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how to drink vodka
I’m still obsessing over Anthony Bourdain’s A Cooks Tour, so you will be forced to endure another quote instead of an original post. [Manana, my loves, I promise.]
Zamir showed me, step by step, how to drink vodka while we waited for our reindeer to be served. First, if at all possible, make sure you have food present. Even a simple crust of bread will do. We had an enticing selection of traditional appetizers in front of us: pickled garlic, cucumbers, mushrooms, some smoked eel, a little sturgeon, some salted salmon roe, and a loaf of heavy country bread.Step one, demonstrated Zamir, is the toast. To others present, to your parents, to your country – anything will do. Hold a full shot of vodka in one hand and food – bread is easiest – in the other hand. Exhale. Inhale slowly. Knock back your entire shot in one gulp, immediately inverting your glass over the table to allow the microscopic last drop to fall out, proving you’re not a wuss or a reactionary revanchist Trotskyite provocateur.
Then take a bit of food. If you don’t have any food, a long, lingering sniff of your wrist or cuff will do. (I know it sounds strange, but trust me.) Repeat the procedure up to three times every twenty minutes throughout the drinking period. This is as fast as your system can absorb all that alcohol. If you follow this regimen carefully, you can and will retain a state of verticality throughout the entire meal and into the post meal drinking.
In all likelihood, you will make it away from the table without disgracing yourself. You will probably make it home without help. After that, however, you’re on your own. Remember: They’re professionals at this in Russia, so no matter how many Jell-O shots or Jager shooters you might have downed at college mixers, no matter how good a drinker you might think you are, don’t forget that the Russians – any Russian – can drink you under the table.
Be prepared, by the way, no matter how bad you might feel when you wake up, to do it again – with breakfast. (p. 93-94)
Well, I just had my breakfast vodka, and I’m off to a snappy start. Howabout you?
comments (2)
Sounds like someone needs a trip to the Russian Vodka Room.
1 | Alex | September 16, 2003 11:13 AM
all of my ballroom teachers have been Russian-my first one, Oleg, wouldn't drink vodka-he preferred gin and tonic-apparently he had a "bad incident" involving vodka while he was "at university" and he refused to drink it afterwards- I can tell you how disappointed I was by that