November 6, 2021 - Barstool Sports, a wildly popular sports and pop-culture media company based in the US, is taking on The Balkans. TCN caught up with Barstool Abroad host The Wonton Don to uncover what we can expect with Barstool Sports in Croatia.
It's safe to say that if you're between the ages of 20-40 and enjoy millennial media coverage of sports, pop culture, entertainment, a bit of debauchery, and a lot of laughs, you follow Barstool Sports. And with 10 million website visits a day and an Instagram following of over 12 million, you're certainly not alone.
It's nearly impossible not to know about Barstool Sports coming from the States, where the media company was founded back in the early 2000s. As an avid follower myself, you can imagine I was eager to see how the new Barstool Abroad series would tackle the beauty of The Balkans.
"Apologies for being MIA lately. I filmed this series Sept 14th-30th and have just been editing my dick off ever since. Starting TONIGHT, new episodes of "Barstool Abroad: The Balkans" will be dropping every Wednesday at 7PM with some bonus content sprinkled in between. As of now, we're looking at 7 long episodes, and at least a couple shorter ones, so throw on your Adidas slav suits and let's get weird!" wrote The Wonton Don, also known as Donnie Does, about the brand new Barstool Abroad video series launched November 4.
The first episode sees The Wonton Don arrive in Rovinj from Venice, after which he tries homemade olive oil from a local lawyer turned farmer. Don then embarks on 'one of the coolest dining experiences' he's ever had - truffle hunting in Istria. You can watch the episode in its entirety below.
TCN caught up with Don after the episode aired to get his thoughts on Croatia.
"The first city I visited was Rovinj, and as I'm sure every Croatian is well aware, it's breathtakingly beautiful. I loved how you could swim right off the walls of the city as you can't do that in many of the larger coastal cities in the US due to pollution, unfortunately."
What about Croatian hospitality?
"I can say throughout my entire two weeks in the Balkans; I didn't have a single negative experience with the locals. Everyone was so welcoming and excited to share their culture with me. One of my favorite experiences was when a Croatian American took me to her boyfriend's hometown in Slavonski Brod to a wine harvest party. We harvested all the grapes on his family's vineyard and then drank all the wine they had made from last year's harvest. This has been a family tradition for generations, and I was honored I got to experience it."
Favorite part of the truffle hunting experience?
"Prior to truffle hunting, I had only heard of people using dogs to hunt other animals. So it was awesome to hunt for lunch with dogs for the day without having to kill anything."
You mentioned it was one of the cooler dining experiences you've had in your life - what was your favorite truffle dish that day?
"The truffled eggs because I got to personally shave the truffle we found on top of it. Getting shaved truffles on your dish at a restaurant in New York City would cost more than $60USD, so it was nice to overload on truffles without having to worry about the bill."
Any teasers on what we can expect for the rest of this Balkan series?
"Some of the things you'll see me doing in this series:
- Investigating the floating 'splav' clubs of Belgrade
- playing water polo with the Croatia Olympic team
- A wine harvest festival
- jumping off the 80 ft. Mostar bridge (the highest thing I've ever jumped off by far)
- Attending the Belgrade Derby between Red Star Belgrade and Partizan Belgrade
- Attending my first live handball match
- Showcasing the beauty of Dubrovnik, Split, and Hvar
- Mussel harvesting in the Bay of Kotor
- Interview with Dubioza Kolektiv
- and more..."
Don't miss any of Barstool in the Balkans and catch a new episode every Wednesday HERE.
To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.
