"I don't want to go home, how about one beer?" was what she said - an elderly Chinese roommate just off of her DJ gig, spinning to people far too hip and far too young to appreciate 60s soul music. I staggered a little bit, already full of a wide variety of booze, steadied only by my Döner with the spicy sauce in hand. It was 1am and my only response could have been "sure". We headed to literally the closest bar to our flat, and one none of us were too crazy to try - a nondescript Jägermeister-themed bar in the bottom of a gigantic communist-era living complex that usually had a few shaved thug-types sitting outside.
Turns out this is the sceniest of the punk venues I've visited in this city. Squatter punk bars tend to be shambly and genuinely tough with a hint of piss, this one was trying way too hard and succeeding - tattoos everywhere, rockabilly hair mayhem, and the smell of brand new leather jackets.
Turns out the thin-mustached bartender with the goggle glasses took a liking to us. When I mocked the baby-sized shot glasses he immediately summoned two mint-flavored green death shots to show me how it was done. The expected behavior after shooting such a beverage is to shatter the rigid plastic cup in one swipe with the palm of your hand, brushing the embedded jagged bits out of your flesh. But that wasn't enough - I made the mistake of asking him what the burn on his hand was - he smiled and said "ready for battery?". He probably didn't say the word battery but it sounded exactly like battery.
The wiry guy threw a few matchbooks onto the bar, and asked me to pick one. Suspecting something terrible would happen I picked the smallest of the lot, and he said "that one huh" and looked at me and my selection and paused as if giving respect to a newly-chosen life partner. He pulls out a match and holds it against the striking strip. He then places the two into the palm of my hand, and folds my fingers over the box - with only the wooden end of the matchstick visible. "You do it", he said, "pull". So here I am in Berlin, surrounded by tough fashionistas, and this guy just asked me to light a match in my own tightly-clenched hand so I could have the same scar he did, after he just gave us a round on the house. My roommate was no help at all ("do it! just do it!") but ultimately there was no way I was going to burn myself to prove myself. "I'll be back and I'll do it before I leave Berlin" is what I told him, and I'm still not sure if I'm a liar or not.
If only it ended there. I ordered a small Jägermeister shot and the same mustached maniac exclaimed "No no no, you don't get that. You will try the special." Fine, let's go with the special. The other demon behind the bar rose before me, one hand holding a Finlandia Vodka bottle full of something red, the other of viscous brown fluid. He poured them both in a shot glass and smirked as he pushed it in my direction as I exclaimed "yay, strawberries!".
The drink was pure fire, a booze potion if there ever was one. Chili peppers are far beyond the culinary capacity of most Germans, and while I was drinking liquid sadism it was nowhere near my Thai-spicy threshold. But make no mistake - this burned like hell, and the napalm stuck to me for a good 10 minutes. He almost looked disappointed at my lack of screaming as he reminded me that he made it himself. I simply had to inflict this on my roommate, who is still complaining about that chunky death of a drink 12 hours later.
Of course all of these terrible drinks had to be washed down with even more beer, ending in a -8 dexterity penalty. A few remaining rockers were dancing to the music, and I joined them once Billy Idol's White Wedding began. The eight of us pogo-ed around the place, pausing only to scream START AGAIN because these Germans really, really liked that refrain.
Eventually things emptied out and it was time to go. I yelled a final danke schön!!! at the top of my lungs and get an equally loud response by the staff. Filled with fuel and fire the two of us fell out of smoke-filled darkness and into the morning. My roommate spies the man she failed to seduce and yells insult after insult, completely in Spanish, the entire length of the block or two it takes to get out of sight. Fantastic.
Dear god these are my new favorite bartenders in all of the world and I can't wait to recover enough to go back. Last call? Remind me what last call is, again?
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