I'm talking about alcohol.
I am about halfway through this book called The Devil's Picnic by Taras Grescoe (which I got as Christmas gift and am just now getting to). Though it is not specifically labeled as a food book, the way Tony Bourdain's books are found near the cookbooks at Barnes and Noble, The Devil's Picnic is about the author's journeys through several countries where certain foods are prohibited: poppy seeds in Singapore, imported raw-milk cheeses in the US, and in the first chapter, hjemmebrent in Norway.
"Hjemmebrent" is the Norwegian word for moonshine, which if you're not up with your illegal vernacular, is the term for whiskey or other alcohol that has been distilled illegally, and typically, at night, under the light of the moon (thus the name). Now there may be nothing particularly interesting about moonshining, since we have quite the sordid history of it here in the United States during the Prohibition era, and even today (wine and brewing beer excluded of course). However, in Norway, hjemmebrent is distilled to 96%, making it, as Grescoe says in his book, solely for the purpose of getting completely drunk. "You were sober then you were drunk. It was grim, goal-oriented, and a little sad. And the hangover was like no other."
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