Vietnamese Snake Wine

If you?re looking for authentic Vietnamese snake wine there is no more obvious and better place to find it than Snake Village in Hanoi. Watching the drink being made is not for the faint hearted but if you?ve got as far as here then your curiosity will see you through.

In the restaurants and bars of Snake Village various lethal snakes are kept on show in cages for the customers to choose from. Once picked it usually takes two men to kill the angry reptile, one to hold it upright and the other to slice it open from head to tail. The blood is then poured into a vat to be mixed with rice wine. Not much goes to waste as the heart is cut out and the gall bladder is emptied and mixed with wine in shot glasses. After the drinking is done the snake is fried and served up over several hours.

If you don?t want to see all of this there is the option of a ?here?s one I made earlier? drink. Other forms of the wine are left to ferment in vats for a few weeks after it?s been poured over the body of a dead snake. You can see these vats in some of the bars; big glass jars, some containing up to ten snakes coiled around in the bottom.

Problems have arisen due to the popularity of the drink with the Vietnamese. As the main culler of rats, snakes are now highly regarded. Hanoi has seen an endemic rise in the number of rats roaming the streets without their main predator there to bother them. As a result the government stopped the sale of snakes and cats to China and put a trade ban on many restaurants that serve the wine.

http://www.pilotguides.com/destination_gui.../snake_wine.php

I for the life of me can't see why anyone would want to drink that foul tasting stuff... I had Chinese snake wine... and it took a full week to get that taste out of my mouth!

P.S. don't spit , throw, or drink it near open fire. it goes up like gasoline... humm maybe we have found an alternative fuel source LOL!

The Vietnamese do seem to have unique adult beverages. When I was at DaNang in the mid-60's, I drank more than my share of Biere Larue and Ba Muoi Ba (Biere 33), generally served warm (and, if you were fortunate) with a glass of ice. Both beers were brewed with formaldehyde, giving them a taste that took more than a little while to get used to.

...mmmmmmm.... formaldehyde

They better stop the sale of cats and snakes to china. Cats aren't to be eaten anyway.
Add on to that, why would anyone want to drink a wine with snake especially if it is supposed to taste bad.

Watch out celtic cat!

Vietnamese Snake Wine Disgusting!

maggiemahone1

Now I know why I like "western cuisine".

I'm fer stayn with my possum stew and white lightnin!

Does this mean that nobody wants to have a shot of Habu Saki with me? Watch out for the brews with formaldehyde! I had drank Red Horse in the philippines and enjoyed it, however, when exported it is mixed with formaldehyde as a preservative. I almost embalmed myself with an old friend on BC street one night.

Wait a minute. Isn't a Habu a poisonous Okinawan snake?
I think I am getting sick...

Habu is also what the Okinawans called the SR-71. The term was also applied to those who flew the Habu on operational sorties. During my Combat Apple days flying as a rear-ender on RC-135M's out of Kadena, I got to monitor the North Vietnamese attempts to track the Habu.

Umm . . . last time I was in SEA (it's been a while), BC Street was in Koza City, right out of Gate 2, Kadena AB, and the location of many of the real post-mission de-briefings. I used to go flying out of Gate 2 in my '67 Honda 2-seater sports car with the 600cc engine, and chain-drive, until the Wing commander decided I was a bit too much over the top, and . . .
I also managed to spend some time in Angeles City, PI, during typhoon evacs, drinking far too much San Magoo . . .
Back on BC Street, it was Saki chased with Kirin . . . those were the days.
So here's to a shot of Habu Saki for the good old days.

Yes the habu is a poisonous snake in Okinawa. The good habu saki will have a rather large habu sitting in the bottom of the bottle. You can get "Snake Bit" at the Staff Club on MCAS Yuma; a rattle snake in the bottom in a jar of spirits.
I guess you wouldn't want to nosh on some balut either. I used to sit in the Brown Fox drinking San Magoo just waiting for that guy to come by with his basket honking his horn. Oh yeah, balut, massarap!

Most "numbah one GI" had to have consumed enough San Magoo to be just short of passing out before trying a balut (aka egg with feet, or aborted duck fetus), although some did manage to develope a taste for it.
Just thinking about it is enough to make me want to toss back a few drams of saki.

Well, for old time's sake, y'all might wanna check this out

San Miguel The Official Beer of the Provisional People's Democratic Republic of Diego Garcia!

Be sure and scroll down to the translations section. (NOTE: For any of you folks easily offended by strong suggestive language, just ignore this post.)