The 26-Ingredient Andean Energy Drink

María Luisa de Rangel cracks two raw chicken eggs over a blender full of frozen fruit before she adds the infant cereal or the ox’s eyeball. At her juice and sandwich shop, Super Batidos de María Luisa de Rangel, in the midst of Mérida, Venezuela’s Mercado Principal, she is making her most famous aphrodisiac-energy smoothie.

She calls it Levantón Andino, meaning Andean boost, and she's been selling it for the last 27 years. “My husband and I needed to get more people choosing our juice shop,” she says, “so we came up with a drink no one else had.”

They asked each of their closest family members to come up with a single ingredient that would add to the drink’s character. The family provided 25 in total, and one more that María keeps secret. She dashes a bit of this on top of the eggs.

The experimentation phase went quickly once the ingredients were decided on. Besides token smoothie regulars like fruit, milk, and sugar, the Levantón Andino is full of local oddities like Chuchuhuaza liquor extracted from the Chuchuhuasi tree of the Amazonian rainforest and a homemade, fermented sugar liquor called Miche Callejonero. María’s husband had the idea for the ox’s eyeball and she buys them direct from a local farmer.

Each ingredient carries with it it’s own benefit, and María explains this largely on the principal that you are what you eat. She drops two small quail eggs, in the shell, into the blender. “The eggs promote fertility,” she says. She plucks an ox’s eyeball the size of a golf ball from a cooler full of them. “The eye is very good for improving vision.”

Next, what goes in the blender… [pagebreak]

The Chuchuhuaza, while good for joint repair, is actually a potent aphrodisiac, and María sees many couples drinking the smoothie together, especially ones that are trying to have kids. Mérida being the adventure capital of Venezuela and a city wrapped around several universities, the drink also brings in tired students and athletes. “But really, everyone drinks it,” she says.

A 74-year-old man waits for a cup of the Levantón Andino María is making and flexes his right arm. “I drink one every few days,” he says.

A few splashes of various liquors including rum and brandy, a dash of a local beer, and Colombian red wine are added. These are in amounts small enough that María says even kids can drink safely. She claims that no one has ever reported back with sickness from the drink.

Due to Venezuela’s frequent nation-wide shortages, sometimes María has to cut an ingredient or two. Most recently, it’s been fish eggs that are hardest to find.

When it’s ready, the magenta-colored drink has the consistency of a smoothie and it goes down easy. The recipe makes 1.5 liters and is sold in cups between 8 and 12 ounces for 50 to 90 Bolivares, or about $.50 to $1 USD. The flavors of each ingredient are hard to diagnose with the tongue, but the overall taste is strawberry with subtle notes of bubble gum. The stomach must overcome the mind when drinking Levantón Andino.

Inside the market, storefronts are packed in side-by-side, allowing the smell of garlic and salted fish to mingle with chocolate and dried herbs, counterintuitive to the drink’s aphrodisiacal agenda. Outside the market, green mountains of the Cordillera de Mérida, an extension of the Andes Mountains, wrap around the city. With your boost, you might just grab the 74-year-old man standing next to you and set out to explore them.