How to Get Stoned on Fifty Cents

In an age when it's impossible to pick up a magazine or newspaper without being told how to do something, I can't imagine how as practical a subject as this has been missed: some real down-to-earth information for imbibers who are weary and worn with ponying up from four to six bits for a snort of the liquid they love.

Because, boys, it's possible to quaff brew at six cents a pint, wassail away at the wine bowl at fourteen cents a quart, or put down two-ounce shots of the strong stuff at less than three cents the shot.

What's more, if you like your liquoring under pleasant and atmospheric conditions, you can line up at a pub in what was once a Roman emperor's palace, or sit at a sidewalk cafe looking out over palm trees, sandy beach and rocky coves which would make the Southern California Chamber of Commerce turn absinthe green.

I don't want to give you the wrong idea here, it's going to cost you some initial investment to get to the place. If you're in a hurry, you can take the airlines for about three hundred and fifty bucks one way, but if you're in this to save a dollar you can make it by bus, rail and ship for one hundred and seventy-nine dollars and twenty-five cents. You take a Greek Line ship from New York to Southampton, from there an Orange Luxury coach to London where you pick up third-class tickets on the Tauren Orient Express.

You're heading for Split, on the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia, so you'd better bring a passport and remember that the land of Marshal Tito is the only country in Europe in which Americans are allowed to travel that requires a visa.

Of course, any Yugoslavian town would do as well as far as the prices are concerned but you might as well pick one of the world's beauty spots for your tippling. Split was first appreciated by the Emperor Diocletian who built himself one whale of a palace there in the year 300 A.D. He built it so well that it remains one of the best examples of Roman architecture now surviving and at the present date more than 4,000 persons still live within its walls. The town is located right on the Adriatic Sea and some tourists waste their time at swimming and fishing and excursions to nearby islands.

The fifty cents is in the way of an exaggeration. If you can hold fifty cents worth of liquor at the prices prevailing on the Dalmatian coast, you're really a toper. An averagely hard drinking man can find himself staring up at the bottom of a table top at two bits American, less if he takes advantage of the country's phony money.

On the legal exchange the Yugoslavian dinar comes 800 to the dollar but at any of the New York money exchange houses they'll give you at least 550 and on the free market in Yugoslavia an American buck will bring up to 800 dinars. Of course, if you're importing dinars into Yugoslavia you'd better stash them away in your tobacco pouch, or some such, as you cross the border since the cops there take a dim view of the practice. Not that I've ever heard of them searching an American tourist, they're currently making a big play to get them into the country.

Let's get to the elbow-bending.

If you're the sort of playboy who appreciates wine, you've got it made. Possibly Yugoslavia doesn't hit the levels of France, Germany and Spain in quality wines, although some will give you an argument on that, but her ordinary wines are tops. What Yugoslavians drink every day at the cost of 110 dinars a liter begins to call for a vintage date in other wine-producing countries. At the legal rate of exchange that comes to thirty-seven cents for slightly more than a quart. If you're using free market dinars, you get your wine for roughly fifteen cents a liter.

Besides their white and red ordinary wines they have excellent sweet wine called Prosek which will set you back twice the price of the other and which is worth it. It's made by allowing the grapes to stay on the vines and sweeten until they have a large sugar content. Even varieties of Prosek you'll find in any wine shop begin to show greatness.

If you're a beer man -- they call it pivo in these parts -- you'll find the stuff running a little higher in price (concluded on page 65) Stoned (continued from page 33) than wine and stronger and darker than American brews. It'll set you back fifty or sixty dinars a bottle in a buffet, which is Yugoslavian for bar. The bottles hold at least a pint as compared to our twelve ounces.

It's those who take their drinking seriously that really win out. And now I'm talking about hard liquor, gentlemen.

The national spirit is Slivovica, which is made from plums and which will break the arches of your feet if you slug it down the way you might bourbon. Slivovica sells in the bars for ten dinars an ounce, or a king size drink running two to three ounces for 20 dinars. That's about two and a half cents, American dough. You can buy it by the bottle if you want for about thirty cents a liter. Slivovica is on the liquid dynamite style in the tradition of vodka and tequila.

Their Rakija Travarica, also a national drink, runs the same price and has a slight taste of bitters. At first, it might offend a Martini palate but it grows on you if you give it time. Usually, you don't have the time. After half a dozen king-size Rakijas you're apt to be found staggering down to the local city hall volunteering to join up with the Yugoslavian police.

Then they turn out quite a bit of rum which they label Jamaican and which isn't. It's inclined to be sweetish and seems less alcoholic than the rum we're used to. However, if you're a rum drinker, just remember that it's costing three cents for a two and a half ounce jolt and at that rate you can make up the proof by quantity. No coke, though. No Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Royal Crown, Double Cola or Cola Cola. Yugoslavians take their liquor seriously, no mixers. The roadsides look nude without the ads.

It's with their cherry brandy and kirsh that they hit the stuff which becomes exportable on a large scale and you can find Yugoslavian brands in any really well-stocked American liquor store. In Split, kirsh sells for about fifty-five cents a fifth, free market money, and is a strong, colorless liquor that is almost tasteless as well. Not quite, though. Way down you have a provocative, faint flavor of the wild cherries from which it was distilled. Yugoslavian kirsh makes for mighty fine guzzling of the two-fisted type.

The cherry brandy is similar to Denmark's Cherry Herring although a bit stronger and possibly not quite so delicate. It's not the sort of potable to hang one on with, but it makes a terrific cordial.

Cordials -- they call them likeri -- run about thirty dinars to the drink and are mildish albeit pleasant. Their Likeri Kruckovoc, a pear cordial, goes mighty well but can't be much stronger than our fortified wines of the sherry, port type.

It's not as though you really have to shell out any money at all. Split is the free-loader's paradise. Americans are ultra-popular in Tito-land right now. The wheat crop failed in 1954 and was made up with a gift from Uncle Sam to the tune of some 800,000 tons from our surpluses. On top of that, it seems that practically everybody in Yugoslavia has one or more relatives in America, most of whom make a practice of sending bundles of clothes and other hard-to-get manufactured items to the folks in the old country.

This adds up to it being a hazard to walk the streets if you're an American. Before you know it, you've been drug into home or buffet and the liquids start flowing. Trouble is, these people drink the stuff from childhood, figuring water is something for which nobody has thus far figured out a reasonable use -- obviously it's a flop as a beverage. After a couple of quarts of Prosek, or a couple of tumblers of Rakija, when you've got to the point of feeling little pain and care not whether school keeps, in fact are somewhat inclined to song, they look at you strangely, wondering what the excitement is about.

To sum it up, boys, the fare is one hundred and seventy-nine dollars and twenty-five cents and the line forms to the right at the travel agency.

Tell 'em Mack sent you. They'll remember me -- the one with the lampshade on his head.