Under the category, you learn something new every day, my Russian colleague Gregory gave me a number of drinking tips last night, none of which I’ve heard of before.
Of course, the main advice was on how to drink vodka the Russian way – as well as not to get too smashed when drinking with experienced Eastern Europeans.
1. Make a toast, or after someone else has made a toast, clink your glasses with everyone.
2. Sniff a piece of pumpernickel bread.
3. Exhale quickly and completely
4. Down the shot all at once (I was mostly doing half-shots… I know. Wimp)
5. Without inhaling, put some food in your mouth – a half a cherry tomato, a pickle, etc.
6. Eventually. Inhale.
This reminded me of advice I’ve heard from smoking marijuana where you are supposed to hold in your puff as long as you can before blowing out. Which I heard from elsewhere was a myth.
The instructions above seemed pretty effective though – considering that 2 bottles of vodka were shared betwen 4 of us… (with others participating in the toasts but not the vodka) – and that I barely felt drunk (pat on the back for me).
Other advice:
- If no food is available, then sniff your shirt sleeve instead of the bread.
- Don’t mix drinking different types of vodka (=hangover)
- Always eat something with a shot (which is modified advice from what I’ve always heard: don’t drink on an empty stomach)
- Start from the lightest alcohol during an evening and end with the heaviest. Beer-Wine-Vodka is fine. Vodka followed by Beer is apparently disastrous.
- Cheers. На здоровье!