You spin me right round, baby! Right round like a record, baby! Right round, round, round! That was my head after waking up from a white lightening bender in Scotland. Every country has its cheap and potent liquor. You know the stuff you use to drink when you were 16 and you wanted to get drunk fast and DIRTY! For most people by 17 they’ve moved on to better grog! However, the backpacker, like a trained basset hound, always sniffs out cheap booze and squeezes that musty old lemon for every drop of alcohol induced insanity it can give!
In Canada malt liquor is the hobo, young persons, and backpackers drink of choice: Colt 45, Big Bear and Olde English are some of the classics. It’s kind of like beer, but with a nasty, petulant after taste and twice the alcohol percentage. Back when I was 16 at a High School bush party (and yes – my high school did have parties out in the bush...) I remember hitting the Big Bears hard one night. The results were a disaster. I tried to talk to a girl I had a crush on, very ineffectively I might add..., just before tripping over a log and ending up on my back for 10 minutes by the fire. That’s when thankfully my self-preservation instinct kicked in as I managed to pull myself up. A moment longer and I’d have been that passed out guy who has beer poured on him. (Or worse) It was then I hatched a Big Bear induced plan; I’ll use my last strength to stagger inside the bushes so I can hide out till I sober up a bit. Of course, I ended up passing out in the woods. I awoke to the early morning sun and an empty field. This was pre cell phones so I had to walk about 10 kilometres to the nearest town with a brutish hang over. Cheers Big Bear!
In Australia a particularly cheap 3 litre, get the 4th litre free, cask of wine was what backpackers clamoured too. Even the Aussie’s themselves had a name for this stuff – “goon.” Really the name said it all. You drink too much and you would become a drunken goon. At the various travel houses, hostels and camp grounds down under goon flowed like water. The routine results were black outs, misunderstandings, Irish/English groups getting even more obnoxiously loud, and a painful hangover that could only be slightly appeased by getting an Australian meat pie the next day. This stuff actually said that it may contain fish extracts in the ingredients!
No list of noxious alcohols could be complete without the UK addition: White Lightening Cider. White Lightening is supposed to mimic the taste of apple cider. Though, I remember one Scottish bar men mentioning: “aiiii mate, no apples have ever come close to White Lightening.” Nights on this stuff careened out of control. Groups of well adjusted people could be expected to transform into degenerates howling at the moon within hours. As a cultural experiment, if you wanted to see some unlikely hook ups make several litres of this CHAV love potion available. Naturally, Backpackers took to it like moths to a flame.
I can remember one fine Saturday afternoon in Edinburgh. The looks of boredom on my fellow backpacker’s faces screamed out – afternoon White Lightening Party! So an Australian friend and I headed down to the bottle shop to get some. Upon arriving I said: “Hey mate you got any White Lightening around? We need a whole whack of it.” He answered – “yeah I do, but I keep it in the back.” He returned with 12 – 3 litre bottles. (The beauty of buying this stuff was that as a reward for buying 2 litres, the third was free!) He smiled at us wearily. “You know – there’s only two types that buy this stuff: backpackers and homeless people! “ Little did he know that only two hours later – a hostel would be coming off its moorings – with people drinking out of pots and pans, afternoon vomit in the toilets, and that stuck up American girl making out with the Australian guy who never wore deodorant! Some people call White Lightening a scourge on society – I call it a welcome reprieve.
In Canada malt liquor is the hobo, young persons, and backpackers drink of choice: Colt 45, Big Bear and Olde English are some of the classics. It’s kind of like beer, but with a nasty, petulant after taste and twice the alcohol percentage. Back when I was 16 at a High School bush party (and yes – my high school did have parties out in the bush...) I remember hitting the Big Bears hard one night. The results were a disaster. I tried to talk to a girl I had a crush on, very ineffectively I might add..., just before tripping over a log and ending up on my back for 10 minutes by the fire. That’s when thankfully my self-preservation instinct kicked in as I managed to pull myself up. A moment longer and I’d have been that passed out guy who has beer poured on him. (Or worse) It was then I hatched a Big Bear induced plan; I’ll use my last strength to stagger inside the bushes so I can hide out till I sober up a bit. Of course, I ended up passing out in the woods. I awoke to the early morning sun and an empty field. This was pre cell phones so I had to walk about 10 kilometres to the nearest town with a brutish hang over. Cheers Big Bear!
In Australia a particularly cheap 3 litre, get the 4th litre free, cask of wine was what backpackers clamoured too. Even the Aussie’s themselves had a name for this stuff – “goon.” Really the name said it all. You drink too much and you would become a drunken goon. At the various travel houses, hostels and camp grounds down under goon flowed like water. The routine results were black outs, misunderstandings, Irish/English groups getting even more obnoxiously loud, and a painful hangover that could only be slightly appeased by getting an Australian meat pie the next day. This stuff actually said that it may contain fish extracts in the ingredients!
No list of noxious alcohols could be complete without the UK addition: White Lightening Cider. White Lightening is supposed to mimic the taste of apple cider. Though, I remember one Scottish bar men mentioning: “aiiii mate, no apples have ever come close to White Lightening.” Nights on this stuff careened out of control. Groups of well adjusted people could be expected to transform into degenerates howling at the moon within hours. As a cultural experiment, if you wanted to see some unlikely hook ups make several litres of this CHAV love potion available. Naturally, Backpackers took to it like moths to a flame.
I can remember one fine Saturday afternoon in Edinburgh. The looks of boredom on my fellow backpacker’s faces screamed out – afternoon White Lightening Party! So an Australian friend and I headed down to the bottle shop to get some. Upon arriving I said: “Hey mate you got any White Lightening around? We need a whole whack of it.” He answered – “yeah I do, but I keep it in the back.” He returned with 12 – 3 litre bottles. (The beauty of buying this stuff was that as a reward for buying 2 litres, the third was free!) He smiled at us wearily. “You know – there’s only two types that buy this stuff: backpackers and homeless people! “ Little did he know that only two hours later – a hostel would be coming off its moorings – with people drinking out of pots and pans, afternoon vomit in the toilets, and that stuck up American girl making out with the Australian guy who never wore deodorant! Some people call White Lightening a scourge on society – I call it a welcome reprieve.
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