Palinka!

I first heard of palinka, which is an Eastern European spirit, when my good friend Doug told of his trip to Romania when he was 19. While staying in what he describes as a Romanian Peasant Village, his hosts served him something called palinka. He apparently was overserved and ended up quite ill, presumably with substantial cleanup necessary. I tried the drink myself a few times – both in the U.S., and in Europe – and it never quite had that effect on me. Part of this is probably because palinka has no standard strength or quality. It’s basically a general term for a brandy-like spirit distilled from fruits; it can be anywhere from 80 proof to 180 proof. Some of it is manufactured and bottled, and some of it is made in a bathtub. My guess is that Doug had some of the bathtub variety.

My latest couchsurfing guests were Gergo from Budapest and Anika from Cologne. They are wrapping up their undergraduate degrees in psychology, and they had a little time available to travel before wrapping up their undergraduate theses/finals. They had very little money, so they hitchhiked all through Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and they couchsurfed along the way.

Gergo did bring a bottle of his grandfather’s homemade palinka. He said that it was about 50% alcohol (100 proof). So, not quite what Doug probably had in Romania, but a bit stronger and more authentic than what I’ve bought in the store. He transported it in a plastic water bottle. This was reminiscent of the Ecuadorian moonshine that my other college roommate Ruben transported back from Latin American in a large Dasani bottle. I never tried that moonshine, but I believe that everyone who did ended up sick before the end of the night.

I drank the palinka tentatively, but I found it to be surprisingly good. It had a little bit of a tequila feel to it, and it was very warming.

Gergo ended up leaving it with me, since I was the last leg of their trip. I’m not sure if/when I’ll have an opportunity to put it to use, since I rarely consume spirits, especially at home. Perhaps I’ll share it with other couchsurfers in the future.