Riga Black Balsam? It's......"unique". Some Latvians have informed me that it is made in Latvia. Google tells me there is "pure vodka" in there somewhere but I'm not convinced. FYI: that is not my picture and this is not an admission that I have any of this vile liquid in my possession.
If you are not close to a Spanish or Italian base your best bet is to get a local to get some Russian vodka, around $20 a bottle with markup, not that I figured things out in my 2 years there...general order 1 was most important to me. Shawn
The Gilbey's vodka at Times will have to do. There are not that many Spanish bases in the Philippines since 1898 ;-)
I used to be out at Herat working with the Italians. They served wine (in cartons) for lunch and dinner at the DFAC and had several bars on the Spanish side of the base after hours.....by 9pm I was fluent in Italian, or so I thought anyways. Lots of smiles, laughs and replies in Italian so I must have been getting close. The Eye Ties were the best country I worked with over here, all work was done "dopo"/"domani"/"dopo domani" ("later"/"tomorrow"/ "day after tomorrow" in that order upon asking). Digestivo=Averna for me, loved that drink. Italy is the only country I am even remotely interested in visiting in Europe. You can find good imported liquors in Manila and Cebu. If you look hard you can find in Dumaguete from time to time.
I spent the last 15 months in that country in Herat, I was on the ANA base on the other side of the airport. They did not like me going off base after 1700 so my time on the Italian/Spanish base would be a quick drive over during the day. Really good pizza and the chicken sandwich rocked. Shawn
