Guyana is home to some of the world's best rum. El Dorado 5 Year has won a lot of awards, and you can get a .75 L bottle for about $5. Some rudimentary research online suggests that you can get it in the US for about $30 a bottle. However, all the guys I hang out with prefer to drink vodka. And that same $5 will get you a bottle of vodka here, the locally made Ivanoff. I don't think anyone has ever considered giving it a medal for anything. It is pretty terrible. But the guys, for some reason, love it. I reached my breaking point with the Ivanoff a while ago, so I've had to try alternative strategies. Buying rum for myself works ok, but usually ends up with me getting really drunk, so that's a method that can only be strategically deployed. Another alternative is to drink beer. There are two (well really three) problems with this. Firstly, the beer is, relatively speaking, expensive. $1.50 a beer doesn't sound like much, but when you can get 3 beers for the price of a bottle of liquor, its hard to justify the cost on my meager living allowance. Secondly, you get dirty looks if you're drinking beer while everyone else is drinking hard liquor (aside: for some reason Guyanese call all liquor "rum," like "we should drink some Smirnoff tonight, its really good rum.") But I have found that if I drink Guinness, I get some respect. Much to the detriment of my liquidity, I've been drinking more Guinness. Here's a quick rundown of the beers in Guyana and what I think about them.
Guinness - This isn't your run of the mill, bread-in-a-bottle Guinness. This is the Foreign Extra Stout breed, a 7.5% abv beast that actually has some flavor. The flavor isn't all that great, but you can taste some hops and toasted barley. Its definitely my favorite beer here, though it'll sneak up on you.
Banks - This is the national beer of Guyana. Its a pretty typical Caribbean lager - not much taste, but pretty good when cold. It's the Budweiser of Guyana.
Carib - Another lager, this one made in Trinidad. Less flavor than Banks. I don't really like it all that much. Unlike Banks, bottles are not recycled. I think the lack of hassle with deposits and the ability to throw your bottles anywhere when you're finished (which I think is a bit of a national pastime here) are reasons for its popularity.
Parbo - Surinamese beer. Nominally a pilsner. Does have a little pilsner-y bite, which is nice. Probably my second favorite beer.
Banks Light - ugh.
Banks Premium - Banks regular is made with rice. Banks Premium is made with surgar. Why? Sometimes a place will have Banks Premium drink specials, but that's pretty much it.
Mackeson - A stout from the Carib people. More like normal Guiness. Not much alcohol, kind of sweet. I usually don't bother, but its tolerable.
There's some other beer, but that's about all that I've had. The third problem with beer that I alluded to above is, as you can see, the options are pretty limited. One of the things I'm missing the most food/drink wise is real beer. Hops and flavor and all that stuff is in pretty short supply here. At least the rum is good.
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