Buzzer Beer, Durian, and “Sesame Street”

This entry is nothing if not eclectic and radically different from the usual material found at drinkingjapan.org. It was prompted by a recent visit to Singapore.

Singapore is a country that I have visited numerous times. It is always a pleasure to be there. Most alcoholic beverages are rather pricey, though, as they are heavily taxed. Beer, on the other hand, can be found at reasonable prices. Hence, I explored some of the offerings in that category. Some local and Indian brews are widely available and quite good, complex and rather high in alcohol. The one pictured above is one example. It also has a name that caught my eye—Buzzer. On October 30, 2022, we published a review of an inexpensive nihon-shu available in a Tetra Pak container. The name was compelling, even poetic: Kaminari Sandai, which translates as “Thunder the Third.” Pretty good, eh? In that entry we also discussed interesting brand names for other alcoholic beverages. The link is here https://drinkingjapan.org/2022/10/30/a-sake-named-kaminari-sandai-thunder-the-third-%c2%a5100-a-down-to-basics-beverage-for-curbside-kiplings/ .

I happened to be in Singapore at the height of durian season there. (It’s a movable feast kind of thing.) I ate my fill of this best of all fruits, which I have been avidly consuming for over four decades. This time I had the opportunity to do some comparison tasting. It was the first time I had ever done that. One of the most striking things for me was the difference between cheap and expensive. The former was very sweet and creamy but lacked depth and complexity. The latter had the expected crème brûlée qualities of course but evidence of fermentation was quite noticeable, which rendered it not dissimilar to a low-alcohol eggnog. The slightly fermented version had, as might be expected, a lower level of sweetness.

I also had the opportunity of revisiting Sesame Street after a hiatus of several decades. As some of you might know, Elmo is now the main man on the block, a position that he undoubtedly deserves. Unfortunately, his voice is now several octaves higher than it once was—the result of a late-in-life tonsillectomy?—making him the Squeaky Fromme of the puppet-sphere.