Trust me, I checked.

If you stay in the country where you were raised it's fairly easy to take some things for granted. Like being able to ask a person at the information desk for information. Or a knowing what to do with most of the vegetables you see in the market.

Or having proper mixers for your booze.

Oh yeah, it sounds like a joke. But what are you going to do when you most of your peers tell you that a great drink is one made of fermented sweet potato mash served cold with a salt-pickled plum mashed up in it?

I figured as much. So let me offer you a little tip. Pick up a the biggest bottle you can find of C C Lemon. Yes, it's a soft drink. A shockingly lemony soft drink, which claims to have enough vitamin C to fend off scurvy for a couple of weeks at sea. And its ad campaigns have generally tended to fall on the weird side.

But it is a suitable mixer for use with whiskey, vodka, sho-chu, and gin. And if you try it with tequila, with which it is delicious, be sure to refer to it as a "Si Si Uno Mas."