Saturday 18 February 2012

Cambodia Liquid Reviews

While I get to processing all my photos from Angkor Wat, here's something a little different in what I've been drinking here. Surprisingly Cambodia has a far greater choice of things both alcoholic and non-alcoholic to drink than anywhere I've been yet.

Australia is all normal to me but it does have a wide expensive selection. Coke/Pepsi/7up/Sprite are everywhere so far. Singapore had Tiger and ABC, and one microbrewery. Malaysia had the F&N brand (like Fanta), A&W, and 100plus, and being a Muslim country there wasn't that much variety of alcohol unless I strayed into largely Chinese towns which then had the Belgium beer copies like Panda/Eagle/Bear/Bison. Thailand has strawberry/orange/rainbow varieties of Fanta, some Korean/Japanese imports like that Doopi drink, and tiger/singa/chang/leo in the beer department, but hugeeee varieties in the energy drink market. Laos had the same fanta/coke/pepsi/7up as Thailand, but Beer Lao everywhere. Vietnam had Tiger and some local city beers like Hanoi and Halong.

Which brings me to Cambodia. The first surprising thing is how well stocked the fridges are. I guess it's only little changes compared to Thailand, but still, I never expected this here... In the Fanta range there's now Sars/Strawberry/Rainbow/Orange/Grape/Lychee. Schweppes is here too with lemonade, tonic water, soda water, ginger beer and ginger ale.

Forget Bundaberg, Kirks and A&W. This is now King of the hill in the sars department (I've been out of the country for 7 months eating various chillis, my tastebuds could be shot).
Now for the beers.... This is the biggest range of beer I've seen since I've been in a Dan Murphy's.

Kingdom Gold, Crown, Bayon, Black Panther.

Angkor

Kingdom Pilsner, Kingdom Dark Lager
Plus... Not pictured is the 'Cambodia', and imported beers from Thailand and Singapore.

So for small reviews:
Kingdom Gold: Better than Angkor, but not by much. And I think Angkor is slightly cheaper
Crown: Meh. Like chang.
Bayon: Meh. Like chang.
Black Panther: 8% stout, very strong and dirty tasting. So I guess a pretty good stout? Second preference when I can't find Kingdom Dark.
Angkor: OK beer, pretty much served everywhere
Cambodia: A bit more watery than Angkor I thought?
Kingdom Pilsner: A huge step above everything else here. But almost double the price.
Kingdom Dark Larger: The current champion of all beers here. It's a dark lager, but it's not a bock. This will remain my go-to beer while in Cambodia but I've only seen it in one shop so far.

I'll go through my Angkor Wat photos tomorrow after visiting Angkor Thum. And explain how the touts here have stepped up a whole new level from what I've seen anywhere else.

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