Lao Whiskey

After a kayaking trip on the Mekong River, we stopped at Ban Xanghi to sample their world famous fermented, sticky rice, adult beverages.

Jit, our guide and all around expert on all things Lao, got things set up for us to sample a some of the offerings. The was quite an array of bottles filled with a variety of colored liquids and in some cases, former denizens of the jungle.

 All of the beverages are made from fermenting sticky rice and in some cases followed by a distilling process. There are wines like the raspberry  sticky rice wine (the red one pictured above. There are whiskeys of varying strengths topping out at about 90% alcohol.

The bottles with a light yellow liquid containing a python offered the maximum strength adult beverage.

The pythons were artfully displayed in each bottle. Each snake was gripping its tail in its mouth. I assume this is a favored python pose for the Lao whiskey crowd.

For those with an aversion to snakes, there was a scorpion option. The alcohol level was slightly lower than the bottles containing the python.

My favorite was the python. The scorpion just didn't do it for me. The raspberry wine was a little too sweet.

The python does have a bit of a kick.

After the first one, it kind of smooths out.

PS That stylish yellow bag that I am sporting on my arm is actually a dry bag. We just got out of our kayaks.