One day in the holiday season of 2011, a young ambitious Belizean-American woman by the name of Andrea K. Castillo decided that she wanted to make tradition of learning how to create Belizean treats, and to make them well. In earlier years she perfected Belizean fudge, which is most likened to a more solid, yet crumbly, form of caramel, and in the year of 2011 decided she would perfect the holiday beverage of Rum Popo.
In layman’s terms, Rum Popo is the Belizean version of spiked egg-nog, homemade of course. It is in the same category of Puerto Rican/Dominican Coquito, Trinidadian Poncha Crema, Haitian Cremas, and Jamaican Rum Cream. The project for the first year was made strictly for family and close friends in recycled liquor bottles, in 2012 the first sales were made in the same packaging as the year prior, and now, in the 2013/14 holiday season, the product was named “Cas Rum Popo“, a tribute to the family name, and branded in a clean scale with fresh bottles.
The consistency of Cas Rum Popo is quite smooth with a bite from the overproof rum and spices used to balance its sweetness. It is consumed in the holiday months from mid-November to as late as February. All bottles of Cas Rum Popo are sourced from local businesses in Brooklyn, including the bottles from the longstanding Rappaport Sons Bottle Co. in Williamsburg.
If you are in the NYC Metro area and would like more info on purchasing, please e-mail casrumpopo@gmail.com, and follow on Twitter and Instagram @casrumpopo!
A Life in the Day of Andrea 