Article: Laos Drinking Games

Lao Lao and Chicken

We're seated around the cooking fire in the headman's house at Tiger Trouble Village. The flames are kept low to avoid igniting the eminently combustible ceiling and the circle of light and warmth is small. The evening meal is almost finished. The men around the fire pick the last of the bamboo shoots from the soup and reach into one of the finely woven baskets near their feet to squeeze one more handful of sticky rice to dip in the remaining liquid.

The headman leans out of the light toward a smoke-stained rough-hewn cupboard that's barely visible in the inky shadows of the room's corner. Kong pushes the plate of chicken in my direction and indicates that the feet are great. While I'm smiling my disinclination, Mung reaches across to grab the proffered foot and crunches it with relish. Kong is consoled with the late chicken's head and when he's nibbled it clean, says "You ever play chicken head, Duk?"

The headman rematerialises by the fireside, bearing a cork-stopped one litre chemical flask and a bevy of shot glasses. Lao Lao! The locals call it whiskey, but it's as far from a single malt Scotch or triple charcoal-filtered Bourbon as Pluto is from the sun. It's apt that it comes in a chemical flask too, because if you fuelled a rocket with it you could probably reach Pluto. A few nights previously we'd watched Mung and Kong dip their fingers in it and wave their hands toward a fire. The fire instantly leapt across the bridge of vapours and enveloped their hands in wild blue witch-light. The lady of that house was not amused at their boyish antics, obviously considering it a waste of good Lao Lao. She promptly, with much tongue-clicking and harrumphing, confiscated the bottle.

There'll be no such shenanigans tonight. The headman has cleaned the shot glasses with a cloth that looks like it's also been used to clean the outside of a cooking pot. I'm not concerned. I know there isn't a pathogen on Earth (or Pluto!) that can survive immersion in Lao Lao. He pours each of us a generous libation. Same as anywhere, we raise our glasses. A hearty "Sog dee!" accompanies the clinking cascade. Fire blooms in my chest and belly as the toast banishes the chill of the evening's paddling on the river and my lack of warm, dry clothes.

Lao Lao is a spirit distilled from fermented sticky rice. We'd been introduced to it in Luang Prabang, where we encountered a deep green variant that had been sweetened and flavoured. Its taste was reminiscent of an aniseed liquer. The village variety though, is clear as water and tastes like pure alcohol! There's a village on the Nam Ou near its confluence with the Mekong that's famous for its version. Snake whiskey. The villagers there swear by the health benefits of drinking Lao Lao in which cobras and scorpions have been drowned.

I thank my lucky stars we're miles upstream of that place as the headman refills our glasses. Kong's looking at me with a glint in his eye. "So. Duk. You wanna play chicken head?" The looks on the faces of the men around me tell me it's a drinking game.

I'm in!

Take one cooked (and thoroughly gnawed) chicken head, a flat plate and a bowl. Ensure a ready supply of Lao Lao. Place chicken head on plate. Invert bowl over chicken head. Hold plate and bowl firmly together and vigorously shake. Don't stir! Place bowl in middle of circle of players. Wait for someone to lift bowl. Or do it yourself if impatient. Participant pointed to by beak downs his glass, which must be promptly refilled. If position indicated by beak is vacant, or between players, have person next to you shake again. Repeat.

Easy!

Forty minutes later Kong is unhinged. His plan terribly awry, he's scored four points (three in succession) while I've only had one. The headman scored two, with one apiece for most of the other players. Everybody laughs as Kong says we must sleep for the early start tomorrow...

Lao Lao. Go on. Don't be chicken!