Bringing back some of Cozumel

[prosdog]

Just finished our first day of diving with Blue XT Sea. Weather wasn't great, visibility was less than usual and it still was fantastic.

Had dinner last night at El Moro, finished off with an after-dinner drink called [FONT=arial, sans-serif]Xtabentún. First tried it a few years ago at Dandy Don's birthday party. Never been able to find it at home. I'd like to bring some back for myself and my present and former supervisors at work, so 3 bottles total. I'm told that 2 bottles per person is the limit. My online research seem to confirm that. So, if I bring back an extra bottle, am I breaking the law or do I just have to pay additional fees? Any idea of what that would cost?[/FONT]

 

[JohnnyC]

You'll need to declare it and pay the duty on it.

 

[prosdog]

Thanks for the reply. Any idea of how that's calculated?

 

[Skittl1321]

Can't help on how it is calculated because when we've just been a bottle over we've just been waived through. Every time. I'm guessing whatever the duty is it isn't worth the paperwork.

Help.cpb.gov says it is calculated by percent alcohol and is around a dollar or two per liter for wine and beer. This list may help for spirits. Official Harmonized Tariff Schedule 2015 | USITC

 

[backprop]

Great idea bringing some back. It's unique and as you noted, just about impossible to find in the U.S. There actually is one distributor which carries a single brand, but it's not considered too good. But it's hard to find a retailer willing to stock it.

 

[JohnnyC]

Also, you say "our" first day of diving. Does that mean you're traveling with someone? Any reason they can't bring back a bottle? Then you wouldn't have to worry about it at all.

 

[El Graduado]

Xtabentun is made from fermented honey and rum. The honey is flavored with anisette before it is fermented.

XTA (from D’Aristi) is also made from fermented honey and rum, but the honey used to make it is produced by the Melipona beecheii Yucatan stingless bee, not Apis mellifera, the European honey bee.

The liquor gets its name from the xtabentún flower (Ololiuhqui, coaxihuitl, or Turbina corymbosa). This flower’s nectar and seeds contain a strong hallucinogenic compound. The Aristis keep hives of Melipona bees and feed them exclusively Xatabentun nectar to get the honey they use for XTA. It helps that it is a trait of the Melipona bees that they tend to stick to gathering nectar exclusively from the xtabentun flower, when it is available. The Aristis grow the flower next to the hives just for that reason. Although the hallucinogenic compounds pass through the nectar to the honey, they don’t make it intact through the fermenting and distillation process. Ethno-botanist Jonatan Ott came to Cozumel to collect Xtabentun-nectar honey that Melipona bees were making at Bill Horn’s Condumel back in the 1980s. Now there was a very strange guy (Ott, not Horn).

I was once a guest of Rafael Aristi for breakfast at his hacienda in Merida. He gave me a case of honey to try to sell in our shop in Cozumel (this was over 35 years ago). The bottles were gold-foil labeled and the honey was black as molasses. At $2 a bottle, we couldn’t sell a single bottle. No tourist liked the dark color. I had a kid soak all the labels off and I made a new one with white paper and a thick-pointed, felt marker pen. My new label said “Mayan Honey… Mayan bees are happy bees.” I upped the price to ten dollars a bottle and sold the case in the blink of an eye. From then on, I told Rafael to send me the honey without labels.

 

[mstevens]

just about impossible to find in the U.S. There actually is one distributor which carries a single brand, but it's not considered too good.

D'Aristi is the brand I find available for mail-order in the US. They originated modern Xtabentún. I've tried at least a half-dozen brands, and D'Aristi is my favorite.

While it is actually quite easy to find Xtabentún for mail-order in the US, it's expensive. If you can bring some back, you're likely to be happier with that.

As others have pointed out, there is no practical limit to how much liquor you can transport personally into the US. Beyond your personal exemption, you'll just have to pay a small amount of duty on it.

 

[DandyDon]

Are you flying non-stop home? You may be able to carry it on from Cozumel to your first airport, but then would have to put it in a checked bag within the US. And I am not sure about carrying it on from Cozume?

 

[cvchief]

D'Aristi is the brand I have been ordering. Last case I got was in the cool fancy gifty looking bottles. My FiL really loved it. I used to have to keep plenty on hand for him. He called it his 'smoothie'.

Last I got from www.luekensliquors.com but I don't know that they carry it anymore. It was like 19.91 per 750ml plus shipping. That was the fancy bottles. Last I ordered was like a year ago.