We publish a list of the most surprising and strange drinks. I have to say, it turned out quite interesting.
The last, tenth place, is occupied by mare’s milk, or kumiss, it is quite a popular drink in Central Asia. It is believed that kumiss helps while tuberculosis, bronchitis, cold, anemia. At one time resorts specializing in kumiss treatment were popular there.
Ninth place is occupied by a dog beer Kwispelbier, created by a Dutch Terry Berenden. Beer is specifically designed for dogs, it is composed of beef extract. “Every year I go hunting in Austria and take a dog with me. Every evening we sit with friends on veranda, relax and drink beer. It was then when we decided that a dog also earned a breath,” - Berenden told. With this idea a Dutchman came to a local brewery, and offered them producing beer according to his recipe. Brewers agreed, and the product, called Kwispelbier, began arriving in stores. On the market a new drink for animals is positioned as “beer for your best friend.” However, this pleasure is not cheap, a bottle of Kwispelbier costs 1 euro 65 cents, which is four times more expensive than, for example, a bottle of well-known Heineken brand. In doing so, a dog regularly drinking new drink, does not risk to become an alcoholic. Beer is non-alcoholic.
Eighth place in the list is given to breast milk. Not real, but usual cow’s milk, which some Korean company sells like “breastmilk”. Tetrapacks with this milk have a picture of baby, nursing mother’s breast.
At the seventh plce - a Korean drink again, drink with a scent of kimchi, traditional Korean dish of cabbage and radish.
Tonic drink on the basis of ant juice is on the sixth place. This drink is incredibly popular in China, the proceeds of its sales are up to $ 100 million a year. It is believed that formic juice promotes longevity. In Europe, however, formic tonic is not popular and it is almost impossible to find it there.
A computer game Final Fantasy inspired Square Enix and Suntory companies to create a special «medicine». Drink with the name of a popular game came in 2006, in a limited series. According to taste, it resembled famous Red Bull. This is the fifth place.
Rice wine, brewed on mice - the fourth place in the hit parade. This Korean remedy is distributed in villages as panacea for all illnesses. Not for faint-hearted patients, of course.
And finally, the triple of winners.
Third place was given to rise wine, decocted on geckos. The drink is popular in Chinese and Vietnamese villages, but it is simply impossible to imagine such thing in Europe. A courageous American journalist Suzanne Donahue bared for tasting and compared taste of this wine with cheap brandy, but the wine has fantastic aftertaste, which can be compared to sushi. (According to rules of wine cooking, lizards are added to it while still alive). Village winemakers believe that lizards have strong power, so more lizards are in a barrel of wine, the better: gecko wine supposedly improves eyesight and sexual potency and prevents asthma.
Steven Seagal with his famous energy drink Steven Seagal’s Lightning Bolt is on the second place. They say, Steven Seagal specially traveled to Asia in search of specific components for a drink. As a result, it includes Tibetan berry juice Goya - a source of eternal youth, Goya contains increased number of antioxidants, and Chinese kordiseps - rare fungus that has salutary effect. Kordiseps is called a plant-butterfly. In the first year it lives in a body of larvae of butterfly and then passes in a phase of development as an insect, and then moves into a phase of development of mushroom. Due to insufficient resources and difficulty of collecting, kordiseps belongs to the very expensive delicacies.
And the winner of the hit parade - Inuit seagull’s wine. Dead seagull is placed in a container with water, that is left for several days under direct sunlight. Who of sane people can dare to try it? Of course, Suzanne Donahue. «If you would open Toyota’s carburetor and drank remaining liquid, then you would imagine the taste of this terrible drink - she writes. – But I have to say that this drink intoxicates rather quickly and hangover from it is incomparable to any torture».
