Maotai!!!

This is SO my kind of liquor.  It's not smooth.  It's not mellow.  It's not kind. And it's certainly not in the least bit palatable.  It has a "nose" somewhere between turpentine and cat urine and a taste bud and mucous membrane factor close to kerosene.  But my god, this shit will not only knock your socks off it will actually dissolve them!!!  It's China's version of Everclear.  Only better.  Sort of...   This stuff is distilled from fermented sorghum and then flavored with soy sauce.  Yummy!!!  That alone is enough scare Grannie Clampett back to the hills.  Hell, she could have used this stuff to scour the cee-ment pond!!!

I first discovered maotai while in Quilin, China back in 1988 at a small "tourist" restaurant I was having dinner at.  My waiter was so impressed by my having eaten an entire plate of the "Four Divine Goddesses Ascending Into Heaven" without hurling that he suggested I clear my palette with shot or two, or three of the local liquor.  (BTW, the Four Divine Goddesses consisted of snake, cat, field rat, which is less gamey than city rat apparently, and black dog.  EWW!!!)  Of course I naively think, what the hell, why not.  When in Rome, right?  Shortly he brings a fifth of maotai to my table.  Oh, yeah...  I was in serious trouble.  And I knew it.

The Chinese love this stuff.  In large amounts.  If it's a special occasion then rounds of shots get consumed in rapid succession.  Remember back in 1972 when Nixon went to China?   Remember that famous photo of him at a banquet with Mao Zedong?   They had just finished a toast and the look on his and Pat's faces where frightening, even for the Nixon's.  Yeah, they had just knocked back a big shot of maotai.  Dick turned blue and puffed up and Pat's perm went limp.   Ah, such is diplomacy...

Now, the Chinese are crafty with maotai.  When you crack open a bottle it is meant to be consumed.  Completely.  The bottlers have managed to figure out a way to put a cap on the bottle that does not fit back on after you open it AND to make the bottom of the bottle rounded so you can't set it down again to save your life.  Initially I found that sort of annoying but after shot number 5 me and maotai were BFF!!!   Half an hour later I had two other tables drunk on their asses and we were all happily toasting everything we could still manage to focus on.  Lamps, napkins, the dragon mural behind the cash register and even a urinal as I remember.  Then the "singing" started.  My rendition of "Three Little Maids From School Are We" from the Mikado was so well received I was given a somewhat standing ovation by my drunken compatriots.  Though the highlight of the entertainment, I have to say, was when two guys got up, grabbed a less than willing bus-boy and valiantly  tried to make it through "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy" by the Andrews Sisters but kept mixing it up with "Bad Girls" by Donna Summer every so often.  Needless to say, the maotai was flowing like xiangshui.  Around about 1 AM we were all finally forced to vacate the premises.  I can't imagine why.  I happily stumbled out into the parking lot with an order of the "Four Divine Goddesses" to go and two fresh bottles of maotai in my camera case.  I woke up my driver in the back seat and soon found myself snug in my bed back at the Glorious People's Republic Holiday Inn.  All was right with the world...

Well, not quite.  No one had managed to inform me of the "sucker punch-curve ball-blunt force trauma" side effect that maotai is famous for.  About 4 AM I was literally kicked awake by the most obnoxious smell I have ever experienced and my bed looked like someone had dumped a kiddy pool onto it.  Yes, I was experiencing what the locals commonly call the maotai "sweats".  I was l oozing the stuff.  Along with snake, rat, cat and black dog.  HFS!!!  I smelt like a factory farm of dead chickens in Arkansas in August.  Coupled with a small fire just to add the stench of burning feathers to it.  I staggered out onto the balcony, puked down into the swimming pool and then showered for two hours.  None of which, BTW, did any good.  I freaking reeked!!!  I actually stained the towels!!!  It only gets worse...

Later that morning on my way down to the lobby to catch my car everybody got off of the elevator when I got on, guests in the lobby parted like the Red Sea as I approached and my driver kept all of the windows rolled down the entire time he was driving me to Reed Flute Cave.  This was starting to get embarrassing to say the least.  And, yes, I did say Reed Flute CAVE.  Yes, CAVE.  Those of you out there that know me well are very aware of my total, complete and other-worldly  fear of enclosed spaces and of being underground.  Yeah, this was going to be fun.  Reed Flute Cave was one of my bucket list things and come hell or high water I was going to see that thing.  No matter how much my psyche was  shredding my frontal lobes and asking me what the bloody fuck are you thinking dude!?!?!  Me and a cave?  Not a pretty picture.  Me, a cave and the stench of the aftermath of Gettysburg?  Can you say "enclosed space"???  With the gentle prodding of a ten-foot pole I crawled into the cave.  The guide with the pole behind me was gagging.  Oh, hell, I was gagging.  I smelled like road kill.  Last Monday's road kill.

About a half of a kilometer later I finally emerge into the cave.  I'm covered in mud, I look like Swamp-Thing and I smell like the Taliban just took out a sewage treatment plant.  Half of a guided tour of Austrians collapsed, the pond began to congeal, a couple of millennia old stalagmites gave up the ghost  and most of the accent lighting exploded.  Which by the way only served to plunge me into darkness.  Underground.  In a cave.  Bottom line, I started shrieking like a little girl and proceeded to wet myself.  Great, let's just add another unappealing component to my fragrance...  Oh, yeah, I was pretty.

Upon exiting the cave my driver refused to let me get into the car unless I wrapped myself in a large plastic tarp that he had in the trunk.  Again, the trip back to the hotel was with the windows open.  Which thankfully sort of dried me off.  But that only made me look like one of the Mud Men from New Guinea.  As a courtesy I took the stair back up to my room.  My god, I looked like the character Gimme from the "United States of Tara"!!!  I threw my clothes off of the balcony into the pool, hosed down in the shower, grabbed the "Four Divine Goddesses" out of the fridge, sat down on the floor naked, cracked open another bottle of maotai and started to cry.  What can I say, I was in need of some comfort food...