Palinka and electro-punk in Budapest

Spend even a short amount of time in Hungary's historical capital Budapest and you'll be hard pushed to avoid a run-in with two of the nation's revered national drinks, Palinka and Unicum.

Sipping on Palinka - a throat-burningly strong fruit-flavoured brandy - seems to be part and parcel of Hungarian life for many local residents, who take no small amount of pleasure in forcing the shall-we-say 'acquired taste' on unsuspecting visitors to the country. And even those tourists who recoil in disgust at the drink will allow it one simple accolade - namely, that it's better than Unicum.

But to understand quite why Hungarians frequently forego their world-renowned wine in favour of plum-flavoured brandy and a murky green-coloured spirit that was originally produced for medicinal purposes (that would be the Unicum), the discerning traveller has to dive a little deeper into the psyche of the average Hungarian.

Put quite simply, Hungarians - or Magyars (pronounced Mud-yars), as their ancestors would have it - never, ever take the easy route.

Take a whirlwind tour of the history of Hungary and a few home truths will immediately become apparent. Originally, the Magyars hailed from the Ural Mountains - the Russian meeting point of Europe and Asia - and over hundreds of years they traipsed across the region, raping, pillaging and to be perfectly honest generally making a nuisance of themselves wherever they went.

Eventually some of them settled down in what is considered modern-day Hungary (the rest, incidentally, made their way to Estonia and Finland) and over the coming centuries they gave rise to a population that achieved such noble tasks as being the catalyst for the fall of Soviet Communism and - characteristically - inventing the most frustrating thing on the planet: the Rubix cube.

Modern day Magyars are fiercely proud of their unusual roots, and the tenacity of their ancestors shines through in every aspect of their contemporary culture.

Hence the Palinka, hence the country's seemingly endless list of impoverished philosophers, poets and scientists (none of whom you or I - and perhaps even the average Magyar - would have heard of), hence the torturous fondness for mixing and quite deliberately clashing musical genres, and of course hence the refusal among a majority of the population to learn English ('why should we learn your language?' they demand - 'you learn ours!')

Even cracking a smile seems a daunting prospect to the average Magyar - so crude an expression seeming not to give justice to the depth of his sentiments - and for this reason, this unrelenting fondness of austerity, many tourists coming to Hungary for the first time will make the mistake of classifying it an exceptionally unwelcoming, hostile place.

Until, that is, they dig a little deeper.

So when you visit Budapest - if you haven't already been scared off the prospect - drink their Palinka, grapple with their language, muster one of their cloudy countenances and do your very best to take in the sights and sounds of one of Europe's most beautiful and historic cities - one that makes all the more sense, once you just understand where the people are coming from.