A German alcohol company is causing a stir with a liqueur they sell in the Netherlands called ‘Neuken’, which means ‘to fuck’. Neuken liqueur is made from red vodka and raspberries, and has been fuelling a legion of adverts with bad puns.
Different parties in the Dutch alcohol business have submitted complaints, claiming that alcohol advertising has to be done ‘responsibly’ and Neuken’s sex-related puns are not fitting the bill. The funny part is that the German company, whose Dutch website is full of mistakes, is laughing all the way to the bank and enjoying all the ‘negative’ publicity on Facebook.
Here’s some Dutch humour from Arjen Lubach’s show ‘Zondag met Lubach’, similar to The Daily Show with Trevor Noah in the United States.
The English video below introduces the Netherlands to Donald Trump in a way he should be able to understand: with someone who talks just like him. You’ll notice the Dutch crowd laughing when the narrator pronounces Dutch stuff properly. It also makes fun of the Dutch, which might account for quite a few dislikes on YouTube, but it also takes a good stab at the Dutch government, which is always a crowd-pleaser.
Since facts are going to be more important than ever this year, let’s again note that Trump vodka is made in the Netherlands, in Rotterdam by the Wanders Distillery.
Oh, and without giving away any spoilers, the word ‘pony’ in Dutch means ‘bangs’. Watch the video, it will makes sense.
Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 11:20 am
Quick, what is the world’s foremost potato exporting country? Yes, it’s the Netherlands, a country that exports almost twice the amount of potatoes it grows, leading France by just a few fries (which are Belgian anyway).
Between 26 September and 11 October, 25 tons of potatoes will parade through Amsterdam on big farm trucks. […] The pop-up will offer a wide and colourful variety of potatoes. “At first we were planning to have 30 types, but then some breeds got sick. So, it’s going to be 20 types,” says Felicia Alberding, a freelance journalist who is teaming up with potato farmers in organizing this event.
To make the pop-up more potato-y, there will naturally be an array of potato-related activities. The theatre team Superhallo will perform ‘Knol d’Amour’ which, they say, is both an ode to the potato and a delicious love story. The theatre makers will also host a fry potato party that lets people choose, peel and fry their own potatoes while they are playing music.
There will also be a tattoo artist who uses potato-based ink and both vodka and carrot-and-spinach tea are served, according to the store’s Facebook page.
The boutique was the idea of farmer Krispijn van den Dries from the Noordoostpolder area who wants to breed a better understanding between farmers and consumers. Felicia Alberding: “In most countries, farmers have become invisible over the past years. That anonymity is one of the reasons many people don’t value food and how it’s made any more.”
The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority recently paid a visit to a few locations in the city centre of Amsterdam and made some interesting finds. They confiscated some ivory artworks, 19 stuffed animals and four bottles of cobra vodka, the latter of which is highly illegal and a bit scary if you ask me.
According to the author of the cobra vodka in this picture, which is surely similar to the one that was confiscated:
“It’s Laotian rice whisky in a bottle with a very dead cobra in it. I’ve seen pictures of such snake wine in Vietnam and was surprised to notice that the concept exists in Laos as well. The belief is that the spirit of the snake inside will make you as strong as a cobra and give you more manly virility. I’d probably reluctantly drink a shot if given to me in a shot glass without the snake, but looking at this bottle with the snake inside does make this super creepy.”
In addition to a year chocked full of serious cultural activities that feature the Russian-Dutch connection, 24oranges proudly presents some articles you might have missed that have a bit of the Russian soul in them as well:
Dutch Eurovision’s entry in 2010 was a flop from the get-go and mentioned Leningrad, which was the name of the Russian city of Saint-Petersburg between 1924 and 1991.
We have lots of vodka-related stories, but this one was a good one. Hiddink’s spokesperson said that he never wanted to be associated with tobacco, alcohol or sex, so I guess that means vodka as well.
Once you get past the actual story, there’s a nice educational bit about Peter The Great taxing men with beards and his historical role in changing the Russian alphabet.
I love a good troika: First, we had Guus Hiddink vodka, then Trump vodka made in The Netherlands and now, hi-tech Medea vodka from Schiedam, the birth place of genever (gin).
Medea vodka has a programmable LED label. It can be up to 225 characters, which is more than a Twitter ‘tweet’ (140 characters) or a text message (160 characters). You can turn off the text to save batteries, if so inclined and a bottle costs 30 euro. Being a regular buyer of vodka, Dutch vodka is often pricy at 30 euro a bottle, as compared to Polish and Russian vodka at 15-20 euro a bottle. But hey, this time you get a gadget with your booze.
Oh and by the way, the music in the video is Chopin’s Prelude No. 4 in E minor (Op. 28), which is the work that French composer and artist Serge Gainsbourg’s song ‘Jane B.’ is based on. You get that tidbit extra, as Serge drank more vodka and other alcohol than you drink water.
After walking past a Dutch liquour store in Rotterdam with odd bottles of absinth and vodka with a dead scorpion in it, it was time to have a look inside the store for more oddities. The Dutch make vodka, with some success, which is usually very expensive and often nowhere near as good as any Russian or Polish stuff, and I have sampled enough to say so.
And then I saw Trump vodka, towering over another bottle of the disturbing dead scorpion stuff. The staff saw me reaching for it and immediately all three staff members (two sons and a dad kind of outfit) said it was Dutch vodka made in Rotterdam exclusively for Donald Trump by the Wanders Distillery.
The staff proceeded to tell me that it was picked out of a taste test over many others vying for the job. I am impressed and maybe I’ll try it some day. And maybe grab some scorpion drink, too.
Filed under: General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 10:52 am
There are vodkas named after famous Russians like Pushkin, Yeltsin, Gorbachev and Putin and now there’s talk of one called ‘Hiddinka’, named after Dutch coach Guus Hiddink who coaches the Russian national team. His claim to fame as of late is getting the Russians to the semi-finals of Euro 2008.
Although the vodka is scheduled to hit Russian stores today and the rights are not yet all sorted, Hiddink is very upset about his person being associated with a vodka brand. His spokesperson said that he never wanted to be associated with tobacco, alcohol or sex. Hiddink turns down hundreds of such requests, no matter what kind of money was being offered.
The to be expected answer from the distillery was “but it’s an honour to have a vodka named after you” and “it’s not called ‘Hiddink’, but ‘Hiddinka'”, making it a female singular adjective to qualify the vodka. Yes, that’s why what your poison is called ‘Stolichnaya’ (Capital) and ‘Moskovskaya’ (Moscow, as an adjective).
Quick, what is the world’s foremost potato exporting country? Yes, it’s the Netherlands, a country that exports almost twice the amount of potatoes it grows, leading France by just a few fries (which are Belgian anyway).
