The Passion of the Salamander

So I stumbled across an article by Ivan Valencic titled, Salamander Brandy: A Psychedelic Drink Made in Slovenia

The title pretty much says it all. During the fall in Slovenia, people get all psyched up to walk around the forest and hunt salamanders.

First of all, do you really “hunt salamanders”? I don’t think so. That is like saying, “I’m going to hunt some apples” You hunt things like boar, bear, moose, and unicorn; salamanders are harvested. There are so many salamanders hanging out on the forest floor that hunters risk stepping on them. I image the scene being a salamander’s version of Logan’s Run-esque Carousel.

Second thing that you should know: According to Valencic, salamanders are poisonous, and will kill a dog if eaten.

Okay, so on to the important stuff: How to make salamander brandy, and there appears to be 3 ways. What is cool about making salamander brandy is that you can enjoy having a pseudo-pet while using Jack Bauer tactics to give your salamander the most brutal death ever.

The first method is putting live salamanders in a barrel with fermenting fruit. In an effort to save its life, the salamander excretes mucus that makes the brew psychedelic. Eventually the alcoholic strength gets high enough or the salamander runs out of music, and dies.

The second method is pretty much the same as the first, expect instead of putting live salamanders in the fermentation container, you put it directly in the brandy, though you risk killing your salamander prematurely if not careful.

The third method is beyond paraphrasing: Freshly distilled and still hot brandy is trickled over a salamander, which is suspended by a rope, and washes its exudates down in a vessel. When the poor animal dies it has to be replaced with a living one and so on until the process of distillation is completed.

So let me get this straight. You string up a salamander using rope (string?) and drizzle hot alcohol over it until it dies? I dunno about that…

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