The Travelling Teacher: El Salvador

March 14

Hello everyone!

When you think of rum, you probably think of palm trees gently swaying on Caribbean islands. But some things can be created in the strangest of places…

Sitting on thousands of dollars worth of rum

Enjoying a rum cocktail at Cihuatán rum distillery

El Salvador isn’t known for producing alcohol. The beer they make here is bang average - there’s a reason we usually drink imported cervezas from Guatemala or Nicaragua. The country is more widely known for its coffee: sorry, it’s ‘Bean of Fire’.

Toña is from Nicaragua

Good coffee, though I think Mini is keener for the cake...

There is one part of the country that produces its own rum. In the north of the country, near the old colonial city of Suchitoto, there is a small factory that crafts rum. Rum that you can find in the supermarkets here and is surprisingly nice. The name of it: Cihuatán.

The drive from Santa Tecla to Suchitoto is about 2 hours

Their 375 ml bottle is a very easy present
to take out of El Salvador

If you follow this blog and have a photographic memory, you may recognise that name. It is the name of a Pre-Hispanic archaeological site that I visited in 2023. A very short distance from ‘one of the most important archaeological sites in Central America’ (like I said in that blog, a very bold claim from the Ministry of Culture) is its eponymous rum factory.

'Rum of Mayan Gods', according to the distillery

From the Nahuatl language

Evidently, the Mayans were not drinking rum and cokes in 900 CE. Cihuatán rum was started in 2004 and is (according to them) the only rum distillery in the country. The name comes from a distant mountain which, if you squint at it, could look like a woman lying down. Cihuatán therefore means ‘next to the woman’. You probably see this more after finishing a tour of the rum distillery, which includes some tasting.

Can you see a woman? Can you?

Maybe this would help...

As it is in the middle of nowhere, the easiest way of doing this tour was to base ourselves in Suchitoto and hire a minibus to take us to and from the distillery. Hannah and I went for a cheaper option of a place to stay, the consequence of which was us rocking up on Saturday morning to a passionate Bible service that was happening in the B&B’s main hall.

This lovely puppy was also staying at our B&B

Suchitoto is a nice enough place, full of history and plates. Over the last few months, they’ve renovated the main square and given the church a bit of a clean.

Suchitoto, with its cobbled streets and Qute cars

Suchitoto in the indigenous Nahuatl language
means 'place of birds and flowers'

After a quick coffee and snack, we were on our way west to enjoy an afternoon with rum in the sun. Sun, heat and humidity are needed to cultivate sugar cane, and this part of El Salvador has all of that in abundance.

Our wheels for the afternoon, driven by Luis

In Malawi, sugar cane was a snack -
haven't seen that here

That sugar cane then produces molasses, from which the rum is later created. The process of making the rum was explained to us, but…well, we had quite a bit of rum, so the fresco diagram will have to suffice for you. We were given a small sample of the sticky melaza (I learnt that word early on in El Salvador when trying to find treacle for baking), as well as some of their unflavoured rum: pesado and ligero. Heavy and light. I preferred the former.

Sugar cane juice in the sugar cane field

Yep, that's how rum is made, folks

That blue bottle is their newest drink: vodka. Unexpected!

So three alcoholic drinks in (and a sugar cane juice, which was very sweet), we were taken into the storeroom: the bodega. Casks of wood, much of which is imported from the USA, containing rum, stored and stacked six high. There is a system here - as the rum ages, it gets siphoned into a lower cask.

More than 3,000 barrels

They didn't start selling rum for a few years, so were
reliant on the sugar company to finance the venture

None of us were expecting to be encouraged to climb on the barrels. Yet that is what our guide urged us to do. Can’t imagine that happening on other tours, particularly after a couple of tasters!

It was in this stiflingly hot storeroom where we were told more about the flavours, and how the wood can generate particular hues. Again, the lack of detail here is due to a cloudy memory - more samples were imbibed. He was a very knowledgeable guide!

Again, they had 'light' and 'dark' versions, with one tasting more like whisky

The smaller cask is made from ceiba, a national wood

When I booked the tour, I had been told there would be tasting. I assumed that what had happened so far was the tasting. After heading back to the start point and around another corner, we quickly realised that it had hardly begun.

The final tasting was in the shade

The bottles have lovely artistic designs

In supermarkets and in the airport, I’ve seen a few different Cihuatán bottles. At this point of the tour, they had all of them on display. Not just display - ready for sampling. We progressed from their ‘common’ rum, the Indigo, through some experimental flavours and up to their rarer, more expensive varieties.

Each bottle has a connection to a Mayan god

Nine rum bottles, sitting on a wall...

At points, this felt like being back at university. No sooner had you finished trying one was another type of rum being poured into the glass. Some of them are nicer than others (the pineapple one is a firm no-no). The cocktail that we made, complete with lollipop for dipping, was a big hit.

This make-your-own-cocktail station was the finish

Rum and passion fruit: winning

This was one of the more unusual excursions I’ve done in El Salvador: a liquor that I didn’t expect to be cultivated here, in the middle of nowhere, in a place where you can clamber over their barrels of rum. It was tremendous fun, and at $35 a pop, incredible value. The adventure was memorable, even if specific details weren’t!