Filipino Beverages

The Filipino cuisine contains a lot of exotic beverages and cocktails served directly from a half-sliced coconut with a straw, or in funny interesting looking recipients. Snacks are always accompanied by specific chaa or tsaa, Philippines tea, kape (coffee), or mainit na tsokolate (hot chocolate). In fancy restaurants you can find smoothies, fruit punches, coconut and banana shakes. In rural places, homemade drinks and beverages are prevalent. There are large varieties of wine, most of them rare and very tasty. The tuba, coconut wine is the most commonly know one, and can be made from the sap of buri and nipa palms as well as from coconut trees. There is a sugarcane wine as well, called basi. Tapuy is the rice wine, spread around the country, while grape wine is typical for vineyards in Cebu and Ilocos regions. Other Filipino drinks include malt-based hot drinks, and lambanog, a potent liquor, not found anywhere else.