Wel­come to my “Cen­tral and South Amer­ica Food Saga”! The final chap­ter to this saga will, of course, be the drinks: after all, when it’s over 30C, you do drink a lot!

I’m not a beer drinker myself, but it seemed to be very cheap by West­ern stan­dards. The most pop­u­lar cerveza brands were Atlas in Panama, Impe­r­ial and Pilsen in Costa Rica, Quilmes in Argentina and Brahma in Brazil. The legal drink­ing age is 18 through­out South Amer­ica and alco­hol is sold pretty much any­where, includ­ing super­mar­kets. The best wine we had was in Argentina, but Chile also has some nice ones.

As for soda, Coke and Pepsi are widely avail­able (even in very remote places). In Peru, we were intro­duced to Inca Cola, a bubble-gum tast­ing drink, which is actu­ally owned by Coke. What else is new… but the name is quite cool!

In the Andes, espe­cially in Bolivia, mate de coca was a great option. It is basi­cally a tea of coca leaves: as the Boli­vians say, “la hoja de coca no es droga” (Coke leaf is not a drug). Maybe not a drug, but it is sup­posed to help with soroche, alti­tude sick­ness. I’m a big tea drinker, espe­cially of green tea, and I did like the taste of the bev­er­age.

In Brazil as well as in Cen­tral Amer­ica, coconut water was a good option. It’s cheap, it’s sup­posed to help you sweat less, plus drink­ing directly from a coconut is kind of cool, isn’t it?

In Argentina and Uruguay, mate is the pre­ferred bev­er­age. Okay, let me rephrase that: locals are addicted to it! Mate is an infu­sion, pre­pared by steep­ing dried leaves of yerba mate in hot water. The bev­er­age is drunk from a small cal­abash gourd (mate) using a metal straw (bom­billa). It is nec­es­sary to carry hot water in a ther­mos to pour over the yerba peri­od­i­cally to refill. Mate is a social cus­tom and is usu­ally shared among friends or fam­ily: a first per­son start drink­ing, and then pass the gourd to another per­son, refill and then pass to another one etc. The bev­er­age tastes of green tea and cof­fee, it’s quite strong at first but you get used to it. Argen­tini­ans and Uruguyans carry their gourd, bom­billa and ther­mos absolutely every­where, and it’s com­mon to see peo­ple refill­ing their mate at the super­mar­ket, at the bank, in the bus, at the movies… !

Per­fect Cof­fee In Liberia, Costa Rica

Drink­ing Cof­fee, Liberia, Costa Rica

Brahma Beer, San­ti­ago, Chile

Atlas Beer, David, Panama

Inca Cola, Peru

Mate De Coca, Bolivia

Inca Cola, Coke Zero, Lima Peru

Coconuts, Parati, Brazil

Mate De Coca Cups, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Mate De Coca Cups, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Coconuts, Panama Border

Coconuts, Copaca­bana, Brazil

Related arti­cles:

1. The Food Saga: The Sweets
2. The Food Saga: The Feast Era
3. Perú To Bolivia
4. The Food Saga: The Fish Era
5. The Food Saga: The Chicken Era