I’m sitting at a picnic table with two of my oldest friends, in the middle of a tobacco field in Viñales, Cuba, surrounded by lush limestone mountains and sipping the sweetest juice I’ve ever tasted. It’s sugarcane, poured over ice and mixed with lemon and a little pineapple, stirred with a sugarcane stalk that I chew on every so often in bliss.
It’s April 2016, and President Obama visited Havana the week before. Our driver on the ride from Havana to Viñales–a friend of our Havana Airbnb host–had an American and Cuban flag hanging from his dashboard, and now a man named Oleg who runs coffee and tobacco farm tours is telling me how excited he is about the prospect of American tourism. “It’s starting!” he says, sipping his juice and adding that the soon to arrive influx of tourism will help not only his business, but also the Cuban economy as a whole.
We chat about tourism, about Obama, about the Cuban government, and about drinking. Cuba has my ideal trifecta when it comes to beverages–coffee, mojitos with world-famous rum and heaping handfuls of fresh mint, and my new favorite drink, sugarcane juice. But there’s something else, a fourth local beverage Oleg insists we try.
It’s Guayabita del Pinar, a liqueur made from tiny guavas only cultivated in the Pinar del Rio region. It’s served over ice with a bit of lemon. The liqueur is herbal, almost sweet, and a little nutty. Mostly, it’s refreshing on a humid day. We sip happily, and each buy a bottle to bring back to the states (I get mine through customs with a little begging, but that’s another story).
A lot has changed in two years. The Trump administration has restricted tourist access to Cuba, and those same friends and I have sipped cocktails together in a few more countries. Now, I’m drinking Guayabita del Pinar again, but it seems different. It’s still herbal, still a little nutty, but tastes less sweet. Maybe it’s the lack of sugarcane lingering on my tongue, or the fact that I’m on a porch in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a beautiful town but a far cry from the lush valleys of Cuba, and context matters when it comes to taste.
I’ve been saving this bottle for years. I don’t know why. Because who knows when I’ll go back to Cuba, because it’s impossible to find in the United States, because I thought I should serve it with certain foods, because I wanted to sip it on a special occasion, because it’s summery and so many months in the Midwest are cold, because it’s a souvenir and maybe not meant to consume, because if it’s gone, maybe my memory of that day will be too. Whatever. I don’t know the reason I waited so long, but I’m drinking it now, over ice with lemon in a wine glass at 2:15 in the afternoon while trying to write. Hemingway, who lived in Cuba for 20 years, would be proud.
I make a vow to serve Guayabita del Pinar–and that rum I got in the Dominican Republic, and that wine I’ve been saving from Italy, and that Cava I bought in Spain, and on and on–to guests throughout the year, sharing the joys of my travels with friends and family, rather than putting them on display. Labels are just as good as souvenirs anyway, and easier to store, too.
So cheers to travel, to conversations had with people we would never meet if we didn’t leave home, and to drinks at home we never would have if we didn’t travel. Let’s make regular meals special occasions; chances to catch up with friends reason to celebrate. Use the good dishware. Drink the souvenir drinks. Share the memories–in the end, those are what really matter.
P.S. If you’re planning to visit Cuba, read this first.
