Costa Rica is a country in Central America, and sits on the isthmus between Panama (to the south) and Nicaragua (to the north). The country's name means 'rich coast' and refers to its days as a successful Spanish trading colony. The coast in question was almost certainly its western, Caribbean coast – although the misnomer became clear soon after Spanish colonisation, as the land was decidedly lacking in the gold and silver the conquistadors had sought. Coffee was Costa Rica's first major export, and remains its key economic driver today.
Located between the latitudes of eight and 12 degrees north, Costa Rica is definitively tropical; it lies almost precisely halfway between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer. Its climate is unsuitable for quality viticulture, so Costa Rican wine is rarely (if ever) produced. Instead, the country's key alcoholic beverages are beer and rum, the latter produced from sugar cane grown either locally or imported from neighboring states.
