Sunday, August 15, 2010

Funny or Not?

A few weeks ago I bought the new book by Hugleikur Dagsson, a comic artist from Iceland who makes comics with extremely dark humor. Almost always the jokes test the limits of good taste. You check out what I am talking about at dagsson.com. The jokes on the front page are of the not-so-offending-kind, but you will get the idea. The book I bought is called in Icelandic "Okkur 4". In Finnish the book is called, freely translate to English, "Laugh Pervert, Laugh".

Now to the content of the book. I thought that nothing would shake me and I would think most of the jokes would be hilarious. But I was wrong. Of course one thing that the author wants to do is to test the limits of your humour, I do understand that much. Still some of the jokes were just too brutal and there was no joke or twist in them. And there are quite a few of those in the book.

Second thing is that it seem that this kind of humour works only in small servings at a time. Reading the whole book at once is just too much. My favourite joke in the book is the one were wife farts and the husband says "our marriage is over". =)

After reading this book I felt immensely disgusted and amused at the same time. Which I think is what the author is aiming for. If you want to laugh and wonder who writes this kind of immoral shit I recommend that you read Okkur 4.

Do you have Bols?

I was in Amsterdam in June on a work trip and I bought a bottle of Corenwyn from Schiphol on my way back. I finally managed to crack open the bottle tonight and here are my thoughts about the this Dutch spirit.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about jenevers in general:

Jenever (also known as junever, genievre, genever, jeniever, peket or in the English-speaking world as Holland gin or Dutch gin), is the juniper-flavored and strongly alcoholic traditional liquor of the Netherlands, from which gin evolved. Believed to have been invented by a Dutch chemist and alchemist named Sylvius de Bouve,it was first sold as a medicine in the late 16th century. In the 17th century it became more popular for its flavor. Traditional jenever is still very popular in the Netherlands and Belgium. European Union regulations specify that only liquor made in these two countries, two French provinces and two German federal states can use the name jenever. Source: Wikipedia: Jenever.
Okay, now that we have our facts it is time to go to how this fire brew tastes like. At first the smell of juniper is quite pleasant. *EDIT* There is also hint of yeast in smell. However after the first sip you realize that the taste of  Corenwyn is quite strong and you can really taste the juniper. The after taste leaves a nutty taste in your mouth. For a spirit the taste is very agreeable and nice. I really like this stuff. This time I drank Corenwyn raw, but some time I must try mixing it with tonic water. Plus the bottle made from clay looks really cool.