"Pass the dutchie up on the left hand side"
-Musical Youth
It's called Ourujo. It's the local tipple here in Galicia. There are two basic kinds, there's the stuff that you can buy in stores, which has been toned down to suit both the tastes of the general public as well as local legislation regarding alcohol content. Then there's Ourujo casero, which is home-made; by people with little regard for such trivialities. Of the two, I only have experience with the latter. This is my story.
Ourujo (casero) is made like grappa; from fermented grape skins. It's an off-white beverage that you'll find hidden underneath bars and shop counters around Galicia. Too far to go to get some? Well, I'm sure that your local jet-propulsion lab can fix you up with something similar. The name Ourujo (oh-rooo-hoh) is clearly derived from the first three sounds your body involuntarily makes every time you taste it. It smells vaguely like tequila, tastes like vodka (with a slight aftertaste of rotting fruit), and burns your insides like kerosene. The alcohol content in this stuff is so high, that a single ounce of it could disinfect Pamela Anderson AND Tommy Lee. The only word I can use to describe it is "monsterous".
Just after my third shot of this brew, I heard a strange sound coming from my gut. "eeeeeEEEEEEEeeeee" it went. Kind of like the sound you hear when you're trying to hold in a fart. Except that I wasn't. I can think of three potential explinations for the strange sound. There's a 7% chance it was just gas, a 5% Chance that it was the stomach bug protesting, and a 88% chance that it was my liver screaming. Now, I know what you're thinking. If this stuff was so bad, why did you have three? I'm working on a system here. I figure, no matter how vile a local foodstuff is, you have to try it three times to truly say you've been open-minded. The first try, I call the "probative" phase; where it's your instinctive gut-reaction: good or bad. The second try, I call the "interrogative": Do you like it any more, and if not, what exactly do you not like? The third try is the "conclusive" phase. Is it so bad that you never want to have it again? Example below, using Ourujo as the subject:
Try 1 (Probative): "Och...rooooo....hooh. This stuff is vile. Give me another."
Try 2 (Interrogative): "ohhhhh...roo...hch. It's still disgusting. I especially dislike the way it burns my mouth, throat and gullet. Also, I don't enjoy the way it makes me feel like I'm going to have a seizure. Give me another.
Try 3: (Conclusive): "oh....roo...oh. That one wasn't so bad. In fact, I think I´ll have...'eeeeeEEEEEEeeeee'....Screw this, I'm done.
So how did all this start? Well, I bumped into a few other pilgrims that I had seen on and off for the last couple of days before arriving in Santiago, and they suggested we all go out for drinks to celebrate. After a drink or two, someone (might have been me) suggested ourujo. The bartender, who is obviously Lucifer in disguise, suggested the casero stuff. The rest of the night lasted about an hour. That is to say, I can only remember enough to account for about an hour's worth of time that night. Here's what I do recall:
There was a discussion, where I was trying to convince my companions that sheep are, in fact, carnivores by preference, and occasionally predetory. Highlights of this conversation include: "why do you think we put those little bells on them? It's so they can't sneak up on us" and "For millenia, shepherds have been arming themselves with long sticks and attack dogs. They know how dangerous sheep can be". That exchange was obviously done in English. I also recall having a discussion with a guy at the bar, where I suggested that FC Barcelona should sell Ronaldinho to Paramount studios, so that he can fulfill his dreams of being an actor. That was in Spanish. I recall the blank looks on the faces of my friends as I elequently described what the camino meant to me, in what might have been Bablylonian. I don't actually understand Bablylonian, so it's kind of hard to tell. I remember inviting everyone back to the hotel for a nightcap, and after leading them 10 blocks south of the bar (most of the way singing, among other things, "mony mony"), and once there, remembering that I had checked out of that hotel the night before, and my new hotel was 2 blocks east-ish of the bar we were at. The mini-bar in my room is intact, so I'm assuming the rest of them didn't make it back with me.
The new hotel, while no Parador, is quite comfortable, although the floors and walls have a disturbing tendency to sway unpredictably. The celing spins too, and I recall wondering whether Aussies and South Africans' whirlies go counter-clockwise.
Anyways, this is obviously not the recap of the camino that I was planning on, but it was still a story that (I hope) was worth telling. Tomorrow should be the camino wrap-up, and then maybe one more entry once I'm back in the good old U.S. of...I mean...Canada. Guess I've gotten too used to being called an "americano".
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