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A man in a straw hat stirring boiling cane juice with a long wooden paddle in a metal pan set over a clay furnace, under a wooden shelter

A cane mill in San Juan

The afternoon we watched cane juice boil until it sets, and the four different things that come out of the same cane.

1Don Juan Ortega at the pan. San Juan, San Francisco, Veraguas · 13 Feb 2025, 16:10

On 13 February 2025 we spent the afternoon at Don Juan Ortega's cane mill, in San Juan, San Francisco district, province of Veraguas.

By 16:10 the cane juice had been in the pan for hours. Boiling cane until it sets is not done by the clock: you watch the thread the paddle leaves as it comes up.

At 16:12 the whole process fits in one frame — the pan over the fire, the ladle laid across it, the wooden trough waiting on the right, and on the ground the raspadura from the previous batch.

By 16:25 the syrup is in the trough. It is worked with the paddle as it cools, and that is where it takes its grain.

At 16:37 his wife fills the row of moulds, one by one. That is where the panela comes from.

Don Juan makes cane honey and raspadura. The cane juice we made together, and one time a rum came out of it: fermented and distilled with my own fermenter and my own still.

Different things come out of the same cane, and they are worth keeping apart. Fermented and distilled cane juice gives something of the order of a seco; fermented and distilled cane honey or raspadura give something of the order of a rum. Not everything comes from one place: sometimes cane is bought from other artisans around the country to complement it.

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Wide view of the mill: the steaming pan with the ladle laid across it, the wooden trough waiting on the right, and in the foreground a bowl of raspadura already set
2The whole workshop in one frame: furnace, pan, ladle and trough · 16:12IMG_4408
The dark amber syrup being worked with a wooden paddle inside a long trough standing on legs
3The syrup in the trough, off the fire · 16:25IMG_4432
A woman in a red headscarf filling a row of rectangular moulds with the raspadura paste, using a metal bowl
4The moulds, one by one · 16:37IMG_4451
16:15. Steam off the pan. Behind, Don Juan's wife working beside the fire.
16:27. The syrup falling from the pot into the gourd bowl, over the row of moulds.

Follow the thread

Where it comes from, who works it, and what you can take home.

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Serie Madera y Miel. Spirit distilled from guarapo, aged in local wood and infused with wildflower honey.

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