It’s been almost a month since we came back from the Caucasian Challenge, and here at Travel Scientists’ HQ in Budapest, we’re already missing the Caucasus. We miss the open, and pothole-filled, roads, the hospitality and the parties.
So what can we do? Instead of going back to the Caucasus we’re going to bring the Caucasus to us by holding a big party in Zebegény in the Hungarian countryside.
While we will never capture the true, authentic vibe of actually being in Georgia or Armenia, since there is no way we can beat the Caucasians at their game, we’re going to do our best to party like a Caucasian.
Potential hurdles
As we mentioned in our last blog post, there are quite a few differences between a Caucasian party and a normal one, but being as authentic as possible comes with some potholes, and not ones in the road this time.
Firstly, being in the EU more than a thousand miles from Georgia and Armenia poses some problems. It’s not like we can just pop into our local chacha factory (translation: a person with a distillery made from used car parts on the side of the road) and come out with recycled Coke bottles full of the stuff and pick up some shashlik to go. Some of the ingredients are hard to come by and recipes are hard to make.
Also not being Caucasian, we’re not going to be so spontaneous and chaotic, but we’re going to try our best to get a supra going!
What we have
Fortunately though, we brought lots of goodies back from the Caucasus, thanks to our scientists, who smuggled beer, wine, brandy, chacha and food all the way from the source.
If the above photo doesn’t have you reaching for the aspirin from just looking at it, then let us explain what we have. We have bottles of Georgian and Armenian wines, brandy from Nagorno-Karabakh, quince wine, and the famous Kilikia, which was the lifeline for participants on the Caucasian Challenge.
What about the plastic bottles? The one which looks like a water bottle, and the green one (which actually once contained the famous Nabeglavi water from Georgia) with a skull and cross-bones drawn onto it? That’s the infamous Georgian chacha. All of us who have been to Georgia shudder when the name comes up. Want to know what chacha tastes like? Come along to our BBQ!
We can’t really do a Caucasian BBQ without some ingredients, and we’ve brought some tid-bits back to taste. We’ve got jonjoli, a unique Georgian appetizer made from pickled bits of Kartvelian bush, it’s more appetizing than it sounds. Tkemali, a unique Georgian sauce made from plum, tomatoes and other fruit. We’ve got smoked cheese, sausages and jerky from Armenia.
What are we going to do?
We’re going to school people in the art of toasting, and in the spirit of the Caucasus we’re going to make obscene amounts of food. We’ll set up a barbecue, grill some meat, drink some wine (mostly Hungarian, we didn’t bring that much Caucasian wine back!), drink beer, soda and have a merry time.
From the last party at Zebegény… we’re not sure what’s going on here!
We’ll light a fire and make a bogrács, a Hungarian meat stew made in a cauldron. However, after our last Travel Scientists party in Zebegény back in the summer, we’re going to keep the salt away from Attila this time, who poured a whole kilo into the stew after a few too many pálinkas!
Like with the Caucasian Challenge, the Travel Scientists are masters of organizing things, especially parties. We’re good at parties.
If you’re in Hungary, then drop by Zebegény tomorrow and pay us a visit!
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