bavaria, kazouza

Living in a neighborhood that is predominantly Muslim, I run into a nice variety of non-alcoholic beverages from the Middle East (see Laziza, etc). A recently discovered malt is Bavaria, found at a new restaurant around the corner from me. At first, we mistook Bavaria for an actual beer, but upon realizing the error of our ways, we found one that was apple flavored (always a good choice for these malt beverages -- stay away from the Malta Goya!) and went on our merry way.

An interesting side note: there seem to be two schools of malt beverages that I've come across: those like Malta Goya that are dark and molasses-y in flavor/color, and those like Bavaria -- lighter, fruity beverages. Both claim to be malts but one tastes like sipping liquid mashed-up cracker mixed with dirt, and one tastes like nonalcoholic wine coolers. It will be one of my projects to figure out who on earth drinks the first kind.

Another newly discovered carbonated fruit drink is Kazouza, which has nine flavors to choose from (well, only two in my case). I tried the strawberry melon, which tasted like a strawberry kiwi drink. It was incredibly sweet, and came in a lovely bottle. Thumbs up!

Kazouza's bottle cap is fun - it has some bubbles on it, and also the numbers 1941 which is explained nicely here.  It's a Lebanese-based drink, adding to the many countries that I've found in just a few square blocks.  I guess when you can't drink beer or wine, you have to come up with some other interesting beverages to keep you occupied. I'm glad that I have the ability and proximity to all of these cool stores to try them all.

international

One of the nice things about living in NYC is that there is a plethora of international options when it comes to both beer and soda.  My neighborhood in particular is multi-national.  There is a strong showing of Egyptian, Greek, Brazilian, Italian and others. I have also been lucky enough to travel to places like France, Greece, Chile, Barbados and Argentina, among other places.

Some of the bottle caps from my travels (and my neighborhood) can be found below! 

The bottle cap with the "B" is from Barbados, a beer called Banks.   I'm actually not sure where the "5" bottle cap is from.  I think it is from Barbados as well, but any guidance would be much appreciated! It was procured so long ago, and I wasn't keeping notes back then.

These next four caps were all from my recent trip to South America.  Kem, Lemon Stones and Vital are a soda, beer and water (respectively) from Chile.  Kem is "tropical fruit drink" that sort of tastes like pineapple.  Lemon Stones is a beer, but it tastes more like hard lemonade than actual beer.  And Vital, well, it's just a bottled water that you can either get con or sin gas.  I believe we were in Isla Negra when we got those!

Austral, I've been told, is one of the southernmost beers  in the world, brewed in Chile, of course! It's made in the southern Patagonia town of Punta Arenas and is quite tasty.
Although in the US you might think of rappers and glamour, Cristal is really more like the Budweiser of Chile. You'll find it in pretty much every convenience store down there, and the country's most famous soccer team, Colo Colo, has the Cristal logo plastered across their uniforms. So it's everywhere in Chile, but, trust me, the only special thing about the beer is its bottle cap. 
Kunstmann shows the German influence in Chile - this is another popular beer from that region. It's brewed in northern Patagonia, around the town of Valdivia, where large communities of Germans settled. In my opinion, Kuntsmann is the best beer of Chile. It's rich and flavorful and there's one variety that comes with honey. I drank this Kuntsmann at night in Valparaiso, the lovely port city, and I had an incredible view of the entire city.
The Coke, Fanta and Sprite are all South American as well (I'm not sure the photos are clear enough, but all of the additional info on those are in Spanish.) These were from the Chilean town of Constitucion. Baltica is another Chilean beer--it's very bad!--and Presidente is a Dominican beer.

 

Laziza was procured on the evening that Mubarak stepped down from Egyptian rule.  We were close to the neighborhood known as Little Egypt and suddenly we heard loud car horns and saw swarms of people waving flags and chanting. The neighborhood just exploded! We wandered into an Egyptian deli and found Laziza.  It is a non-alcoholic  malt beverage made in Lebanon, and I opted for the apple flavor - it tasted a lot like sparking cider. It was a wonderful way to toast the fall of a dictatorship.

I'm not sure where I got these last two bottle caps - but I believe one is Nicaguran and one is from Kent.

My new favorite is this beer bottle cap:

How can you not like an owl on a bottle cap?!?  This is from a Japanese beer that I found in my local grocery store. I think this fits into both the international AND hall of fame categories!  A nice way to end the post....