More "real vodka" etiquette for everyone's education... the PSA continues.
OK, so the guy who wrote this novel is like Crete's friend Emil... born in Romania, but emigrated to the US. Not sure what age Emil was, but this guy emigrated as a small child (just like the main character in the book).
He's been nailing the Romanian stuff, which makes sense. He's got it all down... right to the details of drinking "tuica" which is their plumb brandy vodka equivalent. "Boris" (not his real Russian name, that's the alias assigned to him) is Russian and carries his personal bottle of Stoli in Bucharest, fair enough, 1000000% believable in 1989 (year of setting). However, a page later, I caught him when it comes to "Russian stuff." If you see the passage I posted above, he says that Boris made the pour into the glasses. In the passage below, he says that Hefflin poured the second round...
This would be a MASSIVE "alcohol foul" in countries that drink real vodka. It's a shattering of superstition/protocol that is unfathomable. I would have been absolutely horrifying for "Boris" to witness... in fact, he would have quickly stopped Hefflin from doing so. In real vodka countries, the person who pours first (usually selected for their "steady hand," you don't just splash the schit in there!) pours all the shots until the bottle is empty. I'm kind of afraid to keep reading because I'm afraid the next thing he'll say is something like, "Hefflin set the empty bottle on the table" when you NEVER put a "dead soldier" on the table... it goes on the floor next to a table leg... not on a counter top, not thrown in the trash, not taken away... dead soldiers go on the floor until you are done drinking.
This ends this segment of my ongoing vodka PSA...
