What to drink, from the coconut stand to the rum shop

Every bar on the island can make you a rum punch. The drinks worth going out of your way for are cheaper and less obvious — a coconut from a roadside stand, a cocoa tea at breakfast, an hour in a rum shop.

Coconut water

The best drink on the island and one of the cheapest. Look for a stand with a pile of green coconuts and a machete.

How it works: they open one, you drink it standing there, and then they split it so you can eat the jelly inside with a piece of the husk as a spoon. Ask for it to be split — a lot of visitors do not know to, and the jelly is the best part.

It is also genuinely good for you in this climate, which makes it the right thing to drink in the middle of a hot afternoon.

The rum shop

A small bar, often attached to a shop, usually with a few plastic chairs. Not a tourist venue, and generally very welcoming if you arrive respectfully.

How to do it well:

• Greet everyone when you walk in. This matters
• Buy a round if you fall into conversation, which you probably will
• Rum is sold by the bottle or half bottle with a chaser, as much as by the glass
• Dominoes may be in progress. Watch, do not interrupt
• Listen more than you talk, at least at first

An hour in a rum shop will teach you more about the island than a day of sightseeing. It is also where you will get the best recommendations you receive all week — about food, beaches, and what is on.

Rum, and a real warning

Local rum is a serious product with a long history here, and some of it is made in ways that have not changed in a very long time.

The thing to know: overproof rum is dramatically stronger than what you are used to. Not slightly — dramatically. It is normal here, people know how to handle it, and visitors regularly do not.

• Ask the strength before accepting a glass
• Treat a measure as several of what you would pour at home
• Drink water alongside, in this heat especially
• Do not accept a challenge from someone who has been drinking it their whole life
• Never drive after it. The roads here are unforgiving and the rum is stronger than your judgement of it

Tasting it is part of being here. Treating it like ordinary spirits is how a good evening becomes a bad one, and every bartender on the island has seen it happen.

Non-alcoholic and everyday

• Cocoa tea — a hot spiced cocoa drink, thick and traditional, and the local breakfast
• Fresh juices from whatever is in season — soursop, guava, passion fruit, tamarind
• Mauby — bark-based, bitter, an acquired taste and worth acquiring
• Sorrel — deep red, spiced, especially around the festive season
• Ginger beer, often homemade and much stronger in flavour than the bottled kind
• Local beer, cold, which needs no explanation

Cocoa tea is the one to seek out. It is nothing like hot chocolate as most visitors know it — spiced, less sweet, thicker, and made from cocoa grown a few miles away.

Where to drink what

• Roadside stand — coconut water, in the heat of the day
• Market — fresh juice in the morning
• Rum shop — rum and beer, late afternoon onward
• Beach bar — cold beer and punch at sunset
• Small local place at breakfast — cocoa tea, with a bake

And if you want to bring something home: buy rum and spices locally rather than at the airport. Better choice, better prices, and see the material on customs for what you may carry.

Frequently asked questions