Need to unwind? It’s a Saturday kind of thing to do, so head out to Karakter Beach Bar this afternoon, and indulge in Guavaberry Saturday, celebrating all our favourite fruit means to us here on the Friendly Island. The good time vibes of Karakter Beach Bar will set the scene for a Sint Maarten Experience, featuring a special “Sint Maarten menu” that includes BBQ ribs, adorned with Guavaberry BBQ sauce, special Guavaberry cocktails and some Guavaberry enthusiasts on hand to provide cultural aspects of our national liqueur.
Organizers: “We are calling it a “Sint Maarten experience” because it’s a combination of Guavaberries which are typical here, with BBQ ribs which are also typical here. Ribs-only will be $10 ($15 with fries included). We will also have nice Guavaberry cocktails for all customers to sample.” The ribs-and-cocktails special takes place this Saturday, May 6, from 11:00am until sunset.
Folklore
Guavaberry is the legendary folk liqueur of Sint Maarten/St. Martin. It was first made here centuries ago in private homes for family and friends. It became an integral part of local culture and tradition. Nowadays, the drink is a cherished symbol of the olden days. There are even folk songs and stories about it!
To the indigenous Sint Maartener, Guavaberry conjures up warm and treasured memories of the good old days. Guavaberry is an integral and distinguishing feature of local culture, heritage and tradition; a point of pride, a symbol of Sint Maarten/St. Martin, a living link to the past.
History
It is made from fine oak aged rum, cane sugar and wild Sint Maarten Guavaberries. The fruit is found high in the warm hills in the centre of the island. They are rare. They are not at all like guavas. The name "Guavaberry" is derived from Caribbean Amer-Indian’s language. All the berries are pale green when unripe, but when they ripen, about half the trees bear bright orange coloured fruit, while the other half bear very dark red/black fruit. There is a very slight difference in taste between the orange and the black fruits, discernible only by an elite few, they say. The aged liqueur has a woody, fruity, spicy, bitter-sweet flavour all of its own.
It is said that 100 years ago the Guavaberry was used to make fresh juice, jams, tarts and cakes in the N.E. Caribbean and in Cuba, and that in the late 1800s some Guavaberry wine or rum was exported from the Danish Virgin Islands (now the USVI) to Denmark. Aside from these references, until recently, no one found a way to turn the fruit into commerce.
The Guavaberry fruit has never been cultivated and with the exception of a recent revival on St. Maarten/St. Martin, it was more popular 100 years ago than it is today. The fruit could rott on the trees to be enjoyed only by birds.
Botany
The Guavaberry is considered by botanists as a curiosity. A first cousin to clove and eucalyptus, the trees are hard to grow, and the fruit is difficult to harvest, because there is so little flesh on the Guavaberry. The trees are irregular in size and shape. Some trees are full and bushy (10 feet high and wide) while others are tall and thin, some more than 60 feet high! The trees bear fruit at completely different times each year and often, on Sint Maarten/St. Martin, there is no crop at all. In an 8-hour day, a healthy person would have difficulty in picking and filling a five-gallon basket with the tiny fruits.
It is a quirk of nature, a blessing we say. Yes, you can find Guavaberry trees scattered throughout the wide Caribbean basin. Yes, they are found in the Philippine and Hawaiian Islands, and indeed, you can handle dusty old samples of brittle Guavaberry branches (Eugenia or Myrciaria Floribunda) in the herbariums of the large natural history museums in Europe.
Once just for Xmas
In the old days on Sint Maarten/St. Martin, Guavaberry was known as the drink of Christmas. In the 1950s, the population of Sint Maarten/St. Martin was at its lowest ebb, with only 1,600 people living on the Dutch side. In those days, Guavaberry was an essential part of the annual Christmas festivities, and people would go from door to door singing: “Good Morning, Good Morning... I come for me Guavaberry..." The host or hostess of each house would take the precious bottle from the cabinet and pour a little tot for the serenaders. These activities are most precious to those who remember them, and they equate Guavaberry with everything that was unique, special and quiet about the island only one generation ago.
Come out to Karakter this afternoon and enjoy the taste of St. Maarten’s culture, while taking in some sunshine and sand. The ribs and cocktails special takes place this Saturday, May 6, from 11:00am until sunset.
