Sweden Drinking and Crayfishes

Something that we definitey did a lot of in Sweden was DRINK. Why is that a special thing for a Trinidadian to mention? Well it was how we drank! 

We had a lot of sampling of various types of alcohol - some brands we knew, but different versions of them, and some were brand new to us. 

The first memorable moment to share with you was when we experienced a very cool bartending trick from our undercover mixologist, Sebastian! He promised that he had something amazing to show us, and he most certainly did not disappoint in the least. We all gathered around the dining table and watched him tediously pour different alcohols one after the other into his special mixing containers. He lined up some shot glasses on a serving tray in one straight line next to each other and then he slowly poured a rainbow of colours - perfectly - without skipping a beat! We were all gradually shouting our various sounds of amazement and by the time he finished we were standing and clapping! His wife to be promptly got up and gave him a huge smack of pride and the grin he had on his face was unforgettable. 

See his amazing Drink Trick in action here!

Sebastian's Rainbow Drink result - and each had a different flavour too!

The next treat our hosts had for us was experiencing the Swedish tradition of having a crayfish party! It is a traditional summertime eating and drinking celebration in the Nordic countries. The tradition originated in Sweden, where a crayfish party is called a kräftskiva. 

For all of us we were a little confused about the whole thing...first of all what exactly are crayfish?! Well boy-oh-boy I found out. They look like baby red lobsters...or giant shrimps...or...just yuck... and to my horror we had to get up close and personal with them...without removing much of what they looked like in the wild.

CRAYFISH! ACK!

In a traditional crayfish party, the alcohol consumption is often high, especially when compared to the amount of food actually eaten. It's also considered customary to suck the juice out of the crayfish before shelling it! Akvavit and other kinds of snaps (little, strong, yucky, flavoured alcohol) was served, as well as beer. We were all given little instructional post-it notes with crazy lyrics written for us to sing to. Our friend wrote what the Swedish words sound like in English and when you read it you might think we were performing some kind of weird evil ritual on someone's dad. 

We had to have sessions of 'eating' the crayfish and then singing the song:

We sang this with such drunken gusto

and then having shots of the snaps! This is what it's kind of supposed to sound like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjhQ91OjvOo

Wine, Snaps and Crayfish

Very cute traditional Swedish table settings

After round after round we were a happy salty, drunk mess of a group and I no longer felt any aversion towards crayfish! Norwegians are some special drinkers for sure :)