DRINKING RICE WINE
-or-
It was "Sock-it-to-Me" (Sake) Time
PFC
John Nash was a cannoneer in "B" Battery while I was assigned to the
FDC. That gets old after a while, so John and I ventured out into a
Montagnard village for some after-hours "culture".
I always called him "Nash". But after this visit to the Montagnard village, I was lucky if I could call my OWN name...or even think of it.
We drank some "rice wine"...also known as "sake" (pronounced "socky"). BOY! That stuff hit you like a brick. It’s made in large crock jar with rice at bottom and then packed with leaves and water added. It would set (ferment) for how long, who knows. They didn't get (or need) any advice from the boys in Napa Valley or the Tennessee moonshiners.
You take a long hollow reed (about 2 feet long or maybe longer) and you insert it into the crock jar. A measuring stick was laid over the mouth of the jar with an inch of the stick dipping down into the jar. Custom dictated that you were to suck enough so that the liquid level would drop three times off the stick. Of course, you got high just sucking through the reed. Actually, that works with any fermented drink. If you want to extend your time at the local bar back home, just trying sucking your drink through a straw. The bartender knows right away he won't be getting much of a tip from you.
Then it happens.....the "rice wine" would hit you. It was very much like that short trip from the bar stool to the floor back in the States. I can fully understand why the locals drank it...but that doesn't explain why I did. They didn't have to go to work on Monday.
Nash and I did not walk in straight line going back to our Battery. It's lucky we even found the battery.
I think I still hear some of the guys laughing.
submitted
by Sgt Joe Cook