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Bebidas
Beverages
Appears in
By Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs
Published 2006
Some Cuban beverages, like café Cubano, are well known, and rum-based cocktails like mojitos, daiquiris, and Cuba Libres have become international favorites, but others, like bul, a strange-sounding but very refreshing beer cooler, and saoco, a simple but luscious concoction made with coconut milk and rum, were new discoveries for us.
Cuba’s most important beverages are coffee, rum, fruit drinks, chocolate, and, surprisingly, beer. Wine is imported, and priced beyond the means of most Cubans as an everyday beverage, though sangria may be served on special occasions. Beer is expensive but popular in Cuba. There are several breweries on the island, but the best domestic Cuban beer is Cristal, a historic brand that was originally brewed by La Tropical, a brewery founded in Havana in 1888 by the Blanco Herrera family.