Salamander Brandy: “A Psychedelic Drink” Between
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Volume 21, Number 1 SALAMANDER BRANDY: “A PSYCHEDELIC DRINK” BETWEEN MEDIA MYTH AND PRACTICE OF HOME ALCOHOL DISTILLATION IN SLOVENIA Miha Kozorog, University of Ljubljana © 2003 Miha Kozorog All Rights Reserved The copyright for individual articles in both the print and online version of the Anthropology of East Europe Review is retained by the individual authors. They reserve all rights other than those stated here. Please contact the managing editor for details on contacting these authors. Permission is granted for reproducing these articles for scholarly and classroom use as long as only the cost of reproduction is charged to the students. Commercial reproduction of these articles requires the permission of the authors. In 1995 the Slovenian weekly magazine Mladina and that subject. If the considered topic is food, published a very interesting and prominent clothing, religion, and similar everyday things, article, Salamander Brandy – Hallucinogenic people are usually open and willing to give Drugs Made in Slovenia, according to which information. But when they are asked about their Slovenia is supposed to have its own indigenous sex life, hygienic customs, ways of reducing the hallucinogenic drink (Ogorevc 1995). Before birthrate, in short taboo subjects, they behave reading the article I had not heard about this completely differently. It was just this reaction drug, but afterwards every chat about drugs that followed from our questioning about necessarily touched upon this subject. Salamander brandy and it was soon very clear Salamander brandy was now known by more and that finding it might be very difficult. more young people (or those interested in drugs) If we had chosen a better - some read about it in Mladina, others heard anthropological method, i.e. participant about it here or there, some even tried it. My observation, we might have solved the problem. colleague Boris Prinčič1 and I decided to follow Nonetheless, we chose the method that seemed the phenomenon in the anthropological manner. proper – we travelled through one valley in the We wanted to try the proper Salamander brandy, region known for Salamander brandy, met and made by those who make it traditionally, and as questioned a number of people, made friends students of anthropology at the same time with many, and living at my girlfriend’s house, practice communication with “the Others.” We which is situated in the region, I had a good headed directly towards the region that was, position for deeper observation. according to the Mladina article, the cradle of the beverage. 2 We asked for it once, twice, and so During the fieldwork, Salamander on, but remained empty handed, without “the brandy turned out to be an enigma. Our problem psychedelic drink.” What we heard about it was was that the idea that we had about it from the completely different from what we read. The article in Mladina was something that did not fit purpose of this article is to mirror the two into the indigenous discourse. In this article I discourses on the Salamander brandy: the media would like to solve this contradiction. What I and the indigenous one. By doing so I hope to will write about the brandy will not be introduce a different view of this supposedly necessarily more true that what was written in hallucinogenic drug. Mladina – it is just a different explanation and in my opinion a more likely one.3 What I can offer Working Methods And Dilemmas is a viewing of our enigma from different angles, and so I will try to demystify the phenomenon. My colleague and I had many discussions on anthropological fieldwork, the Salamander Brandy As Presented By The ideal of participant observation, and staying Media4 within the examined community for a longer period of time. However, we handled the The main information about fieldwork in a little bit more of an “old- Salamander brandy that was given by Ogorevc is fashioned,” “Slovenian,” ethnographic manner. the following: “Slovenians have their own This means the ethnographer does not live with indigenous hallucinogenic drug and we have the locals for a long period of time, trying to discovered recipes for its brewing” (Ogorevc observe all the aspects of their lives, but walks 1995). The writer added that we are dealing with from house to house and asks people about this the witchcraft legacy, which makes the Volume21, Number 1 phenomenon part of tradition. Although we can During our fieldwork, nobody mentioned this understand this writing about witches as a method. The third method listed was the literary appendage – as a part of mysticism following: which is, together with specific humor, the …During the distillation of brandy, when author’s way of making the atmosphere of his the brandy is dripping out of the kettle, and article5 – there is no doubt that we are dealing the expert carefully watches the fire, so that with a traditional phenomenon. it doesn’t drip too much and that the brandy Although the author of the first media is not burnt, you hang a salamander, tied by presentation on Salamander brandy is known for its last legs, under a controlled flow of his fictional journalism, he achieved his brandy, and the animal, threatened by the credibility by finding a person who makes this waterfall of brandy, is moving back and brandy. We can somehow talk about exemplary forth, suffering and of course defending research journalism.6 When he managed to itself by excreting its poisons, which are persuade the brandy distiller to sell him some of continuously washed away by brandy and the mysterious Salamander brandy, and wrote taken away into …bottles… (Ogorevc about the psychedelic feelings he experienced 1995: 30) after drinking, all the secrets of the phenomenon This method was not confirmed by any of our were revealed. informants. Even more, he also discovered three Although Ogorevc does not mention the recipes for the production of Salamander brandy. next method, our informants quite often described it. Some of them mentioned that dried The first, the most vulgar and also the least salamanders are used in the process of sophisticated method is, throw a couple of distillation. Salamanders are supposed to be salamanders (one every ten litres) into a killed, dried and, while the fruit is being cooked, barrel with fruit (soaked before distilling), hung on a wire in the part of the cooking seal everything with a wooden cover and equipment where steam accumulates. leave it to the will of the gods for a couple Accumulated steam is supposed to extract the of months. These poor, in specific salamander’s poison from the dried skin. Steam concentration camps captured amphibians, then runs through a distillation tube, liquefies in have nothing else to do in this situation, a chilling vessel, and pours out as Salamander except to creep through the rotting fruit all brandy. day long and in their boredom softly Another thing is the hallucinogenic excrete slime. Finally, their soft bodies are experience of the brandy. The Mladina journalist cut by a shovel with which the peasant is wrote: loading fruit into a kettle… (Ogorevc 1995: 30) And then it…started unnaturally, colorfully glittering around the treetops and trees, During our fieldwork we were told about this which were weirdly, hysterically rushing method several times. Further on, he writes, into the depths of gorges… It was as if I Second, a more precisely controlled were totally unburdened by the biology of method, according to which you soak a extraterrestrial beings from some other sieve, the one which is usually used for planet and watched everything, the grass, seeding flour, in which you throw a few the insects or a grazing cow in the salamanders, let’s say five or six every vicinity…and absolutely everything seemed thirty liters, into already made brandy. The new and strange, and I wished to fuck salamanders, which can’t defend something, anything. And in this almost themselves in any other way except by full absence from this world…I chose the excreting poisonous slime, are, in deadly beech tree. Their trunks…seemed horribly fear of drowning in alcohol, foaming like erotic to me. …After this I finally crashed bulls during bullfighting. When they croak, into the wet leaves and maybe even slept the procedure is finished and the dosage is for a while. But damn, a few salamanders appropriate. (Ogorevc 1995: 30) walked near by. And they said with their mysterious voices: look, look, who’s there, Volume21, Number 1 not a salamander for sure… (Ogorevc for Salamandra salamandra, some species of 1995: 31-2) frogs, octopi, and one type of fish. It affects the Although the narration in this writing is nervous system by blocking Na+ nerve channels humorous and artistically upgraded, we can (Voet 1990:1162-1163). understand that Salamander brandy is a 7 With some reference to Saksida (1997) hallucinogenic drink from the author’s I will try to explain the reaction to tetrodotoxin perception that the edges of things glowed and in a few simple words. If we want to move our his perception of things that are not present at the legs, we have to send signals (electric current) moment of the hallucinogenic experience, as from our central nervous system to a certain well as his sexual stimulation. motoric surface. The journey of this impulse Researchers of hallucinogenic drugs means a repeating chemical reaction, be it in the report exactly the same reactions to transformation of the impulse from one nervous hallucinogenic drugs as mentioned here (e.g. cell to another or in the sliding of the impulse Grlić 1989: 13, 16) and in a personal interview along one nervous cell. This repeating chemical the writer of these words extracted just these reaction consists of breaking of Na+ ions from three themes when commenting upon his the exterior of the nervous cell through the cell fictional narration on the experience.