Peru and Chile have Pisco, Mexico boasts Tequila, Brazil claims Cachaça, and now Bolivia offers Agwa de Bolivia. This coca-leaf liquor is new to me, but the relationship of humans and coca leaves is almost as old as civilization itself. Indigenous Andean people have been brewing and chewing coca leaves for centuries. When chewed, coca is said to act as a mild stimulant and may suppress hunger, thirst, fatigue and pain.
The cocaine alkaloid in coca leaves was first isolated in the mid 19th century, and we are all familiar with the personal, economic and societal devastation that the cocaine trade has had on the world. Global attempts to eradicate the coca plant have failed dismally, and efforts to 
separate coca cultivation from narco-trafficking have been going on for decades, with legal, scientific and philosophical debates about it raging from small, mostly indigenous rural communities in Latin America to the United Nations. Since the beginning of the 21st century there have been movements in Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela to promote and expand legal markets for the use of coca plants. A particularly vocal and effective supporter of the movement is the Bolivian president Evo Morales, who was himself a coca farmer (and also, in his youth, a llama herder and trumpet player).
We are not a leaf chewing culture here in the United States (especially since tobacco chaw was largely overtaken by cigarette smoking in the early 20th century), but we certainly are a drinking society. And we always like sampling the next-best-thing, especially if we can be convinced that the newest trend might combine alcohol and nutrition. Yes, that’s right, Agwa de Bolivia might be an alcoholic health drink! Well, maybe not, but in addition to its allegedly invigorating coca leaves the formula includes some 30 other ingredients that we’ve long been told are good for us, including ginseng, green tea, mint and lavender.
Perhaps we should forget the notion of cocktails as substitutes for our daily vitamin supplement and concentrate instead on the pleasures associated with imbibing the heady beverages. In the case of Agwa, the basic ingredient has travelled halfway across the world and back to deliver this pleasure. After being harvested in Bolivia, the coca leaves are accompanied by armed guards and transported to Amsterdam, where they are first macerated then distilled along with the other botanicals and herbs. The potent product is reduced to 30%/60 proof alcohol with distilled grain neutral spirits, and somewhere along the way it acquires an eerie green color.
After a PR company recently sent me three little sample bottles of Agwa de Bolivia I snapped one open immediately. As noted above, Agwa has a greenish, underwater hue. Its aroma is fresh and invigorating, with floral highlights (lavender is especially notable). It tastes agreeably sweet and bitter, with a faint minty aftertaste. I made a couple of cocktails, including an Agwa and tonic, which to my taste needed lots and lots of lime to balance the dual sweetness of liquor and tonic (admittedly my palate tips more towards savory than sweet). I preferred a tasty and refreshing Agwa de Bolivia Mojito, with fresh mint, sugar, lime (lots of it), and club soda.
Best of all was an Agwa highball with a splash of soda, dash of bitters and generous squeeze of lime. Come to think of it, with all that vitamin C from the lime juice maybe this is a health drink after all….
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