These two bottles look innocent enough, but they both represent liquid contraband (shhh, don't tell Homeland Security).
The bottle on the left is honey, bought near San Juan de la Maguana, in the DR's arid South. I can't quite identify the type of flower the bees visited, but sugar cane is flowering now, and the honey is a little boozy and mellow.
Honey is not only one of the oldest foods consumed by man, but it also always has an unmistakable terroir, especially where bees are wild still. And here, it's best to buy honey from road stands, where it's been collected by local campesinos, and bottled in whatever's handy (hence the recycled Brugal bottle). Supermarket honey, though still local, is usually adulterated with molasses.
Most people think the island is one long uninterrupted beach, but there are several ecosystems here. There's even one area, Constanza, where the temperature drops to freezing in winter. The South is very dry, with lots of succulents (cacti are common) and has crops that don't grow as well elsewhere (guandules, anón, a chewy kind of corn).
Even in a smallish island (you can go tip to tip in a few hours, barring traffic), honey tastes different from place to place. A bottle bought in the Central Cibao region tasted muskier and richer.
As for the mystery liquid in the bottle on the right? It's clerén -- Haitian cane liquor. There is no commercial production, and on the Dominican side, it's forbidden, so the way to get is in Haiti or buying it from one of the smugglers along the border. Again, the artisanal production explains the recylced bottles.
I paid RD$80 (US$2) for the 20 oz bottle. When we stopped at the border on Elias Piña (our friend Osiris suggested we buy on the Dominican side, to avoid problems with the border guards), we asked one of the motoconcho guys who sold some, and he took me a few minutes down the road and up a dusty, rocky hill to the house of a man who eyed me up and down before agreeing to sell it to me.
The motor taxi guy was right about the quality; this is a good few steps above rotgut. It reminds me of a nice cachaça, which makes sense, as they are both basically the same liquor.
A friend promised to find me some San Pedro guavaberry (a liqueur made by West Indian immigrants who came to work in the sugar factories), but I think that'll have to wait for some other time. My plans for the clerén? Probably neat, when New York warms up, or if I just want to feel a little Caribbean warmth. Who needs all those brain cells anyway?
deja el bulto, eso e un amarre q tu le va a hacer a un tiguere con miel y cleren !
Posted by: rJ | January 22, 2008 at 01:15 PM
Pana, no me descubra el asunto, que los tígueres no-dominicanos no saben ná de eso.
Además, sólo basta un buen palo de clerén pa' caer. No hay necesidad de amarre.
Posted by: Caro | January 22, 2008 at 03:36 PM
I want to know where the original contents of the Brugal bottle went? [hiccup]
Posted by: Willy | February 17, 2008 at 10:30 PM
Hey, I found it like that, I swear!!!
Posted by: Caro | February 18, 2008 at 10:10 AM