Among my earliest Christmas memories is watching my father carefully open an aged bottle of fragrant Guyanese rum and reverently pour out the first warm capful on to the linoleum-lined wooden floor. Gravely explaining to us that the traditional libation of the spirit was for the spirits to stay safe and sated in the spirit, he then proceeded to literally invite them in, family, friend, foreigner and foe, divine, “Dutch,” ancestral and indigenous…
After the ritual uncorking, he would give us all a compulsory taste of a few searing amber drops of Demerara, as a necessary protection against lingering intestinal worms, thirsty parasites and teetotaller ghosts that haunt the holiday season. Even as I swallowed, the throat burned, fire flooded my stomach, the eyes watered instantly, and both I and the transparent “Caenorhabditis elegans” sputtered in undignified disgust, as I was hurriedly given extra water and soda, with a knowing smile, to soothe the shocked mouth and stunned soul. Not only were the nematodes’ lack of limbs and length of life at risk, but so were most children’s apparently, as we were regularly caught fleeing in the opposite direction by vigilant parents and dosed with foul laxatives weekly.
I knew then I would never be a dipsomaniac. To round off the year of runnings that were anything but cool, we were treated to miniscule annual amounts of alcohol in either the rare form of a strong Scottish single malt whisky gifted to the family or its’ robust tropical counterpart distilled from the fluttering fields of fat sugarcane. The latter rums were readily available from an endless and artful array of sparkling bottles in flashing choices of clear, light, gold and dark, topped with glittering metallic labels, neatly lining the high shelves of every village shop. While a welcome improvement over the hated “senna alexandrina” leaves and pods, and “cascara sagrada” tablets, the seductive selection was irresistibly designed to draw serious drinkers from far and yonder, to part with their hard-earned money and any remaining semblance of sobriety, sense and sagacity.
As more friends and relatives came by and the day and din deepened, we would keep our sober eyes peeled to the patch of liquid, checking regularly to see whether there was any discernible decrease in the dropped dram. During play, we would still watch out in case the staggering spirits imbibed far too much during their usual ubiquitous house-to-house visits and forgot their cloaks of invisibility and routes while having a really rum time. By afternoon, the sweet offering like the elusive beings and our childhood enthusiasm, would have long evaporated in the wind and heat, with the speed of a nicely misplaced foot as the gathering grew noticeably boisterous and fresh bottles emerged. Soon, we, too, could no longer tell which were the latest deliberate libations as against accidental spills.
A decade later, our battered faithful first edition of the famous national culinary manual, “What’s Cooking in Guyana” created by the High Street-based Carnegie School of Home Economics would guide our early excursions into the world of foods and drinks not made by our mothers. Creating new cakes, custards, pies, patties and a battalion of breads, my sister and I followed up rewarding family visits to the Canals Numbers One and Two farm homes of our beloved aunts, the generous sisters of our father, with experiments into jams, jellies, candied fruits and confectionery, powered by the baskets of juicy fruits and fresh produce they insisted we take home.
One fine year, I decided to leave the verb entirely to others, put my trust into the Carnegie tome, fully heed the call of my insistent inner sommelier and continue my exquisite experiments with making different wines using my Aunties Baby’s and Daro’s seasonal bounty of ripe red sorrel and cashews, carambola, cherries, pineapples, ginger, jamoon, mangoes and finally psidium, since I drew the line at the reeking giant jackfruit. We had suffered enough from imbibing the harsh generic vintage that my brothers cheerfully called “Correia’s cutthroat” which our family purchased from the said named factory or Sue-A-Quan, for the homemade Guyanese black cake. For cooking, this readymade hard version was fine, but it could not stand on its own in a glass without attempting to slaughter someone.
At least one batch of my rice wine kept in an old XM-gallon keg with tiny, curved handles tasted less sake and more of a vile vinegar and ended its pungent life down the kitchen sink. But generally, the test cases were heady, smooth and divine with flavour, glinting rich ruby, rose, pale yellow and heavy purple, being well appreciated by my forgiving siblings who rapidly dispatched each bottle with passionate endorsements as they anxiously awaited the next.
Native to much of Africa and parts of Asia, “Flacourtia indica” is also known as cerise, ramontchi, Governor’s plum and Madagascar plum. The trees were laden, and we had picked far more of the glossy plump psidium than our slender fingers could roll to activate the sweetness, or our greedy tummies could consume in several attempts. With teeth and hands bearing the brown-stained evidence of our excessive appetites, I gathered up the remaining fruit, washed and cut the lot and prepared my witches’ brew of sugar, water, spices, a sprinkling of white rice and love.
I poured my concoction into a donated brown glass Drambuie bottle, closed the top, and stored it in the dark side cupboard of my mother’s prized china and glass cabinet, and naturally forgot about it. At an ungodly hour, very early one cold, black morning, as everyone lay sleeping, suddenly, POW!
It sounded like a bullet had exploded near to the bed. My elderly mom was screaming and shaking with fright at the thought of bandits entering our sanctum sanctorum and beating her chair-blocked door and ingenious soda bottle-lined window defences. Heart racing, I jumped out of bed and listened – to the bizarre sound of dripping liquid from behind the wall.
I had thoughtfully left the psidium container too tightly corked, so there was no way for the carbon dioxide to escape the angry ferment. There were hundreds of pieces of glass and the precious remnants of what would have been my most delicious burgundy ever, plastered to the clean curtains, floors, walls, pictures and furniture. The homemade bomb had blasted open the cabinet with the ruthless force of a Guyanese kick-down-the-door gang.
Dying to sneak a taste, but reluctant to visibly incur my mother’s increased wrath, I did not enjoy the hours of cleaning up in my nightgown, listening to her torrents of furious scolding and even darker looks. She did indeed see red in all its shades and forms, as I wiped, mopped and scrubbed until dawn, eventually banning me, to my profound sorrow, from any more wine making. Yet, the rooms had the most wonderful perfume for months, and the wooden cabinet kept its distinctive, deep scent for decades so that the fruitiness became part and persona of the piece. Yes, the wine tasted great, for it was a very good year indeed.
ID’s skeptical encounters with distilled spirits were all confined to the liquid kind, until she started living in Trinidadian old houses, including one that apparently harboured an active “geist” or “spirit.” Watching her largest frying pan flying through the air to land right side up next to her feet, she wearily asked whether his name was “Polter” and why he had drunk too much “Himbeergeist” or German “raspberry brandy” before breakfast.
