Getreide-Kummel Caraway Liqueur from Cleveland, Ohio

I saw this unfamiliar bottle at the liquor store and bought it just for the thrill. The truth is, there were a dozen or so unfamiliar bottles there, and this was the cheapest. Cheap thrills, that's me.

It was on the same shelf as Fernet Branca, which tastes like ass. I can happily advise you that Getreide Kummel improves upon the taste of ass by a fair margin. It is a 70 proof caraway liqueur.

Opening the bottle without reading the label or looking it up on the web, I sniffed it and thought immediately of bratwurst. ('Wait, what?') I laughed it off with a faint shudder of disbelief and poured a glass. I sniffed again. This time, not bratwurst, but rye bread. Actually, it transported me to a meal Alice makes, where a pork roast is slow cooked in a mixture of rinsed sauerkraut and barley. And caraway. And served with rye bread. Ah ... OK.

A sweet alcohol that tastes like a youth hostel is kind of like a hot girl who communicates only in Fortran. What do you do with it? But after a while, you just do what comes naturally.