Nicaragua Raises a Glass to El Macuã¡

Move over mojito, adios margarita, Nicaragua has given Latin America a new official cocktail: el macuá.

One part white rum, one part guava juice, with a half-portion of lemon juice and some sugar and ice, this week it became Nicaragua's national tipple and a challenger to the region's more established drinks.

Despite excellent rum and abundant tropical fruits the central American country had, until now, nothing to rival Mexico's tequila-based margarita or Cuba's minty mojito.

A contest in the capital, Managua, rectified that when a panel of judges tasted a variety of entries, including one which mixed coffee and rum, and declared el macuá the winner.

Named after a tropical bird, it is yellow, fruity, sweet and 100% Nicaraguan. The inventor is Edmundo Miranda, 67, a medical doctor from the city of Granada on Lake Nicaragua. He credited his wife and two children with perfecting the formula.

"We want something authentic, something that goes down your throat and tastes Nicaraguan," René Hauser, one of the judges, told the New York Times.

"We didn't want a drink that was too filling. You can have two or three mojitos and feel good."

Sponsored by Flor de Caña, Nicaragua's rum company, the competition obliged entries to be rum-based but otherwise there were no conditions.

Nicaragua, ravaged by civil war and economic collapse in the 1980s, remains the hemisphere's poorest country after Haiti.

With exports growing, tourists returning and the possibility of a canal to rival Panama's, it may have reason to toast the future with el macuá.