Presidente

The national drink of the Dominican Republic is a pilsner in a green bottle. Presidente, brewed in Santo Domingo since 1935, is the standing order of every colmado, beach shack, and baseball night in the country — less a brand than a piece of civic equipment. Merengue plays, dominoes clack, and the green bottles keep coming.

Its greatest cultural contribution may be a temperature. Dominicans order a Presidente bien fría, and the ideal arrives vestida de novia — dressed as a bride, the bottle veiled in white frost from a cooler run to its coldest limit. A Presidente that shows up merely cold has, by local standards, failed at its one job.

The brewer, Cervecería Nacional Dominicana, now operates inside the AB InBev–Ambev system, the largest beer enterprise on earth, but distribution follows the Dominican diaspora more than any corporate map: Presidente is as easy to find in New York's Washington Heights as in Santiago de los Caballeros.

Very pale straw with high carbonation and a thin white head that fades fast in the heat it was built for. Light cereal sweetness, a whisper of corn, barely-there hops, and a clean bright finish. Drunk near-freezing, as intended, it's almost more temperature than flavor — and on a Caribbean afternoon that is exactly right.