How To Drink In Cebuano

Drinking is an important part of Cebuano culture. It is both occassion and symbol of sociality - it lubricates social relations, encourages the prized values of talk and verbal wit, and forms a part of traditional feasts and ceremonies.

Mining seventeenth-century dictionaries, the historians William henry Scott guides us to the old Visayan culture of drink. The early Visayans knew five basic kinds of alcoholic drinks. The most popular was tuba, the fermented sap of palms, usually strenghtened and colored red by adding crushed tungog (tanbark) or the bark of the lawaan tree. Tuba is commonly extracted from the coconut but may also be made from nipa, buri, and other kinds of palm. Lina is the sweetish sap, with no tungog added, a kind of "ladies drink". Bahal is day-old, bitter-sour tuba. Lambanog is a stronger brew, also called anisado when anise seeds are added.