For Battle? Feuerzangenbowle!

somehow, in my wanderings through the net-o-sphere, I found something which is so For Battle, it hurts. a German/Austrian version of sangria, which is heated like mulled wine, with a cone of sugar on top soaked with rum and then set on fire.

Feuerzangenbowle!



can it get any better?

according to german.about.com this is a New Year's custom. they also have the recipe, but there's plenty of other recipes on the net:

Feuerzangenbowle (pron. FOY-er-TSANGEN-bow-luh):
In addition to champagne or Sekt (German sparkling wine), wine, or beer, Feuerzangenbowle ("flaming fire tongs punch") is a popular traditional German New Year's drink. The only drawback for this tasty punch is that it is more complicated to prepare than a normal bottled or canned beverage. Part of the popularity of Feuerzangenbowle is based on a classic novel of the same name by Heinrich Spoerl (1887-1955) and the 1944 film version starring the popular German actor Heinz Rühmann. The hot punch drink's main ingredients are Rotwein, Rum, Orangen, Zitronen, Zimt und Gewürznelken (red wine, rum, oranges, lemons, cinnamon and cloves).

with a ForBattler of German extraction I'm amazed he hasn't inflicted this on us before. shame on you, Stig! or perhaps you realised that with our predeliction for sangria and mulled wine, we'd get around to adding the setting it on fire bit some day.

as you can imagine, there's plenty of photos on Flickr of people setting fire to their punchbowls. that bit makes me sort of concerned about the quality of the glassware.

I also looked up the 1944 movie of the same name. here's the synopsis from a BBC website:

The story starts with a group of distinguished people sitting around a Feuerzangenbowle. They start discussing the pranks and fun they had at school when it turns out that one of them, Dr Johannes Pfeiffer (played by Heinz Rühmann), didn't attend a public school and never experienced these joys with his private teacher. In the mood brought about by the drink, they decide that the famous author is to be sent to a small town and to go to school there for some time. After changing his hair-style and shaving off his beard, Heinz Rühmann looks quite like the other pupils, which is rather surprising since he was 42 years old when the film was made. So Dr Pfeiffer attends this school, plays all the pranks and has an enormous amount of fun while also falling in love with a pupil from the nearby girls' school.

hmmm... not at all suspicious. apparently it now has a cult following where the audience takes props to the cinema a la The Rocky Horror Picture Show. what else do you do with a movie about a drunk 42 year old doctor dressed as a schoolboy, pranking about and falling for a schoolgirl? it's a natural!

or maybe not. but the drink?




be still, my beating liver.