Raspberry Beetles

Moonshine has always been made in the countryside, under our Tsar-Father, and when the Revolution was on, and during the official crackdown on alcohol. Sure it has, because it’s stronger than the ruble and safer than gold. And, truth be told, it’s simple enough to make, though there is a trick to it. What’s the most important thing? To get a good mash going. That’s the basis of the process, and there’s nothing here that’s not important. Or you could just mix yeast and sugar, then pour in some warm water, following the proportions in the recipe. After that it’s like caring for a little tot, which means keeping it warm, even wrapping it in a blanket. You can also sprinkle in peas or some sort of grain, so it’ll have more bubbles. And after a week or so, you’re in business – fire up the stove, and then everyone does it his own way. Two cast-iron containers are set up, one on top of the other, with a coiled tube stuck between them. The containers are smeared with raw dough, to send the mash, when it boils, into the tube. The tube goes down into a washtub and this is where … Oh no you don’t! You stay right there! Cold water has to be poured over it the whole time, because that’s what makes the moonshine such a wonder. People who are especially picky about quality will add milk to it next. That “settles” it, making it come out clean and without that raw booze smell. Milk’s like charcoal: it attracts the fermentation by-products, so they stay in the bottom of the jar.

My neighbor Nadyukha – a well-to-do old gal of fifty or so who worked as a cook at the local hospital – was apt to turn to drink whenever fate got her down. Which would be on her days off. After a visit to the bathhouse. And on Fridays, I would give her the whey from my curd cheese, taking some milk in return. One time, though, I’d been brewing moonshine for my guests. I poured the milk in it and left it in the closet to clarify. But then I went and mixed up the jars. And gave Nadyukha a good three liters of pure alcohol.

I was woken in the morning by a knock at the window. Nadyukha was standing by the porch post, in a colorful housecoat that was inside-out. The post was damp with the morning dew and Nadyukha’s tears. Her face was frazzled, and her feet were bare.

“Let me have a hair of the dog, Darya … I’m dying right in front of you … Your conscience’ll give you hell if you don’t.”

“You’ve no shame! Coming to me for a hair of the dog! How did you get that tanked, anyway?”

Nadyukha was sober for just an instant; the next second, she grabbed the post like it was a stripper pole and crashed to the ground.

“Oh my stars!” Nadyukha hollered. “But I… I…
I was thinking it’s whey. I poured it all into the cow’s drinking trough!”

“Well how’s the cow doing?” I asked tartly.

“She wouldn’t go out to the herd… And the sheep are all drunk. I wondered what they were sick with!”

“Your sniffer’s good – how come you didn’t smell it? It’s pure alcohol!”

“Have you ever been in a cowshed?” Nadyukha asked, keeping a firm grip on the post. “What does it smell like? There you go, then.”

And she fell flat on her face and dozed off in the rays of the rising sun.

After that I started marking the jars with circles and crosses. To avoid what you might call an unrecoverable beverage error.

Besides, I have a big family, so there’s plenty of drinking done without Nadyukha’s help. And then my sibling’s kids were going stir crazy in Moscow, so to take the pressure off a bit, their parents started sending them to spend the summer with me. They rampaged through the thickets and tried to take the cow out to pasture, and their parents came on their days off. For a drink and a snack. They used to drink straight vodka, but that costs money. So then they started pounding down the moonshine, until their kids were bored stiff and fed up. But after finding a copy of the old Healthy Lifestyle newsletter in the attic, the poor little tykes came to me and asked:

“Auntie Dasha, where can we get some raspberry beetles?”

“Take some ordinary beetles and paint them.” I thought they were going to play toy soldiers.

“Nu-uh! They’ll flake it off…”

And that got me seriously worried.

“Auntie Dasha,” the youngest, six-year-old Sonya, said in her feather-light voice. “What’s a shtof?”

“Three hundred rubles a liter or so,” I said without thinking, then went cold with horror. It couldn’t be: the kids had started drinking vodka too?

“Now I need some answers, my little chicks – it is your pops you’ve decided to poison or yourselves?”

The children went all shame-faced and brought me the newsletter. The recipe for “Madame Filstein’s Nostrum against Drunkenness, 1909” was simple: “Take 1 glass of raspberry beetles and a shtof of vodka. Having left them to soak in a cool, dark place, give two small wine glasses at lunch, and your husband will be sober FOREVER.” It sounded menacing. But what surprised me even more was that the children hadn’t asked for a bottle of something.

After catching a glass-full of beetles in the bushes, the children put the vodka in a dark place … and then the summer was over. The next spring I found the bottle with a vile-smelling slush in it. Yes, anyone’s husband would turn up his toes on the spot – no need to consult a wise old hag to know that. And then the old hag showed up. Nadyukha.

“Hair of the dog… I’m dying…”

“Nadya,” I told her, and I told her straight up. “I’ve got some. But you’ll never drink again.”

“Hand it over!”

“Then it’s on you.”

After scraping the beetles out of the glass with her little finger, Nadyukha knocked it back with a flourish, grimaced, lit up a cigarette, and said: “@%#$, that’s some fine cognac! Hand it all over.”

After a week of watching Nadyukha’s comings and goings, I realized that the beetles only work on men. Something to do with testosterone, probably…