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Proudly Made in Aruba
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Aruba’s products range from edibles to collectables, spirits and cigars to aloe, art and handicrafts. |
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For local flavor and bargain purchases, visit the island’s fun, informal flea markets. Find a mix of Caribbean products, local snacks and even BBQ meals. Inexpensive, yet charming souvenirs, can be found in abundance. |
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Aruba's "Balashi Cocktail"
AWA (Papiamento: water) is a clear, refreshing liquid in the blue-labeled bottle. Aruba has some of the best-tasting drinking water on the planet. The desalination process utilizing coral rock as filters takes place at WEB NV (Water and Electricity Bureau) located in Balashi. This results in the fresh water that flows directly from the tap and is also bottled.
Balashi Beer
Balashi is Aruba’s national beer, produced in a fully-automated brewery with cutting edge technology. Built in 1998 at a cost of about US $ 12 million, the state-of-the-art facility is equipped with special computer software from Germany that controls the quality of the brew during the entire process. The beer is a deep golden color and easy on the foam. It has a soft bitterness, an aroma of fresh hops and a short aftertaste.
Palmera Rum
Palmera Quality Products imports raw materials for rum and other alcoholic beverages and uses their own formulas for blending. They have the most extensive line of locally bottled products sold on Aruba, include including rum, the top selling brand whiskey, gin, vodka, brandy, Canadian whiskey, bourbon, tequila and seven different flavors of liqueur including the Palmera, Bon Bini and Taste of Aruba labels. Grenadine is bottled in red, green and blue colors.
Sea Grape Wine
The island’s low-lying sea grape trees produce a surprisingly sweet, rich purple grape known as “druif” used in creating a unique Aruban wine. Produced on a small scale, it is often served on special occasions.
Coecoei & Ponche Crema
Playa Liquor & Bottling Company produces coecoei, a deep red alcoholic beverage used in many tropical cocktails. The recipe is centuries old, originally made by an Indian tribe of Venezuela and introduced on Aruba some sixty years ago. Leaves of the agave or century plant (Papiamento: kukwisa) are squeezed to produce a red sap that is then mixed with rum and cane sugar. Ponche crema is a creamy, smooth and refreshing beverage made of egg yolks, cream, rum, and a variety of spices.
Aruban Recipes
Aruba Ariba
Kibrahacha
SKYLAB by Albert Tromp
Bu Bu |
Aruba Ariba Serves 1
(This fabled, potent drink was invented more than 45 years ago by the Head Bartender at Aruba’s first resort, the Aruba Caribbean Hotel, the late Mr. Byam. This is the original recipe which can be vouched for by the many bartenders who learned their art from Mr. Byam. The Aruba Caribbean Hotel is presently the Radisson Aruba Resort and Casino.)
Ingredients:
¾ ounce vodka
¾ ounce rum, 151 proof
2 ounces fruit punch
½ ounce orange liqueur
½ ounce banana liqueur
Pour all ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake and pour into a tall glass. Top with Cocoei, a locally-made anise-based liqueur.
Courtesy of Destination Aruba Magazine Bu Bu
Serves 1
Ingredients:
½ ounce light rum
1 ounce coconut rum
1 ounce Ponche Crema
(Ponche Crema is a locally-made beverage, comparable to eggnog; a blend of rum, condensed milk, vanilla and eggs.)
1 ounce coconut cream
½ ounce crème de banana
1 ¼ scoops ice cubes
Place all ingredients in shaker. Shake, strain into highball glass.
Courtesy of Destination Aruba Magazine
Kibrahacha Serves 1
This drink is named for a tree that grows in Aruba that bears bright yellow flowers.
Ingredients:
1 ½ ounces light rum
½ ounce Curaçao liqueur
1 tsp fresh lime juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and stir well. Pour over 3 – 4 ice cubes in an old-fashioned glass.
Courtesy of Destination Aruba Magazine SKYLAB by Albert Tromp Serves 1
Albert Tromp is veteran bartender and beverage manager of the Radisson Aruba Resort.
Ingredients:
2 dashes Grenadine
1 ounce rum, 151 proof
¼ ounce Benedictine brandy
¼ ounce orange liqueur
2 ounces orange juice
Pour into mixing glass with ice. Shake well. Pour into Collins glass.
Courtesy of Destination Aruba Magazine |
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Hot Sauce
Pica di papaya, light orange in color, is a hot sauce made with locally grown green papayas. It is less potent than Hot Delight, made of Madame Jeanette scotch bonnet peppers that far exceed the jalapeno in intensity. These sauces are all natural and contain no preservatives. Hot Delight gourmet products have won national acclaim and are found in most homes and restaurant all over Aruba. These condiments are made by Aurelio Ruiz, using a recipe that his grandfather developed in 1880.
Sweets & Snacks
Arubans have a sweet tooth and prepare treats such as cocada (coconut candy) and tamarind balls as well as rich desserts such as pan bollo (bread pudding) and cashew cake. Delicious chocolate flakes, bars and bonbons hail from Belgium and Holland. Piet’s Ice Cream has been a family tradition for decades. It is made from evaporated milk and is non-fat; try some of the delectable tropical flavors. Try a pastechi, the ubiquitous national snack, a deep-fried half-moon pastry with a savory filling (chicken, chop suey, tuna, beef, cheese or ham).
Dutch Cheese
Distinctive cheeses are found in waxed wheels of various colors. The creamy, buttery, mild-flavored young Gouda (jonge kaas) with a yellow rind is ripened for about three weeks. The black wax-coated aged Gouda (oude kaas) is at least one-year-old and has a more robust nutty taste, drier texture and firmer consistency. Sharp cheese (belegen kaas) ripens from 2 - 7 months. Edam, the only cheese in the world to hold a perfectly round shape, is lower in fat and has a red-waxed protective coating. The flavor is mild, sweet and nutty and the texture smooth and elastic.
Aruban Recipes
Here’s some recipes straight from the kitchens of local residents:
Keshi Yena
Pisca den foil
Bolo Ponche Crema
Giambo
Funchi
Sopi Mondongo |
Bolo Ponche Crema Ingredients:
1/2 liter whipped cream
1/2 lbs Ladyfingers
6 packs vanilla sugar
1/2 bottle Ponche Crema (small)
1/2 cup black coffee
1/2 cup rum or cognac
Preparations:
First make the black coffee and leave it to cool down.
Lightly dip the Ladyfingers in rum/cognac and coffee.
Batter the whipped cream with the vanilla sugar than ad the Ponche Crema as slow as possible. The cream should be smooth and thick.
Cover the bottom of the springform pan with one layer of the Ladyfingers, than cover the Lady fingers with the Ponche Crema mixture and repeat the procedure with Ladyfingers and Ponche Crema mixture. Finalize with the Ponche Crema mixture.
Put the cake in the fridge for 1 to 2 hours and it's ready to serve with coffee. You can keep the cake in the freezer as long as you want. The longer you keep it the merrier.
Garnish with:
coffee beans or strawberries. Funchi serves 6
Funchi is a must with this delicious soup and we have therefore included the recipe as well:
Funchi, the Antillean staple, is a simple corn-meal preparation. It must be vigorously stirred while cooking and to the rhytm of these rotations old-time cooks repeated. Un pa mi, un pa bo, un pe. Funchi was then scooped from the kettle with a little round calabash, and the "funchi ball" was placed on each individual plate - "One for me, one for you, one for him".
Mix in heavy saucepan:
1 1/4 cups cold water
1 1/2 cups corn-meal
1 tsp. salt
Stir in:
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 tbs. butter
Bring to a brisk boil over high heat and cook for three minutes. Continue cooking an additional three minutes, stirring the funchi vigorously with a wooden spoon or palu di funchi. When the mixture is very stiff and pulls away from the sides of the pan, remove from the fire. Turn out in to a deep, well-buttered bowl and cover with a plate. Now shake the funchi down in the bowl, then invert it on a serving platter.
For a special Sunday breakfast fry sliced funchi in butter and serve with crisp bacon and scrambled eggs. Giambo Giambo (pronounced ghee-yam-bo) is the Antillean gumbo, a thick, hearty soup. The pureed okra gives it a slippery consistency.
Soak overnight:
1/2 lb. salted beef
Discard water. Place the beef in a heavy kettle with:
2 quarts fresh water
1 ham hock
1 or 2 onions
a few sprigs of parsley
1 or 2 carrots
1 bay leaf
1 celery stalk
Bring to a brisk boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about one and a half hours, or until meat is tender.
Place in the simmering kettle.
1 lb. red snapper fillets
After a few minutes test the fish with the tines of a fork, and remove from the broth when it flakes easily. Make a bite-size chunks of the fillets. Remove the beef from the broth, cube and set aside with the fish. Strain the broth and return it to the fire. Discard the ham hock and vegetables.
To the simmering broth add:
2 lbs. okra, washed and sliced
A few sprigs crushed yerba di hole, or fresh basil
1/2 tsp. black pepper
Simmer until the okra is tender. With a lele stick, or its equivalent, a wire whisk, reduce the okra to a pur?. Return the cubed beef and red snapper pieces to the kettle. Heat thoroughly and adjust seasonings.
Garnish giambo with:
1/4 lb. cooked shrimp Keshi Yena serves 10-12
Frugality was the keynote of island living in earlier times, when provisions had to last from the visit of one sailing ship to the call of another. In this classic recipe the shell of a scooped Edam (the thin rind remaining after a family had consumed the four pounds of cheese) is filled with spiced meat, then baked in the oven or steamed in the top of a double boiler. For these methods of preparation the red wax must be removed from the empty shell after is has been soaked in hot water. In a more dramatic version the filled Edam, with the red wax intact, is. tied in cheese cloth and suspended in boiling water for twenty minutes. The wax melts away in the hot water, leaving a delicate pink blush on the cheese. Use chicken or beef for the filling.
For the chicken filling, rub with the juice of several limes:
1 lb. chicken breasts
1 lb. chicken thighs
Season the breasts and thighs with:
Salt and pepper
Poultry seasoning
Minced onion
Let them stand for several hours. Then either arrange the pieces in a shallow baking dish, and after browning the chicken under the broiler, bake it for one hour at 350? , deboning it when cool enough to handle, or choose this more frugal method of preparation.
Brown the chicken in three tablespoons butter, then place it in a heavy kettle with:
4 quarts water
2 tsp. salt
12 peppercorns
1 or 2 onions
1 celery stalk with leaves
bay leaf, bruised
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for twenty minutes, or just until chicken is tender. Strain and reserve the broth, discarding the vegetables Debone the chicken and set aside.
After the chicken has been prepared by one of the above methods, sauté in two tablespoons of butter:
3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
4 onions, sliced
1 large green pepper, chopped
1Tbs. parsley, minced, or a few drops Tabasco sauce
Salt and pepper
Add and stir in well:
2 Tbs. ketchup
1/4 cup pimento olives, sliced
1 Tbs. capers
1/4 cup raisins
2 Tbs. piccalilli
The chicken, or 1 lb. ground beef, lightly browned, if beef is to be substituted for the chicken.
Simmer until the tomatoes are reduced, about twenty or thirty minutes. Remove from the fire and permit mixture to cool. If keshi yena is to be baked, preheat oven to 350? , if it is to be steamed, begin heating water in the bottom of a double boiler.
Beat and add to the meat mixture:
3 eggs, reserving about 6 Tbs.
Generously butter a casserole or the top of a double boiler. Before placing the cheese shell in it, spoon three tablespoons of the reserved beaten egg into the bottom of the container.
Half fill with the meat mixture and add:
1 or 2 hard-cooked eggs
Fill shell to the top with remaining meat and cover with:
The original cap of the Edam, from which the wax has been removed, or a few slices of cheese. A word of caution! Never use soft young cheese for keshi yena.
Drip the remaining three tablespoonfuls of beaten egg over the top of the cheese as a sealer. (Place the lid on the double boiler). Set the casserole in a pan of hot water, or the double boiler top over the simmering water. Cook for one and one-quarter hours. Reverse keshi yena on a heated platter and keep warm for the cheese becomes hard and unappetizing if permitted to cool.
In place of the cheese shell, two pounds of Edam or Gouda slices may be used to line the cooking container. The slices should overlap and create the same effect as the shell. Add filling cover with additional slices and follow directions for baking or steaming the shell. The traditionalist with a great deal of time and patience, may scoop out a four pound Edam or Gouda, taking care not to pierce the shell. Pisca den foil serves 4
Ingredients:
800 grams (28.22 ounces) of fresh fish filet (prefferably Mahi Mahi or Red Snapper)
1 yellow pepper
1 red pepper
1 branch of broccoli
1 small union
4 cloves of garlic
a small leek
1 lemon
a small wisp of dill
a small wisp of basil
white wine
Pernod
Salt and pepper
Cut the peppers onion and leek in small bars. Seperate the roses from the broccoli and mash up the garlic. Chop up the dill and the basil. Mix the vegetables, spices and garlic. Cut the fresh fish filet in not too thin bars and sprinkle it with salt and pepper.
Take 4 sheets of aluminium foil of about 40 cm (15.75 inch) long and ditribute the vegetables on them. Place the bars of fish on top of that with a slice of lemon. Sprinkle a dash of white wine and Pernod and fold the foil into packets. Put these packets into the oven for about 20 minutes in the highest position. Sopi Mondongo Sopi Mondongo
By Wijkie Maduro
serves 4
Before preparing this recipe, hang up your hamaca (hammock) in a cool shady spot. It will be necessary to rest a bit after enjoying this soul-food soup.
Ingredients:
1 pound cleaned cow's stomach, cut into chunks (or substitute tripe)
1 pound cow's heel (the jelly adds flavor)
**Note: If heel not available, add enough bone to equal 2 pounds.
1 pound cow's white-bone (the marrow is also a flavor-adder)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon salt
2 beef boullion cubes
1 3/4 quarts of water
1 large onion, diced
1 large green bell pepper, diced
1 stalk celery with leaves, diced
4-5 fresh basil leaves
1 sweet potato, peeled, cut in chunks
1 plantain, peeled, cut in chunks
1/2 calabas (West Indian pumpkin) or Hubbard squash, cut in chunks
1 teaspoon sugar
"just a touch" ground cumin
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
In large kettle place cow meat, heel and bone with salt, freshly ground pepper in water and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium-low and cook for 2 1/2 hours or until meat is soft.
Strain and return stock to kettle. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium, and cook for an additional 15-20 minutes or until vegetables are soft. Let rest for 10 minutes and serve. |
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Aloe
Aloe has dominated Aruba’s culture and landscape ever since the 19th century. Historians report that one-third of the island was once covered with aloe plantations. At the beginning of the 20th century, Aruba became the world’s largest producer and exporter of aloe. Its superior quality is a result of clay, moisture-retentive soil and use of fresh gel. The state-of-the-art Aruba Aloe Factory and Museum is still surrounded by acres and acres of aloe plants, harvested as has been done for centuries. Velvety creams, lotions, skin and hair products are on sale at the Aruba Aloe factory and retail outlets as well as at supermarkets, kiosks and resorts.
Handicrafts
Local artisans create unique and decorative items made of clay pottery and natural materials such as shells, sand, driftwood and kwihi wood. These souvenirs can be found at flea markets, stores and resorts, as well as at the weekly Bon Bini Festival. The djuco nut that washes ashore is polished and accented with gold filigree to create one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry.
Art & Photography
Local artists utilize canvas and multi-media to interpret the Aruban culture and landscape. The island’s friendly people and natural beauty are captured through the lens of talented photographers.
Stamps
Aruba’s colorful and artistic stamps celebrate Aruba’s unique history, culture and nature, and also have international themes. Post Aruba provides year packs of first-day-covers and postage stamps. New and innovative features have included triangular and glow-in-the-dark stamps; stamp sheets also contain decorative features. A stamp can be created from your own digital photo as part of a souvenir sheet with an Aruban design and map. (The Main Post Office is located in downtown Oranjestad. A new branch is opening at Palm Beach Plaza in the high-rise hotel area.)
Jewelry
Available materials have shaped the types of handicrafts found on the island. One of the most creative uses of natural products is in the crafting of "djuco" nuts into unique jewelry pieces. The djuco plant is not grown on Aruba, but the nuts wash up on shore, primarily from Venezuela. They are collected, polished and accented with gold filigree and can be found at some of the locally owned jewelry stores.
Pottery
Aruban-made ornaments for the home are best represented in the numerous pottery crafts that are made by various studios throughout the island. Artful shapes and pottery decorated with Aruban scenes of divi-divi trees and cunucu houses can be found at various souvenir shops and also sold at the weekly Bon Bini Festival in Fort Zoutman.
Miniature Aruban Art
Aruban motifs are often also found on painted works at local markets, but also beautifully displayed in the island's stamps series. The island's most respected artists, such as Ludwig de L'Isle, Nigel Matthew and Stan Kuiperi, are often commissioned in the creation of stamp series marking local events, holidays and flora and fauna. The Post Office's Philatelic Section not only sells the most recent editions of stamp series but also maintains past series of these miniature Aruban artworks. For more information, please contact filateliearuba@setarnet.aw.
Music
What better way to relive your Aruba vacation than to take home a music CD? Popular carnival tunes include the rhythmic fast-moving road march, the tumba of African origin, and the commentary-laden calypso. Traditional lilting steel pan music has expanded its scope to include easy listening, classical, salsa, jazz and reggae. Latin salsa and merengue and Aruban waltzes and boleros attract music fans of all ages.
Cigars
Aruhiba is a cigar produced and cultivated in Aruba by Benjamin Petrochi. Grown from Dominican and Cuban strains, Aruban tobacco offers a full, distinctive flavor in both its mild and strong varieties. Petrochi spent ten years perfecting the process, providing a singular experience for the cigar connoisseur. The cigar case has the Aruhiba logo and “Made in Aruba” stamp. The cigar shop is located in the historic Dutch windmill. Aruban cigars are permitted in the US. |
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Using various types of grapes and local fruits in several combinations, 72-year-old Vicente Kock has been able to produce local wine for the past quarter century. Shamu grapes (of Indian origin from Surinam), Galland grapes (Mediterranean grapes), and costa grapes (coastal grapes) are mixed with local fruits such as of the cashew, also found on trees in his gardens. From cuttings, Mr. Kock has also been able to grow such European grape varieties as sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and red and white muscatel, also added to the mix.
Rising at 5am every morning, he begins the painstaking work of watering, pruning and caring for the grapes. When the selected grapes are ripe, they are pressed and fermented for two months in wooden barrels, then stored in large glass bottles for another two months. When clear and sediment-free, they are then stored in stainless steel containers for 6 – 8 months until the process is completed, yielding a delightful fruity wine, soft with an aromatic bouquet.
Taking into account the harsh sunlight and wind, as well as pests such as lizards, iguanas, birds and insects, producing the 400 bottles of wine annually is miraculous! Mr. Kock has mastered the art of grafting various varieties to create more hearty plants that can better weather the elements. The wines are for local use only and not for export. They contain no chemicals or preservatives. No machines are used in production. Aruba’s arid desert soil is actually good for growing grapes. "The worse the soil, the better the grapes!" he explains.
Tours and Information: To obtain more information or visit the vineyard in Santa Cruz (Sombre 22-A) where Vino Vince is produced, call Vincente Kock at 585 3995 or 567 6623. Visits are generally scheduled for Monday and Thursday at 10 am.
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Ayaca, a traditional Christmas dish
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