Expert: Juan Carlos Valencia - 6/10/2003

Question
I asked a questions earlier about Cholados but it was the wrong e-mail address.  I am sorry about the inconvenience.  Can you please tell me if you have any information on the history of this delicious drink?  For what I understand so far it is native of Cali, Colombia but my source was not too reliable. Can you tell me more? How old is it? Where it originated from? And anything else that you might think it's interesting or relevant to my quest. Thank you.

Answer
Franny,

what a surprising and unsual question !

I can not provide a straight answer to it. But I can tell you that the base element of Cholado is ice. The ice is broken into small fragments with a very rudimentary machine and then mixed with fruits, artifical flavors and some other ingredients.

Ice is a product of the 20th century (in the tropics !) so I would dare to say that the common Cholado should be a fairly recent invention, dating back to the 1950´s or so.

I´ve seen Cholados sold in the streets of Cartagena and Medellin, but the place where you can see a lot of street posts selling Cholados is Cali. There´s a small town in the nearby called Jamundi where they say they have the best.  

By the way, I love Cholados !

Saludos

Juan Carlos