While in the Dominican Republic we drank a local drink called Mama Juana – Mama Juana is a mixture of bark and herbs left to soak in rum (most often dark rum but the use of white rum is not uncommon), red wine and honey. The solid ingredients (local leaves, sticks and roots) vary from region to region.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_Juana

I purchased a bottle (with just the twigs inside – no liquids) and bought it home to NZ. I declared it to customs and they said that since it had bark on the wood there may be bugs in there and it would not be allowed. The lady said she would get a second opinion and lucky for us since we were going to fill it with alcohol they would allow us to keep it.

The product label in  in Spanish and contained the following:

ESTE PRODUCTO

Revitaliza el vigor  sexual, limpia los rinones purifica la sangre, hecho a base de plantas naturales.

MODO DE EMPLEO

agregar: vino, ron o whisky, miel de aveja y pasas,dejar reposar por tres dias y luego beber en trago corto.

CONTIENE

Pega palo, maravelis, palo de brazil, canelilla, una de gato, clavos, etc

Google translated this to the following:

THIS PRODUCT

Revitalizes sexual vigor, purifies the kidneys clean the blood, made ​​from natural plants.

DIRECTIONS

add wine, rum or whiskey, aveja honey and raisins, let stand for three days and then drink in short drink.

CONTAINS

Paste stick maravelis, brazil club, canelilla a cat, nails, etc.

Not sure about the nails!

An update – on the 14th of June – we created out first Mama Juana drink.

We used the following procedure:

• We filled the bottle (shown above) with water and let it sit for a few days and then drained it. The water went all foamy and we did this a couple of times while we waited for some Rum to arrive.
• We found that although the bottle holds > 2 litres only about 1.1 litres fit because of all the wood inside the bottle.
• We mixed red wine – St Hallet Shariz/Granache about 400ml + about 300mg of runny honey – nothing special just simple honey and then added about 500ml or 600ml of gold rum.
• The mixture reminded us of a port taste which must have come from the wine.
• We put it in the bottle and are going to leave it for about a month
• After 12 hours I tried a little bit and I could taste a small flavour from the wood – still very much like port but another 4 weeks will be interesting.

This act was part of the circus show in Punta Cana.

Interesting names of these shops:

• Home Depot
• Kols
• Wall Mart
• Target
• KMart

They all sell the same type of products, mostly cigars, paintings, and souvenirs.

Some were hard sell and some were more relaxed about selling. I guess it is a hard life trying to sell your wares.

We bought a small wooden mask $20 USD

Every night there is a show of some kind on – tonight's show was a circus – and it was great value for being included for free with the all inclusive package.

We have had some great food and a couple of failures along the way.