Paul

Sugarcane grown on the Paúl Valley's steep terraces is cut by hand and fed through a trapiche — a simple crushing mill, traditionally turned by ox and, in some of the valley's smaller operations, still run that way rather than by an electric motor — which extracts the raw cane juice that becomes grogue's own starting point. The terraced fields themselves exist specifically because the valley's steep terrain leaves no flat ground to plant on otherwise, meaning the labour-intensive terracing and the traditional milling methods that follow it are two sides of the same adaptation to genuinely difficult growing conditions.

Once crushed, the cane juice ferments naturally over several days before being distilled in an alambique, a small copper or stone still that produces grogue in modest, batch-by-batch quantities rather than continuous industrial output — a process considerably closer in scale and method to a craft rhum agricole than to a mass-produced spirit. Several family-run distilleries in the valley still work this way, and visitors who stop at one can watch the process directly and taste grogue straight from the still, considerably rawer and more characterful than the bottled versions sold elsewhere in Cape Verde.