Before I headed to Puerto Rico last week, a friend emailed me a warning: “Order Medalla beer and Don Q rum. Anything else and you’ll be pegged for a tourist.”
I didn’t have much hope of being taken for a local—even my Spanish has a Midwestern twang. But in Old San Juan I became desperate to distinguish myself from the swarms of fanny packs that descend from the cruise ships every day. So when I walked by El Farolito, a tiny closet of a bar where the bartender was lazily playing chess with his only customer, I did my best to saunter in as if I were a regular.
“Uno Medalla, por favor,” I said.
To which the chess-playing patron immediately replied, in English, “So where you from?”
So much for passing. I shrugged the question off (I figured maybe they’d forget I wasn’t a local if I stayed quiet) and nursed my beer while managing to catch bits and pieces of their conversation. They were arguing about cocktails—the proper way to make them, serve them, drink them. Eventually the bartender started grabbing cocktail books from the shelf behind the bar and pointing to pages to prove his point.
“Need another one?” he asked me. He hadn’t forgotten about me and he was also speaking in English.
“Anything with Don Q,” I replied.
He handed me a Martini list. It was written in English and had drinks with names like “Sex on the Sand” and “Puerto Rican Surprise.” Now I was getting insulted. I pushed the list aside. “How about something you’d actually drink yourself,” I said. That’s when he pulled out the Yerba Buena.
“Mint,” he spit the word, as if the mere thought disgusted him, “doesn’t grow in the Caribbean. Yerba Buena does. Mojitos made with mint are imposters.” He held the herbs up to my face so I could inhale their aroma. They smelled like mint, but woodsier and a little dirtier. When he presented me with the finished cocktail, the difference became clearer: This was a more savory Mojito, light on sugar, heavy on herb. Some Mojitos can taste like toothpaste, but this one tasted like pure, clean earth.
As I drank it he kept talking. “Yerba Buena means good herb,” he said. “Mothers, grandmothers, they use it for everything. Got a cold? Yerba Buena. Cranky baby? Yerba Buena.”
He forgot to mention it’s also perfect for tourists desperate to fit in. But I let that one slide.
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