Stuff We Like #4: Kalik Beer

The national brew of the Bahamas. It’s like all other beer, just that little bit better

We won’t make a habit of including drinks in the “Stuff We Like” corner, but sometimes you just have to make an exception and this is one such occasion. Kalik is, after all, no ordinary beer.

Not that it’s a higher-quality brew than other beers, that it tastes better or is endowed with magical life-giving properties. It’s what the drink symbolises more than anything – the end of a long day on the flats in a special place, bottles clinking as you toast success (or commiserate) with friends. It’s a ritual that anyone who’s fished in the Bahamas will understand.

Belikin in Belize fulfils a similar function, as does Corona in Mexico. But for me, there’s something particularly special about Kalik. I can buy Corona in my local shop in London; Belikin is less prominent on my radar, mostly because I haven’t spent enough time in Belize.

It’s that first Kalik of the day I’m thinking of. In my mind’s eye, I’ve either just waded in off the beach or stepped off the boat at the dock. My arm aches from countless battles with hungry, happy and heavy bonefish and my eyes are strained from picking out shimmering tails on powder-white flats. Some kind soul, sensing the heroic deeds I’ve recently accomplished, hands me a Kalik and the sun sets on another day in paradise. Every day in the Bahamas ends like that, right?

OK, maybe not, but we’ve all played out a similar scenario in our heads – it’s the fantasy as much as the reality that keeps us going in the cold winter months between fishing trips. And plenty of days do end a little like that.

It’s not just the promise of big fish and plenty of them that keeps us going between fishing trips. It’s the other stuff we often crave – the camaraderie, the laughter of friends, the screw-ups and the stories, the people we meet along the way.

When I go back through photos from trips past, there’s always a few of these bottles lurking in the background. I’ve probably even taken a few of those shots with a bottle sharply in focus in the foreground and the flats melting away behind. You know the one. Oh look, there it is at the top of the page.

So no, Kalik doesn’t taste better than other beer, but then, somehow it kind of just does.

Rory Batho