« My sight-seeing picture of the day | Main | Ooops they did it again »
June 05, 2005
Unicum - a drink for the young and old
Tonight, I was introduced to Unicum. It is one of the cough syrup-like drinks that seems to be favoured in Central Europe. I have had Jagermeister and Unterberg in the past, so I had some idea what to expect. The bottle itself is very cool, styled as some sort of anarchist's bomb (if you like that sort of thing).
Apparently, it received its name when one of the Hungarian kings drank it at the advice of his physician (like all of these particular drinks, it also doubles as medicine for old people) and said that it was "curious" (unicum).
Even so, this one is particularly foul. It is obviously an acquired taste. They say that drinking three is enough to give you a hangover. The only cure is another one (see "hair of the dog"). After one, I had no desire to test the theory further.
Make sure you check out the website I link to above. Here is an example:
Enjoying a juicy orange is sure more pleasurable than just popping a Vitamin C tablet. In Unicum only the finest herbs are used. There is the same variety in quality with herbs and there is with flowers or vegetables or grapes, because herbs, too, are living things and are affected by type of soil and climate, drying methods, storage conditions etc.The herbs used in Unicum are carefully blended to the last gram. This digestive liqueur is not unlike a house of cards, in that if just one card is less than skillfully positioned, the whole pack will come tumbling down.
There are many digestive liqueurs on the market, but none of them rival Unicum in the number or variety of herbs and spices used and few, if any, are both macerated and distilled. Distilling eliminates all the impurities in a liqueur and makes it lighter in body and taste.
Maybe so, but it is the alcohol content that attracts most people.
I have bought four small bottles to bring home - three for the hangover and one to cure it.