Koniak sounds like something wintry: Klondike, frosty, Santa Claus, chilly, balaclava, icy, arctic, solid icebergs not at the precipice of collapse,
polar bears on floating frosty islands. And, in fact, it suites the occasion
quite magically. On a cold Ethiopian dusk, I finally broke open my bag of
Koniak to a nice earthy smell – quite expecting peppermint but settling for the
smell of roots blended with nitrogenous soil – that wasn’t at all off-setting
(certainly not as off-setting as the wave of pleasure that melted like a cap of
ice over my brain moments later). I had been warned on the Kava Forums to not
make big plans for the next day. Alas, that wasn’t possible – I had to wake up
at dawn and drive down a perilous road to a farm in the highlands to check on
the progress of a sweet potato project. But as I am writing this in a
Koniak-induced buzz and quite enjoying the twinkling starlight of the southern
hemisphere, my plans for tomorrow seem as far-off as the disappearing polar ice
caps.
Now, the Kava. It is divine. It is powerful. It is absolutely,
positively – nay, dangerously – overpowering. It is definitely one of the most
potent Kavas I have had and could bowl over a newbie like an avalanche. In
fact, it did. One of my co-workers dipped in and was soon pondering the real
meaning of words. No man, I mean the real
meaning of words. Words like: fiddlesticks, diphthong, wombat, mollycoddle,
bluesocks, grown-up. We were absolutely pealing with laughter – pealing like
ice from the top of a sloping lake during the Spring. We were absolutely and
thoroughly stoned. We reminisced on old surfing stories from California and
islands faraway. All from the crown of the world in the Ethiopian highlands.
Now, I can say that the effects of this Kava are incredibly
immediate. The minute it has gone down the hatch there is the imminent sense of
senselessness. Muscle aches? Gone. Wretched knots in your back or limbs? Gone.
Sense of time? Devastated. On that last note, I really mean it. I started
throwing this Kava down the hatch at 7 P.M – throwing down another shell every
ten minutes for another hour or so – and at 11 P.M was still wide-awake and
pondering really funny, fluffy things. Things like snowflakes and snow angels. It
has power and endurance. I warned you.
Surprisingly, this Kava has a wonderfully clean and milky
taste. It has undertones of a nuttiness – maybe a hint of cashew or walnut. The
flavor melts into the numbness quite seamlessly. One minute you are enjoying
the flavor (yes, I have said before that I enjoy the flavor or Kava) and the
next minute you are – again – sensing senselessness. It tastes like a Fijian or
Tongan blend but hits like something from Papua New Guinea combined with something
from the Solomon Islands. So either Judd has a lab somewhere where he is baking
up new varieties of Kava or he has truly stumbled upon some magical village in
the south Pacific and made really good friends. I’d anticipate the latter.
This Kava is highly recommended. Definitely one of the best
I have ever had. Certainly one of the most powerful.
Flavor 9.7/10
Effects (Mind) - 9.8/10
Effects (Body) - 9.9/10
Strength - Strong, Very Strong
Bula Kava House's Koniak - 9.8/10
