Whiskey Galore
Fifteen, twenty years ago a mate of mine had had a bag full of Britain.
The details are tedious but if we were reading his autobiography we’ll pick things up at the point where he was on a jumbo jet heading for Bangkok, flush with his last three months wages and the little equity he’d managed to pull out of his terraced house in Stockport.
Fast forward 3 months and he’s at the Amphur office in Bang Rak with the third or fourth girl he’d met down Patpong, legally exchanging vows, having and holding until love tears them apart.
So there’s a bit of a honeymoon period and what little he’s brought with him soon gets yahoo’d up the wall and he’s found work as an English teacher (that was back in the day when they thought apprentice plasterers were amply qualified for the job).
His wages aren’t great, but they pay for the gaff they’ve rented and a bit of food but not much so they try and work out what his newly found devotee can do to earn a crust.
Obviously going back whoring in the SexyBum A gogo bar where he met her in isn’t an option so they rake through a few ideas and come up with the option of getting a distillers license and selling Lao Kao by the roadside somewhere.
My mate (John) gets the last of his hard earned bricks and mortar out of the bank and accompanies Nok to whichever office they need to go to to get the liquor brewers and vendors license and they get down the market and buy a load of demi johns and distilling tackle then set about knocking up a bit of Old Nok number 7.
The whole affair takes a fair amount of time, a lot longer than in takes to write a sentence or two, more like three or four months with the back handers required to expediate the mandarins.
Anyway four to five months after deciding it was the business empire for them John and Nok are ready to roll with their roadside whiskey emporium and it’s cost them their life savings.
They load all their glass jars up and precious liquor made up to Nok’s grandmas recipe and stick it on a hand cart at the location they’d bribed their way into with the local mafia and they’re off and in business.
John fuck’s off to work and leaves Nok to it, sincerely wishing her all the best.
The morning passes without a sale, as does most of the afternoon and just as Nok’s getting despondent a ruddy faced old timer with waxy skin and gin blossoms round his nose pulls up at the stall and starts nosing through the selection of libations.
The fellow looks like a right pisshead so Nok’s keen to ingratiate herself with him as a potential goldmine so offers him a drop or two of the special reserve as a tester free of charge.
To be fair to get in the party mood Nok has a dabble as well and before long a couple of hours have passed and the pair of them are full as bandits rifles.
By this time Nok’s thinking, “This fella’s a right bevy merchant. Keep this [at][at][at][at] happy and we’re in the money.”
Anyway the bloke’s phone goes off. He reaches in his shirt pocket, answers his call, it’s his Mrs saying something along the lines of, “Fucking hell Sombat your tea’s going cold and if you’re not back in twenty minutes I’m fucking off with the milkman.”
So Sombat (for that is the name of all Thai men) by this time pissed as a gang of brickies hops on his motorbike, starts it up, bids Nok a merry fairwell and swerves out into the rush hour traffic.
He’s oblivious to the delivery truck coming his way which sounds its horn, swerves to avoid killing him and in the process mounts the pavement and wipes out Nok’s stall, handcart, bottles, jar, demijohns and whiskey smashed to smithereens.
Nok’s empire ruined in a day, the truck driver fucks off sharpish to avoid any redress and that weekend Nok’s back working in Sexybum Agogo as a”cashier”.