A few blocks from the mouth of the Río Ozama, at Parque Colón in Santo Domingo’s Zona Colonial, children play under the canopies of sprawling oak trees, and parents chatter at small tables outside the bordering restaurants and cafés. From lunchtime through sunset and well into the night, waitstaff replenish their tables with buckets of ice, liters of 7UP and bottles of Brugal Añejo rum, the makings of the Santo Libre.
The prevailing theory is that the Santo Libre is a play on the Cuba Libre, or Rum and Coke, because of the similar name and the difference of merely one ingredient. Bartender Darnell Holguin, who grew up between the Bronx and Santo Domingo, however, says, “None of us ever called it that, it was just Brugal y 7UP or ron y 7UP.” He suspects that resorts branded the drink to seize on the popularity of the Cuba Libre. “The Santo Libre is much older than its name,” says Holguin, who called several family members before our interview; they all concurred.
The name might be new, but the Santo Libre combines a trio of flavors that have anchored mixed drinks for over 400 years: sugar, rum and lime. In January 1586, Sir Francis Drake was in Santo Domingo for a month, as part of his plundering mission of the West Indies’ major Spanish ports. Along the way, to combat the crew falling ill, they developed El Draque, or Drac Punch. It combined sugarcane; rum, made from that sugarcane; and lime juice, to combat scurvy. Other medicinal botanicals, whose value the Spanish had learned from the local Taínos, were also part of the formula: Chuchuhuasi bark eased pain, and mint aided digestion. While medicinal tinctures had existed long before, many consider El Draque the first cocktail; it’s possible Drake took a swig right there in Parque Colón, where colonial Santo Domingo held festivals.
It turned out that, aside from helping with illness, rum with lime and sugar is refreshing and delicious, and makes for a good time. Similar cocktails such as grog, the Daiquiri, the Mojito and many more carry El Draque’s legacy. The humble Santo Libre might be the easiest, quickest-to-mix expression of that formula to date, and combined with the carbonated punch of soda, it’s a crowd-pleaser.
“Traditionally,” says Holguin, “it’s made with Brugal or, in the old days, Bermudez. The potent lime flavor of 7UP, more than Sprite, plays better with the oak notes in aged rum. It was the drink that made me fall in love with rum.”
He’s not alone in his affection for the simple concoction. “All summer, in the harsh heat, my mom stations herself at a table outside Cafetería el Conde, right on the park, with a bucket of ice, a liter of 7UP and a 375-milliliter bottle of Brugal Añejo,” Holguin says. “She refills her cup and the cups of friends and family who stop by.” The drink—made with the Dominican Republic’s relatively less potent rum (38 percent ABV compared to 40 percent ABV in the U.S.)—and the ocean breeze keep her cool.
A similar scene plays out in front of colmados (corner grocery stores) in smaller neighborhoods throughout the city. The colmados sell “jumbos” (40-ounce bottles) of Presidente beer, bags or buckets of ice, bottles of Brugal and 7UP. Holguin says, “Someone will say, ‘Vamos a hacer un coro’ and people gather at the colmado’s plastic tables to chill or play dominoes.” Each person makes their own drink and then passes the ingredients to the next person. Everybody pours into little white plastic cups. “It’s similar to how people drink rum at bodegas throughout the West Indies,” Holguin describes. “The crowd can easily grow from three to 10 or more people.”
Though Bacardí claims that the Cuba Libre is the world’s most popular drink—I don’t know how they track the data, but the storm drains of Myrtle Beach would probably contain enough trace evidence—for Dominicans throughout the Dominican Republic, and as far north as the Bronx, where Holguin’s mom still keeps mini cans of 7UP on hand, the most popular drink is Brugal and rum, or if we must, the Santo Libre. Perhaps this summer, the rest of the world will catch on.
