Beware of men bearing gifts of longhouse gin

So you're hungry, in a new city and it's getting late. I still don't know my way around Kuching but it's small enough to be able to ignore the map I'd grabbed at the airport. I wandered more out of curiosity in a new place than out of hunger pangs. Spotted a café across the way when finally the hunger pangs began to override the desire to seek out pastures new. When I walked in there was footie on the telly - bonus. The 'café' was more of a hovel selling cheap beer to thirsty Chinese who'd spent the day selling goods at the weekend market. They'd had an early start and clearly from the way they ordered beer in threes and fours, it was going to be a late finish too.
Found myself a seat and sat self-consciously down. This was clearly not the tourist end of town and the guy at whose seat I sat didn't seem remotely interested in engaging in any type of conversation, so much so he took a few more slugs from his beer and moved to the next table. 'Fuck you' I thought, decided to have one beer and leave and that would be that. Except it wasn't. The owner came over and I asked for a beer.
'One or three?' came the reply.
'Er, just the one, thanks.'
He brought two beers to the table and sat with me, his broken English sufficient to get us to the end of our beers. But before I'd finished mine off he went again, returning with two more beers. Except he'd barely touched his and poured most of his can into my glass. Hunger now forgotten - beer eh? - he continued to repeat this for 3 or 4 more rounds. Tongues loosened all round, the previously disinterested tables surrounding us huddled closer and got in on the conversation. We spoke, of course, the international language of drunkenness and the more we drank, the more fluent we became. At one stage, a guy sitting at the table beside mine disappeared momentarily on his bike, returning with a bottle in his hand. The famous longhouse gin. I asked the owner why he hadn't bought the gin at the bar to be told that it wasn't a liquor that could be sold legally over the counter.
It was agreed - by everyone but me - that I would try some so - bollocks to it - down the hatch it went. It didn't have any discernible taste but the afterglow remained long after. I picked up the bottle to glance at its alcohol content - I could barely read at this stage - and saw 60% proof and so I took out my camera to remind myself tomorrow of what I'd been drinking. Even now I'm not quite sure if we should have been drinking the stuff or removing paint with it.
But for the fact that Liverpool were playing the Gooners on the box - the Premier League is everywhere here - I'd probably still be there now. I made my excuses - it took all of half an hour - and stumbled home, somehow finding my way back to the hostel just in time to see the red mist descend on Joe Cole. As first nights in a city go, peerless.