Costa Rica's 'Resbaladera' Drink

The first rule of drinking the chilled rice drink Resbaladera is not to call it horchata. Though you may be tempted to and in all fairness the drink could be horchata's twin looks-wise, the two drinks actually differ in every other way.
 

For one, they're from different countries. For another, where horchata's ingredients are rice, milk, vanilla and cinnamon in Mexico, Costa Rican Resbaladera calls instead for rice, milk, barley and clove.

Resbaladera is a traditional beverage of the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica - the northwestern corner, on the Pacific but just under the Nicaraguan border. This happens to be the region to which JetBlue just yesterday launched direct flights from JFK, which is also why we're here sipping this sweet stuff.

The taste: Imagine taking a nice taste of horchata. Now make it slightly more viscous with an underlying spice that the innocent horchata doesn't have. That is Resbaladera. It does not act as a substitute for morning coffee or after-dinner coffee because, in Costa Rica, there is simply no substitute for coffee. Instead Resbaladera is imbibed during lunch, with street food snacking or as a quick cool-down on a hot day.

The price: About ¢250 colones for a single-serving bottle. That's us 50 cents.

Where to find it: We actually had it right at Liberia Airport in Guanacaste, but you can buy everything from pre-mixed jugs and single-serving bottles to the ingredients to make it yourself at supermarkets like Más x Menos, Jumbo and Maxi Bodega, the latter owned by Wal-Mart.

Here you can see it settling at the bottom a bit

If you'd like to share some of your foreign grocery finds, we'd love love love to see them. Send 'em on over via email here and snack on, my friends.

Disclosure: We zipped down to Costa Rica as guests of JetBlue and the Costa Rica Tourism Board, but rest assured that all opinions and all photos are completely our own.

By JetSetCD, Jaunted.com