Beer, Sugar Cane Liquor & Coffee in the Sacred Valley
The Sacred Valley of the Incas was the Emperor´s playground & garden, numerous ruins such as Pisaq and Ollanta are found along the river valley that leads to Machu Picchu. Historical and cultural tours in the Sacred Valley are very popular but here we cover some Sacred Valley drinking and get away from the crowds.
We drove down from Cusco to see (and sip) three new drinking experiences, the Sacred Valley Brewery, Caña Alta distillery, and the Mayu Coffee roasting mill. This is a great triple combo which we would combine nicely with a traditional lunch and a walk around Ollantaytambo village and ruins, all told a superb day out challenging the brain and the palate.
The Sacred Valley Brewery is celebrating 5 years of operation and owner Juan enthusiastically showed us around the facility. Only open to the general public for drinking in their quaint
The brewery is located in a lovely spot in the valley, on the right bank of the river, nestled between towering mountains. You are a short distance from the Inca village of Ollantaytambo from where most of the trains to Machu Picchu leave.
Juan or Carlos will explain the process, have you smell and bite the ingredients and show you the equipment used along the way. The walls of the brewery are adorned with awards showing a commitment to quality and the pride in their work comes over as they speak.
With their continued success and the sale of all of their standard beers, the brewery team can afford themselves the luxury of experimenting with new beers, styles, and production methods. You can see in the video above that Carlos opened a barrel-aged beer experiment for us to try when we were there. At the end of an in-depth and very informative visit, you will have the chance to try a beer tasting, covering a number of beers from Pale Ale to Stout or Porter. Then it is off to a distillery.
Pisco is the daddy when it comes to Peruvian spirits so it was really interesting to visit the Caña Alta distillery as an unusual venture. Cañazo, or cane liquor, is traditionally a very low quality, high-strength spirit that locals drink as it is cheap. The owner of Caña Alta had other ideas. He wanted to produce a spirit that was refined, smooth, and great to drink either neat or in a cocktail. The base cane alcohol is distilled a second time at this small but beautifully formed distillery, eliminating the head and tail of the run, plus some of the transition liquid to ensure the best part of the heart is captured.
Matacuy means “Guinea Pig Killer” but is much more pleasant on the palate than the quirky name suggests. This is a brand new project from Caña Alta, an organic digestif that is made from botanicals coming mainly from their own farm in Ollantaytambo. Extractions are made from the botanicals both before and after fermentation, making this a very complex beverage. Speaking of botanicals there are jars everywhere on shelves, many with some strange looking things inside (like fish) that make it look like Frankenstein’s lab.
Their line of sugar cane “cañazo” comes in various guises. All are produced from locally grown, high altitude sugar cane which is pressed and its juice fermented. You will be fully educated by the local distiller and get the chance to see the process, or at least all the equipment. Each visitor has an extensive tasting of the spirits, in the place they are made.
Just next door to the distillery is the coffee mill from Mayu. You will see what is involved in reception, selection, roasting, milling, packaging, etc of organic, gourmet coffee. During a visit to the roasting facility, you will learn a lot about the rigorous selection of coffee beans. The roasting process uses some quite sophisticated machinery registering color and temperature.
After learning then you can enjoy a freshly brewed coffee (without sugar, to fully appreciate the taste) from the same beans roasted and ground by the master roaster who can tell you about the bean’s origin, and the local farmers involved. This hit of
