My cultural education continues. Having a drink or two is common to socialization in many cultures, but today’s experience went a little further.
We were visiting the home of Andrew and Natasha. Andrew showed us two gallon jugs with dates of 2004 and 2008. These were gifts he had received from a skilled friend. He opened both for us.
Before drinking Andrew had to test the alcohol content (with a lighter). Both burned. From the color it was difficult to determine just what these liquors were. Attempting to understand Russian did not help. After the use of a translation dictionary and a thorough discussion of a wide variety of liquors, we finally decided one was brandy and one was scotch. I will go with both guesses. I am pretty certain about the brandy.
Andrew wanted to send a jug home with us. I am guessing this is not allowed, but I will have to convince him such gifts are not covered by duty free.
I did sample, but the amount offered was a little beyond my afternoon limit. Very good!
Just to be clear, the Russians take the role of designated driver very seriously. The driver never, never drinks.
Cheers!