Living in Germany requires moxie. I've written about exercising with Germans, and now I can write conclusively about drinking with Germans. Both involve elevated levels of stamina.
Neustadt an der Weinstraße, my current home, a beautiful city, and vineyards everywhere
Where I reside is in the heart of wine country, on a main leg of the German Wine Road -- die deutsche Weinstraße -- which winds through villages and cities. There are vineyards right in my backyard, and every direction I walk in a 5-km radius supplies me with gorgeous, unending rolling hills that wind out into the horizon, filled with row after row of grape vines.
Because my neighbors, colleagues and friends who have lived here longer are all quite wine-savvy (a bunch of very sophisticated and accomplished winos), I am discovering there is a wine-drinking party, festival or event (Weinfest ) almost every weekend in the spring. Fall also seems to be a good time for wine fests, like those in Neustadt an der Weinstraße where I live and in Bad Dürkheim, the latter home to one of two of the world's largest wine barrels, made approximately 70 years ago out of 200 pine trees. And summer, you ask? It's a wine-drinking season naturally, because one can sit outside on a patio or in a town square, enjoying a glass or several of local wine. We can't leave out winter, because in Germany the people drink Glühwein.
Photo credit: http://rhein-neckar-wiki.de
This nation, as most people know, is also famous for brewing beer and drinking beer. There are excellent local beers in every Gasthaus and restaurant you may encounter. Heck, we can't forgetOktoberfest, the biggest party in the world! There you can drink beer until you fall over.
Add to beer and wine a long list of schnapps, liqueurs, brandies, and local favorites, such as Korn in the north and Wacholder up there in Nordrhein-Westfalen where my cousins live. Farms and fruit growers distill their own Kirschwasser (cherry liqueur), Williams pear brandy and Himbeergeist, a raspberry schnapps, among many, many others.
Germans can drink, and they hold their liquor well. How can a person possibly keep up?
Don't misunderstand. I have spent many hours working and drinking in saloons in the Wild West. I could drink whiskey along with the most rugged of horsemen and vodka with highly-trained upper middle class housewives and waitresses. But now that I'm in Germany, I don't enjoy these drinks as much as I used to. Sometimes I miss them, but I don't miss the pain they inflict the following day. A tangy margarita is one of my cravings just as often a I crave a taco, but those desires are diminishing. In two beautiful bottles sitting on my kitchen shelf, I have the mix for delicious White Russians, but I never make myself one, either because I'm alone and shouldn't, or the setting isn't quite right. Does one require a stool, an antique bar, and a room full of yanks to enjoy a frothy drink? I think so, because whiskey-colas just don't fit in in wine country.
I also cannot drink marathon-style like the Germans. They can sit and drink and talk and drink and sit and talk for hour after hour, ordering glass after glass of beer or wine. They can make intelligent conversation at midnight, even if they began drinking at 14:30. Me, I am slurring my words, my head hurts, and I want to go plop into bed and wake up when it's all over. And that begins around 8 p.m. It doesn't matter where we are, I poop out early.
What is the secret? How do the Germans drink so successfully? And why can't I join them in that achievement?
First of all, some pace their drinking, though I've observed several men in my new German family drink a beer every 15 minutes, hour after hour. These guys also avoid hitting the hard stuff unless it's a special occasion. And they hardly ever drink and drive. If they do, they will usually stop after one, because they know they're driving later. Smart.
All of these tactics seem wiser and much healthier to me, but they don't completely explain why Germans can drink for 12 to 24 hours without stopping and without throwing up. There also aren't as many shenanigans among drunk people in Germany somehow. Oh, they can be loud, but they don't get into fights, and they don't knock down furniture or break things, in my experience.
How do they do it? My theory is that they burn up so much energy conversing about important German matters that all of the alcohol works itself around in their bloodstreams and is evaporated out through their stern, no-nonsense forehead, where they have wrinkles from concentrating so hard. These are called Stirnfalten,* and every pure German must have them. You see, the alcoholic buzz decreases with each sentence spoken, because they're solving world problems. Germans are very serious people, you know.
But really, how did Germans get to be such professional imbibers, besides being the most efficient people on the planet?
Heinie explains that his people's endurance for drinking alcohol stemmed from their ancestors, die Germanen. Those guys swilled until they dropped, or until they went into battle. It's still in the blood, he says.
And the ability to function while intoxicated is real. Yesterday, we met a young German man named Maximilian at the Weinfest who finished glass after glass of Weinschorle throughout the afternoon -- about 8 or 9 in a 3-hour period. Then he went home to get ready to go to work in an hour. Did he have to drive? I didn't ask. He was tanked, but he was lucid. His girlfriend escorted him out, but he seemed mostly unphased by the alcohol, maintaining his pleasantness until she led him away.
I drank 8 -- or maybe 10 (coulda been 12 or 15, because after 5 the count was lost) Weinschorles in a 9-hour period, and I was crocked. No, I didn't get to converse in much intelligent or serious conversation, because I never would when I'm supposed to be having fun. What I did get was a bad headache, a long-lasting case of the hiccups, and a few embarrassing moments, or so I'm told.
It's time to work on my drinking endurance. Good thing it's one of the wine-drinking seasons.
To quote my friend Yvonne, the finest German wine drinker I know: "We have Winefests on every single weekend from March-October. Then we are preparing for the Christmas Markets from November-January. And in February we rest."
German wine: it's what's for breakfast, in any season.
.*It's also my theory that the word "stern," meaning serious, comes from the Germans who furrow their brows in deep thought.
Wörterbuch / Dictionary
die deutsche Weinstraße - German wine street or road. It stretches for 85 kilometers from Bockenheim near Worms to the French border at Schweigen-Rechtenbach.
(der) Fest - festival
(die) Germanen - early German peoples who inhabited much of the European continent. First signs of their existence appeared without doubt close to 80 b.c.
(der) Glühwein - mulled wine
(der) Himbeergeist - raspberry schnapps produced in Germany and part of France; "Geist" means literally "spirit."
(das) Kirschwasser - cherry liqueur or brandy
(die) Stirn - the forehead
(der) Weinschorle - a pint-sized glass filled mostly with wine, and sparkling water added (a 4 to 1 ratio of wine to water); a wine spritzer
