The Macuá is a cocktail made with white

rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Ph ...

and fruit juices, usually

lemon The lemon (''Citrus limon'') is a species of small evergreen trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily Northeast India (Assam), Northern Myanmar or China. The tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culin ...

and guava juice. The Macuá is noted as the national drink of

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...

. The drink is named after '' pajaro macuá'', a tropical bird native to the country.

History

The Macuá was invented by Dr Edmundo Miranda Saenz, a pediatrician from Granada, a small and historic city on the shores of

Lake Nicaragua Lake Nicaragua or Cocibolca or Granada ( es, Lago de Nicaragua, , or ) is a freshwater lake in Nicaragua. Of tectonic origin and with an area of , it is the largest lake in Central America, the 19th largest lake in the world (by area) and the t ...

. Miranda enlisted the help of his immediate family, including his wife, daughter and son-in-law, to perfect the recipe. The Nicaraguan Tour Operator Solentiname Tours and the Association of Restaurants in Nicaragua recognized a need for a national drink. Both invited hotel and restaurant owners across Nicaragua to come together and enlisted the help of CEM-JWT Communications, a Nicaraguan advertising agency, to turn the idea into a reality. The drink rose to fame in October 2006, when it was entered in a competition to choose a national drink of Nicaragua. The competition, sponsored by Flor de Caña, a Nicaraguan

manufacturer, involved more than twenty different drinks based on the company's products. The judges, including the French ambassador and a cocktail connoisseur from a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

development agency, chose the Macuá over other combinations of local ingredients including

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

tamarind Tamarind (''Tamarindus indica'') is a leguminous tree bearing edible fruit that is probably indigenous to tropical Africa. The genus ''Tamarindus'' is monotypic, meaning that it contains only this species. It belongs to the family Fabaceae ...

and even

coffee bean A coffee bean is a seed of the '' Coffea'' plant and the source for coffee. It is the pip inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a coffee cherry. Just like ordinary cherries, the coffee fruit is also a so-called stone fruit. Even th ...

s. More adventurous entrants made use of some of Nicaragua's most obscure

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...

such as the

mamoncillo ''Melicoccus bijugatus'' is a fruit-bearing tree in the soapberry family Sapindaceae, native or naturalized across the New World tropics including South and Central America, and parts of the Caribbean. Its stone-bearing fruits are edible. It is ...

, the extract of which is used as a

local Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

cure for stomachache.

Criticism

This drink was created for a contest looking to creating a symbol that inspires national identity, such as

Lake Cocibolca Lake Nicaragua or Cocibolca or Granada ( es, Lago de Nicaragua, , or ) is a freshwater lake in Nicaragua. Of tectonic origin and with an area of , it is the largest lake in Central America, the 19th largest lake in the world (by area) and the ...

and the archaeological sites in Isla Zapatera,

Ometepe Ometepe is an island formed by two volcanoes rising out of Lake Nicaragua in the Republic of Nicaragua. Its name derives from the Nahuatl words ''ome'' (two) and ''tepetl'' (mountain), meaning "two mountains". It is the largest island in Lake Nic ...

and Solentiname, which make the lake a unique destination in the world. The Contest, called "The Nacional Drink Contest", (''El Trago Nacional''), was sponsored by

Flor de Caña ''Flor de caña'' ("Sugarcane Flower") is a 1948 Mexican film. It was written by Luis Alcoriza Luis Alcoriza de la Vega (September 5, 1918 – December 3, 1992) was a respected Mexican screenwriter, film director, and actor. Alcoriza was ...

, Hotel Intercontinental, Solentiname Tours, Morgan's Rock, Canatur, INTUR, and Radio Tigre. The presence of the INTUR (National Tourism Institute) validated the contest as an "official" selection, even if organized by private investors, not the government. The contest was divided in two parts: the selection of the recipe, and the selection of the name. However,

El Nuevo Diario ''El Nuevo Diario'' was a Nicaraguan newspaper, with offices in the capital Managua. History In 1980, the owner of ''La Prensa'' fired the editor Xavier Chamorro Cardenal. Eighty percent of the papers employees left with Chamorro Cardena due t ...

criticized the theme of the contest for selecting only a few regions of the country for defining the national identity (Lake Cocibolca and Granada), and that the selected winning recipe for the contest required to contain a minimum of 50% Flor de Caña rum, the sponsoring liquor company.

References

External links

Macuá
Trago Nacional Cocktails with rum Nicaraguan cuisine {{Nicaragua-stub