Re: booze words

Mark Reed wrote:
>
>What the heck is kumiss?
>
Fermented mare's milk, IIRC. Mmm sounds yummy :-(((

Indonesia/SE Asia generally is noted for "tuak" "palm wine, (Brit.) toddy"
the fermented juice derived from various palm trees (I think the "sugar
palm" arenga saccharifera in particular-- you can also boil down the fresh
juice to make a sort of brown sugar; tuak turns into native "vinegar" if
left long enough). It's probably about 6-10% alcohol. I had it once-- the
flavor is vaguely like champagne; it's fizzy, but has the texture/viscosity
of cream.....A Frenchman with our group muttered "...and they compare this
to champagne??"

The Balinese brew a "wine" from rice, called brem [br@m]; Thais make a
stronger "whiskey" from rice, never tried those. And of course there's sake.

Sometimes in Indonesia fermented rice is used as a sort of sourdough
starter, for making bread-- I used to buy a quite adequate white bread loaf,
but had to eat it quickly because without refrigeration, the center tended
to liquefy after 3 days or so. Nasty.

Kash has a variety of booze words, but I never quite decided what they were
brewed from. Prevli has borrowed Kash _poren_ 'wine', native /adak/ arka 'a
distilled liquor, like moonshine'; Gwr vocab. is impoverished in this dept.,
but obviously in a cold climate they'd need lots of fortification and/or
anti-freeze.........