Sitting at home, sipping a Malbac from Argentina (Navarro Correas, Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina, 2008) on a cold night in DC while dreaming of warmer weather, I am thinking back to the very interesting Christmas night I had this year. I spent the holiday in Atlanta with my Cuban family. No, my family is not from Cuba, but my brother married a wonderful girl who's parent's families are from Cuba.
On Christmas Eve, we had a traditional Cuban meal of black beans and rice, roasted pork and boiled Yuccas. We went through about ten bottles of wine that night and I capped off the evening with a couple of white Russians to fight off the indigestion. We woke early the next morning (just as we did as children over 20 years ago), opened presents and had mimosas. Then, for some reason, everyone pretty much stopped drinking and took naps.
Later in the afternoon, we went to my sister-in-law's uncle's house to keep the celebration going as snow fell outside - giving Atlanta its first white Christmas since 1882. Once we were settled in (after tours of the house and handing out gifts) the patriarch of the family began making everyone Cuba libres (a Cuban term for rum and coke in case you didn't know), but there were only a few takers. Over the cocktails, the grandparents started talking about life in Cuba and what they had to do the get out so many years ago. I have always been intrigued by Cuba ever since I started reading Hemingway. While using the pork from the feast the night before to make Cuban sandwiches, they told me I could get a flight from Miami – something I will have to look in to as Cuba is a must in my adventurous lifestyle.
As the night went on, we ate the sandwiches and listened to Christmas music. The grandfather returned and produced a bottle Cuban rum which had been illegally brought to the states by family and given as a gift. I poured the golden rum over crushed ice, adding a splash of coke to cut it, and spent the rest of the night slapping dominoes against the table as my head spun.
I was intrigued by the sweet rum from Cuba and had to look it up; after all, it's something I can't get my hands on in the states. The rum was called Bucanero, from the province of Las Tunas, Cuba, as established in 1976. Located on the southern coast that opens onto the Gulf of Guacanayabo, the marshy, wet area which is full of mangroves, provides the perfect region to grow sugarcane.
If you didn't know, rum is made from sugarcane by-products such as its juice and molasses which is processed through fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak and other barrels which gives rum its golden color.
The majority of the world's rum production occurs in and around the Caribbean and in several Central and South American countries such as Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, Barbados, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Haiti, Belize, and Cuba. Rum can also be found around the world in places such as Australia, Fiji, Mexico, the Philippines, and India. My sister and I, on a trip to Barbados a couple of years ago, took a tour of the Mount Gay factory. We stayed in a small resort and drank rum drinks during the day, Carib and Banks beers in the afternoon, and I drank straight rum out of coffee mugs back in the suite at the end of the night while smoking in the moonlight. Rum is the type of beverage you drink when it's hot, but I was drinking it in Atlanta – while it was snowing.
Back to my history lesson: Rum is a cornerstone in the culture of most islands of the West Indies, and has famous associations with the Royal Navy (where it was mixed with water or beer to make grog – as used in eggnog) and piracy (where it was consumed as “Bumbo” - a drink made from rum, water, sugar, nutmeg or as in the more modern version (a Hurricane) made with dark rum, citrus juice, Grenadine and nutmeg).
I searched and searched the web for something (anything) on Bucanero, but could not find a thing. All I can tell you is that it had hits of vanilla, was sweet in taste and had a slow burn as it went down. I'm not sure how this rum stacks up against some of the best rums from Cuba, but it did the job and gave me a nice buzz as we played dominoes into the night. I'll have to get to Cuba sometime to see what else is out there.
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