I tried many different Rakias, mostly homemade
The quality varies hugely and some of my bulgarian acquaintances told me once that you always have to know who distilled the stuff, so you know who to blame afterwards, lol.Some taste like shit, others are really fine and imo way better than any Sambuca I've drunk so far. But still, neither Rakia nor Sambuca are as hellish a drink as Mastika (though, I've tried Absinth before but it never gets old).
And yes, been twice in Sofia and met a lot of nice people to party with. The background of the story is that two of my best friends built an internet start-up there. They also have a firm address here (for representative reasons, you know) in Frankfurt, Germany and one of them travels often back and forth between both locations. Probably I'll get to Bul next year for a visit again, still have to visit the beach. btw: where is Haskovo?
oh, to add this: I had a black vodka form Russia once, too. Stuff had "only" around 40% vol. but an Armenian friend of ours (drank that with the guy who works in Bulgaria) told us to be very careful..which of course we weren't
But that stuff had something to it, almost like Absinth. Really tore us apart,