Blog-Bud IT and I were doin' a lil reminiscing about our experiences with Nipponese alcohol and he happened to mention whiskey. And it occurred to me I'd posted sumthin' along those lines a while back, so I went lookin' for it. Sho' nuff...
Interesting
I'd try it. And that's saying a LOT, since I've long had nothing but contempt for Nikka's products. But my contempt is based on my experiences with Black Nikka, the most common well whiskey in Japanese bars. That was true during my stints in Nippon in the way-back; things may have changed. Black Nikka is one of the roughest, nastiest whiskeys I've ever had (except maybe for Mekong) and is comparable to Ten High in quality but not taste (Nikka is scotch-like). But then again we're talking lowest common denominator rot-gut swill. Nikka is thinking about importing their good stuff... and I'd try it. One thing I've found in my whiskey explorations is price and quality ARE directly related... you definitely get what you pay for.
Well, it's been two and a half years since I put that post up and I still haven't seen any examples of the product. But then again, it's unlikely that I would see any here in P-Ville. Mebbe I'll look the next time I traipse off to ABQ.
My worst (scotch) whiskey is Cutty Sark. I was sitting on the sofa sipping some when my live-in maid asked "what are you drinking??" and I said "Some of your Cutty I found under the sink." "Oh God! that's what I use to clean with!"
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I have a love/hate relationship with it ever since. I was in Mildenhall one day and asked the barkeep at the Bird in the Hand motel if I could have a "Cutty", and he got a shop rag to hold the bottle with as he poured me one.
I think it is the charcoal taste I like :-)
But anyway, you can use it as a house cleaner, or a survival scotch...
I drank a lot o' Cutty back in the day, before I discovered single malts. You can't beat the price...
DeleteSpeaking of Japanese booze, a buddy of mine in New Orleans with the Coast & Geodetic Survey (who is also a HELLUVA competitive "table tennis" i.e., serious player) got a bunch of us at my neighborhood hang-out into celebrating Hiroshima Day by drinking "mass quantities" of warm Sake (for the better to piss off the PC crowd :) )What's your opinion of sake, Buck?, seeing as how you were around the real thing...Can you stomach the stuff? If so, you might want to circle 5 Aug on your calender and start your own memorial "I'll drink to that!" day. It's a GREAT excuse, no?
ReplyDeleteI loves me some sake, Virgil. Remind me to tell ya bout the time a buddy and me rode a train from Wakkanai to Sapporo in the company of a sake salesman, who opened up his sample case for my friend and I. We got seriously shit-faced by the time that train clanked into Sapporo... That was in the way-back and my appreciation for the stuff has only increased over the years.
DeleteApropos o' nuthin'... one of the companies I worked for in the past gave you two free-floating "personal days." I always took the 5th of August off to celebrate. When asked "why August Fifth?" I always replied... Hiroshima Day. Next question?
Have you ever tried Akadama Wine?
ReplyDeleteWould you do it again?
Why?
Have you ever tried Akadama Wine?
DeleteYes. AKA "Red Death." Back during my first tour of Japan (in '68 - '70) some friends and I would buy "combat jugs" (two-liter bottles, IIRC) of Akadama and go to the all-day Samurai movies at the local cinema on Saturdays. We never understood a WORD of the dialog, but ya didn't really have to as the movies were self-explanatory. And we got drunk as skunks during the process.
Would you do it again?
Why?
NO, absolutely NOT. Too sweet for my taste these days.
That was the stuff. About the only thing worse was the "Mighty Fine Taiwan Wine" we had in Kao Hsiung. Had a shipmate, called Baby Huey, who went berserk on that stuff.
DeleteIf we're gonna talk rot-guy wines I gotta stick up for the good 'ole USofA, here. In college my favorite was TNT (actual brand-name) Tokay. Was 60 cents/half-gallon in 1962 iirc. Actually tasted half-way good.. Then, of course there is the venerable Thunderbird, and the stuff that'll drive you blind, MD (Mad Dog) 20/20. I downed a pint of that stuff once for the first (and last) time in 1973 just for the hell of it because I had never tasted it and I thought I was going to lose my mind. (Of course I was well lubricated prior anyway, lol)
ReplyDeleteAhem. I was something of a connoisseur of cheap-ass wines back when I was a young airman. My favorite back in those days was Red Mountain, a cheap-ass burgundy that cost (IIRC) about 99 cents a gallon, and came in that traditional ring-on-the-bottle-neck jug. That stuff was THE most cost-effective drunk, evah. I had my flings with T-Bird and Mad Dog, too. Hell, I even drank Mad Dog up into the early 70's, which was when I was a poor, newly-divorced NCO with child support payments to make and a massive debt to pay off. Those memories are frickin' painful. In more than one way... the cheap-ass wine bein' the least painful.
DeleteBuck/
ReplyDeleteRemember the old Thunderbird ditty? "What's the word? " Thunderbird. "What's the price?" Thirty twice. (1958, heh) "What's the Action?" Satisfaction. "Who drinks it most?" Us colored folks.
The last Un-PC I know, but I'm talkin' historical anthropological/sociocultural record here... BTW the best wine cartoon I EVER saw--an all-time classic--was that famous one from Playboy (The head Insurance coordinator at Merrill Lynch HQ in NYC, a fellow Phi Delt from Colgate had a framed copy on his desk) depicting two winos in an alley sitting with their backs resting against garbage cans drinking with one pausing, saying to the other: "It's a good wine, but not a great wine." LOL!!!
(I had cut it out of the original 60s Playboy myself and saved it to frame but I lost it who knows where or when...I've always regretted that..)
We're working on Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack post as we speak, and it's wine-centric. And I DO remember that cartoon...
DeleteThanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteLest anyone think I didn't drink American... I remember buying fifths of Smirnoff for $1.99. There were certain drawbacks to purchasing at the package store, though
We couldn't bring booze (any alcoholic beverage) back to the ship
There was a limited amount of time to indulge because back in the day it was Cinderella liberty
There was a limit to one bottle in a seven day period
So the local stuff was worth a try
Besides, the exchange rate was ¥360:$1 and drinks were ¥50 at the stand bars, so a buck could buy seven drinks and there's still be enough left over for a hardboiled egg
Besides, the exchange rate was ¥360:$1...
DeleteThose were the days. I was in Japan both before and after the Japanese gub'mint floated the yen; when the float happened our dollars were immediately worth about two-thirds of what they were the day before. I carried an account at the local bike shop in those days and was horrified at the increase in my bill, relatively speaking.