They brushed me off as they loaded surfboards and beach chairs into the trunk—there would be plenty of purveyors at the beach selling food and beer; no need to bring our own. And sure enough, there were nearly as many vendors on the beach as there were sunbathers, selling Budweisers, fresh coconuts, and bags of Globos, the iconic Brazilian crunchy yucca cracker.

Given that grilling is such a prominent part of Brazilian dining culture, it was no real surprise to also spot hawkers milling about with small, portable grills, setting up shop at the feet of their patrons and slinging skewers by the half dozen. The result was a parade of grilled meats—coração de frango (chewy chicken hearts), picanha (super-tender sirloin caps), and linguiça (garlic-and-pepper sausage). My friend waved a vendor over and promptly placed an order for queijo coalho, looking back at me with a toothy grin.

Queijo coalho em espetos, or cheese skewers, is a Brazilian beach staple. They’re made with light, squeaky cow’s-milk cheese, akin to the cheese curds I grew up with in the Midwest. The most commonly used cheese is coalho, made in the country’s northeast. This particular vendor, however, used a version from Minas Gerais, a southeastern state that’s home to some of Brazil’s best coffee, cachaça, and, yes, cheese.

It’s the perfect cheese for grilling, with a mild, slightly acidic flavor and firm texture that holds its shape, so you can eat it right off the skewer.

Ingredients
12 ounces (340g) skewered Brazilian queijo de coalho, separated into individual sticks (see note)
Dried oregano, extra-virgin olive oil mixed with finely minced garlic, and/or aioli, for serving (optional)

Directions
Light one chimney full of charcoal. When all the charcoal is lit and covered with gray ash, spread coals evenly over coal grate. Alternatively, set the burners of a gas grill to high heat. Set cooking grate in place, cover grill, and allow to preheat for 5 minutes. Clean and oil the grilling grate. Queijo coalho em espetos, or grilled skewers of firm and squeaky cheese, is a super-popular Brazilian beachside snack, and for good reason. Making it couldn’t be easier. This spring, I had the good fortune to spend a sunny, sweltering month in Rio de Janeiro. On my first trip to the beach, I asked my Brazilian friends if we should swing by the grocery store to pick up some snacks, envisioning the carioca equivalent of my go-to American beach snacks. (I’m all about the Chex Mix, Smartfood cheddar popcorn, and some ripe, juicy watermelon.)

Arrange skewers on grate over coals and cook until browned on first side, about 3 minutes. (Timing will vary depending on the heat of the grill and the distance of the skewers from the heat source.) Try not to move the skewers too soon, or they can stick and tear; if they remain stuck in spots when you try to move them, slide a thin metal object down between the grill grates and gently lift from below to free them. Once skewers are free, move them around to ensure the cheese doesn’t sink too far between the grill grates.

Turn skewers and repeat on opposite side. Serve while hot, dressing with oregano, olive oil/garlic mixture, and/or aioli as desired.

Special equipment: Grill, chimney starter

Notes
Packaged queijo de coalho skewers are sold at Brazilian markets; you may also find the skewers or block queijo de coalho online. Cut block cheese into 1- by 5-inch lengths and spear each piece with a small bamboo skewer, then follow the recipe as written. If you can’t find queijo de coalho, you may also substitute halloumi or bread cheese.

Using pre-formed cheese skewers ensures the right kind of cheese for the recipe (though you can also make your own skewers using halloumi or bread cheese).
Moving the skewers around once they’re free from the grill grate maximizes browning.
These skewered cheese sticks use a type of cheese that holds its shape even as it softens in the heat of a grill, yielding a golden-brown and crispy exterior and a near-molten interior. Popular as a street-food snack in Brazil, they’re sold in Brazilian markets (and occasionally online) as preassembled cheese skewers. You may also find queijo coalho online in solid-block form, to be cut and skewered at home. If you can’t find the real deal, you can improvise using more commonly available ingredients, such as halloumi or bread cheese. When the skewers are done, you can flavor them as desired, dressing them with dried oregano, an oil-and-garlic mixture, or aioli. (In Brazil, a similar sauce called molho de alho is often used.)

To talk about this cake, we have to look back to Venezuela in the 18th century. Wheat didn’t grow in Caracas and imported flour was very expensive across the country, but the Bejarano sisters crafted a cake to sell that was based on ripe mashed plantains and corn-based breadcrumbs instead of flour. The sisters became an instant success. Today, the base of the batter is made from plantains, sugar cane, breadcrumbs or ground bread, butter, and egg to give it a dense, almost banana bread-like texture, flavored with a light touch of cloves, cinnamon, and allspice and showered with handfuls of sesame seeds. Its sweetness is mild enough to please those who like their desserts on the savory side. These skewers can be cooked using any number of grill setups; we opted for a traditional charcoal grill in this case, but our new-and-improved skewer-grilling setup works just as well. Just make sure to push the cheese further down on the skewer to expose the tip, allowing it to be suspended over the bricks.

Alfajores: Argentina and Uruguay
While Argentines are more vocal about their alfajor love, we have to give Uruguay some credit too: they do hold the Guinness World Record for largest alfajor ever made, weighing in over a thousand pounds. There are many different versions of this popular cookie, sold both fresh in bakeries and packaged at convenience shops, but they generally consist of dulce de leche sandwiched between two soft, thick cookies, then either rolled in coconut shavings or covered in chocolate.

Tawa Tawas: Bolivia
When in Bolivia, beware: consuming tawa tawas may cause an insatiable daily craving. A wise Bolivian baker once told me all you really need for a perfect postre is a piece of deep fried bread. Flour, egg, and baking powder make up a dough that’s rolled out, cut into triangles, and then fried in hot oil to become a miniature pillow. It’s similar to a sopapilla except bite-size, topped with powdered sugar and drizzled with raw honey.

Central America: The most noteworthy rum producers in this region are Guatemala (Ron Zacapa), Panama (Ron Abuelo), and Nicaragua (Flor de Caña).

South America: Noteworthy producers here include Guyana (El Dorado, which is sometimes also called Demerara rum and called for in tiki recipes) and Venezuela (Pampero). Brazil’s cachaça is a sugarcane based spirit that’s often called a rum—and is even legally considered such by the United States government—but as it is unaged, we will not consider it a rum for the purposes of this post. I’ll have more about cachaça in a future post.

New England: More significant for historic reasons than for modern. New England once had a thriving rum trade, especially in Medford, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island. Rum is once again distilled in New England, but not in the colonial New England style. (I consider the role that rum and molasses trading played in the history of slavery to be well beyond the scope of this post.)

Africa: The only African rum I’m aware of is Starr African Rum, from the island nation of Mauritius. Distilled from molasses, Starr is a delicious clear, but richly flavored, rum. Cool bottle, too. Certain areas of Africa are perfect for growing sugarcane, so Africa may become a region to watch for future rum production and an evolution of rum styles.

White/Light/Silver: Light bodied, crisp, and subtle in flavor, these rums are highly mixable. They marry very well with fruit flavors, so they’re excellent for daiquiris and piña coladas. A common misconception about white rum is that it’s unaged. White rum is aged in oak barrels for a short period of time to smooth out the flavors; it’s then charcoal filtered to remove color. Bacardi is the best known example of a white rum; other brands include Don Q, Flor de Caña, and Banks Five Island.

Gold/Oro/Ambre: Medium bodied and a little stronger in flavor than light rums, gold rums are aged in oak barrels. Like light rums, they mix well into fruity cocktails. Bacardi, Don Q, and Ron Rico are commonly available brands.

Dark/Black: Full-bodied, with rich caramel flavors, these rums are usually pot-stilled and aged for long periods. Used in tiki preparations such as the Mai Tai, the best of these rums are also sippable on their own, neat or on ice. Mount Gay, Appleton, Gosling’s, and Ron Zacapa are common brands.

In modern times, most distillers purchase molasses rather than make it themselves. Yeast and water are added to the molasses to create a “wash,” which is then allowed to ferment. Some distillers use wild yeasts, but others use specific cultivated strains. We’ll look a little later at the role yeast plays in the flavor and character of finished rum.

Fermentation, of course, is the process by which yeasts convert sugars into alcohol. In modern spirits production, this process generally takes place in large metal tanks and is carefully monitored. Fermentation lasts from twenty-four hours to several weeks, depending on the type of rum being produced. We’ll look more at these variables a little later.

Depending on the type of rum being produced, distillation can proceed using either a pot still or a column still. Pot stills are more traditional and less efficient—more expensive—than column stills. Generally, heavier rums are produced in pot stills and lighter rums in column stills, although some rums are a blend of pot and column.

Strength of Rum at Distillation and Bottling

Most rums on the market are bottled at 80 proof, or 40% alcohol by volume (ABV), but they’re distilled to a higher proof—anywhere from 85 to 95% ABV—and then diluted with water to achieve bottling proof. The rums with the richest flavors and bodies are those distilled to a lower proof—say 85% abv—and then diluted to a higher proof—say 43 to 45% abv.

Why is this so? When spirits are distilled to higher and higher proofs, they lose the esters and congeners that build flavor; a rum that comes off the still at 95% ABV will retain fewer flavor compounds than one distilled to 85%. Remember, a spirit distilled to 95% ABV is 95% alcohol and 5% other things. Some part of that 5% is flavor molecules. A spirit distilled to 85% ABV has 15% other things, and therefore more room for flavor molecules.

When you take a rum distilled at 95% ABV and dilute it down to 40%, you need to add a lot of water, which, being water, carries no flavor. So you end up with a lighter tasting rum than if you start with a more flavorful spirit and add less water.

Rhum agricole: Full-bodied rums, made from sugarcane juice instead of molasses. As with molasses-based rum, agricoles range the color spectrum, from white to gold to dark. Agricoles are often funky and have floral and vegetal aromas and flavors. Brands include Rhum Clement, Rhum J.M., Neisson, and La Favorite.

Other Terms
You may encounter other terms when shopping for rum. Here’s a grab-bag glossary of rum words:

Naval rum: A dark, full-bodied rum in the style of that formerly given to members of the British Navy. Normally proofed at 50% abv or higher.
Single barrel: Most rums on the market are blended products. To achieve consistency in taste from release to release, manufacturers blend rums from different barrels to get the balance of flavors right. A single-barrel rum comes from just one barrel, and the rum may taste different from barrel to barrel.
Overproof: Refers to rums with an ABV over a standard value, usually 120 proof, or 60% ABV.

Type of Still

Another factor that affects rum styles is the type of still used. Pot stills generally produce heavier rums, richer in the congeners and esters that create flavor. Column stills produce lighter rums, stripping out more of the flavor compounds. Column stills are more efficient and therefore less expensive to operate, but it’s important to remember this isn’t an either-or proposition. Some rums are started in pot stills and redistilled in columns, and some rums are a blend of pot and column.

Type of Barrel

The kind of barrel used for aging rum affects its flavor, too. Some rums are aged in new charred-oak casks; some are aged in used whiskey barrels. Some are aged in sherry casks; some in cognac barrels. All these contribute different flavors to the finished product.

Length of Time in Barrel

This is simple: The longer a rum ages in a barrel, the more flavor compounds it will pick up from the oak.

Yeast Type

Some rum distillers use wild yeasts, whereas others use specific cultivated strains. Using natural yeast will impart certain characteristics of the local environment into the rum, characteristics that can actually change from batch to batch. To control such variables, some companies use specific cultivated strains that retain the same characteristics from generation to generation. The Los Angeles Times recently wrote about the yeast used by Bacardi, detailing how the Bacardi distillery smuggled its yeast out to Puerto Rico when its original Cuban facilities were nationalized by the Castro government in 1960.

Length of Fermentation

The other variable that yeast introduces is fermentation speed. Some yeast strains convert sugar to alcohol more quickly than others. Bacardi, for example, has bred its yeasts to ferment molasses so quickly that it forms fewer esters and congeners—the chemical substances that create flavor compounds. So one reason Bacardi tastes so light and mild is thanks to its yeast and the speed at which it works.

Modern pot stills are a variation on the original stills invented by Islamic perfume makers in the Middle Ages.

Factors that Influence Rum Styles
Source of Sugar

The source of sugar used in rum production matters less than you might think. Most modern rum is produced from molasses made in Brazil, so for these rums, the sugar source isn’t important, and other factors have greater influence on the style and flavor. In the case of rhum agricole, however, the sugar source carries a certain amount of terroir. Fresh sugarcane juice is prone to oxidation, so it needs to be produced near the distillery, and fermentation needs to begin straight away. Agricole manufacturers say that the use of local sugarcane carries some character from its growing environment into the finished rhum.

Whether you’re trying to reproduce that mad good curried goat that’s been haunting your memory like a fiery first kiss, or you have the nearly impossible task of pleasing Jamaican in-laws, or you’re expecting a visit from Usain Bolt in the immediate future, this piece is for you.

From coconut milk to thyme, from Scotch bonnets to scallions, you’ll learn what you need to reproduce the flavors that anchor a diaspora and be able to conjure “Yard” wherever the storms of nature or life may find you.

Solera: An aging process used in the production of some rums, sherries, and ports, to provide a consistent product from year to year. The solera system involves a pyramid of casks. The top tier is the young stuff, fresh off the still. The bottom layer of casks is mature and ready to bottle. Middle tiers are the middle children. A limited amount is drawn off and bottled from the bottom tier. Rum from the second-lowest layer is moved into the bottom layer, to blend and meld with the older product. Rum then “cascades” from higher layer to lower, each level blending with the older layer below.
Historic and Modern Rum Regions
Caribbean Basin: The birthplace of rum. Styles vary throughout this region, from light and crisp rums to rich, vegetal agricoles.

Mexico: Rum is a relatively new spirit in Mexico; Bacardi has a growing presence there, and you may be able to find an independent brand named Ron Los Valientes.

If I had to summarize the culinary reality of Jamaica in a single sentence, or indeed any of the Caribbean islands, I’d say this: It’s a kaleidoscopic synthesis of colonial, enslaved, native, and diasporic culinary traditions as bold and eclectic as anything from Singapore or Sicily.

We have a staggering variety of starches; we have street food that demands deep inquiry into proper crumb-to-meat-to-sauce-to-spice ratios; and we have an entire under-the-radar vegan diet called “ital,” courtesy of the Rastafari Movement.

And yet, minus a few breakout stars, such as Christmas black cake and jerk chicken, Caribbean cuisine has remained largely sidelined, even as Mexican, Indian, Chinese, and other cuisines have shouldered aside French dominance to assert themselves upon the North American food imagination. Well, this Jamaican thinks it’s high time the overlooked cuisines of the Western hemisphere start doing some shouldering and asserting of our own. (In Patois: A fi we turn now!)

If you’ve been around Butter Me Up Brooklyn for a while or maybe just accidentally clicked on the meet lillie tab, then you probably know that I’m without a stand mixer. I grew up making my bread dough by hand and whipping up cookies with a wooden spoon. It may have been rough but I’ve survived my entire life without a little buddy!
That said, if I so happen to possibly receive a certain something in white on a special day that is a week from today I would probably quickly change my views on the “by hand” way of kitchen life that I’ve been living. I can only imagine how I’d take every oppounity to use it and it would not surprise me one bit if I started mixing up gin and tonics on the lowest speed just to get a quick use in. The phrase “Oh here, just let me mix that for you…” would be on an endless loop.