Taipei Times: How does it feel to have what many would consider to be the best job in the world and are your friends jealous?
Kevin Brauch: It's pretty damn good. It's my lottery win, or that's what I like to say. It is amazing. And after almost four years I still have as much disbelief as everybody else that there is actually a job like this.
My friends hate my guts. Their idea of what I do is that I sit around the hotel pool and drink all day and wherever I go it is sunny and warm and that I get to fly first class.
PHOTO: GAVIN PHIPPS, TAIPEI TIMES
All of that's bullshit, though. Like all jobs it can be hard work at times, and with the exception of the occasional bump up to business or first class, I'm at the back the bus like everyone else most of the time.
TT: You used to present kids' shows on Canadian TV, so how on earth did you get a gig that lets you to travel the world and enjoy the more adult oriented pastime of drinking?
KB: I used to work in Toronto and one day I got a call from a TV company in Calgary. They said they had an adult lifestyle show titled The Thursday Traveler and would I be interested in hosting it. I thought great, The Thursday Traveler, a three-day weekend, how far can you go? I'd be back in time for work on Monday. So I said OK and that I was interested in hosting the show.
Of course, the whole time I'm talking to the station guy I'm calling the show `Thursday Traveler.' The guy on the other end of the phone finally took time to pause and said "I think you heard me wrong, I said the `Thirsty Traveler.' I figured that was even better, so I agreed to do it straight away.
TT: How many countries has the Thirsty Traveler been inebriated in and how many more do you think your liver can take?
KB: Over the past four years we've filmed and I've drunk in 33 countries. I figure that I've got at least another two years before the format runs flat and, or my liver says `no more!' We're going to China and Tasmania this year and are talking about India and Egypt and we're planning to do Spain. I'd love to checkout Iceland, though. They're pretty rabid drinkers, especially during the winter months. And I've heard that the girls are cute there as well.
TT: Have there been times when you've been too drunk to go in front of the camera?
KB: I've gotten legless, but it's not been of my own accord. It's been because of the hospitality I'm shown by the guests. At Korean BBQ in Seoul I was drinking beer and soju. It was my first insight into Korean hospitality and believe me it was a mess. They're vicious drinkers and I say that with all respect
TT: Has there ever been an occasion where you have had to say no to a drink?
KB: To date, I've never refused a drink, but I came pretty close once. We were at this famous restaurant just outside of Moscow to shoot an introduction to the vodka episode and before we could begin filming the owner wanted to drink with us to get a feel for what and who we were.
So he got out his own homemade flavored vodkas. Christ, they were awful. He's got a great restaurant that looks beautiful and has amazing food, but he had the shitiest vodka I have ever drunk.
I drank ten shots on a Saturday morning before I'd started filming. Then I had to go through the tasting session with the guest. By noon I'd had more 15 shots, which is closing in on alcohol poisoning. I recovered, but it was a long day, and in the evening when we had to go out for dinner I nursed one beer.
TT: What and where was the foulest concoction you've ever had to consume?
KB: Germany. I'm not knocking the Germans, I mean I have German ancestors, but, God, they make some awful schnapps and all in the name of digestion.
They say that appetizers open up the pallet, but when they make this stuff out of roots from the forest floor, add spices and some bark for flavor then let it sit for six weeks it's just vile. It makes Jagermeister taste like candy.
TT: When you're not drinking for work what's your poison and how do you unwind?
KB: I'm a bit of a beer and wine guy. Call it self-preservation kicking in, but when I'm not working I go home to clean up a bit.
I go to the gym to workout and watch soccer on television. I enjoy wine and beer with a meal. It's the thing to do. I don't know why anybody would ruin a good meal with a coke. I just don't understand that. But ideally, and if I had the choice I'd love to be in Jamaica drinking rum and cold Red Stripes and enjoying the hospitality of the locals, if you know what I mean.
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As with most of northern Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) settlements, the village of Arunothai was only given a Thai name once the Thai government began in the 1970s to assert control over the border region and initiate a decades-long process of political integration. The village’s original name, bestowed by its Yunnanese founders when they first settled the valley in the late 1960s, was a Chinese name, Dagudi (大谷地), which literally translates as “a place for threshing rice.” At that time, these village founders did not know how permanent their settlement would be. Most of Arunothai’s first generation were soldiers
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