Booze & booze

Home-made Wine with "Bouquet"

In Bulgaria booze is categorised in 2 ways.

First there's the home made stuff which is true alcohol. It's clean and strong. People make home-made wine and rakia which is a form of brandy. Rakia can be made from plums or grapes and flavoured with herbs or Acacia.

Then there's the other stuff which is not considered alcoholic: beer and wine that comes from the shops.

Some time ago one evening we found our way to a makeshift "Mekhana" (tavern) in the mountains. It turned out to be someone's home. But they were so drunk they didn't care and we couldn't understand. They offered some Rakia but we declined and asked for something non-alcoholic. They suggested beer or wine. They just couldn't understand why we would want to drink water. Water's for washing.

And more recently our neighbours wanted to offer us a drink and insisted on pouring us a glass of wine from a 2 litre bottle with a plastic flip top similar to the ones drunks cradle in Paris. "It's not alcoholic, you know. It's from the shop!"

Then again a few weeks ago we tasted one of the best wines ever. It was fresh and sweet like a juice. We could roll the raspberries and blackberries around our tongue and sipped it like a syrup. The Grandad that makes it only produces 100 litres and gives it to friends and family in Coca-cola bottles. He won a prize in the Troyan region for best home-made wine.