When planning a trip to Central America for adventures like surfing, hiking, kayaking, and exploring often involve tricky logistics linking your flight arrival to those far off magical places. Hot sweaty chicken busses, hitchhiking, intimidating checkpoints by police officers with big guns, expensive rental cars, and old unreliable maps come to mind of some of our earlier road trips to places like Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Dominican Republic. Navigating roads with pot holes so big, trees are growing out of them and if you hit one, you might lose a filling, hurt your back, or have lost a large part of the deposit on your rental car. I bet you can share some stories of places like that too!
It wasn't that long ago the road to our place was so bad that when our guests would finally arrive at our hotel, they were so exhausted from the stress of avoiding pot holes that we invented a cocktail to try and ease some of those tense muscles and turn the exasperated looks in their eyes to a smile and feeling of relief.
Introducing...La Playita! Not only is it beautiful enough to put the sparkles back in your eyes and confirm that you have indeed arrived in paradise, it's healthy, and takes the edge off too.
¡¡BIENVENIDOS A MORRILLO!!
Many of our guests have loved this drink so much that they have requested the recipe to take home with them so they can recreate that feeling of being back in this magical place. Reminiscing with their photos about great adventures, big waves, howling monkeys, and enriching cultural experiences while sipping this fresh, tangy, and sweet cocktail will take you right back here to Morrillo.
We are happy to let you know the new road to our area has recently been completed and it's incredible. It has reduced time, stress, and accidents, and now, rather than being envious of those on horseback, you might instead dream of a Sunday drive in a Ferrari or wish you had your road bike. You can even allow your eyes a moment to take in the views and perhaps glimpse a monkey crossing one of the wildlife bridges we installed.
Worry not! Even though the road is perfect now, that refreshing cocktail and a smile still await your arrival. Made with fresh fruit juice from our trees, natural cane honey made from a horse drawn mill, and a shot of our national liquor, it's topped with saril flower juice which makes it healthy too.
That beautiful red juice is commonly known as hibiscus tea. Here we call it Saril. Grown on our property, where we have several varieties of hibiscus, this flower isn't as beautiful but it's a lot more enjoyable in a drink.
Native to West Africa, this plant grows well in Panama and is said to have been here since the 1700's maybe even earlier. Probably brought over by sailors I'm not sure, but what is really cool is that té de saril (hibiscus tea) is a well known drink in Panama because it tastes great and has lot of heath benefits too, even when you add liquor.
Okay, so the alcohol part might not be a proven fact but the tea is still really delicious. We gently extract the juice from the leaves by simply immersing it in warm water and voilá! La Playita is served. If you aren't already looking at flights so we can serve you that refreshing drink and just want to dream about being here with one in hand, here is the recipe to give you a little taste of what it feels like:
1.5 oz of Seco Herrerano
1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
2 oz fresh pineapple juice
1 oz cane honey
2 oz of té de saril.
Fill your favorite paradise like glass with ice, add the Seco, lime & pineapple juice, and honey. Mix well. On top of that juice slowly add the saril so it creates that beautiful red layer on top. Serve with pineapple, lime, and a beautiful flower. Paradise served!*
*Spoiler Alert it will still taste really good when you make it at home but never as good as it tastes here.
Your Friends in Morrillo,
Cari and Ryan Mackey
Owners and Hosts
Morrillo Beach Eco Resort
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