Watdefuck. What kind of society would forget their booze?

Turns out they aint completely forgotten, but gettin ignored or overtaken by ‘modern demands’.

Lemme know if u’ve tried any of ‘em.

Heard of sorghum beer? This is a traditional high-protein beer of the South African blacks, but once the whites felt the black were ‘qualified’ to drink beer, sorghum became less popular. It’s a “sour, pink beer that keeps fermenting in the carton.” Sounds like a bomb.

Fire in da hole (Pix: Time)

Sorghum is a type of grass btw. Will def try it if am there.

There’s Stone-Age beer too… Traces of a ancient beer made of rice, honey & fruit have been found in China. Watdat, a Hoegaarden?

Anyway, they’ve started reproducing it now, courtesy of Dogfish (USA).

An old (3,800 years) Sumerian beer recipe was found, translated and…. reproduced in 1989! No reports on its taste tho. Maybe they all died.

Also on this hit list is pulque (ancient name: iztac octli), from Mexico. Time calls it the original tequila, tho its more like  a beer or toddy. The Aztecs were an ancient tribe that didnt predict 2012 & doom & gloom, unlike their ‘happening’ cousins, the Mayans, but the Aztecs are obviously laid back n not so calculative. So they cooler.

The Mayans were researching all sorts of goddam astrology, building fucking spaceships and getting concerned, while the Aztecs got high and screwed.

The hooch they created is from a plant called maguey, of the agave family. Gotta try.

Latest Aztec tech (Pix: Time)

It’s a white, milky shit, and is good for health. Well, like all booze then.

I got sumtin to add – samsu. Toddy too. Dat shit seems to be gettin rare in KL, tho i doubt it’ll ever disappear. Still an estate & kampung special.

I got sum leftover cough syrup – will try this sometime – one shot of cough mixture /codeine, add one shot of samsu, topped with Coke, n lotsa chunky ice. A squeeze of lime perhaps?

Damn, it’s starting to sound tasty. What shall i call it tho? Coca Codeine?

Hit it with my bro & Klang Kenny. As soon as we strolled outta d airport in Vientiane, we were on da road to VV. The three-hour journey took longer due to d many Beer Lao stops, as well as sourcing for bites.

Food over there is consistently great, whether local or foreign. The street-side grilled pork ribs are insane!

Spotted a bbq goin on, so told d driver to turn back.

Dog BBQ anyone?

VV seems exactly the same as it was two years ago, thankfully. Beer Lao, which used to cost 10,000 kip, is still 10 grand, or 4 ringgit. But its even cheaper now, coz we spent mostly in US dollars, whose value has dropped. So a large bottle is only RM3.60 now. Haha!

On d road

One of d many stalls we checked-out had bbq bats.

Decided not to try, coz i dont like d smell of bat shit!

Crashed at our usual spot, the Other Side Bungalows (huts), which lies across the Namsong River, which runs thru VV.

Rickety bridge over wide river

Got up to lotsa activities. Drinking, partying, eating, hammocking, tubing, bacon, kayaking, climbing, biking. My skin got well-roasted.

The bridge by day (left) dat leads to our pad

Chilllin at our 'VIP hut'

Sumtin for d heat

We headed to this great riverside spot that i once went to.

Spot d Beer Lao

A hut for a break

Some of d boys remembered me, so we partied. They brought out some major firepower, ie lao lao. Rice liquor, similar to our langkau.

Kenny waiting for his turn after Thiang to down lao-lao (breakfast)

Buffaloes take a dip, as a hot-air baloon rises over VV in d distance

We went back again d next morning coz they organized a bbq party for us. We had baby birds, freshly-caught fish, wild jungle soup (which was awesome!), and sticky rice, plus whisky, beer and lao lao.

Boys catching our brunch

Babies are crunchy

They caught a few puffer fish, that blow up when threatened

Diggin in. Except for d rice, everything was wild

Tubing (or kayaking if u prefer) is also a great way to spend a day. Ur dropped off several km upriver of VV, then u just cruise down in a tube. There’re loads of bars n party spots on d riverbank, where u’ll be thrown a line n pulled in if u want. A whole day could go by!

Cruisiiin

Climbed this crazy steep limestone hill near our huts

Dipped in here. COLD!

Ready to kayak

Peace

Some dude who gave us free shots of dunno wat

Had to do some fucking-big-centipede liquor shots

Jump off d platform if u dare

The sun sets over Laos

Great place, even greater people. Might even do it again!

.

Brain damage: 8.5/10

I was introduced to a new form of amazing ‘cultivated’ toddy, which is unheard of as toddy is pretty wild n naturally-produced. A friend of August Boozepimp Kennhyn brought some to this tasting lunch we had at Kissaten, which serves great rock ‘n roll Japanese cuisine at Jaya One, PJ.

Great stuff

Regular toddy is made from regular coconuts, and fermentation takes place on the tree by wild yeasts. But this limited edition batch we had is from the more fragrant pandan coconut, and fermentation is conducted in a controlled environment, away from the tree. A specially-cultivated yeast is then added to produce some ridiculously-awesome shit.

Bantaii

The aroma is fruity, and so is the taste. Almost like real coconut water. Its also fizzy, and extremely refreshing. I immediately asked for five bottles the next time.

Its light, and alcohol content is between 3-4%.

Sumtin nice to wash d toddy down with

Unfortunately its not being mass-produced. Yet. The dude who made it in his pandan coconut orchard in Bentong plans to get d necessary paperwork done so he can sell it in an organized  manner. Should do the same with my cider!

From the tasting session, the consensus was that this brew would be able to do well.

Missing it real bad

I say go for it man. Its time for some local brew to be bottled and sold in supermarkets n exported n shit.

The default beverage, but surprisingly not many Sumatrans drink it. They prefer the cheaper local moonshine

Landed in Medan but was on da road most of d time for work with my local contact Heri. Started well, as dinner at his place was ubi leaves and babi panggang. Awesome shit! Thin strips of lean charcoal-bbq pork.

Lots of them in north Sumatra are Christians.

Dats da shit right there. Aka BPK - babi panggang Karo. D sambal on d left is in some pig blood / chili cocktail

Probably more churches there than here. In every village

Medan is a typical Indon city – noisy, dusty, crowded.

Sorait. Aint my scene.

Plannin our route. There're blackouts almost every damn day in Medan

We headed south to Berastagi, up in the hills at 2,000m+ above sea level. Nice.

Cold place. Main thing goin down here is vegetable & fruit farming. Stayed at a joint called Bamboe Hill or sumtin. Pretty cheap at about 44 bucks, if u excuse d goddam mosquitoes!

With Heri after a night of little sleep thanks to crazy mozzies

View from bed, with accompaniment for d cold night in white box

The backyard area of our accommodation leading to a romantic lil bench

View from hut

One of the three mountains near Berastagi

Berastagi is the only place i liked among all the ones we were at, like Kabanjahe, Medan & Siantar.

Fruit feast, Berastagi market

Same market. D dude said the white ones "Paling enak." Haha

Poser. The mountain at d back is volcanic, and was brewing clouds of vapour

Veg farms, Berastagi

Pretty tiring being on d road so much. The dust, heat, noise, diesel smoke, etc gets to u. There was a point on d road where we didnt shower for two days! Dirty cowboys. So dam good to see a mirror & a proper toilet when i got back to KL!

Our ride for d trip, aka The Tank

Of course no trip is complete without sampling the local talent. They got sumin called tuak there. Had it during a bbq at Heri’s chicken farm. He’s got 10,000 birds almost ready to be sold & slaughtered. So they just grabbed a few to burn.

Talk about convenience.

Chicas lined up, to layan the sunset i guess

Lookin cute...

cuter...

...cutest. Haha

Their so-called tuak is nutin like d one here. Theirs is made from coconut sap, like regular toddy. It looks n smells like toddy but tastes like bland tuak.

Not a good combo. I switched back to Scotch.

Local brew (in black bucket)

Also gobbled some Nasi Padang in a hill town called Siantar

Final day breakfast - pack of Nasi Gurih - local version of Nasi Lemak. Some spicy-ass noodles thrown in as well

Havin 'kopi ginseng' with a coupla local boys

Poser, at Heri's huuge guava farm

Heri with a new buddy . Maybe coz of d cold weather, all dogs in Berastagi are furrier

Even ol' Bill is in on the babi panggang gig

.

Brain damage: None. Minimal drinkin!

Get on

After a scare a couple of months ago, its confirmed that u can get it at Tesco, coz i just got myself one at Mutiara Damansara – for ol’ times sake & to flashback some memories. It’s also been spotted at Tesco Ampang & Kuala Selangor. I paid 27 bucks.

Now i can park one under my car seat & do the Superman trick again. But Superman in the car instead of a phonebooth – enter car normal & stone cold sober, exit car at destination a different man, blasted.

Night Train virgins, good luck. Just dont do what i did!

Makes u realize what cheap shit alcohol actually is. Low cost to produce. But at least its 100% natural ingredients.

Drink your fruits!

Dead easy, even if ur retarded. Easier & quicker than tuak too.

This recipe is based on 12 liters of juice.

1. Get the juice – recommended brand – Berri – which comes in 2.4 liter bottles. So get 5 bottles.

2. Stir in 1kg (one pack) of fine white sugar to some warm apple juice until its dissolved.

3. Pour this and the rest of d juice into a container (an air-tight one, that is, the fermenter).

4. Add in a tablespoon of pounded yeast n stir. Seal the container but create an air-lock.

5. Wait a couple of weeks.

6. Have a party. (& invite me)

Yeast can be bought at Chinese medicine stores. I get mine from Centerpoint, PJ. 6o cents a pop, which is equal to 2 tablespoons. It’s “sweet yeast for Chinese wine”. Aka chao peng.

Yeasts are our friends

The only part that requires a brain is the airlock. If u can buy one, good. Otherwise a crude one that works is a tube running from a created air-tight gap in the top of the air-tight container (the fermenter) into a bottle of water. Co2 produced by the yeast can exit the fermenter into the water via d tube, but O2 and outside air cant go back in. Easy.

Coz if too much air goes in, u could end up with vinegar.

The 'airlock' of the future

After two weeks, sample d shit everyday until it tastes good, and u can feel some alcohol. My last one was bottled at 18 days & tasted dam good.

My fermenter - phat. With airlock (top) & tap (right)

For the fermenter, i used a beer fermenter – a plastic barrel that holds about 25 liters. It comes with an airlock & tap. The other option is a polycarbonate water container, available at Tesco for about 40 bucks, and its perfect. Comes with an airtight cap. Capacity 15 liters.

Great as a fermenter

For that, you’ll need 6 bottles.

Raw booze. About 10 bucks for 2.4 liters

Just punch a tight-fitting hole in the rubber cap for the outlet tube / airlock. Seal any gap around the hole with some shit, like Blu Tack or silicone. It comes with a tap, so u can easily sample d shit.

Plan B

A quicker, low-quantity method is using a bottle instead of a barrel. All u need is..

A funnel & balloons

Pour any fruit juice that is preservative-free into a bottle – glass / plastic. Add like 8-10 spoons of sugar via the funnel & mix well. Add a quarter teaspoon of yeast & mix. Seal the bottle mouth with a balloon over it, and you’re practically done. Takes five minutes.

After a few days, the balloon will inflate. Good. It means the fuckin yeasts are doin their job. Use a needle to stab a hole – as tiny as possible. CO2 will escape slowly from d bottle, but no O2 will go in.

About 2 weeks later, u got booze. Filter the booze thru a strainer to strain out the yeast sediments & foam, then drink!

Trillions of yeasts workin their butts off, creating a whole lotta CO2 that races to the top (pix taken after 5 days)

I guess since bottles dont have taps, u cant really test. Its ok to remove the balloon occasionally to taste-test d brew, but do it too often, u might end up with fucking vinegar.

Collection of juices being fermented - mango, orange, mixed fruits

When the brew is ready, bottle them, preferably in plastic bottles to avoid glass bottles explosions, and close the cap air-tight.

Its basically ready-to-drink. Place in fridge so that the fermentation ends. Cold temperature makes yeast chillout n stop working. The brew might even go clear after a few days. But murky is fine!

If u’d like more fizz, pour into a plastic bottle, add a teaspoon or two of sugar and close the bottle cap. The yeast will feed on the sugar and release CO2. Coz the cap is sealed, the CO2 cant escape & will get absorbed into the drink, makin it fizzy. (Yeasts r freaks dat dont need oxygen to survive.) After a day to two, u can test, then place in fridge. I suggest u store & reuse the apple juice bottles, but rinse them before u store, or the little remaining juice makes the bottles go moldy inside after awhile.

Release some air if the bottle looks like its gonna pop.

So there will still be yeast in the sidra when u drink. Its fine. Good for health. B-complex & protein.

Plastic bottles are preferred if u plan to add more sugar at the end, and seal the cap for fizz, coz the pressure build-up in glass bottles can cause them to explode. Throw them at the cops i guess.

Hmm. Maybe for the next protest.

The most important thing to remember – hygiene. Everything has to be sanitized (washed with soap) just before u start. Your hands, the utensils, the bottles, the fucking balloons, the fermenter, the goddam caps. And no chemicals. Yeast can die on contact with soap, so make sure u rinse all d soap off. Everything has to be natural.

And no, u wont go blind, unless u add methanol to your brew.

More yeast = faster process. More sugar = more alcohol. More yeast AND more sugar? Try n lemme know.

There are lots of resources online, like this. Plan to make chocolate wine, but dont know yet where to get preservative-free chocolates.

Anyway, there it is! Fruit juice + sugar + yeast and u got it made.

If ur cheap-ass, sugary water + yeast does the job too!

Enjoy!
.

My apple cider experiment has worked out. And its gooood.

Yeeehaaa!

These little fuckers just need sugar. They consume whatever sugary liquid u feed em, and they fart CO2 & piss out alcohol. How cool is dat?

Yeast piss. Yummy.

And just as a bonus, yeast are also a source of B-complex vitamins and protein.

Easily the most important & productive micro-organism on earth

All i gotta do is pound, and dump these organisms into apple juice, then chill for a couple of weeks. In d meantime, the yeast dudes are working 24-7, multiplying & producing alcohol all d time, billions of them, for free. I dont even have to give them a salary. Its slavery!

A German chemist wrote back in the day about yeast: “These are endowed with a sort of suction trunk with which they gulp up sugar. Digestion is immediate and clearly recognizable because of the discharge of excrements.”

He rambles on: “These animals evacuate ethyl alcohol from their bowels and carbon dioxide from their urinary organs. Thus, one can observe how a specially lighter fluid is exuded from the anus and rises vertically whereas a stream of carbon dioxide is ejected at very short intervals from enormously long genitals.” Haha! Big-dick boys.

One drop of fermenting juice can contain five million yeast cells capable of doubling their number every two hours.

The thing about these guys is they end up drinkin themselves to death. Wine yeast can survive up to 14-18% alcohol in d mix before dying of alco-poisoning, but beer yeast will probably die around 6%. Anyway, there are more than a thousand yeast species around, depending on what u wanna brew.

I made 12 liters of apple cider using about 30 cents worth of yeast. So my cost for producing all these booze is basically the same as the cost of apple juice. Amazing.

Then u realize that alcohol is actually fuckin cheap.

I waited 18 days before deciding dat it was strong n tasted good. Dats when u start bottling. After 2 weeks, i did a taste-test every day. When u feel it’s just right – good balance between sweet & sour & alcohol, its ready. I was bottling them when i was drunk, so no pictures of this happy process.

I was planning to make sidra (apple cider), but since i used wine yeast rather than brewer / beer yeast, i got apple champagne. Haha! To get the fizz, just add a teaspoon of sugar into each bottle then seal the cap. It shd be fizzy within a couple of days.

Bubbly apple wine

My brew is fucking strong. A couple of sips this morning n i was buzzing. Gonna get a hydrometer to check the % of alcohol.

Obviously the brew has only 100% natural ingredients.

Will post a step-by-step soon on the DIY apple wine. At the mo, sugar cane wine is brewing.

Yeast, u da man! Salud!

Yo I aint happy.

D locomotive from hell has pulled into d station for d final time!

Dis shit was my FIRST love, when i first started on the booze journey in college. The Train is what got me into serious drinkin man. Used to do it with dudes like Ham, Scarface, Presidente, Volume, Fat Bala, Voyeur. We got a history, d Train n me boys.

We had this move – where two of our cars on d way to someplace would decide to travel alongside each other n pass d Train from one car to d next. Quite a delicate skill. Requires finesse, and alcohol in yor veins. And clear road ahead of u.

The other car would ride the Train then pass it back when they’re ready. Amazingly, there has never been contact between the vehicles.

Yea, we were a bunch of fucking cowboys.

If not for d Train, my retarded blog wdnt exist. Haha

Been lookin for it for ol times sake recently. I tried d most likely haunts – Joy, Sri Kota, TMC, supermarkets and Chinese-medicine joints. Failed. Two of ‘em said d Train is no longer being imported.

But whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!

The world has lost some of its cool.

It’s been good buddy. See u on d other side!

Awoke on Saturday and headed to Bangsar for Sarawak laksa, but suddenly remembered a friends BBQ lunch party, so detoured n got wasted there. Had white wine, Green Label and roast lamb. Then headed home to try and brew some apple cider. Doin the make-your-own-booze shit.

Thing is the elite brewing team of four got well-wasted at my pad for the ‘pre-party’ for the brewing process. We then left the house about 4pm to shop for d ingredients, by then quite zapped. Cool thing is a Jaya Grocer has just opened close by. And it stocks booze. All varieties.

While we screwed around at the fruit juice aisle in the supermarket, my buddy Shai suddenly says “What are we doing here again?”.

We look at each other n laugh. Then dude goes “Where am i??”. Haha. Blur.

Supermarkets can be scary places for some high, lost boys

We eventually scored the ‘right’ apple juice after a phone call from Shai to a ‘consultant’.

As usual, the team got side-tracked by the booze section

Topped up with more beers. Lately its easy to get these ultra-strength imported beers from 8% to… 12.2%! Dats like fuckin wine!

Cost like $4.50 to $7. And they all half-litre cans! Beautiful. Will test all and report.

Then we made a push to Centerpoint to nail some yeast and a rubber tube.

The drunks end up at a hardware store

... then a Chinese medicine joint for yeast

We actually manage to get all we need pretty quick, and head to the secret brewing location and get the apple cider on its way. Hopefully a month from now, i’ll be gettin high on my own supply!

If it works, will advise on how to go about it. And will also move on to fruit wines.

The shit after adding yeast, my new favourite pet. Get to work u fuckers!

Dependin on my luck, the barrel of future cider. Or fuckin vinegar

Supporting actors

There’re lots of material online on makin your own brew. U got any questions i can attempt to answer them.

Get busy yall.

.

Brain damage rating: TBC

Checkdisout – the world’s oldest cognac is now at a hotel outlet in London (Library Bar). How much do u think a shot would cost? 500 bucks?? Two grand?

To be exact, US$6k! Dats 21,000 bucks. Fuckin hell..

21k for a 50ml shot. Dats what… $4,000 per sip? I think even d goddam fumes will cost a few hundred bucks!

Strictly for fat cats. It’s a bottle from way back in 1770.

I definitely know the LEAST i ever paid for a shot.

The definition of cheap shit

Toddy. About 20 cents a shot.

For a shot of dat cognac, u  would get 7,000 bottles of 1,500ml toddy. Haha. Or 105,000 servings.

At three bottles a day, u could remain drunk for about 6.4 years.

Cool.