Recipe
🥤 DRINK
Mauby
A dark, bittersweet Guyanese drink brewed from the bark of the mauby tree with cinnamon, cloves, and star anise, sweetened and served cold.
Guyanese · easy · serves 8
prep 10 min · cook 20 min
~106 cal · 0g protein · 27g carbs · 0g fat · 0g fiber · 27g sugars · 0g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Mauby (also written mabi or maubi) is a bittersweet bark drink loved across the Caribbean, and Guyanese sip it, as the saying goes, like it is water. It is brewed from the bark of the mauby tree, a small spiny Colubrina native to the region, whose bark carries a distinctive earthy bitterness that no other ingredient can replace.
The bark is boiled with warm spices, most often cinnamon, cloves, and star anise or aniseed, plus a strip of orange peel, then left to and strained into a strong concentrate. That concentrate is diluted with water, sweetened with sugar to balance the bitterness, and chilled. Many households take it a step further and let it "ripen" a day or two, and traditionally aerate it by pouring it from height until it froths, which develops the flavour.
Reputed to be cooling and full of goodness, mauby is a fixture of Guyanese fridges and celebrations, its flavour part root beer, part bitter herb. It is an acquired taste that, once acquired, becomes a lifelong one.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 8
2 oz mauby bark
Hard to find? bottled mauby concentrate - a shortcut sold in Caribbean groceries; there is no true substitute for the bark itself, which gives the drink its character
1 cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
2 star anise
from 1 orange orange peel
1 cup, or to taste sugar
10 cups water
Instructions
1
Put the mauby bark, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, and orange peel in a pot with about 4 cups of the water.
✎ Chef’s note
The bark is intensely bitter on its own; the spices and, later, the sugar are what round it into something drinkable.
2
Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes to draw out the bark and spice.
3
Take off the heat, cover, and let it steep for a few hours or overnight, then strain off the concentrate.
4
Dilute the concentrate with the remaining water, sweeten with sugar to taste, and chill.
5
For the traditional froth, pour the mauby back and forth from a height a few times before serving cold over ice.
Demerara tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Demerara (Georgetown). Cassareep is the whole trick and it needs care. The juice of bitter cassava is poisonous raw and has to be boiled down hard into a thick dark syrup, which is what makes it safe and also what keeps the pot. That is why a pepperpot can be reheated and added to across days without spoiling.
🗺️
Guyana. The Lokono original is an everyday pot, replenished with whatever meat comes in and boiled up again each day, rather than the Christmas dish it has become for many Guyanese households. Guyana names three national dishes rather than one: pepperpot, chicken curry and cook-up rice, which is a fair summary of a country with Amerindian, Indian and African kitchens side by side.
🌍
South America. The Andes are the potato's homeland and still hold something like four thousand native varieties, selected over thousands of years for altitude, colour and texture. The high plateau also worked out how to keep them: frozen overnight in the cold, trodden to press the water out, then dried in the sun into chuno, which stores for years.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Guyana
Guyanese PepperpotMeat slow-simmered in cassareep, cinnamon, and hot pepper until glossy black, the Amerindian-rooted Christmas classic.
Sada Roti with Tomato ChokaSoft griddled flatbread torn and dipped into smoky fire-roasted tomato choka sharpened with garlic and onion, a vegan Guyanese classic.
Cook-up RiceA one-pot of rice and peas simmered in coconut milk with meat and herbs, Guyana's Saturday-night comfort dish.
Browse all Guyana recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan.
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
Make it a Guyana meal
Guyanese Chicken Chow MeinDinner
Cassava PoneDessert
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Drinks
Frequently asked questions
What is Mauby?
A dark, bittersweet Guyanese drink brewed from the bark of the mauby tree with cinnamon, cloves, and star anise, sweetened and served cold.
Where does Mauby come from?
Mauby is a Guyanese dish from Demerara (Georgetown), Guyana.
Can Mauby be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Mauby recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Mauby safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Mauby take to make?
About 30 minutes total (10 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 8.
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