Oh, Mama, Mamajuana is here in a bottle

In 1493, Christopher Columbus built the first intentional European settlement on this side of the Atlantic. That is, leaving aside Leif Erikson’s rather cold settlement on an island a bit closer to the North Pole than Nova Scotia.

No, while the Vikings were busy kippering herring for a season with 8 1/2 hours of daylight and several feet of snow, Columbus set up shop on a decidedly different island. It wasn’t one of the Florida Keys, and it wasn’t Cuba, Puerto Rico or Jamaica. But it was warm. Things grew here. And the locals, all the way back then, had already spent centuries mastering the delicate art and science of root, bark, branch and fruit.

Floridians take great pride in the heritage of “first city” St. Augustine, a settlement born of Ponce de Leon’s quest for a magic drink. But the real “first city” honor goes to La Isabela, about 28 miles west of Puerto Plata on the north coast of what we now call the Dominican Republic. Let central Floridians keep their “fountain of youth” – for the dedicated Biscayne Tippler, the real magic drink is mamajuana.

Taino Tea & Spanish Spirits

It’s practically a cocktail in itself, a liqueur that’s a collision between Indigenous medicine, Spanish sangria and Caribbean rum punch. At its simplest, mamajuana is a kind of infusion of plants, mostly woody ones, which can include tropical medicines like “uña de gato,” “bohuco pega palo,” “palo de Brasil,” “timacle” and “marabeli,” as well as familiar woody spices, like clove, cinnamon and anise. Steep those in some high-proof rum, temper with red wine, sweeten with a touch of honey and you’ve got a mamajuana.

The issue with popularizing this drink beyond the Dominican Republic is exactly that – the spirit of the thing is that it’s originally as much a folk medicine as it is something sipped at a celebration. Everyone has their own recipe, and while the flavor profile is always recognizable, any three bottles of authentic mamajuana could have entirely different proportions and lists of ingredients. One hundred years ago, the same could be said for vermouth, and even today, “bitters” is a broad church with many different denominations. But neither of those cocktail stalwarts slipped behind the bar as sipping drinks, primarily.

There’s also another element of the woodiness of authentically made mamajuana. Not only would visitors to the Dominican Republic occasionally have trouble getting a bottle of sticks through customs, but the drink’s medicinal background gives it a bit of a gentleman’s club, nudge-nudge, naughty night out reputation, if you know what I mean – and I think that you do.

“Makes you feel like a shoe when a woman wears a skirt” is one mamajuana drinking expression. Others would have to do with properties of lumber or quantities of lead in pencils. It is a drink with a reputation of encouraging vice, in other words, so in years past made itself less welcome in refined company than it should have been. Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo actually banned mamajuana as an aphrodisiac or tried to.

It was a medicine that had been around since before Columbus, it tasted good and it made people feel good. He never really stood a chance.

Climbing to the Top Shelf

Elevating a folk medicine and social elixir to the status of a premium spirit isn’t necessarily an easy task, but this is what Miamian Alejandro Russo set out to do.

“The idea for Candela was born on vacation many years ago in the Dominican Republic when I tasted something I’d never experienced before ... a real spiced rum,” he said. “I was fascinated by the drink served to me at a hotel bar. It became my daily ritual. I asked the hotel if I could take some home, but all they did was hand me some spices, honey and sugar cane and said to mix it with rum. An authentic bottled mamajuana did not exist!”

Russo experimented with the recipe, hit on a good combination and, in 2016, became the co-founder and CEO of Candela Mamajuana. It’s both a local product – you might run into Russo during his morning run around Brickell Key – and imported, since it’s made sustainably in the Dominican Republic.

“All ingredients are sourced locally in the Dominican Republic in a state-of-the-art, sustainable production plant,” Russo said. “Our distillation process is powered by renewable energy from the sugar cane bagasse that's converted into biofuel at a waste-to-energy plant, also in the Dominican Republic. We use natural sunlight lamps to light our aging warehouses and use intelligent building materials that naturally cool the building, so we don't need AC. We also use a rainwater collection system, which is then cleaned in a water purification plant."

The end product is as natural as it is complex, and thoroughly Dominican.

“We’re elevating a cultural ritual, which is the Mamajuana shot,” said Russo. “We are determined to show the world the amazing quality that is produced in the Dominican Republic.”

Local Sips

Today, Candela is being sold across the Dominican Republic, and in California, New York and, of course, you can find mamajuana on quite a few Miami menus. There’s a little flavor of the “DR” in the Magic City’s melting pot. Not all our cafés are Cuban, and not every mofongo is served with Puerto Rico in mind.

At El Tiesto Café in Midtown (or its locations in Pembroke Pines and Fort Lauderdale), mamajuana is part of a global fusion menu that ranges from sushi to chicken and waffles, all infused with the flavors of the Dominican Republic.

You can also find Candela cocktails on the menu at Made in DR Wynwood, alongside dishes like breadfruit mofongo, black bean risotto and queso frito.

If you sip a shot – or ask for a piña colada with mamajuana floated on top and decide you’d like more – you should be able to find a rounded bottle with a gilded midnight-blue label on the shelf of most Publix liquor stores around town, as well as at the usual outlets.

And as you start falling further in love with “Mother John” – the name actually comes from the same round bottles English-speakers call “demijohns” – you could always start experimenting with making it at home. Get a good quantity of strong rum, mix in an equal quantity of wine and a spoonful or three of honey, then cover your herbs and steep for a few days.

If bohuco pega palo and marabeli prove too hard to source, hit up a bitters supplier for something like chicory root or eucalyptus leaf to add some warming complexity under the clove, cinnamon, anise and whatever else you think might infuse well. There are literally thousands of traditional family recipes, but every tradition has to start somewhere. Why not let mamajuana take root in Miami?