Mama Juana! The Versatile Elixir of the Dominican Republic
Whether you see it offered as Mama Juana, or Mamajuana, or mamajuana, you must by all means toss one back. It is the Dominican National Libation.
The drink originated sans alcohol perhaps a thousand years ago. Native Tainos collected whatever sticks and roots and leaves and bark they found lying around and made a medicinal herbal tea, and the legend goes that Christopher Columbus and his gang spiked that tea with wine and honey. More than a century later, the sugarcane planted by Europeans produced rum, which became the essential ingredient in the drink that would come to be called Mamajuana.
The recipes for mamajuana are many, because the name is derived from the shape of the bottle it comes in, not the drink itself. The French used to keep their wines and beers in a squat bottle with a short neck they called a Dame Jeanne (the English called it a demijohn). The Spanish made it Dama Juana and the Dominicans turned Juana into a Mama.
Today some call mamajuana Dominican Liquid Viagra, because of its reputation as an aphrodisiac. Locals, with no stab at subtlety, call it El Para Palo (lift the stick). The taste is strong and the finish is so bitter your mouth may pucker, which is why most who make it add honey. In addition to its notoriety as a sex-enhancer, the other attribute of mamajuana is its ability to cure anything. By anything I mean colds and flu, digestive complaints, circulation problems, pneumonia, and it cleanses the blood, liver and kidneys.
The inventor of the modern drink, Jesus Rodriguez, co-wrote a song called Mama Juana in the ‘50s and made the drink a favorite of merengue musicians, before he was run out of the DR for selling medicine without a license. He fled to Manhattan, where, in 2013, he died from pneumonia. Ironically.
(Credit: photographer unknown-Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA-3.0)
Triple Cy Young Award winning Dominican-born pitcher Pedro Martinez swears that his Boston Red Sox swept the 2004 World Series and brought a championship to Boston for the first time in 86 years because the team shared a sip of mamajuana before taking the field for every game.
A popular toast offered up by Dominicans is: “Whatever tortures you—Mamajuana takes care of it!” DIY kits are offered for sale at nearly every souvenir shop; empty bottles filled with tree bark, twigs, herbs and other traditional ingredients.
Your job is to add the rum, red wine and honey to your own taste. First, steep the wood chips in 2 fingers of honey, two fingers of wine, and fill to the top with rum. The proportions are a guideline, not a rule. Let the mix absorb into the wood for more than a week. Longer works, too. And longer than that. Then pour it all out. Squeeze a little bit more honey into the bottle and refill to the top with quality rum. Age in the infused bark and twigs for another week. Drink herbal goodness and use your enhanced potency only for good.
Mamajuana is the name of a Dominican merengue electronic pop group. Their hit song called Drinking Mamajuana rhymes it with Tijuana and Little Habana. I would suggest they missed the boat by omitting iguana. It would have been just what the doctor ordered. To your health!