The short answer
Cold lager, coconut limeade, and anise spirit after dark. That covers most of what gets drunk on this coast, and the rest is rum. If you learn four words before you land, make them Aguila, refajo, limonada de coco and aguardiente. Here's what each one actually is, and what we pour on our side of the water.
The beer: order by how hot you are
Colombian lager is light, cold and built for 30 degrees, so don't come looking for depth. The names behind every bar on the coast are Aguila, Costena, Club Colombia and Poker. Aguila and Costena come from the same brewery, Bavaria, and Costena is the cheaper of the two, which causes regular arguments because plenty of drinkers prefer it. Club Colombia is the maltier, slightly more serious one, and there's a dark version. Poker is the everyday beer people buy in rounds.
Our advice: at noon on a beach, get whichever is coldest, in the small bottle, and get it again twenty minutes later. Beer warms faster than you drink it here. The small format exists for a reason.
Refajo, for when the sun has won
Refajo is beer cut with Colombiana, the red cream soda, at roughly two parts beer to one part soda. It's sweet, it isn't sophisticated, and on a hot afternoon it's the most sensible thing on the list. Colombians drink it by the jug at lunch, usually alongside grilled meat. Some versions get a shot of aguardiente dropped in, which turns a lunch into an afternoon.
Limonada de coco is the one you'll miss when you leave
Limonada de coco is lime, coconut milk, sugar and ice, blended to a slush. It's the Caribbean coast's house drink and more or less Cartagena's welcome drink. It takes rum without complaining, which is how most people end up ordering it. If you drink one thing every day you're here, make it this.
The other cold non-alcoholic staples worth knowing: fresh juice of whatever fruit is in, especially lulo and maracuya, which you can't easily get at home, and agua de coco straight from the nut.
Aguardiente and rum, after dark
Aguardiente is the anise spirit Colombians drink neat, in small plastic cups, poured from a bottle parked in the middle of the table. It tastes of liquorice and it's a group activity rather than a solo one. Nobody sips it politely. If anise isn't your thing, Colombia's aged rums are the easier drink and they take ice and lime well.
One practical note: bottles come sin azucar (sugar free) as well as sweetened. Ask for sin azucar unless you like your spirit sweet.
What we pour, 25 minutes out to sea
We were the first beach club in Cartagena to have a wine list, so that's where we'd start, and yes, we sell rose by the magnum. Our cocktails are made with fresh juices rather than bottled mixers, which out here is less a flourish than the obvious thing to do with fruit that's already in the kitchen for lunch. The food alongside it is Michelin-Guide listed, cooked by our executive chef Pedro Mosqueda, who trained under Jean-Georges, April Bloomfield and Galen Zamarra before coming back to cook with what these islands actually grow.
A few things we'd rather you knew before you get on the boat:
- The bar is not included in anything: our full board rate is $90 per person per night and covers all food and soft drinks, not the bar. We don't do an all-inclusive bar. This isn't Cancun.
- You can't bring your own: outside alcohol isn't permitted. You can pre-order wine through our restaurant staff, and for full privatisations of the property we allow your own bottles with a corkage fee.
- The water is Italian, and we're not comfortable about it: we serve San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna. Flying water around the world is, frankly, outrageous, and it has been the hardest thing for us to reconcile as a B Corp. We stock it because the people behind those brands do more on water access than the local alternatives. We're not going to pretend that's a clean answer.
When you can drink what, out here
The beach club runs daily from 10:30 to 6pm, and day visitors are welcome from 11am. Saturdays there's a DJ from one until five, so if you want the quiet version of this place, come midweek. The restaurant does dinner, and the boats leave us for the city at 4pm and 5:30pm, which is the real constraint on your afternoon.
Plan the last round backwards from the boat you're booked on. There isn't another one, and the island has no bridge. If you're staying the night you can ignore all of that, which is most of the argument for staying the night.
A short glossary for the bar
| You say | You get |
|---|---|
| Una pola | A beer, in slang |
| Bien fria | Properly cold, worth adding every time |
| Refajo | Beer with Colombiana soda |
| Limonada de coco | Blended lime and coconut milk, over ice |
| Con ron | With rum in it |
| Aguardiente sin azucar | The unsweetened anise spirit |
| Agua de coco | Coconut water, from the nut |
That's the whole vocabulary. Everything else you can point at.
See you on the boat.