Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany.
After the 12-gun salute and tapping of the first keg of beer to cries of “O'zapft is!" (“it’s tapped”), the world’s biggest fair kicks off. Some six million happy people stroll through and enjoy an oversized glass of something nice here. And if the number 176 whips you into a veritable frenzy, it’s the amount of years since this good old-fashioned knees up started. One of the more unusual of the many beer tents is actually a timbered house. Zur Bratwurst serves up rostbratwürstl – fried sausages grilled over an open beech wood fire, washed down with Augustiner beer. If you like to cut a deal, visit at 12pm when they drop their prices. But whatever you do, don’t end up being one of the (typically) young and comatose bierleichen (literally “beer corpses”) who drink too much and end up in the medical tent. Not only embarrassing but comes attached to the mother of all hangovers.
Look at www.oktoberfest.de
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Mondial de la Biere, Strasbourg, France.
If they wouldn’t let you into Oktoberfest, get yourself to France instead. The first ‘World of Beer Festival’ to be held in Europe is taking place in the Alsace capital of Strasbourg from 16-18 October this year. The organisers claim that traditional beer brewing is making an extraordinary comeback. And who wants to be the one who cries “nonsense!”? The festival is dedicated to traditional world beers and there will be hundreds of different brews to get excited about during the beer tasting competitions. It’s being touted as an extension of the famous Montreal Mondial de la Biere, which has been keeping people gassy in Canada for the past 16 years. And if you get tired of all that beer, drive down Alsace’s 170km wine route to Thann, south of Colmar, through the Alsace plain and the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. The October vendage will be in full swing and all along the route lie pretty villages, medieval castles and enough wineries to derail the most organised of schedules.
Look at www.festivalmondialbiere.qc.ca
Check out flights to Strasbourg click here
Whisky Galore Festival, Barra, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.
It’s been a long and fairly adventurous sixty years since Whisky Galore – the very funny 1949 Ealing comedy, based on the book by Compton MacKenzie – was filmed on this remote and beautiful island. Many of the locations seen in the film are still very recognisable. To celebrate (and find a nifty excuse for a decent shindig), the first ever Whisky Galore Festival takes place here from 18-20 September. A unique chance to savour the renowned island hospitality and be part of something (sort of) memorable, the Screen Machine will be showing the film itself, where the islanders tried to make off with an enormous stash of shipwrecked ‘water of life’. And if you want to make a holiday of it, the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival, also in Scotland, runs from 25-28 September and is positively brimming with food, drink and Speyside heritage..
Look at www.whiskygalorefestival.com
Check out flights to Glasgow click here
Sonoma County Harvest Fair, Sonoma County, California, USA.
Which devilishly clever person first mixed jazz with wine? Nobody knows for certain, but you probably won’t give a monkey’s after three days at this colourful Stateside event. This region is a hotbed of winemaking, with over 250 wineries and thirteen American Viticultural Areas. Annually it jostles with its rival, Napa County, to see who can grow the most grapes, and it’s famed for Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as the often robust Zinfandel and Merlot. The fair itself, from 2-4 October, is a celebration of everything connected with harvest. This includes three lazy days of wine tasting with over 150 wineries, chef demonstrations, microbrew tasting on the Saturday, non-stop live jazz and farm animals on their best behaviour. Whatever you do, don’t miss the World Championship Grape Stomp. Look out for Kopa Kaluahine and his mum, Michelle Kaluahine, who won in 2006 and again in 2008. Their secret? “We had talked about using some different techniques, like stomping sideways so I wouldn’t hit my mom with my knees, but in the finals I just went back to the way I’ve always stomped,” Kopa revealed. You show those grapes who’s boss.
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Sourtoe Cocktail Club, Dawson City, the Yukon, Canada.
For an entirely different event, this bizarre venue is a shrine to lost toes, of which there have been eight to date. Toe 1 came from Louie Liken, a trapper, miner, and in the 1920’s, a rum runner. Louie and his brother Otto would cross the border to the United States in a blizzard by dog team to deliver their alcoholic cargo. One night he got his foot wet and froze his big toe, which had to be amputated to prevent gangrene, using 180% over-proof rum as anaesthetic. Years later the preserved toe was discovered by Captain Dick Stevenson, who established the Sourtoe Cocktail and started serving it at the Eldorado Hotel (later the Downtown Hotel) in 1973. Toe 8 came from someone who realised you shouldn’t mow the lawn in open sandals. Formerly only drunk with champagne, you can now consume anything with it but the drinker's lips must touch the toe. "You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but the lips have gotta touch the toe", apparently. Not your average sharpener.
Look at www.sourtoecocktailclub.com
Check out flights to Whitehorse click here