Japan
Well, of course, sake. Real sake has a strength of only about 20 degrees, and it is served in special clay bottles with a glass capacity. That is, when you return home, you can safely tell your friends how 'my friend Yasubari and I got five bottles of sake and crushed them outside the city, under the sakura... And, believe it or not, it wasn't enough!' Pure truth. However, if you drink Japanese-style - in tiny portions - it may well be enough. Drinking alcohol this way enhances intoxication. There is even an old student recipe: a bottle of beer is poured into a soup plate and eaten like soup - with a spoon. You can get drunk from one bottle.
By the way, about beer. For those who cannot live without it so much that even in Japan they do not want to drink sake, I can recommend traditional Japanese beer with quite decent taste and a gorgeous name that sounds a little obscene to the Russian ear.
France
France and wine are inseparable. Here the choice of this drink depends on the region you are in. For example, Parisians recommend visitors drink Bordeaux or Champagne. If you end up in Provence, locals will advise you to wash down the wonderful food with rosé Cote de Provence or Bandol Rose. In southeastern France, it is best to drink red wine from local vineyards. Literally, find out what that vineyard just outside the village is called, and compare it with the label on the bottle. It should be the same.
Besides wine, cocktails are good in France. In Paris - all sorts of exotic ones: Long Island, Mai-Tai, Weng Weng. In Provence, the traditional strong drink is pastis (45-50 degrees), which is made from anise. Locals usually dilute pastis with water 50:50 and drink it with ice. On the coast, perroquet is very popular - pastis with mint syrup and ice. One of the symbols of France - absinthe - is now banned in the country, but in the French Alps, chartreuse and génépi (50-60 degrees) are considered its substitutes. They are served freely, but are strongly recommended to be diluted. By the way, absinthe is still sold illegally in Paris - look for small signs with the drink's name in windows.
Ireland
Guinness, a thousand times Guinness. Nowhere does Guinness have such a creamy foam, such a taste as in Ireland - where it was invented. No, seriously. It is very different from what we drink at home or even in Germany - Irish Guinness is softer and its taste is fuller. The best Guinness can be tasted in Dublin at the brewery. In the 19th century, it was served there for free, but now they might give it as a supplement to the tour - which, however, does not include a tour of the production.
If you can consume something other than Guinness, it will be whiskey. Ireland and Scotland still argue about who invented it. The official version is that whiskey, like Christianity, first appeared (thanks to St. Patrick) in Ireland. And almost immediately moved across the strait to friendly Scottish tribes. Irish whiskey tastes softer than Scottish whisky and is cheaper. However, everything is cheaper in Ireland. Whiskey is added to literally everything on the island. Including coffee. Irish coffee is the ultimate tenderness. It is whipped milk, coffee, and whiskey - a favorite drink of women. Just like Baileys - but unlike real draft Guinness, Baileys can be bought in Duty Free and taken away.
Greece
Retsina is a special type of wine that is aged in resin barrels and has a resin taste. Those who don't like retsina can drink regular local wine - white 'Hatzimichali', red 'Boutaris' and 'Mavrodaphne' - a very sweet and strong wine like port wine. Greeks often drink ouzo - local anise vodka. As for other strong drinks, I can recommend Greek 'Metaxa'. The junk that is sold in our stores has a very distant relation to real 'Metaxa'. The quality of Metaxa in Greece is much better than the export one. Choose five-star, seven-star to avoid missing out.
America
In America, you should eat, not drink. Drinking is not customary there. Well, that is, it is customary, but only at home, quietly, by yourself. And showing in public that you can drink more than a couple of diluted drinks before dinner is not customary. One drink portion contains about 30-40 grams of alcohol. In pubs, there is also the concept of a shot. One shot is one ounce (29.5 g) of something strong, for example, whiskey (which is much worse than Scottish whisky). That is, if you order a double whiskey in a pub, they will pour only 60 grams. Better to stick with cocktails. The most famous is the 'screwdriver', vodka with orange juice. The most popular is Helloween: 30 g whiskey, 50 g orange juice and 10 g lemon juice.
Italy
"And ascends to his room on board via the gangway/ a lodger, carrying grappa in his pocket/ a perfect nobody, a man in a trenchcoat/ who has lost memory, homeland, son/ a poplar weeps in the forests over his hump/ if anyone weeps for him at all."
Mumbling these lines from Brodsky, uncork the bottle. Grappa is a drink of the abandoned. It is made from pomace - the remains of grapes after all the juice has been taken for wine. It turns out to be a kind of brandy. Sometimes with a strange taste and a slight smell of fusel oil. However, if you suddenly find yourself in the province of Fazi-Bataglia, you might be served a charming golden liquid of very high quality as grappa. On local private plantations, grapes are pressed with a special soft press, so a lot of juice remains in the pomace for grappa. And so that goodness does not go to waste, the product is well purified after distillation - and grappa turns out to be quite decent. Drink grappa, but only if the wonderful Italian wine no longer cheers you up.
Czech Republic
Beer, beer, and more beer! Naturally, draft. A mug of beer in the Czech Republic costs less than ours, and the quality is excellent. If you want to fully enjoy this drink, go to some small restaurant that has its own brewery. They are quite easy to find. First, they usually advertise it at the entrance, and second, inside you can immediately see two giant closed vats. That is a real brewery built right in the restaurant. Small, for the needs of only that establishment's customers. The quality of beer in such restaurant breweries is often higher than that of ordinary factory Czech beer.
Netherlands
The usual Dutch drink is beer, and the famous Heineken is not favored by local snobs. But then again, they are snobs. If you find yourself in Amsterdam, it's better not to drink at all. Because at the end of the day you will still go in - if only out of curiosity - to a coffee shop (a special cafe where marijuana is sold and smoked), and there the local tourism professionals will have no trouble «pushing» a fragrant joint on you: marijuana is legalized in the Netherlands. «Lacquering» your drink with weed or hashish will make you feel very unwell.
Native Amsterdammers deeply despise «stupid tourists» who mix drinking with weed. And they are right. Local varieties of hashish and marijuana are too potent to mix with anything else without harming your health in general and your spatial orientation in particular. So if you've had some beer, hold on, don't smoke, no matter how sincerely they offer it.
Finland
Besides the standard vodka exotics, Finland has completely wonderful liqueurs: cranberry, cloudberry (Lakka Liqueur) and sea buckthorn. These are not made anywhere else. They are really worth trying. But act wisely: in Duty Free shops at the border they cost $5, and in Finland itself - almost $15. All alcohol in Suomi - not only liqueurs - is very expensive, so stock up in advance. As much as possible, and possibly a liter per person.