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• n  a colorless plum brandy popular in the Balkans

• Bottles of beer and slivovitz -- hoarded or, as many mutter angrily, stolen -- are available at outrageous prices.
• While the slivovitz circulated last week Papa Semiz philosophized.
• It was tense, this past winter, when Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, and La Dolce Vita's regulars gathered in a tense silence, sipping slivovitz plum brandy, smoking .