Sipping on My Vino

Nepal is still decades behind the developed world in many ways. However, Kathmandu—my city—is home to a very vibrant industry. With daily blackouts that range from two to sixteen hours a day and without a big vacationing culture (you’ll find that very rarely do Nepalis travel for leisure), the people in the city have few avenues on which to spend their hard-earned (hey bribes are tough work!) money. One of the most popular ways to put a paycheck to use is to go out for drinks and dinner. With blacked-out homes offering dark, depressing evenings, restaurants and bars have become a mini-vacation of sorts. And with this boom in hang-out spots—there’s a new place that pops up every other week—comes a natural boom in the alcohol industry.

With that being said, I wanted to share two of my favorite recent discoveries. Up first is a local rum brand that is fast becoming my favorite, “Khukuri Rum”. For some background on the name, Khukuris are Nepal’s answer to machetes. These daggers/knives were the weapon of choice for the famous Nepali Gorkhas in close combat. Back to my point though, Khukuri rum: great taste, good price and just imagine how badass you look drinking out of a sheath-shaped bottle! Only in Nepal. (Disclaimer: I haven’t had the pleasure of indulging in this badass-ness, the sheath-shaped bottles are hard to come by these days).

The other local item I wanted to share is a local wine that I just came across randomly yesterday while in the liquor section of a store—“Hinwa Wine”. Don’t know much about the etymology of the name for this one but I do know that it tasted surprisingly good (I’ve only tried the white iteration, mind you). And the best thing is that it isn’t even made from grapes. Hinwa wine apparently uses Nepali wild raspberries and barberries. The result, as I said, is pleasantly surprising. It’s more of a table wine than a vintage and has short shelf life but drink it within a year of production and you won’t regret it.