[Dixielandjazz] Coffee

[Ken Mathieson]

Dave Richoux very sagely pointed out:

For my traveling band (California Repercussions - sometimes OKOM, over15 countries and 4 continents/large islands) the coffee and tea are good to sample, get going in the morning,  but the driving force is the local brews, beer, wine, booze (or things in-between!).

Amen to that, Dave! Before I succumbed to a moment of madness and took up bandleading, I played for many years in Fat Sam's band, based in Edinburgh and touring in North America, Europe and the Middle East. We set up the Sinbad Society, Sinbad standing for The Society for the Investigation of Novel and Bewildering Alcoholic Drinks. Members were honour-bound to try any booze they had never encountered before and to report back with details of contents, price and impact. On the basis of what we found over the years, a massive amount of human ingenuity has clearly gone into the devising of diverse and exotic ways of getting out of one's brains. If all the energy and ingenuity that has gone into warfare over the centuries had been applied to fermentation, the world would have been a happier place for sure.

We stumbled on some very strange stuff, like vodka and dissolved liquorice (known as a "Swartze Sweijn" in Denmark), some foul-tasting stuff calling itself Balsam from Latvia (although in mitigation, it was 45% alcohol by volume),  My favourite was one we stumbled on in a wonderful pub called De drei Fleisjes (or something similar) near the Damplats in Amsterdam. It was a large measure of Curacao Triple Sec orange liqueur poured into the bottom of a thistle-shaped schooner glass, the a dash of Angostura Bitters, then filled to the brim with a good vodka. The initial effect was of a glass of clear fluid with a narrow band of pink in the middle. Then something strange happened, presumably caused by the differing surface tensions of the 3 liquids: the Angostura started to blend in with the clear liquors and the top surface started to rise into sizeable bump above the rim of the glass. The only way to drink it was to get down to the glass and sup it off the top. It tasted fantastic, cost the same as a quarter-litre of astringent Dutch lager and got you there a heck of a lot quicker. It was called (in translation) "a Walk in the Woods" and I've no idea what its alcoholic potency was, but it was certainly strong enough to be adopted as the band's favourite tipple in Holland.

We used to bump into the Back Dogs and Igor's Jazz Cowboys a lot in our travels and they were into the whole Sinbad concept too. Indeed, it goes beyond concept and becomes a philosophical letmotif where one constantly has to rise to the challenge of the unknown.

Cheers, slainte, prosit. salud, saude. sante, skol, preko, and my favourite toast from Estonia, which I can't spell but which sounds like "pervysex!"

Ken Mathieson