here:
http://www25.cs.kobe-u.ac.jp/~hiroo/cocktail/poussecafe.html
I have no first hand knowledge of this, but I read on the 'net of a practice at the “hippest” of gay parties. A male subjects bladder is emptied with a catheter and then filled with red wine. He then visits the guests and is a human decanter. Now that is pretty wierd but you must admit it is imaginative.
How can you ferment milk?
You miss the simple chemistry.
For fermentation to occur, requires only three things;
sugar, water, and yeast.
Milk, even from an animal that you would least expect, contains much sugar.
Milk sugar + water + yeast / time = fermentation, which produces, alcohol.
The quantity of alcohol produced, will rise by volume, as more sugar is present.
Like vonnegut said, yeast eat sugar and shit alcohol.
Untill they die.
Carbohydrates have nothing to do with it.
tomas spread the following misinformation:
I highly doubt the veracity of this information. This is for several very good reasons:
-
A pure alcoholic beverage in your bladder would be at best be quite irritating, and at worst would be VERY dangerous.
-
Catheters? Are you joking? Someone gets a hold of medical equipment and uses it to pump wine into someones bladder? C’mon. Who would do that.
-
This sort of thing follows the basic pattern of gay-bashing sexual deviency people try to spread. “I heard somewhere that there are gay people who…” is how these sorts of things always start. a) No one has ever gerbiled. Ever. b) No one has ever felched. Ever. c) No one has ever put wine into a man’s bladder for the purpose of dispensing it from his penis. Ever. This sort of crap seems to be the standard way people stigmatize homosexuals and homosexuality. It’s saying that people who are gay must also be open to any sort of sexual deviency one could dream up. Thus we have all of these crazy stories of rectally inserting small pets and bizzare dietary practices all in the name of showing how truly perverse homosexuals can be. No one ever stops to consider the fact that NONE of this stuff shows any sign of being REMOTELY sexually gratifying. Think before you repeat something of this nature. Please (and this is directed at everyone) stop spreading this hurtful message and deliberate misinformation.
Not necesarily. About 1/2 the time sugar+water+yeast/time = vinegar, another possible fermentation product. Ask anyone who has tried to homebrew cider.
Also,
Um, sugars ARE carbohydrates. Even a good chemist like Vonnegut could tell you that (he has his bachelors degree in chemistry from Cornell)
Lactose … thanks. I guess I’ve forgotten all the chemistry I ever knew. Apologies about the spelling in the original posting - too much pickled snake juice I guess.
I believe toad wine is quite popular in SE Asia, so much so that they’re running out of the little toads to make it.
OK, here’s my bid for weirdest beer ever.
I just got back from Moscow and I had this beer which was
proud to be flavored with, wait for it… “almonds and basil.”
I love almonds. I love basil. I love beer. There is no need for a menage-a-trois between these three ingredients. It is absolutely disgusting.