What exactly do Serbs drink to piss them off so much?

[Rooster]

Fermented Goat Urine.

[Bluespook]

Hey, leave Spot alone. Chasing that little red ball around is all the poor old guy has going for him these days.

[grippingthewheel]

Ahh yes the Balkans. I remember about 10 years ago we were told that our boys would be home before christmas. They just didn't say which christmas because it's been 10 years. Sending American boys off to do a job that European boys ought to be doing for themselves. (to paraphrase the LBJ impersonation in Full Metal Jacket.)

See, that's exactly when you should drink more and talk about an other subject, one you know something about. I don't know, like a dog named Spot and a red ball maybe, or the last football season.
I spent 9 month in Kosovo doing some serious shit, and if you're foolish enough to believe that the Serbs are just a bunch of mass murderers and the Albanians are innocent lambs, you need a brain transplant, or, even better, to turn off the TV.
Last but not least: the Serb claim is only the enforcement of the UN resolution 1244:Kosovo is not a state but shall be considered as an integral part of the territory of Serbia Montenegro under UN administration.
No one is innocent in that crisis, but the Serb are really being stripped off one part of their national territory against all international rules and agreements.

I'm going to trust the opinion of the man who has been on the ground.

Cheers you French bastard. Other than my own Ring of Circus Monkeys, my favorite country on the planet. Hands down.

[Bluespook]

Only opinion I had was to let Europe handle Europes problems.

[Badfellow]

Certainly, I'd not intended to hatch a political discussion of any sort. Merely, 'twas intent to poke my pickled snout into the matter of drink in the region.

[shylock]

Certainly, I'd not intended to hatch a political discussion of any sort. Merely, 'twas intent to poke my pickled snout into the matter of drink in the region.

Amen. If you spent time in this area, then big ups to ya. Who knows, or cares why there's constant war in the area. Just keep their cups flowing.

[Le Boozificator]

Certainly, I'd not intended to hatch a political discussion of any sort. Merely, 'twas intent to poke my pickled snout into the matter of drink in the region.

Amen. If you spent time in this area, then big ups to ya. Who knows, or cares why there's constant war in the area. Just keep their cups flowing.

Bon, I don't like to play the "been there done that" character, but as a matter of fact, I have been drinking along with the serbs, and not only once. Back in 2004, I was a CIMIC officer in charge with four serb enclaves, and I discovered immediately that if you want those people to talk to you, you have to accept to drink with them.
I don't want to bother you all with my war souvenirs, so if you want to hear about that drinking story, just say so, and I'll make a complete post about it.

[Sixpack595]

I discovered immediately that if you want those people to talk to you, you have to accept to drink with them.

Service above and beyond the call of duty.

[shylock]

I discovered immediately that if you want those people to talk to you, you have to accept to drink with them.

Service above and beyond the call of duty.

There are not always benefits to a job, this I believe would be an exception. Hell, I'd give THEM the drink, and be just as well.

[Uncle Gary]

Seriously, what are they drinking? Irradiated slivovitz? Rat brandy? Malt liquor brewed with Albanian formaldehyde?

I'm definitely ready to blame Slivoitz. The stuff is god-awful.

[Frankennietzsche]

I don't want to bother you all with my war souvenirs, so if you want to hear about that drinking story, just say so, and I'll make a complete post about it.

I,for one, would like to read that story.

[Le Boozificator]

I don't want to bother you all with my war souvenirs, so if you want to hear about that drinking story, just say so, and I'll make a complete post about it.

I,for one, would like to read that story.

And so be it:
Back in 2004 I had been replacing the captain in command for six month at the head of my coy in France, so, to thank me for the nice job done he sent me to Kosovo where things were pretty calm then : area fully controlled and cool reccee missions around the local monuments. We even started removing the check points. Until the day I landed there...
March 16th, two hours after I set my foot on the ground: the Albanians suddenly start simultaneous riots in every big town and set serb enclaves and monuments on fire, including 800 years old monastry. Until the 17th in the evening it's going to be unexpected raging violence and building destruction with orders to react never coming clearly from high command...
Once the tide calmed down, as a CIMIC officer, my mission became double: first, organise in the military compound a camp for 250 refugees (which I did, but it's an other story), second, get out of the compound with an interpreter and try to restore the confidence of serbs from the enclaves in NATO protection.
I started mission 2 in Banja, a small village full of poor peasants and litterally terrorised people who, of course, were not ready to believe a word of what I would say. After all, they had just been victims of characterised aggression while the Kfor did not lift its little finger...
Anyway, after a thousand attempts to establish friendly contact, I returned there with an older CIMIC officer from the reserve who knew the village chief well. The chief accepted to talk to him more than he ever did to me and finally said something like: " there will be a family celebration in the village next saturday, if your friend (me) wants to proove he can be trusted, he should come along with you, with no frag jacket, since he says the situation returned to normal, and we shall drink and talk". Well, it sounded as a challenge.
So two days later, there we were, my friend, both our drivers, the interpreter and me, feeling pretty vulnerable, but not really worried: those people looked rough but friendly, or at least neutral.
We were promptly taken inside a rather rudimental house by big heavy built twenty something lads and the chief himself. We sat around a large wooden table in a very empty but rather clean and spacious room with a ground made of compacted soil. I felt like I had jumped back 200 years in the past and didn't really know what to expect. Well, that was very simple in the end: it started with a single small glass that went around the table from one person to the other, being constantly refilled by an old woman in between two folks. What was in the glass you wonder? Liquid fire I say. That was homemade slivo, mainly based up on distilled apples and plums and I am pretty sure it was around 80 degrees of alcohol. But so far everything was all right: the glass did not come back to me too often and I was pretty sure I could drink this way until the end of the afternoon without getting too drunk, plus the conversation was running nicely. I was starting to feel overly confident. What a grave mistake for this was only the aperitif: as soon as the food arrived (mainly pickled veggies and spiced up river fish), everyone was awarded a glass. From then, you had to drink that son of a b... liquor like every
five minutes, and the old lady kept on refilling mercilessly. After a while, I stopped drinking it shot-like way and tried to leave my glass half-full in front of me, but the only result was that the chief grinned widely and said "oh, you are dehydrated, you should have told me" and an adolescent went in with a 50cl bottle of stonb beer he put next to my glass. "See, you can go on now, no headache" the chief said, and swallowed his own glass straight before resuming the conversation.
And it went on and on and on this way, we couldn't leave the house until my friend, the interpreter and I were drunk for real (thankfully the drivers didn't have to drink) and as we finally crawled back to our jeeps, the village chief told us in a loud voice: "Remember there are strong reliable friends in Banja, always the French will be welcome here when they accept to drink with us." Back then, it felt like it completely made sense and I thanked him and mumbled something about my french and senegalese ancestered beeing honoured. I still wonder today what he and I ment.
As a matter of fact anyway, I after that always were welcomed in the best of way in that village and they provided me with the best of informations about smugglers and agitators in the area while I made sure they got their fare share of humanitarian aid and protection. It's been a very fruitfull cooperation for four month that allowed us to locally avoid new clashes and keep peace not only in their village but also in the surrounding albanians ones.
Who said booze makes people aggressive.
End for this one. Sorry if I voluntarily cut a number of details.
Thanks for reading.

[Sixpack595]

Nice. Hangovers as work related injuries.

[Uncle Gary]

Booze, that's a good story, well told. I'd just say that people and governments aren't the same. I can drink with almost anybody (and have, in Croatia, Kosovo, Albania and BH during the times of turbulence) and can form great drunken friendships with 'em. Haven't been to Serbia, but I'll bet those guys are great too. Just doesn't change all the amazingly wicked shit those guys did to each other. Like you said, none of them are innocent, but Serbia sure was in the lead a lot.

But the real point is, Slivo is some nasty, god-awful shit.

[WildDamnTurkey]

people and governments aren't the same.

That is one of the most important things anyone can ever learn.