Cuban experts taste cigars with drinks from the Netherlands
HAVANA, Sept. 2nd. The members of the Cuban tasting and analysis group named Balcón del Habano today tasted Premium cigars from this country combined with drinks from the Netherlands, as a technical novelty.The president of the Balcón, Jesús Machín, told Prensa Latina that the connoisseurs made a special pairing in this capital between a cigar, four tapas and the beers Swinkels Family Brewers Spain SFBS (Bavaria), from the Netherlands, and the Cuban Parranda, where highlighted the qualities of these products for the market.
At the meeting, held at the Esquina D-Fraile restaurant-bar, in Vedado, businessmen, bartenders, sommeliers, artists, and athletes appreciated a unique San Cristóbal de La Habana vitola cigar, 141 millimeters long by 50 millimeters wide, whose territory flavor ranges from mild to medium, made by cigar maker Raúl Urbano, from Marinas Gaviota (Varadero).
They also tasted four tapas made with fish in brine on escalivada vegetables, octopus confit with celery on sweet potato purée with aniseed, cassava tartlet with Creole pork and Parranda Mambisa casabe with lamb chilindrón that they tasted with cocktails made with both types of beer.
In a brief intervention, the president of the Balcón, Jesús Machín, addressed historical passages of the origins of beer in ancient Egypt and then the process of obtaining it in Europe in the following centuries up to the 20th, and in Cuba, in the first decades until later becoming a very popular drink among the population.
For his part, the director of the mixed company Cervecería Cubana S.A., Arnoud Van Shaik, (Bavaria’s representative on this island), stated that his participation consists of explaining the benefits and qualities of both beverages to the client, while reiterating the importance of being able to identify its different flavors.
The manager provided details to the attendees about the production of Parranda in the new factory of the Mariel Special Development Zone, Artemisa, whose fundamental objective is to be able to satisfy the national consumer, adapted to the sweetest flavors, unlike Europeans who prefer the acid.
In this regard, he recalled the signing of the agreement between his company and the CubaRon S.A. Corporation. to help produce the new brand of beer on the Caribbean island with the required state-of-the-art technology and market it in a 330-milliliter (ml) green or amber returnable glass bottle and/or a 500- to 1,000-milliliter green or amber disposable PET bottle.
