Month: June 2021

The jagged mountainsides and lush valleys of Costa Rica are dotted with small fields of sugar cane, and have been for centuries. The distillation of cane juice into rum has been practiced throughout Latin America and the Caribbean for ages, but in some special places they distill it into something much more akin to vodka. This delightful and surprising concoction is Guaro.

If you’ve been alternating between baking in the blistering sun and riding blissfully along the rolling waves that grace the surf of the Nicoya Penninsula on the Pacific side of Costa Rica, and you find yourself at a local Soda (a Costa Rican “bar”), you may be presented with some Guaro. You will likely have to ask for it, since tourist types are generally offered the drinks they tend to buy, like daiquiris (actually from Cuba) or Margaritas (Mexico) or beer. But if you ask for Guaro, the nod of recognition alone is worth the price of the shot. But be aware, the Costa Rican government nationalized production of Guaro in 1851 to try to stop bootlegging. In 2019 there were apparently 19 deaths in Costa Rica tied to consuming illicit and tainted Guaro. So get the real stuff.

This is not a spirit with a powerful character. It will not assault your senses with smoke, vanilla, peat, or fruit-forward aromas. It tastes like what would happen if you put some reasonably good vodka into an empty rum bottle, sang a pirate sea shanty to it, then poured it into a shot glass. To my tongue, the star of this show is the limón. These gorgeous little buggers grow everywhere and have a unique flavor somewhere between lemon, lime, and sour orange. Taste the Guaro, chase it with a quick suck on a limón slice, let your senses drink it all in. The waves are kissing the beach, the jungle is humming with life, the howler monkeys are grunting and barking their way through the trees, and your mosquito bites no longer itch as the citrus and Guaro gently pulse comfort through your veins.

If you’re feeling brave, follow it with another, or a chilled Imperial beer (the Costa Rican beer, and another blog entry for another time) and then hit the muddy trail to the nearby waterfalls for a swim. Just watch out for the howler monkeys, as their primary reaction to seeing people below them is to piss downward. Easy enough to avoid, but good to know about. Pura vida!

For the Maya, who bathed the steaming hot jungles of the Yucatan in sacrificial blood from atop stone pyramids, the mystical ones among them who could vanish like smoke and invade your mind, shape-shift, the ones we would call something like “Wizard,” were called Nahual. Yes, there are lots of spellings, interpretations, and I can hear the nitpickers wanting to comment on this word, but this blog has no comments, so there it is. Onward.

Those same Maya also shared a tradition with the much of the world in the form of a sweat lodge, a squat earthen dome with a pit in the center for red hot stones to be placed. Here people are baked like loaves of bread until their souls come unglued and drift out with the incense and steam. This is El Temazcal and the experience will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. Emerging from this domed womb soaking wet with the mingled sweat and tears of myself and my fellow travellers, I guzzled a gallon of water, fell to the ground, and slept. When I awoke, I made my way to the seashore and, walking in the blazing sun along the powdery sand, I stumbled across a lonely bar. The man who ran the place must have seen the shaken, aimlessness on my face and he offered me a seat and told me about El Nahual.

While there is ample history and countless flowery stories surrounding El Nahual, in this case he was describing the local cocktail. It is a bold blend, made from mezcal, juiced tamarindo with guajillo chili, lime juice, and bitters of Oaxacan mole. *Please forgive the lack of accents and odd spelling, much of this blog is done on a barely usable old laptop.

The first thing that struck and delighted me about this fermented wonder is that it is, for me, the perfect amount of sweetness (which is essentially none) because of the fruit, but the kick of the chili wrestles whatever sugar your mouth is sensing hopelessly to the ground and hits it in the face with its own hands. There is mezcal, there is mole, there is chili, so there is no doubt about where you are. Because this cocktail feels more like a spiced snack, you may feel like you can enjoy a few of them. And that is why it is the Wizard, my friends. What seems like a kindly old fella with stories to tell you turns out quickly to have stolen your senses, spun you around several times, and set your stomach on fire. His spells are best taken in small doses. Enough to dream on, but not so much that you wake up transformed into an iguana.