Beer from Belarus
A few weekends ago my friend shared a beer with us that she had brought back after visiting her family in Belarus. I don’t think I’d ever had Belarusian beer before.
The first thing she pointed out to us was the extremely low carbonation– we poured it out into three glasses to share, and not one glass had any foamy head, just some little bubbles. The other striking thing was that it was very sweet! Certainly sweeter than any Estonian-made beer I’ve ever tried. I’m not sure whether this beer is unique or whether all Belarusian beers are sweeter to suit the tastes of the population (the friend who brought it isn’t a big beer-drinker, so she wasn’t able to offer much insight). We were pretty sure it was a lager, but we didn’t get very far attempting to read the label.
Anyone know Belarusian?
Proud user of insulated travel mugs
I had to buy a new insulated coffee mug last week. I dropped my old one on the floor and the bottom cracked. Now I can pull it off and see the insulating material inside– doesn’t it look freaky?
I bought this mug over a year ago when I started my job in Estonia. To me it felt perfectly naturally to have such a mug, but when I brought it to work, I suddenly felt very American. Everyone else has their coffee and tea in traditional ceramic coffee mugs, and there I was with my sleek black and silver travel mug, which is too tall to fit underneath the coffeemaker we have in the kitchen. I have to make my coffee in another mug, then pour it into mine. My co-workers call it a thermos and ask if I fill it with my coffee supply for the entire day. They seem to think it’s very clever or amusing. I don’t mind. I kinda like it. My silvery coffee vessel can be my quirk, and besides– an insulated travel mug is so practical! It reduces the chances of me spilling a full mug of coffee on my keyboard, and of course the coffee stays warm for much longer (which is good, as I sip my daily coffee slowly). And if it seems very American, so be it– I do still have to represent, after all.
Absolut Ice
During the fresh days of the new year, my sister, J and I took a cruise to Stockholm. This is one of the cool things about living in Tallinn– the relative accessibility of so many other countries, all of which are quite different from Estonia. We can hop on a cruise ship in Tallinn, ride all night, and arrive in the morning in a large, clean, cosmopolitan Scandinavian city. We had a hotel booked for one night so that we’d have more time to enjoy the city, which I last visited when I was 13. (On a completely unrelated note, the first time I ever went to Estonia, my mother and I took a boat from Stockholm to get there, which means my first real-life view of Tallinn’s medieval skyline was from the sea in the early morning light. It was truly breathtaking.)
This was not much of a fooding trip, since we wanted to save money and stick to the cheapest possible food options. We mostly ate kebab from shops on street corners and drank coffee. We did have a lovely buffet breakfast at our hotel, the Scandic Sergel Plaza, which included breads, crackers, so many different kinds of cheese and sliced meats, herring, yogurt with different cereals and toppings, hot breakfast foods… man we ate a lot that morning. No pictures though.
What I actually wanted to write about is drinks. To save money, we naturally bought provisions from the duty-free shop on the ship.
Meet Hartwall Original Gin, the classic Scandinavian beverage (actually, I’m not even sure if that’s true, but J insisted we get the Hartwall brand because it’s the best, or something 
). Gin is a very misleading name (it’s a “gin long drink” to be precise), since it doesn’t taste anything like gin. At all. It tastes like a carbonated grapefruit beverage, pretty sweet but with that slight bitter grapefruity edge at the same time. Not bad to drink every once in a while. (I actually just visited the link myself and read the history of the drink. My description of it as a classic isn’t far off).
One spot in Stockholm we knew we had to visit was the Absolut Icebar. It’s a bar in the Nordic Sea Hotel, open year-round, and almost entirely made of ice. My sister visited it a few years ago and said it was touristy but totally worth it. I’d have to agree. Admission is 180 SEK, about 22 USD, but it also includes one cocktail. They require you to wear these silvery blue ponchos with hoods. “Do we have to?” we asked. “It’s colder outside than it is in there.” (It was nearly -10 C that night). “Yes, because they make you look cool,” the employee said, pulling a poncho over my sister’s head. He was right, the effect of the silvery poncho in the icy room lit with blue lights is pretty striking. And the cocktails are strong, and, of course, cold.
They have special names for all their cocktails, but mine was basically vodka and lingonberry juice (the Scandinavian version of a vodka cranberry ). The vodka may have been flavored; I can’t remember. I must admit I found the giant cube-shaped ice glass a bit hard to grip with the gloves they gave us, but I managed to hang onto it. Drinking from ice was definitely pretty awesome.
It was a fun experience and we got a lot of great pictures. Not nearly as hard-core as going to one of those hotels made entirely of ice, but it gives you an idea of what it might be like, plus you get a tasty drink out of the deal. See J? Maybe Sweden isn’t so bad after all. 
Glögg
Ah, glögg. As fun to say as it is to drink. It goes by many names—if you want to avoid scary umlauts, you can just call it mulled wine. The Germans call it glühwein, the Finnish glögi, and the Estonians hõõgvein. The word glögg is Swedish, a language that we generally avoid around here, but it’s easier for me to say than the Estonian name (any non-native Estonian speakers understand the difficulties caused by the letter õ). The basic formula is red wine heated (but never to boiling!) with sugar, cloves, cinnamon sticks, citrus peel, and other seasonings. It’s served hot, and one has the option of putting raisins and almond slices in their cup (they soak up the wine and become sooo delicious… I am definitely a fan of this option). There are a million variations in terms of what wine to use and what spices or booze to add. Bottled alcoholic versions or non-alcoholic mixes are available in Estonia.
Christmas Eve glögg on the stovetop
When the weather starts getting cold and dark here in Estonia, one thing that keeps my spirits up is the prospect that it will soon be glögg season. It’s served in just about every café and restaurant here, which is another thing I missed when back in the States. The spices and red wine smell like warmth and Christmas, the glass warms your hands, and the red wine makes you pleasantly relaxed.
My mother used to make glögg on Christmas Eve, while we waited for our holiday dinner to be ready. As a child, I seem to remember finding the alcohol fumes wafting up repulsive. Luckily for me, my mother made a non-alcoholic version from cranberry juice, which I loved. I can’t remember exactly when I transitioned over to the grown-up stuff. If somebody were to offer me a glass of the juice version now, I probably wouldn’t turn it down. But for really coping with the profound cold and darkness of an Estonian winter, the real stuff is in order.
Snowy days mean lots of tea
It snowed this week! The first snowfall of the season. At first it was fleeting, though– there was a dusting on Wednesday morning and a heavier cover on Thursday morning, but all of that had melted by Thursday evening. Then it snowed on and off all day Friday! And when there’s snow, there is tea.
I wasn’t much of a tea drinker before I lived in Estonia. I only drank it when I was sick or occasionally in Chinese restaurants, but I wasn’t a huge fan. But the dark, cold days of the Estonian winter made me crave something warm to drink to help get rid of the chill. Hot chocolate is too rich to drink several times a day, and I’m sensitive to caffeine so one cup of coffee per day is pretty much my limit. So I turned to tea. I drank it because it seemed like a good idea, and it grew on me. Now I enjoy it, and I’m not just drinking it out of apparent necessity. Fruit teas are my favorite, but I also drink green, black, chai, etc.
And a few days ago I tried the chocolate chip tea that Stephanie sent to me in my Blogging by Mail package for the first time. Look at this stuff– do you see the tiny chocolate chips??
It certainly smelled like chocolate, and the taste was interesting– the strength and bitterness of black tea with the flavor of chocolate but none of the richness. It’s a bit disorienting. The chocolate flavor is reminiscent of chocolate syrup. Milk seemed like a natural accompaniment to give it a bit of creaminess; I also added a little sugar. I’m happy to have this to add some variety to my tea selection this winter.
