Singani - Use

Use

Since its inception in the mid- to late 1500’s, singani has been often drunk as is, cocktail culture only being introduced in the 19th Century. However, around the year 1608 or thereabouts, in the cold environment of mines located above 14,000 feet, Potosi miners mixed hot milk with singani and spices and called it sucumbé, a name of possible African origin, and the oldest singani mixed drink known.

Sometime in the 1800’s railroad engineers from Britain and America began to lay down track in the Andes nations including Bolivia. A 19th Century favorite back home in England was “gin on gin” or gin with alcoholic ginger beer. Unable to get either one in-country, British expatriates improvised with singani and whatever bubbly came to hand. The railroad term “shoofly” (perhaps from “short fly”) refers to a short length of track built as a temporary expedient to the main line and is slang for “workaround”. Singani and bubbly beverage was thus dubbed a “shoofly”. Being unpronounceable to locals it emerged as “chuflay”, which is still today the favorite cocktail based on singani. Other traditional mixes are the “yungueño”, tumbo (banana passionfruit) cocktail, and “té con té”.

Singani is wildly popular at national festivals, most notably St John's Eve and the annual Virgen del Socavón carnival (Carnaval de Oruro). Singani is also the traditional drink at weddings, religious holidays, birthday parties, and other celebrations. A common pastime is to play “cacho”, a cup and dice game similar to yahtzee or generala, while drinking singani either as a penalty or reward depending on the players’ mood.