Since coming to Asia, I’ve stumbled on the beverage that is rice wine. I can’t say that I consider myself the biggest fan of it, but all of the ones in the various countries that I have tried it have tasted a little different and I’m willing to keep searching until I find one that doesn’t make me scrunch up my face and shiver.
Driving to Senaru a few weeks ago I got chatting with a local guy who brought up the subject of alcohol. He then proceeded to tell me that everyone in Lombok says the rice wine from Senaru is the best, and people from various places in Indonesia will pay a lot of money for it. Naturally, I asked the question why that was the case because to me drinking any kind of rice wine doesn’t qualify as a pleasant experience.
Firstly he told me that it’s because of the natural volcanic spring water that they use to make it and afterwards added that it doesn’t give you any kind of hangover.
Upon arriving in Senaru, one of the first things I decided to do was test out the theory. It still tasted bad, although admittedly marginally better than the ones I had in Vietnam. Unfortunately, it didn’t have a magical ability to not make me have a headache the next morning at 6am when I started hiking up a damn volcano.
