Zafra del caribe: ZAFRA DEL CARIBE – 48 Photos & 27 Reviews – Carretera PR 189 Km 5.3, Gurabo, Puerto Rico
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Photo by N.
Michelle Rodríguez
Price Range: 
$20 – $39
See others’ experiences:
Quality in Hacienda Muñoz
Delicious food is served at this restaurant.
Note: Price range informed above is an estimate of main courses at the restaurant, based on information found at the restaurant or provided by the restaurant itself or by restaurant’s visitors, at the time of the posting. Some main courses may have a different price range. For more accurate prices, visit the restaurant website or contact the restaurant. The company behind the web application ecotreasures.com and any affiliates or subsidiaries are not agents or representatives of the restaurant and are not responsible for the accuracy of the price range informed.
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Degrees of Freedom: How Rum Became Cuba’s National Treasure
Travel
“Best Bartender in Cuba!”, “Eduardo the Mojito God!”, “Thank you, Eduardo!” – every day, guests of the basement bar in the Rum Museum of Santiago de Cuba write reviews on the tiled walls, admiring the art of the cocktail master, cantinero (Spanish for “bartender”) Eduardo Corona Viamonte.
He officiates behind a wooden counter in a small vaulted hall for three tables, or rather three barrels with table tops nailed to them.
After waiting for the next group of Mohito-worshippers to say goodbye to Eduardo, I sit down on a high chair at the counter. I nod at a bottle of golden rum añejo (“seasoned”), hoping to pass for a connoisseur.
Do you like Cuban or American? Eduardo’s question moderates my ambitions.
– What’s the difference?
American Vacation
Legend has it that in 1900, American soldiers in the bars of Havana ordered rum mixed with cola, crushed ice, lemon juice, and raised a toast “To a free Cuba!” (¡Por Cuba libre!) . Following the Cuba Libre and Daiquiri cocktail, Mojito, Mary Pickford and other drinks, now known to the whole world, were invented in the country.
In articles and guidebooks written outside the island, cocktails are called the national tradition of Cubans, their tastings are included in the programs of excursions in Havana.
Cantineros from the Association of Professional Cuban Bartenders win international competitions by masterfully mixing ingredients … Only now they drink pure rum themselves.
“Cocktails have become part of the history of our island, but they have not become part of Cuban culture,” Cantinero Eduardo explains in a low voice, as if sharing a sacred secret. — Old rum is like magic: taking a sip, we feel a connection with past generations and reflect on the meaning of life.
Family values
Province of Santiago de Cuba, sugar cane plantation at the foot of the Sierra Maestra. Cane pickers in straw hats with narrow high crowns cut the stalks with machetes and put them in wooden carts drawn by black oxen with pitchfork horns. One of the pickers, 22-year-old Miguel, says:
— I work in a cane harvesting cooperative and my brothers work in a rum factory in Santiago de Cuba.
Eventually Miguel wants to move to Santiago or Havana and enter a rum factory to become a ronero maestro.
– Rum is connected for me with home, family support. I am proud to be involved in its creation. While I cut the cane and try to keep as much juice in it as possible. But one day I will mix a brilliant blend so that it saves someone from trouble, helps them find themselves. This is my road, rum is part of my life.
Along the Roads of Roma
Sugar cane appeared in Cuba thanks to Christopher Columbus. He took the plant from the Canary Islands on his second expedition to the Americas in 1493-1496 to supply the Caribbean with sugar. Reeds do well in tropical climates.
“Slaves on Caribbean plantations once thought of trying fermented molasses,” says Teresa, an employee at the Rum Museum in Santiago de Cuba. – Primitive rum quickly became a valuable commodity, which paid off with slave traders from Africa and merchants from Europe. Centuries passed, and Cuban rum did not stand out among the “fire water” from other islands. In the second half of the 19th century, about 1000 factories worked in Cuba, making very strong, oily rum, which was aged in pots buried in the ground.
– A breakthrough came when the Spanish royal house announced a competition for the best technology for the production of rum to “meet the needs of the elite of the Empire.” It was won by Facundo Bacardi, a Cuban businessman who went bankrupt after the cholera epidemic. He experimented with adding yeast strains to molasses, filtering rum through charcoal, and aging in oak barrels. Facundo developed the recipe for Ron Superior , a light rum with a strength of 44.5%, won the royal competition and in 1862 opened a rum factory in Santiago de Cuba.
There are far fewer than a thousand rum factories on Liberty Island today. The government controls them, but the secrets of technology are entrusted to a select few. Maestros roneros (Spanish for “rum masters”) preserve and develop the craft of rum making in Cuba, caring for it as a cultural heritage.
Masters of Rum Science
One of the favorite legends of Cubans is about the secret formulas of rum, which maestros roneros own.
Masters control all stages of production of each type of drink, from the selection of sugar cane to bottling. The formulas are a state secret, which the Roma master passes only to another maestro ronero or aspiring student.
As the chief maestro of the ronero José Pablo Navarro remarks, “from heart to heart, from Cuban to Cuban.” An apprentice can become a master after 15–20 years of training. The current maestros roneros vote whether he deserves to be one. There are now eight masters of rum in Cuba: two have the status of Primeros Maestros del Ron Cubano (“chief masters of Cuban rum”) and six – Maestros del Ron Cubano . They are assisted by four applicants for master of rum, Aspirantes Maestros del Ron .
“There are five things that make Cuban rum special,” says ronero second chief maestro Juan Carlos González Delgado. “Firstly, the molasses fermentation time. In our country it does not exceed 24 hours, while in other Caribbean islands it takes up to a week.
Secondly, we even age light rum varieties at least twice. Thirdly, we filter the rum through a mixture of several types of charcoal. Fourth, we use old, 90-year-old barrels for aging. Their wood has lost its smell, so it does not affect the nuances of the taste or aroma of rum. Fifthly, our main trump card is the mastery of blending: we mix rum bases in various proportions at different stages of aging.
The uniqueness of Cuban rum also insulates local production from the influence of foreign technology. This situation has developed due to the economic blockade of Cuba, which was established by the United States in 1960, after the victory of the revolution in Cuba, and continues to this day.
“The making of rum is like a sacrament,” adds maestro ronero Asbel Morales Lorenzo. “There is something wonderful about this process. For any person in Cuba, rum is a spiritual value, even if he does not always realize it.
The steam train is flying
A Cuban doesn’t need a reason to drink rum.
Only the situations and the quality of the drinks that go with them vary. A more expensive bottle, aged 12 years, the Cuban will hide for a big fiesta or friendly gatherings to drink with a cup of coffee and comidas saladas (salty snacks): fried bananas, pork rinds, cheese. Fresh fruits and sweets do not go with rum.
Five-seven-year-old rum Cuban “recovers health” before lunch or after dinner. A cold Cuban is “treated” with rum with honey and lemon. A business Cuban runs into a bar once or twice during the day to intercept trago (“sip”) – 20-30 grams of rum, which in this case plays the role of a tonic.
– About 40-50 years ago, – says the Havana guide Lilia Majihingade – in the capital of Cuba flourished street bars with stalls selling cheap, inferior rum. It was poured into narrow long glasses – one ounce (28 grams) for 1 peso.
Most people in Cuba still live in poverty and drink chispa de tren , a poor quality rum with an ironic name that literally means “train spark”.
It is made in a factory in Santa Cruz del Norte from rum waste and bottled in cartons instead of bottles.
Budget rum is so popular that it has entered folklore. Street artists depict on the walls of houses ancient locomotives with pipes from which sparks fly, with platforms loaded with sugar cane – this is how raw materials for rum were delivered to factories in the past. Street musicians sing about “genuine, primordial chispa de tren replacing expensive rum”, often beyond the reach of the average Cuban.
TECHNOLOGY
Stages of production
There are many versions of the origin of the word “rum”. The most reliable – from the obsolete English word rumbullion , “big noise”. Most countries where rum is produced speak English, French or Spanish. Therefore, the labels respectively write rum, rhum or ron .
Cultural evolution
“It’s not about the need to drink,” Lilia continues. – Rum is necessary for Cubans to observe customs and for spiritual practices.
When a Cuban opens a bottle of rum, he spills the first drops on the floor for perfume. Even when a person does not believe in the other world, he does it “just in case” so as not to lose the patronage of higher powers.
In Catholic Cuba, simultaneously with Christian saints, officially more than three million (in fact, much more) residents revere the gods and spirits of the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria. During the rituals, her followers, priests-priests santeros (santeros) , drink rum, enter a trance and speak with the participants of the ceremonies on behalf of the spirits of ancestors and orishas, Santerian gods, patrons of the elements, feelings, phenomena, events, – give advice, answer questions, predict the future, help to understand oneself.
“Santeria doesn’t stop a Cuban from being a Catholic,” Lilia explains. – Each Catholic saint corresponds to a Santerian orisha: Saint Barbara is identified with the god of wind and lightning Chango, Saint Mercedes with the highest heavenly deity Obatala, Saint Anthony with Ellegua, the god of travel, roads and paths.
In the Church of Our Lady of the suburb of Regla, the unspoken center of santeria, parishioners pray to the Black Madonna and Yemaia, the goddess of motherhood, the patroness of women.
On church holidays, Cubans praise the saints and orishas, arrange a feast. If someone does not drink rum, he will still take a sip of the drink, “kiss”, as they say here, to show respect for rum and custom. Rum accompanies the Cuban at all stages of life and even before it begins.
“As soon as a woman finds out that she will have a child, she starts preparing alinao (aliñao) , a drink made from rum with fruit,” says Edilberto Riveron Leon, Counselor at the Embassy of the Republic of Cuba, Director of the Representative Office of the Ministry of Tourism in Russia. – Each member of the family brings fruit for alinao: mango, papaya, pineapple, banana, sometimes sugarcane stalks. All the ingredients are cut, put in rum, the drink is kept until the child’s birthday, and then they are drunk at the celebration in honor of the baby.
If a girl is born, some of the alignao is saved to drink on her fifteenth birthday, which, like that of a boy, marks the transition to adulthood. Another ten years will pass, and already a new generation will cook alinao, tell children about Cuban traditions, and pass on knowledge about the cultural heritage of Cuba.
Photo: REUTERS / PIXSTREAM, HEMIS, NPL (X2) / LEGION-MEDIA , REUTERS (X2), ALAMY (X5), HEMIS (X2) / LEGION-MEDIA AP / EAST NEWS, GETTY IMAGES (X3), REUTERS / PIXSTREAM En — Global Jewish Online Center One of the largest bankers of the 20th century, known for his amazing insight, who during his lifetime was credited with money laundering, drug trafficking, connections with Boris Berezovsky and the Russian mafia, went down in history as an outstanding investor and generous philanthropist. Mysterious death in Monaco On December 3, 1999, the body of 67-year-old billionaire Edmond Safra and his nurse was found in a luxurious mansion in Monaco. Edmond Safra was sure that an assassination attempt was being prepared on him, and he was obsessed with his own safety. He turned his Belle Epoque (“Beautiful Age”) mansion in Monaco into a real bunker. The house was just crammed with various tracking and security systems, and each room was reinforced with armor and opened only with the help of a code. The pranksters said that his shelter could withstand even a small nuclear explosion. As security guards, Safra hired Israeli intelligence veterans, and even servants and medical staff had experience serving in the Israel Defense Forces. Safra’s fears for her own life sometimes took on absurd forms. Once a helicopter flew over the banker’s villa on the Cote d’Azur. Safra immediately called the French Interior Minister and demanded to tell him the flight number and full information about all passengers. According to nurse Ted Maher, two unidentified men armed with knives broke into the house at night, he tried to stop them, as a result he was injured, but managed to escape. Along the way, he woke nurse nurse Vivian Torrente, who was caring for the billionaire suffering from Parkinson’s disease, who instantly took Safra to the bathroom, where they locked themselves. When the police arrived at the mansion, it was on fire. After breaking down the bathroom door, law enforcement officers found two bodies: Edmond Safra and his nurse suffocated in the smoke. Apart from Maher, no one saw the criminals, they were also not captured by any of the numerous cameras with which the whole house was hung. The police were dismayed by the situation. Moreover, there was another oddity: the banker had a mobile phone with him in the bathroom, moreover, he called his wife Lily from it, who took refuge in the bedroom. As a result, Ted Maher turned from the main witness into the main accused. In 2002, the court found him guilty. The investigation claimed that Maher himself set the fire in order to heroically cope with it and win the respect of the owner, but everything got out of control and Maher had to quickly change plans. Hence the story about unknown intruders in masks who failed to cope with the security system and started a fire. During the investigation, Maher admitted that the attack by unknown people was his invention, that he only set fire to the trash can, but the fire spread too quickly throughout the house. Someone else’s stupidity, an absurd set of circumstances and pathological suspicion – all this cost the life of one of the greatest bankers of the 20th century. Who are you, Mr. Safra? Edmond Safra did not have to choose a path in life, everything was predetermined. He became a successful successor to the dynasty of bankers that had existed since the time of the Ottoman Empire. Edmond’s great-great-great-grandfather was its founder. A family of Lebanese Jews began their ascent to Mount Olympus by financing camel caravans that carried goods. At 1920, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Jacob Safra, Edmond’s father, moved to Beirut, where he opened his own bank, Jacob E. Safra. Edmond was born in Beirut in 1932. From childhood, Edmond helped his father in business, namely, he determined the creditworthiness of borrowers. When his father visited potential borrowers, mostly merchants, little Edmond, as if playing and fooling around, climbed into the room where the goods were stored. If there was no dust on it, it means that their trade was brisk and you should not be afraid to lend to them. By the age of 16, Edmond had already fully entered the family business, and for this he had to drop out of school. In 1949 Edmond Safra moved to Italy and three years later to Brazil. There, the young financier again actively got down to business: at 19In 1955, he founded Banco Safra in Sao Paulo, and already in the early 1960s, the bank entered the top five most successful financial structures in Brazil. However, then Safra once again dramatically changes his life path: he sold the bank to his two brothers, who quite successfully managed it further, and he left for Switzerland. The irrepressible activity inherent in Edmond from a young age was accompanied by pathological suspiciousness – he saw enemies in almost everyone, and especially in competitors. Often this suspiciousness forced Safra to do unpredictable things. In Europe, his career took off. He invested a million dollars in the founding of Trade Development Bank, and by the early 1980s, the bank’s assets exceeded $5 billion, and the bank itself became the jewel in the family empire. Edmond knew how to get along with any clients: his bank served both Jews and wealthy Arabs. For his ability to deal with two opposing sides, he was called the “Arab Jew.” But Safra could not stop there, he decided to conquer another continent – North America. At 19In 1966, he traveled to the USA and opened the Republic National Bank of New York, which also became a very successful bank over time. In the 1980s, Safra was first embroiled in a high-profile scandal and litigation. Everything went wrong after a deal with American Express – he sold it to Trade Development Bank, but remained in charge of it. He could not work with the new shareholders, and as a result, he left and founded a new bank, which was in direct competition with the sold one. In response, American Express unleashed a real war against Safra. Unequal marriage Until the age of 44, Safra was a bachelor. The brothers persuaded him to marry in order to give birth to an heir. Finally he did it, but in such a way that his choice shocked many. Brazilian Lily Monteverde, before meeting Safra, managed to be married twice and give birth to two children. She met Edmond after the suicide of her second husband, who left her a good inheritance. She came to Safra to get advice from a well-known banker on how best to manage her inheritance. As a result, business communication quickly grew into something more. Lili was quite wealthy herself, which, according to Safra, spoke of her disinterestedness towards him. However, his brothers were not convinced. In addition, in their opinion, it was not worth messing with an adult woman who is hardly capable of having children. Why, after the banker’s death, did evil tongues blame Lily for his death? Firstly, because of her dubious past, secondly, because of the huge inheritance that she received after the death of Edmond, and thirdly, it was Lily’s daughter who brought Ted Maher to the house, who played so much in the fate of Edmond Safra fatal role. Russian trace In the mid-1990s, Safra’s instincts failed him for the first time. However, the life of the billionaire was darkened not only by this: information spread in the media that Safra, a few days before the default, helped Russian officials steal the IMF loan allocated to the country in the amount of 4.8 billion dollars. And that’s not all: there were rumors that Safra was forced to reveal to the FBI a scheme to legalize these funds in Western banks. In the autumn of 1999, Boris Berezovsky came to Safra’s La Leopolda villa on the Cote d’Azur in order to prevent the leakage of information, which was dangerous for the participants in the fraud with IMF money. Safra’s conversation with Berezovsky lasted several hours and went on in a raised voice. Both participants were dissatisfied with its results. Frustrated, Berezovsky left for his villa in Antibes, and Safra fell into a panic and said that they wanted to kill him because he had opened up with the FBI. It is reliably known that immediately after this conversation, the banker left for his “armored” residence in Monaco. Within a few months, Edmond Safra died. By the way, in 2008 his villa on the Cote d’Azur was bought by an unknown Russian billionaire. The deal amounted to 736 million dollars. To whom this purchase was only attributed, even to Mikhail Prokhorov, but the name of the new owner was never disclosed. Faithful Jew Safra was not just a believer in the Jewish faith, he believed that it was necessary to build new synagogues and maintain old ones, because they are extremely important for the Jewish community. And he built them with his own money. He erected not only in those places where there were many Jews, but also in such cities as, for example, Manila and Kinshasa. In addition, Safra financed the construction of the first synagogue in Madrid in 500 years. He never boasted of his wealth, donated money to Jewish charities around the world, especially generously helped the Sephardic community. Hospitals and educational institutions were opened with his money.
The banker’s death was immediately overgrown with mysterious details. Some accused the Russian mafia, others – his wife. And far from everyone believes the conclusions of the investigation.
Moreover, he achieved a ban on flights over his mansion. Nevertheless, all this did not save the influential banker. What happened in the seemingly impregnable fortress?
She told her husband that help had arrived, but Safra did not open the door for either the firemen or the police. He was sure that his wife was taken hostage and forced to say so, if only he opened the bathroom door.
He quickly and successfully mastered everything related to precious metals and international trade. But soon the family had to leave Lebanon: after the formation of the state of Israel in the neighborhood and the beginning of the Arab-Israeli wars, it became unsafe for Jews to live in Beirut.
Rumors spread that he was laundering money from the drug and arms trade. Edmond filed a lawsuit against the offenders, but they chose to agree to a peace agreement, apologized to Safra and paid $ 8 million to the charitable foundations he named.
Not to mention the fact that the suicide of her husband seemed to Edmond’s relatives a very suspicious fact. And yet, despite the resistance of the family, Edmond married Lily. The union was backed up by a 600-page marriage contract. True, between the novel and marriage, the couple parted for a while, which was partly influenced by Edmond’s relatives. And Lily during this time managed to get married again, again to a very non-poor person, and divorced two months later. Edmond and Lily never had their own children. But Safra liked to say that children are his banks.
He met a well-known financier and investor, co-founder of Hermitage Capital, William Browder. In Russia, Browder’s name became widely known only in the 2000s in connection with the Magnitsky case. Recall that in 2008, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who worked for Browder, was accused of tax evasion, thrown into Matrosskaya Tishina, where he died in 2009year from the failure to provide medical care. Browder’s international campaign to defend Magnitsky and bring those responsible for his death to justice led to the introduction in 2010 of the first US and EU sanctions against Russian officials, known as the “Magnitsky List”. But Browder himself has been working on the Russian stock market since the beginning of the 90s, and he attracted Safra to this activity as a partner. And Edmond, having violated the unchanging rules of the family business and his own guidelines, which dictated to him to invest only in reliable securities, such as American bonds, unexpectedly, under the pressure of Browder, believed in Russian GKOs.
Default 1998 depreciated these investments, Safra lost 191 million dollars.
