On the Ouza question

I estimate that 80% of the people staying at the hotel were British. I heard a lot of Scots accents. This means of course that the main alchol drunk was beer, and most of the men wore no shirts. There was only wireless in the bar, so while hacking around, I watched a bit of the recent Man City versus Manchester United football game. I was amazed to see people supporting United, because there were shouts of joy when United, scored three goals after City had a 2 goals to 0 lead.

Anyway on the booze question. As well as beer I did drink a fare anmout of Ouza. Ouza is almost the national drink of Greece.

One advantage of Ouza is that it is clear on its own, but goes milky when you add water. This of course means, that you can order "that milky" stuff and then wink at the waiter, while your fellow diners think, "wow that's good he is only drinking milk these days.", but still get a bit shit faced.

On Greek TV I saw a program with what looked like gangsters. They were in a club drinking Ouza. I was watching TV drinking Ouza. I am like a Greek gangster, I thought. Yeah!

Although I am not a great fan of mixing water or soda with spirits, I am not sure I can drink Ouza neat. I like aniseed like the next man, but there are limits. After some experimentation, I prefer to drink Ouza with ice -- this that is still a bit strong. At the hotel they recommened drinking Ouza with lemonade, but that didn't taste so good.

While looking at the wikipedia entry for Ouza, I noted the connection to Absinthe. Obviously I know they taste similar. I was introduced to absinthe by my cousin over 10 years ago, before a trip to Prague. While in Prague, I sat in the Marquis De Sade bar with an absinthe and a beer. My life has come to this, I thought as I took a little sip from both glasses. I am living the dream.

Somehow drinking absinthe conforms more to my own self view. It is the drink of artists, and poets, people living on the edge. I dimly remember that Edgar Allen Poe died from drinking it. I see from the web that Aleister Crowley used to drink it. It was banned in many places, but not the UK. I just wish that it wasn't so fucking expensive.