About thriteen years ago I randomly went into a restaurant that just opened in Old San Juan. It was a Latin fusion place long before you could find a ceviche bar in Ohio. There was live jazz music, black and white tiles, a vibrant bar area, and an overall feeling that you had been swept away into Havana in the 1920’s. The restaurant was called the Parrot Club.

I was in Puerto Rico not long ago and someone was recommending to me traditional Puerto Rican food and drinks and the Piña Colada came up.

“But that’s not from Puerto Rico though, right?”

“Yes, it is. A guy at some hotel in San Juan invented it.”

My entire life I thought the Piña Colada was just some generic beach cocktail recipe, probably created by a Rum company somewhere. Heading to San Juan a few days later I went to investigate.

Rubber trees grow wild in the Amazon rainforest and at the beginning of the automobile industry the world’s rubber trade was completely reliant on the Amazon jungle. Rubber tappers, mostly indigenous families who were widely exploited, gathered rubber from vast reserves near large Amazonian cities such as Iquitos, Manaus, and Santarem. The trade brought considerable wealth to the region and the rubber barrons lived like royalty in these cities, importing Azulejo tiles and even gourmet foods from Europe.

LAN airlines has begun charging foreigners who bought their tickets in Peru at promotional prices geared toward residents of Peru $178 at the airport counter. I do this all the time and have never had a problem, but apparently for tickets purchased after September 1 they have begun implementing these… Read More →

Latin Fusion restaurants are common in New York and other major North American cities. While there are many traditional restaurants that focus on a particular country or region such as Peru or Oaxaca, the majority of Latin restaurants that go upscale are widely traveled. They pull dishes, cooking styles, and ingredients from so many different places in the region that as a result you are unable to tell exactly where the food and the chef is based or comes from.

The Washington Post’s Spiritis editor takes on the topic of Pisco on a visit to Peru to discover just how little he knew in Pisco, Perus Drink From the Desert – washingtonpost.com. Also check out the accompanying travel article, Pisco Sipping in Peru. Neither article delves too much in the technical aspects… Read More →