Often when we travel, we have a “real” experience or interaction (good or bad) that just sticks with us. And because I keep my on-the-go travelogues to 2,000 characters or less, I don’t have room to tell the story then/there. 

Trying to come up with a name for this occasional feature wasn’t easy: 

{Update: The WordPress censor brigade didn’t like the original version of the conversation below, so I had to re-write. You’ll figure it out.}

Ken: You want to attract the most attention? It’s the Internet, babe. Go with, Highly Attractive People Unburdened by Articles of Clothing.

Me: [silent eyeroll of exasperation].

Ken: What? See Internet Rule #34. (Google it.)

Me: What if I want to attract the 17th most attention?

And . . . Welcome to my occasional feature: The Highlight Real. The moments (good or bad) on a trip that just stick with us. And, bonus: if I write them down, my menopause brain is less likely to file them away in some mental drawer I won’t open again.

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Today’s Highlight Real is an experience Ken and I had with his grandparents in Bavaria about a thousand years ago – when we were newlyweds.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about German schnaps, and how it’s both a cultural and family tradition for us.

My husband’s grandfather (Opa), lived in a small town south of Munich. When we were first married, we started making semi-regular trips there to visit him.

I will never forget the first time we visited Opa as a young, newly-married couple. We landed in Munich at 7am, and by 9am, we were sitting in a restaurant eating Weißwurst, and drinking Weißbier. This was something my stomach was woefully unprepared for at the equivalent of 3am EST.  We spent the rest of the day fighting jetlag and trying to keep our eyeballs open.  Later that night, we ate dinner with Oma & Opa, and their upstairs neighbor, Frau Wagner.  We enjoyed a traditional Bavarian meal of meat with a side of meat, washed down with a gigantic mug of Bier.

Sidebar

Eating a meal with Oma was always a lose-lose proposition. If you cleaned your plate, that was a signal you were still hungry and wanted more food.  And you got more food. If you didn’t clean your plate, that triggered a mini-lecture on how you were too skinny and needed to eat more. You muss EEEET!.  And you got more food.  I was so full, I was nearly paralyzed.  All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and succumb to the food coma (and the jetlag).

And that’s when Frau Wagner disappeared to her apartment. She returned carrying a tray of small glasses filled with a clear liquid. We would later learn this was Kirschwasser, a type of German schnaps.  Translated literally, Kirschwasser means, see you in the emergency room cherry water.  It’s made from fermented, distilled black cherries, and is thought to have originated in the Black Forest region of southern Germany.  

If you’re ever in Bavaria, and you see someone walking toward you carrying a tray of small glasses filled with a clear liquid, know this:

Your night’s about to take a turn.

Frau Wagner set that tray of glasses down on the table and said, “You muss trink.  Is gut for digestion.”  Wait. What??  She can’t be serious.  It’s good for digestion in that it induces vomiting?!?  But wait, there’s more.  

Then she lit the glasses on FIRE!  🔥🔥🔥 I kid you not.  Because apparently, fire is also good for digestion.  

I offered my husband €50 to drink mine, but he said that would be rude. So, we blew out the flame, and . . . bottoms up!  HOLYMOTHEROFGOD that burns!  There’s no way my esophagus isn’t perforated!  Why don’t the Germans believe in ice water?!?  

We put our small (and now empty) glasses down on the table and looked to the Bavarians for approval.  Germans aren’t known for their riotous sense of humor, but have no doubt, they think it’s hilarious to watch twenty-something Americans drink Kirschwasser for the first time. You haven’t lived until you’ve done flaming shots with your 75-year old grandparents!

That night in Bavaria, I didn’t know Kirschwasser would become a family tradition.  Honestly, I kind of hoped I’d never see it again.  But Kirschwasser has been a tradition in Germany since Germany had a king and called itself Prussia.  It’s there to stay.  But here in America, digestifs have never really taken off.  When was the last time your server at Applebee’s offered you a digestif after your extreme fajita poppers?

So, do digestifs really work?  Or are the Germans just crazy?

A glass of fire-water to settle the stomach seems counter-intuitive.  That’s just about the last thing I want after a heavy meal and a bunch of beer (or wine).  More alcohol.  But I swear there’s something to it.  Your stomach is stretched beyond capacity, so you drink a glass of Kirschwasser, which obviously sets off some kind of tiny bomb in your stomach, and suddenly, you feel better.  I can’t explain how it works, only that it does.

Opa is no longer with us, but over the years and over the visits, I’ve come to eagerly anticipate (and even require) the tradition of Kirschwasser. I’ve also learned how to drink (and really enjoy) Kirschwasser without looking like an American rube.  We joke about Kirschwasser, but there’s something comforting about the appearance of those small glasses of clear liquid, and their tether to memory. Sitting around an old pine table, in a small flat, in a small Bavarian village with our German family, is a memory I always carry with me.

Prost!