When in Hong Kong do as the HKers do: Drink Snake Wine. A very large part of me thinks that only tourists, extremely old men with no teeth and women named Madame Cobra drink this stuff. Regardless, as I fit into one of the three categories, I partook. Once in Hong Kong, in a dusty old bar with the vague morning rays of the sun stretching towards afternoon through the overcast haze of the half-opened louvres of forgotten windows and once in Fukuoka, at a now infamous dinner party hosted by the lovely and intelligent Rachel (also a close friend of George).
The aforementioned 11am hour dusty forgotten bar wine taste test included a bit of skin and floating flesh, for “flavor” so the proprietor said, in short whiskey glasses of dubious cleanliness, whereas in Fukuoka we drank the stuff neat and straight from plastic cups. C’est la vie.
Drink It Down Georgie
I bought the wine due to a lack of fresh cobra blood for sale at any tenable point in my sojourn. I had been offered suits, women, massages, Chinese food, ecstasy, roses, noodles, piercings, computer clones, mobile phones, virgins, fireworks, DVDs, vaccines, smoothies, drugs smuggling adventures, star ferry rides, hiking boots, Dom Perignon, raw sea cucumber brain, and a monk’s smile, yet I had to come home with something for George, pictured wincing here. I felt I owed him, you see. Owed him for more than words can describe. Owed him for something that I’ve felt few others have ever accomplished. He impressed me. Impressed me with his strength, his compassion, his amicability, his desire, his pure English wit, and his everymanliness. I rarely buy souvenirs, except for my grandma and my mother, but G-Love (as I like to call him and he, of course, likes to be called) is a rare breed indeed. More than a mere offering, he deserved Snake Wine. Hallelujah.
To tell the truth, the snake wine was given around 8pm at one of the final dinner parties of our tenure as Ambassadors of Grassroots Internationalism in Fukuoka. The snake wine was drunk after most of the 20-30 enjoyers of our various Middle Eastern Foods Banquet had left the lovely and intelligent Rachel’s abode, which is to say at around 2am, just before we headed out to the bar with the Swedes, whom of course were still present, as Swedes generally are, for whatever reasons.
The Head of the Snake
It was, of course, G-Love that initiated the imbibing of the Snake Wine, as he is apt to do with anything that, like the Love Boat, is exciting and new. He suggested we the six of us drink about to fingers each of the 30 proof stuff and then head out for proper Japanese late night fare. Smart man. Except that apparently my gift was a bust. Apparently, G-Love did not enjoy the Snake Wine. Against all odds, the G-man actually had somewhat negative things to say about this age old Chinese tradition of distilling snake corpses in a kind of ricewine. Who’d've thunk it?
Well, good samaritan that I am, I made him drink it, knowing that 1) I would be writing this one day and would want him to feel vindicated when he read it rather than feel like some kind of impotent British Neo-Imperialist who couldn’t cut the wasabi and 2) come on…it’s Snake Wine…WHO DOESN’T WANT TO PUT THAT IN THEIR BODY?!?
Honestly it wasn’t bad. Don’t ask George though. He’ll write you an article about how terrible it was. But then again, who got laid that night and who didn’t…
