An Embarrassment of Mangoes (18 page)

Dunfermline has been in operation since 1797, and the facilities don’t appear to have been cleaned very often in the intervening two centuries. But neither that, nor the dirt floors, nor the open vats, nor the bats hanging in the rafters give us any pause about the sanitary condition of the finished product.
Nothing
could survive in Dunfermline rum. It’s bottled at 70 percent alcohol, which makes it 140 proof. “Strong rum,” the locals call it, which officially means any brew that’s more than 50 percent alcohol.

We’ve got a choice between adding a bottle of the regular Dunfermline—aged “up to six months”—or the comparatively ancient three-year-old “Spicy Jack” to our growing onboard collection. Jack gets the nod, and Braided Beard digs out a bottle from the boxes piled in a corner. Just in case the “70 percent alcohol” doesn’t make the point, the laughing mule on its garish label reinforces that the stuff has a wicked kick.

E
d’s book continues to give a focus to our land excursions for months to come, and a further excuse to explore beyond the beaten paths. Its inside back cover becomes plastered with a series of Post-it notes: a shrinking–expanding–ever-changing key to the location, taste, and preferred usage of the various bottles in
Receta
’s stash of spirits. “Macoucherie Dark: Top shelf under sink in head; for rum punch.” “La Mauny: Forward can locker; white
rhum agricole
; for ’ti punch.” “Rhum J.M.: Starboard aft locker;
TOP
-
OF
-
THE
-
LINE
AGED
RUM
—
FOR
SIPPING
ONLY
—
DO
NOT
MIX
UNDER
PENALTY
OF
DEATH
.” Steve is serious about this one.

The ten-year-old J.M., from the J.M. Rhumerie on Martinique—the island with more distilleries than any other in the Eastern Caribbean—is the proof for Steve that rum can indeed “rival the best cognac.” Could there be a better reason to drive all the way to the island’s northernmost edge? The drive along the twisting road that cuts through spiky pineapple fields is spectacular, but one sip of the decade-old J.M. in the old stone tasting room is more spectacular still. The aging warehouse has row after row of oak barrels, each one clearly stamped “Kentucky” and formerly used for bourbon. Regulations requiring other liquor producers to use barrels only once ensure a steady supply of “once-used” barrels for the rum industry in the Caribbean, where they’re kept in service for ten to fifteen years—or until they begin to leak, whichever comes first.

At the La Mauny Rhumerie, also in Martinique, we get not only
rhum agricole
but also—finally—our set of ’ti punch glasses. “I set a personal best here by sampling three
rhums
before 11
A
.
M
.,” I crow to my journal, although I do tack on: “Good Lord, what are things coming to?”

At Shillingford Estates, near Mero, Dominica, it’s purely because of the name and the label that we opt to buy the Macoucherie Dark and the Macoucherie Elixir of Bois Bandé rather than the blandly named West Coast Rum. “Macoucherie,” after all, is patois for “come into my bed.” The Macoucherie Elixir of Bois Bandé is a blend of rum, spices, and an extract made from the bark of the locally grown bois bandé tree, yet another reputed aphrodisiac. The island’s indigenous people are said to have discovered the uplifting effects of bois bandé (“hard wood,” in patois) centuries ago. “To be consumed moderately,” the label on the bottle advises, but whether this is to avoid exhaustion or drunkenness isn’t specified. However, I never see another rum in the West Indies with a similar warning.

Shillingford Estates is home to one of the few water-driven wheels for crushing sugar cane remaining in the Caribbean—we’d seen another at Dunfermline—and the manager offers to show us around: “You know a little something about how rum is made?” he inquires. I should hope so; this is, after all, now Distillery Tour 7.

E
d has more than seventy recipes for various punches and cocktail concoctions in his book, but perhaps the most basic, and the easiest to remember, is this one, which he claims comes from Barbados, the first island to export rum:
One part sour/Two parts sweet/Three parts strong/Four parts weak/Five drops of bitters, and nutmeg spice/Serve well chilled with lots of ice
. Five liquid ingredients and a sprinkling of spice. “It is agreed, as much as anything in the islands is agreed,” Ed writes in the book, “that the word
punch
comes from the Hindustani word for five—
panch
.” The
strong
, of course, is rum. The
sour
is usually freshly squeezed lime juice, and the
sweet
is traditionally cane syrup, sold in bottles, though a simple sugar syrup can stand in. The
weak
can be fruit juice, water, or a combination.

In this part of the world,
bitters
can mean nothing but Angostura Bitters, made in Trinidad. This “unique blend of herbs and spices,” as the small paper-wrapped bottle trumpets, is made from a secret formula developed in 1824 by the surgeon-general of Simón Bolívar’s army, Dr. Johann Siegert, to improve the appetite and digestion of the soldiers. Only five living people are said to know the formula, and there are rumored to be only two written copies in existence: one in a bank vault in New York, and one hidden in Trinidad. Among the ingredients the potion apparently does
not
contain is the bitter bark of the angostura tree; it takes its name from the town of Angostura, a trading port on the Orinoco River in Venezuela, where the good doctor was based.

The nutmeg dusting the top of a well-made rum punch is indelibly associated with Grenada. The air even carries a hint of the sweet spice, especially in the countryside where the fruit trees grow. Local lore says a doctor who had lived in the East Indies imported the first nutmeg to the West Indies in the early nineteenth century—to enhance the taste of his planter’s punch, of course. The trees came to Grenada in 1843 and proved well suited to the hilly terrain and volcanic soil. Nutmeg became so important to the island—Grenada produces one-third of the world’s supply and is the largest single supplier—that it is depicted on the country’s flag. In fact, it’s the
only
object represented on the flag, besides seven stars, one for each of the country’s parishes.

W
e have planned a hike to the Seven Sisters, a series of waterfalls in the Grand Etang Forest Reserve, a protected rain-forest area high up in Grenada’s interior. Our guidebook says they are the country’s best, most secluded falls—and the most difficult to get to. “You need a guide,” it states unequivocally.

We know guides are readily available, that we can hire someone to pick us up at the dinghy dock, deliver us to the reserve, guide us along the trail, arrange a lunch, and deposit us back at the dock at the end of the day. That would be too easy. We decide to do it ourselves, with two other cruisers.

The bus that crosses the mountainous backbone of the island leaves from the waterfront in St. George’s, opposite the fish market. It’s one of the typical minivans but, unlike the always-crowded short-haul buses—such as the one we just rode into town from Lower Woburn—this bus takes a while to fill.
And she not leavin’ ’til she full up
. More than full, actually. There’s no way the driver is going to make the trip through the mountains until he’s got enough passengers to make it worthwhile. That’s okay. No one—including us—is in a rush. Island languor has seeped into our bones.

A half-hour after we finally leave the waterfront, we’re bouncing along a narrow roller-coaster road, and the driver is working through the gears as the van strains up hills and careens around curves—some of them so tight that I’m sure we’re going straight into a rock wall. The bus passes right by the entrance to the Grand Etang Forest Reserve, but we’d been told not to get off there, to keep going and watch for a tiny hand-painted sign with an arrow that says “trail to the waterfalls,” on the roadside a couple of hills after the park entrance. “It’s apparently a much easier hike if you start from there,” said our source, who hadn’t. We’d run into him and his wife outside Nimrod’s late one afternoon. They’d just wobbled off the local bus, their legs encrusted with mud. They’d spent the day with the Seven Sisters.

Sure enough, the sign appears, Steve raps on the roof, and the bus pulls over. As we follow the arrow, a woman crosses the road to meet us. This “easier” trail starts on a private plantation, and she is collecting a very modest fee on behalf of the plantation owner. In exchange, she gives us bananas for a snack, tells us we can take anything we want that we find on the ground along the way, and points us toward an assortment of walking sticks leaning against a shack near a triangular red sign: “Notice On Your Own Risk to The Falls.” She is working here to make money for her granddaughter’s schoolbooks and uniform, the woman explains. We know from Dingis that although schooling is free, and mandatory up to age sixteen, books and uniforms must be purchased. This is a huge burden—and a deterrent to keeping kids in school—for families with limited means. It’s clear this woman doesn’t see a lot of business from hikers, and when our entrance fee is a scant $5 EC ($1.90 apiece) we know she can’t be making very much. “I put my faith in God to provide,” she says.

As we start walking through the plantation, we have to duck to avoid low-hanging hands of bananas and sidestep piles of fallen mangoes that are starting to ferment, making me almost dizzy with their sweet, intoxicating smell. As the foliage closes in, I realize that we are walking through a dense grove of nutmeg trees, their branches drooping with yellow-orange fruits that resemble plump overripe apricots. Many have burst open, revealing the nutmeg nestled inside.

Fresh off the tree, a nutmeg is an absolutely gorgeous thing, Nature’s interpretation of a Fabergé egg. Framed in one half of the creamy fruit is the glossy brown shell that encases the nutmeg seed, the part we grate into cake batter and onto rum punch. But the nutmeg tree produces two spices: The glossy shell is covered with a delicate lacy red coat that looks as if it is made from shiny wax. Dried, this lacy coating is the spice mace, used in pumpkin pie and other desserts back home and in curries and cakes here.

It’s hard to walk without stepping on the fragile jewels, thick as fallen apples in an autumn orchard up north. We stuff our pockets, pulling the nutmegs in their bright scarlet coats from the split fruits. The fruit—also called the pod or pericarp—isn’t edible raw, but is made into jam, jelly, and a delicately flavored syrup that is a highly successful substitute for maple syrup on French toast and pancakes, or as the
sweet
in rum punch.

Farther ahead, a lone man harvests for the plantation owner: He methodically whacks the branches with a long stick, and gathers up the fallen nutmegs, pericarp and all, into a big canvas sack. Afterward, he will separate the mace from the nutmeg by hand, and the raw spices will be taken to one of the island’s processing stations.

The plantation eventually gives way to dense rain forest—a crush of trees with pillow-sized leaves and thick twisted vines. Outrageous flowers—the kind of elaborate tropical blooms sold for a small fortune by high-end florists—poke through the greenery: wild purple and orange birds of paradise, tall elegant spikes of wild red ginger, yellow and red heliconia that look as if they’re molded from plastic. When there’s a small clearing, we grab vines and swing, hooting and hollering; forty-six years old and I’m playing Tarzan. Mostly, though, the trail is narrow, steep, overgrown, unmarked, and slippery. When it disappears, we backtrack until we pick it up again—rather, we backtrack until all four of us
agree
we’ve picked it up again. Yesterday’s showers have mixed up a nice greasy batch of mud, and we pull ourselves and each other up the steepest, slickest sections using branches, vines, and the walking sticks. Steve is the first of our foursome to join the muddy-butt club.

Eventually, a vista opens, and a waterfall tumbles down the rock face ahead. I splash my arms and face and dunk my kerchief in the cold milky pool at the bottom before we head on to Sister 2. Above the first falls, the trail begins to crisscross the stream, and we have to pick our way across on the slippery rocks. Eventually, I pull off my hiking shoes and wade.

Only three hours later—although it seems triple that—we’re back at the Grand Etang roadside. My legs are aching and filthy, and I’m convinced there are at least thirteen vindictive sisters, not the paltry seven advertised. I pick the mud out of my fingernails so we can stop in St. George’s on the way home for a very late roti lunch.

When you orchestrate your own outings, whether they’re to a rum estate or a forest reserve, the discoveries are hard-won—but each discovery seems yours alone. Days later, I can still hear the huge stands of bamboo creaking, still smell the sticky fragrant gum that seeped from the rough-barked gommier trees, still see the determined lines of leaf-cutter ants carting home jagged pieces of leaves like outsized green umbrellas, to use as fertilizer to grow the mushrooms they will feed their young. And I still have the seeds I picked up on the forest floor, deep-brown polished things called “donkey eyes,” as cool and smooth as river stones. And of course I have my nutmegs.

Back on board, we peel off the lacy red mace and put it in a flat pan to dry. A couple of hours later, I can crumble it with my fingers, and it’s ready to use, its brilliant scarlet already faded to a soft yellow-orange. The nutmegs need to dry for about six to eight weeks in a warm, dry place, according to the wrinkled, pipe-smoking lady I had consulted at one of the processing stations. There, the shiny brown seeds are spread out to dry on flatbed wagons that can be rolled into the sun during the day and back inside at night or when it rains. I pop mine into the cupboard over
Receta
’s engine and forget about them.