Inside Paranubes "Café de Olla," a Spirit Rooted in Oaxacan Tradition

Paranubes Cafe de Olla is a love letter to Oaxaca. Paranubes Ron Blanco is the canvas. Flavored with the coffee that trapichero Jose Luis Carrera cultivates in the Sierra Mazateca. Aromatized with Oaxacan cinnamon, from the Papoloapan and Sierra Norte regions. Sweetened with rich homemade panela, another sugar cane product Carrera makes from scratch. This is a spiced coffee liqueur rooted in place. Admixtures of herbs, chiles, flowers, and spices perform specific functions to the blend as emulsifiers and flavor agents. Like a symphony, each plays a role in this distinctive Oaxacan-spiced coffee liqueur.

Chilhuacle 

Endemic to Oaxaca’s Cuicatlán Valley, huacle translates to “viejo” (old). It’s the essential chile for authentic mole negro. Traditionally grown on small plots in Oaxaca, though larger industrial farms in Zacatecas have scaled it.

It’s planted each year after the rains, harvested in late December, and cured through the first weeks of January. Jacob from Del Chilar carries on his family’s legacy, cultivating chilhuacle and other crops -he’s growing papayas in the field next door!

This quintessentially Oaxacan chile is prized for its depth of flavor and color, and brings one hell of a backbone to the liqueur.

Vanilla 

Vanilla’s origins are in Mexico—not Madagascar—and the Chinantla region of Oaxaca holds the greatest genetic diversity, pointing to its likely place of origin within Mexico. In the lush jungles of this area, seven species of vanilla grow wild.

Don Elias Garcia has championed the preservation of vanilla’s biodiversity since the 1980s. Thanks to his efforts, Chinantla vanilla was recognized by Slow Food International in 2000 and declared a Baluarte in 2004.

In December 2024, I went to visit Don Elias and his son, Arturo, at their Experimental Milpa Colibrí in Cerro Armadillo Chico, Oaxaca. At their experimental parcel, they cultivate three varieties of vanilla, including the Colibrí species, which is native to their village, San Felipe Usila, and is named after the mountain where it was identified. This family is safeguarding the world's second most valuable spice through Akih Vanilla, a regional collective committed to growing it the way nature intended.

Rosita de Cacao 

The bulk of Tejate’s flavor comes from this small, intoxicatingly aromatic flower, the Quararibea funebris or Cacahuaxóchitl or Rosita de Cacao.

The rare white flower is not botanically related to cacao, despite the name, and has long been used to flavor beverages in Mesoamérica.

Tejate is a pre-columbian calorie and nutrient-dense drink in Oaxaca’s Central Valleys - there’s nothing like drinking it at the source at a Tejatera’s home in Huayapam. 

This specific recipe of Paranubes Cafe de Olla coffee liqueur is sold in Mexico and is exported to Europe. Grab a bottle and be transported to a delicious Oaxaca morning!

Felisa Rogers wrote a great piece about this menjurje for Mezcalistas. Read it here.