This morning I knew that I had two clients who needed to be taken care of very early so that we could try to get their friends booked before prices to Punta Cana go up further. So, I began that bright and early. Now that I've done all I can do on that until I hear back from my clients, I find myself with a little bit of time on my hands and suddenly I can't remember a single topic that I have been putting off writing about. Weird....
So, I think I'll just tell you about one of the purchases I made during my recent cruise. On the day that we were in Roatan, I told you all about the great shopping area and beach at Mahogany Bay. I probably bought more there than in any port I have been to in the last 5 years. I don't generally like shopping on vacation. It seems like a waste of time. However, if I am going to shop, I like shopping in places that we don't have at home. And I am a total sucker for those little markets in foreign places where it seems like everything is one of a kind and the person showing it to you is probably the daughter of the craftsman. Then you walk 3 stalls down and they are selling the same "one of a kind" item for $3 less. That's when I turn the artistic piece of Honduran woodwork over to see if it has a Made in Indonesia sticker on the bottom. This place had a little bit of that. But for the most part, it actually seemed pretty authentic which put me, Mom and Doris into a shopping frenzy.
I bought a really nice set of wooden dominoes since my dominoes were the ones that come in a tin and are the multi-colored train dominoes. I always get embarrassed when family comes to my house and I have to whip out the childish train dominoes. We're big game players and you would think that by now I would have invested more than $8 in a set of dominoes. But I digress. Mom and I each got Roatan polo shirts, because you can never have too many of those. While I was paying for my dominoes I noticed that Mom was talking to a man at the booth next to the one I was in and I couldn't believe that she was about to make a purchase without me. So, I quickly finished my transaction and rushed over to see what she was buying without me. I'm not sure it would have mattered what it was, I just blurted out "I want the same thing she's getting!" It turned out to be Honduran coffee and coffee flavored jelly. I'm thinking that he probably was a little surprised to have made the sell to Mom and then was totally shocked when I tagged on. I'll admit to you now that the coffee is still unopened and is sitting in my freezer. The jelly is unopened as well and in the pantry. I'll get around to using both eventually.
As the morning went on, and we made our way around to each stall in the little market the stalls became more sparse as you headed to the western side of the market. Surprisingly there isn't a huge market for authentic Honduran handbags made from recycled beer tabs. Shocking, I know! But on that side of the market there was one stall that was doing a booming business. In fact you had to get in line and as we got closer to the front, we found out that they were passing out samples of flavored Honduran rums. Yep that's right.... Mom and I hit the jackpot. They had 3 flavors, chocolate, coffee and something.... I honestly can't remember since they had me at chocolate and coffee. I didn't even taste the third one. It was probably some sort of fruit flavor. You can never trick me with fruit when there is coffee or chocolate to be had even it it's only flavoring.
So Mom and I each tasted the chocolate and coffee flavored rums. I have to tell you that the chocolate rum was really bad. It just seemed wrong on so many levels once I had it in my mouth. But the coffee was a grand slam! Oh my!!!! As I sipped it I thought about all the amazing drinks I could make with it and before I knew it I had a bottle of the 33% alcohol rum wrapped up and ready to take back to the ship. So, here is my rum. As you can see there is a little bit missing from the bottle and I know what you're thinking..... Oh dear... Susan must have bought a bottle with a leak!!!! Well, no.... You see the problem is that since I have returned from the cruise the weather here in Dallas has been pretty darn cold and you all know how much I hate cold weather so the other night I decided to test the coffee flavored rum in a little cup of Hot Buttered Rum. Folks, I only have one word of advise. Never use plain rum in your Hot Buttered Rum again. The coffee flavor made this the best hot toddy I have every tasted and I'm a little bit of a hot toddy aficionado. Now the challenge is going to be making this bottle last until my next trip to Honduras or finding a way to get the same thing here. Hmmmmm.... I think I am up to the challenge. Have a good Thursday and if you have a similar item that you have purchased during your travels, drop me a note and tell me about it. The world needs to learn about these amazing finds that we come across.
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