My first taste of Spanish night life: Queimado

Okay, so Fito had told me that the party last night was to start at 11pm, so naturally I take a shower and get ready fairly quickly because I had woken up a little late from my nap... by 11:10 I was good to go, and still no sign from Fito.... then it dawned on me: The party started at 11 Spain-time, which probably meant more like 12ish. Sure enough, at about midnight I get a text from Fito telling me to meet him where he had dropped me off the last time we hung out and that he would walk me to Juanin's apartment so I wouldn't get lost. It was very close by actually, it probably took us about 5 min to get there.

I knew this was going to be a small gathering, and I only knew Fito and Juanin but the others were really nice as well. They had already had a few drinks (apparently bacardi lemon with iced tea and rum & cokes are really popular among the youth here) but when I arrived they decided to break out the ingredients for something completely different: Queimado.

Quemado is actually a mostly non-alcoholic concoction from Galicia consisting of apples, orange peels, lemons, coffee beans, and sugar. Oh, and one mustn't forget the key ingredient: Fire. There was some type of alcohol in it but I don't know exactly what but it doesn't really matter because apparently most of it gets burned off in the making.

In old Galician folklore apparently Queimado helped ward off evil spirits and brought good health and good luck to those who drank it, that is, assuming you recited the ancient scripture in a booming voice before partaking. Juanin tried to get me to read it with him off of a website, but it was written in Gallego which is similar to Spanish, so I got the jist of what was going on, but the pronunciation is entirely different.

After mixing the ingredients together Fito lit a little bit of it in the ladle on fire and started to stir it around a bit. Here is a pretty good view of it:


As the fire catches on, one must catch some of it in the ladle, hold it up above the bowl, and let it pour down so that it can "breathe." The result of course is a cascade of fire which makes for a spectacular effect.

In this picture you can't really see the fire, but we had to use the flash in order to see anyone. That is me stirring the queimado of course, and in the orange shirt is.... a nice Spaniard whose name I do not recall, in the back with the striped shirt is Juanin, in the plaid is Carlos, and then there is Eva and Raquel. Eva said that her roommate actually just got back from studying abroad at Virginia Tech oddly enough.


Here is a better view of what was going on; you can see the liquid pouring out with the flames and everything a bit better with the flash off.

After enjoying a bit of quemado, which had a very interesting taste to say the least (it actually reminded me a bit of Chai but with a citrus kick), the guys started to put on their coats and I asked Juanin "Hey where are you going?" He clasped his hands together and says "Well Sandy, we are going to do something that Chinese guys like to do." Jokingly I responded, "What, karaoke?" "Yes, actually." Oh boy. I had never been to a karaoke bar before....