Boozehound - Jason Wilson [76]
I was approached by a man who was either an Ernest Hemingway wannabe or a Jimmy Buffett wannabe (it’s often difficult to spot the difference). This guy wore a bushy mustache, shorts, sandals, a beaded necklace, and a Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball hat.
He bought a shot of Flor de Caña, drank it, and, without so much as a hello, asked me, “Do you know any good strip clubs?”
“No,” I said.
“Whorehouses?”
“No.”
“Well, what the hell are you doing here in this country, then?” he asked.
“Just visiting,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Whatever the hell I want to.”
In late 2006, Nicaragua had a contest to name its trago nacional, or “national swig.” The impetus seems to have been a sense of cultural envy: Cuba had its mojito. Mexico had the margarita. Why didn’t Nicaragua have its own cocktail? One of the contest judges, the French ambassador to Nicaragua, was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “Nicaragua needs a new identity that doesn’t have anything to do with revolution. This is a chance.” The winning cocktail, the Macua, is pretty tasty: equal parts white rum and guava juice, with lemon juice and simple syrup.
The last time I was in Nicaragua, in 2007, happened to be only a few months after the unveiling of the Macua. Though I saw a number of promotional cards with the recipe, I did not see one person order the drink. There had been some light criticism in the Managua newspapers that the drink had to be made with Flor de Caña rum, the contest sponsor. But there were other, more important things going on in Nicaragua at that time, such as another ugly presidential campaign that, this time around, saw Daniel Ortega return to power. At most of the bars I went to in Managua, people were just drinking beer or Flor de Caña rum by the bottle, like always.
I’m always intrigued when a city or nation is moved to create some representative cocktail of place. The last time I saw it was in the spring of 2009. The Tourism Authority of Thailand made what it called “a move to give the Thai tourism and hospitality industries a much-needed boost.” So what game-changing action did they take in the midst of a global economic collapse? Offer deep discounts on flights and hotels? Rebrand the nation with lavish full-page ads in travel magazines? Privatize the national airline? No, nothing like that. Here’s what happened: they invented a new cocktail. It’s called the Siam Sunray, and it involves vodka, coconut liqueur, lemongrass, ginger, and Thai chile peppers. “Successful signature drinks are one way to fast-track holiday destinations onto the world tourism map,” said the authority in a joint statement issued with the Thai Hotels Association.
I’ve seen it happen around the world, from developing nations to our nation’s capital. We’ve seen some older, classic drinks recently resurrected as signature cocktails with some success. Every summer, for instance, the D.C. Craft Bartenders Guild raises awareness about the Lime Rickey’s rightful place as Washington’s native cocktail. In 2008, the state legislature of Louisiana, in a grandiose move, voted to designate the Sazerac the official cocktail of New Orleans.
I wonder about this nearly universal desire for a signature drink to call one’s own. We’d all love to have a drink named after ourselves, like Hemingway’s daiquiri, the Papa Doble. But I don’t know if you can just invent one out of thin air. I wish I could be a fly on the wall in one of these tourism authority boardrooms when the signature cocktail discussions happen: “Okay, people, we’re not leaving here until someone comes up with our new official drink. Look, Brazil has its caipirinha, and Peru has its pisco sour. In Spain, they dump fruit and brandy into red wine and call it a national drink. For god’s sake, even Martinez, California, has a cocktail they claim is the precursor to the martini. Think outside the box!”
Nothing sells escapism like a good umbrella drink, but rum is so much more than that. I’m thinking specifically about the sipping rums that I taste every year when I attend TasteDC’s big annual