Monday

Saturday night we went to a friend's birthday party after a nice dinner at Luna in Dupont Circle. The birthday boy and his wife are just back from Ashgabat (that's the nutty capital of Turkmenistan). He's a coworker of Sunshine's and she's Belarusian. The party was in the next building over. This is the couple we saw Grindhouse with a few weeks ago; the couple who brought that nice bottle of really ethnic vodka to our Miss USA Drinking Game. In this vein, I was interested in seeing what types of drinks would be available at the party. I was not disappointed. One of the offerings was an odd Belarusian drink in a small dark bottle. I was told it was very herbal and that nobody really liked it. I am pretty sure I was being talked out of trying it, but I had to; so they had to break the seal on the bottle for me to do so.* I wish I could remember what I was told it was called. The bottle was in Belarusian, of course, labeled in Cyrillic and for me totally indecipherable. I did not drink very much: a pinky finger in the bottom of a red plastic cup. I am pretty sure that I did not like it, but I hate to leave it at that. The experience was pretty complex. It tasted a little like toasted unsweetened molasses boiled with bay leaves until it was the color and consistency of soy sauce. I was told it's very good in tea. Other drinks at the party included a sixty-year anniversary bottle of Belarusian vodka in an opaque green bottle fashioned like an army canteen, and the charming Amarula, a South African Bailey's-like cream liqueur made from the fruit of the marula tree. [Cavin]