Drinks in Colombia
And so we come to drinks! Yes, we like a good drink as they say 馃檪 – and Colombia has a few good specialities on offer…
First of all we have masato – which is fermented maize with sugar… it tastes way better than it sounds! 馃檪
Next up we have Mazamorra. Mazamorra seems to be something totally different in every country that we visited – and Colombia is no exception. In Colombia it is made from corn – yes, there always seems to be a drink made of corn available in every country – and it’s pretty tasty despite how weird it looks…
A very important drink in Colombia is hot chocolate – but ESPECIALLY hot chocolate with cheese! Doesn’t that sound good? I have to say though that the quality of the hot chocolate and cheese does vary greatly. The cheese is supposed to melt inside the hot chocolate – but sometimes the hot chocolate is not hot enough! Yes, OUTRAGEOUS. But when it’s done well you get a great big delicious chunk of cheese floating and melting in some lovely HOT chocolate.. MMMM…
Next up is Boroj贸 juice mixed with milk. Apparently this traditional fruit drink is best taken with milk – and not water like other fruit drinks. This wasn’t our favourite fruit drink to be honest…
Moving on to some specialities from the city of Popayan, we have champ煤s, and salpic贸n payan茅s. Champ煤s is made with maize, fruits such as lulo (also known as naranjilla), pineapple, quince or guan谩bana, panela, cinnamon, cloves and orange tree leaves. Doesn’t that sounds DELICIOUS! 馃檪 Well let me tell you – it REALLY was.
Salpic贸n payan茅s is like a big slush-puppy – but not so sickly sweet, and full of delcious blackberries and other nice fruit.
Fruit juice
Now the fruit juice in Colombia really does need a special mention – and that’s because it was the best of South America. Yes, it really was. First of all, fruit juice is taken seriously in Colombia, and is available nearly everywhere. Second of all, there are lots of different options – many different kinds of fruit grow in Colombia! Our personal favourite was ‘Lulo‘.
But the best thing about the fruit juice ‘system’ in Colombia, is that they ALWAYS ask if you want it with sugar or not. They may look at you in a funny way when you say that you don’t want sugar with your lulo juice – but they always ask… so you get to drink lovely fresh juice with the actual taste of the fruit – instead of a sugary fruit flavoured drink. You can also choose whether to have your juice mixed with water or milk – we almost always went for the water option.
So Colombia easily wins the fruit juice prize of South America! 馃檪
Soft drinks
Next up we have soft drinks – a few interesting options…
The next soft drink had a such a corny official description that I thought I had better share it with you…
Colombiana is a kola champagne soda. When you take a Colombiana, you are filling yourself with Colombia. The drink evokes the culture, gastronomy and music of a whole country.
So there you go….
Colombiana is made by the company Postob贸n. Postob贸n was founded in Medell铆n in 1904 and they are one of the largest soft drink companies in South America. They like to sponsor stuff like cycling teams and the football league. They also make their drinks in a wild variety of colours…
Alcohol
We mostly drank beer in Colombia, but we couldn’t resist a bottle of coffee liqueur when we were in the Coffee Region….
