Lizard Tequila

I'm not sure where this drink came from. It's been sitting in various houses of friends for at least 5 years, not decreasing in volume very fast. I'm not sure anyone has tried it sober, tequila itself is not a drink you usually start a night with.



Perhaps they should put lizards in all tequila. This bottle has survived 100s of very messy parties. The sort of parties that a bottle of tequila must view as easy pickings for it's corrupting ways, like a sexy girl preying mantis showing leg to a room full of young, innocent boy preying mantes. Yet there it is, still plenty left.



OK, I have to admit, a large part of this is due to it not being very tasty, a fact quite disappointing to those brave enough to try it. This is probably more to do with it just being rubbish tequila than the bitter taste of the lizard's sacrifice.

As for the chunkometer ratings, I'm quite new to this (long time listener, first time caller), and I'd hate to be controversial on my first attempt. But I believe that corpses and alcohol are both firsts for Drinks With Chunks. Here's my attempt*:

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* Chunkage marked down for inedibility and chewiness has been untested.

How to...

Popcorn has found an 'instructable' on How To Make Chinese/Japanese Bubble Tea. I've been meaning to look for something like this for a while now. Expect our own home grown version soon!

Also, thanks to Grom for pointing out the eel drink. I'm on the look out for that.

Hangover Cure Special

Occasional chunk contributor Popcorn and I were out on a mutual friend's stag do recently. Come the morning, and looking slightly worse for wear, we thought it would be the ideal opportunity to test drinks with chunks as hangover cures. We survey the selection and take our choices.



I go for Postre Del Sago Del Coco, which is a kind of palm starch with coconut, hoping for something soothing and milky to settle the stomach. Popcorn opts for, um, I've forgotten what it was. It looked like it had whole grapes in it.



It's easily extracted. Although mine proves more problematic.



A chop stick is employed for poking purposes.



And vigorous shaking creates chunk based carnage over my desk.



Chunk comparison.



Cheers!



Right, time to see how this sits on top of last nights excesses. Brace yourself.



Hmm, not an instant hit.



But it does have something...



...but Popcorn isn't quite sure what. My turn.



Down the hatch.



Ahhh. Exactly what I was after. Like a pulpy soya milk.



Breakfast in a can. Lovely. Popcorn decides to try the palm drink but that doesn't go down too well either. I will give him the benefit of the doubt that these responses to the two drinks were down to ill health rather than there being anything wrong with the drinks.



I try the other grape like one and find it too sickly and syrupy for my liking. Popcorn does finish it off and we both decide we made the better choice. Personally, I'd say that the palm starch drink was a suitable hangover cure (Popcorn would beg to differ) but I think we'd both agree that the grape like one wasn't the best option under the circumstances.

Postre Del Sago Del Coco

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Unidentified grape like drink

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Chaokon Brand Young Coconut Juice with Jelly

An interesting variation on a classic theme here.



You'll know by now that I'm a sucker for chunky coconut drinks, but this one has a twist. Instead of all of that lovely chewy chunkage it is filled with jelly.



So much jelly in fact that I thought it would make an interesting video watching it settle.



Except that it didn't do anything. It would have been the most boring video ever. The sort of video that was so boring it would prompt you to google for the word 'boring' just to see if there was anything else that could potentially be more boring. But you wouldn't find anything else. The top 10 hits would all be that video.



Seemingly hours later it still looked like this. By seemingly I probably really mean a couple of minutes, but it feels like hours, honestly. I was getting too impatient to try the drink anyway. Which went down a treat on a hot Saturday afternoon in mid-summer. Just what I needed. Apart from the foreign body I had to fish out.



The young coconut has a fruitier, more floral, flavour than it's fully grown counterpart. It's just as soothing, although the texture is quite different. Chewing is optional rather than mandatory, when you do chew you find quite a light rubbery texture to the fruit that squelches around the palette in a pleasing manner, yet the inexperienced chunk drinker could opt out of that entirely and swallow without fear of choking. It's a rare high chew high chunk score without any danger of choking. Ideal for beginners.



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Art with Chunks

When I started this blog I never imagined it would be crossing into the world of modern art. And likewise, the staff at the Arnolfini never saw me coming. Today, a clashing of cultures was staged; the Far West Cross-Artform Project meets Drinks with Chunks. What better way to introduce our respective audiences to each other?



My intention with this website is to bring the glories of chunk drinking, an unfairly Eastern dominated nourishment source, to a larger audience in the West. This may be slightly tongue in cheek but it is written as a genuine chunk lover, not in the "hey look, aren't foreigners all weird and whacky and different to us" style of my rivals at Crazy Asian Drinks, for example.

Far West explores "the new consumer and cultural relationships that are emerging as the economic centre of the world shifts towards the East."

Pretty much the same mission then.



My thanks go to Viv and Rob at the Arnolfini for seeing and understanding this link and allowing me to document bridge building in action. Also, thanks to my able assistant Jules, for ploughing on with fruit construction whilst I filled out the Copyright Agreement Form.



The Far West exhibition (28 June – 31 August) brings with it S.O.I. Project's Fruit. A market stall filled with folded and glued paper fruit, stuck together by the visitors (and the exhibition staff who beaver away so furiously they don't have space to wrap the artworks visitors buy). In return for their effort in assembling these fiddly cardboard artworks the visitor is rewarded with something far greater than the knowledge of having contributed to an artwork. Merely being able to stand back and say "I did that, that is my work," is simply not enough. No, in the mind of the S.O.I. Project that is not reward enough. They have demonstrated how grateful they are for the public's assistance in the most wonderful way imaginable. They allow you to swap your completed fruit for a chunky Magnosteen Juice Drink!



Now if that's not going to get more people out of their houses, away from the next generation of mindless interactive TV talent show or social-network of people they have never really met, and into an art gallery where artists make statements about the increasingly confusing world around us using increasingly abstract forms, then I don't know what is.



The photographs presented here show the fruit construction process, from flat pack to shelf, and the drink for which the finished product was exchanged.



So to the important bit. "..the parallel debates in both art and commerce around participation, individualism, authorship, labour, and productivity. Is this open participation a form of consumer emancipation? Or, is it the next stage in corporate appropriation?"

No, not that important bit, the other one. What was the drink like.



T.A.S. Brand Mangosteen Juice Drink

The Mangosteen Juice Drink couples a flavour not unlike a mellow pear juice with the fibrous texture of pineapple juice. It was disappointingly chunkless but refreshing and tasty. A note to the artist: More chunks please!



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Mong Lee Shang Taro Black Glutinous Rice Coconut Milk Drink

They're back and they're on form!



Mong Lee Shang Taro Black Glutinous Rice Coconut Milk Drink fits all of the classic ingredients of a perfect drink with chunks, but doesn't fall into the trap of relying too heavily on the coconut.



Instead, it's chunks it up with glutinous black rice, giving it a colour a texture more reminiscent of red kidney beans but still with that wonderful coconut flavour.



And the chunks are so good they have to give you a spoon with it. Which can stand up in it!



A must try. Even the cat loved it.



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Update

It's been a long time since I updated this. You'll be pleased to know I have still been taking pictures of good old chunky drinks. These are collecting in the Flickr pool.

However, there have been another couple of chunkless disappointments that disheartened me. I would warn hardened chunk seekers to stay away from Chrysanthemum Tea.

Chrysanthemum Tea



This will let you down in either its chilled soft drink form or its hot tea form. I was hoping for hunks of petals, maybe even the odd stalk, but only got over sweetened syrup. Still, at least it's good for varicose veins and comes with suitable medical dosage advice.



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Yeo's Sugar Cane Drink

The same goes for this, although it is worth pausing to admire the colour briefly.



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Haitai CocoPalm

Basically the same as all the other coconut drinks reviewed previously. Nothing new to report here.



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Irish Moss Peanut Drink



This was my first failure as a chunk drinker. Again, purchased in the mistaken belief it would contain the much sought after potential choking hazard of good sturdy peanut chunks. Alas, it was ground into a thick paste suitable only for sticking coloured cardboard shapes to the walls of primary school classrooms.



The paste itself was perhaps thick enough to cause choking, it was difficult to swallow, and had a slight nutty flavour.



However, it was sweet to the point of sickness and I abandoned it after only half a glass. It was even too thick to pour down my drain.



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Zero Degrees



It's not all bad news however. There have been some impressive finds too. For starters, this leftfield effort by Zero Degrees bar in Bristol to add some orange wedges to their home brew Belgian style orange beer.



There's nothing special about citrus slices in alcoholic drinks par se, but I like where they are going with this, it has potential. Barley in the brew, wheat in the wheat beer, apple chunks and a bit of straw in the cider, rats tails hanging out of the scrumpy. You see where I'm going. Come one Zero Degrees, are you listening?

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Mongilee Shang Basil Seed Drink



It looks like frog spawn...



It crunches like raspberry pips...



And it tastes like, um, the pastel pink love juice of a My Little Pony (I'm guessing).



It even leaves grit in the bottom of the glass. Perfect.



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