A journey of a thousand drinks begins with a single sip. For author Derek Sandhaus, that first sip of baijiu, China's notorious tipple, did not go down well at all.
"It smelled as if someone had run a garbage bag of soiled gym shorts into a bucket of fish sauce, stirred in an equal measure of Drano, rotten fruit, and blue cheese, and left to marinate a few days. It was a smell conjured from the pits of hell, the last whiff one senses before waking up in a serial killer's rumpus room."
Never let it be denied that Mr. Sandhaus has a particular gift for descriptive metaphor.