back to drinks

when i started writing about drinks i've met in lithuania, i did it, chronologically -- from the very first drink i met, and so on,...as i met them

i was going to continue, in that vein -- then i decided to...put a little more effort into it -- so i wrote down all the drinks i've met, and put them in groups -- came up with four categories -- juices, teas, alcoholic drinks, and unusual drinks

i'll start with the juices -- and there are a lot of 'em

they must love their juices, here

most restaurants have two categories of juices on the menu -- just plain "juices,"...which i guess means they're from bottles the restaurant bought, and freshly squeezed juices -- they call 'em sultys naturalis (i think that's how it's spelled) -- ones they squeeze, in-house -- the most popular fresh-juice combinations are orange-and-grapefruit and carrot-and-apple -- most restaurants have both

this one's not in lithuania, but...it's a juice -- fresh-squeezed apple juice -- moscow airport, in march

the grocery stores...are where the real action is -- juices galore -- and they're delicious -- even the "drinks" (not 100% fruit juice) are really good

in maxima, one of the four grocery-store chains, i was shocked to see a carton of prickly-pear juice – that was the morning i left here, in march -- now, surely, lithuania cannot be a great producer of cactus fruit -- i love prickly-pears, but i've never seen prickly-pear juice; that doesn't mean it doesn't exist elsewhere -- just that i haven't come across it

on the left is a bottle of fresh beet juice -- popular here -- that's a big bottle, though -- it comes in very small bottles -- not supposed to consume it, in large quantities -- stomach can't handle it or something

funny thing about that picture -- i took it, back in cleveland, the morning i arrived, some 30 hours after i bought the juices from maxima -- my friend maria would not be happy about that -- calls those fresh juices, after they've been sitting outside for a few hours, "wine" -- and they do start to get a little vinegary,...after a while -- a decent while

do you see the price on the beet juice -- 1.16 -- a euro and 16 cents -- that's about a buck-and-a-quarter -- the prices are great -- i get a bottle of carrot juice, almost every time i'm in a rimi, another of the chains -- 1.49 -- i got a bad one, last week -- maria sent me an e-mail address for them -- they were "right on it" -- credited her rimi shopping card


there are a lot of great berry juices

next to the carton of berry juice, that's a bag of loquats -- i couldn't believe it -- they were excellent -- bought some, both times i saw them -- i think, at rimi -- i haven't learned,...when and where

pomegranate seems to be popular here -- sometimes i find the fruit, at a decent price -- gobble 'em up -- and,...thanks to lithuania, now i know why they're called pomegranates -- they're called granata, here -- voila -- the candy bar on the lower-right corner,...i've fallen in love with that -- pergale makes a lot of chocolates

this granata wasn't cheap -- this was in march -- granatai must be a generic form of the word, or the plural -- the pomelo looks like it was cheap -- it wasn't sweet, though

an unusually tart green-apple juice -- yum -- maria says it's not 100% fruit juice

surprising color, for apple juice -- at the discount german chain lidl, which has just entered the market

those plastic bags are funny -- yogurt drink, that you squeeze,...out of the bag -- very good

i thought this was a children's drink -- on a shelf with a lot of other colorful bottles with cartoon characters and animals -- i liked the bottle -- yummy -- lot of banana juice, here

tea, alcohol, and the strange,...coming up