Sunday, November 23, 2008

The Bootlegger

During our stay in Dali last weekend we encountered many different types of characters, the one that stood out for me the most was the guy that ran the local convenience, which was basically just the basement of his house. We ventured into his store around 7pm looking to purchase a few brown trouts to quench our thirsts. As soon as he saw we were buying brews, he started to tell us all about these different types of alcohol that he had in his store. After about 15 mins of him showing us all of these different types of Chinese wines, whiskeys, and beers, he decided to take us into his house where he had all of these giant cabinets full of different types of booze. He showed us a few different types of alcohol that I had never even heard of, and then he busted out this brown bottle with a yellow label with a pic of a tiger on it. The bottle came in a box and it looked fairly intense with the pic of the tiger and the sticky drip downs on the side of the bottle. He offered us a taste, and I was like ohh man I don't know about this, but naturally I tasted it. I put it in my mouth and instantly received a tingling sensation on the roof of my mouth and as I slowly swallowed the thick reddish concauction it burned the back of my throat and made me feel very warm. I looked up after I swallowed and everybody was looking at me as if something was about to happen, and I just said "smoooth". It turns out the drink was made out of tiger bone, and is called tiger bone wine. I looked it up on the internet and it says that tiger bone wine is highly illegal, but is considered a cure for arthritis in Chinese medicine. Here is a pic of the bootlegger, he had a mouth full of silver, and sported a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt.


The bootleggers parents.

One of the cabinets.



Before we visited the bootlegger, we passed through a huge temple. There were fireworks going off there and all kinds of strange ceremonial activities going on.


3 comments:

  1. The bootlegger's mom looks like a cantina alien from Star Wars

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  2. That's just great Jonathan. Now that you published the bootlegger's photo and described his place, the Taiwanese army/police will be all over him.

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