Cañazo
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 12:52 am
Recently whilst hiking in the highlands of southern Peru I rediscovered the glory of one of the rum family's oft-overlooked and maligned representatives - cañazo. This is an admittedly crude version of the alcohol but one that serves a mighty and practical purpose.
The drink is simply raw sugar cane alcohol. In northern Peru - where the liquor is often called yonque -I've seen it being made by simply grinding up the raw cane (usually hauled up the mountains by truck) and then fermented in large blue plastic barrels with simply a thermometer as a means of guaging the process.
In the high reaches of the Andes, where communities above 4,500-meters-above-sea-level are common, the drink is a welcome defense against the raw brutal cold of the night. A fact that I can personally attest.
Pretty much any market will feature a vendor of cañazo who pours the liquor into any available receptical for sale - usually a plastic soda bottle. It's then drunk raw using the cap of the bottle as a makeshift shot glass. I've been told that the drinking prowess of many in the military here is measured by these increments - with 50 being an important threshold.
(I stumbled across this wonderful picture from the early 20th century showing two men doing pretty much the same thing in a local store located in Mangas, Peru.)
Peru's northern coast was a major sugar cane producing region from pretty much the earliest days of the Spanish conquest. The availability of crop made the liquor a viable product for the entire country - particularly as a means of using up the whole of the crop. As an affordable and powerful drink it quickly caught on elsewere, particularly in the highlands.
In fact, there is became integrated with the long-standing practice of chewing the coca leaves as a means to cope with the harsh conditions. Even today in generally cosmopolitan situations, any person from the sierra will pour the first capful of cañazo onto the ground in respect toward pachamama - the spirit of mother earth and the mountains.
The drink is simply raw sugar cane alcohol. In northern Peru - where the liquor is often called yonque -I've seen it being made by simply grinding up the raw cane (usually hauled up the mountains by truck) and then fermented in large blue plastic barrels with simply a thermometer as a means of guaging the process.
In the high reaches of the Andes, where communities above 4,500-meters-above-sea-level are common, the drink is a welcome defense against the raw brutal cold of the night. A fact that I can personally attest.
Pretty much any market will feature a vendor of cañazo who pours the liquor into any available receptical for sale - usually a plastic soda bottle. It's then drunk raw using the cap of the bottle as a makeshift shot glass. I've been told that the drinking prowess of many in the military here is measured by these increments - with 50 being an important threshold.
(I stumbled across this wonderful picture from the early 20th century showing two men doing pretty much the same thing in a local store located in Mangas, Peru.)
Peru's northern coast was a major sugar cane producing region from pretty much the earliest days of the Spanish conquest. The availability of crop made the liquor a viable product for the entire country - particularly as a means of using up the whole of the crop. As an affordable and powerful drink it quickly caught on elsewere, particularly in the highlands.
In fact, there is became integrated with the long-standing practice of chewing the coca leaves as a means to cope with the harsh conditions. Even today in generally cosmopolitan situations, any person from the sierra will pour the first capful of cañazo onto the ground in respect toward pachamama - the spirit of mother earth and the mountains.