Last year during BUS DEMOLITION! season, I volunteered to contribute to the drinkage supply, and having just been introduced to the nectar of my people, I wanted to, ahem, share my cultural heritage with them. And lo, it was wondrous and painful, with throats burning and heads hurting, and threats of further wretching this year at the mere suggestion of Serbian Moonshine gracing the cottage table. But LFitz forgot to pack the leftovers, so that was that. We thought we were safe.

But then another among us—as payback for the burning or just as a lark, I’ve not a clue—brought his own spirit concoction he’d concocted: Bacon. Vodka. Yes, bacon vodka. I just kind of looked at him like, “Huh. Whodathunk?” He said that he put bacon in the vodka (yes, COOKED bacon, lest he run the risk of trich) and stuck it in the freezer for some amount of time, then removed the bacon and strained the liquid through a coffee filter to, gulp, remove the fat from the liquid. Afterward, he threw in a jalapeno—you know, to give it more flavor. He insisted I take a shot.

My friends, I’m here to tell you that I’ve now been bested, because that. shit. BURNED. worse than ANYTHING. EVER. Not even the shljivovitca comes close. But if it weren’t for the burning, I can’t say it was ... horrible, exactly, though I do kinda wonder how it got a GREEN hue to it. The homies said it made for fantastic morning Bloody Marys, though.