Photo by Arturo Pacho
Growing up on the Philippine island of Leyte, Arturo Pacho loved to watch the adults drink coconut wine. Delivering gallon-sized jugs of the potent drink, known locally as “tuba,” always came with little rewards. Sometimes, he’d listen to guerilla vets regale their war stories, or he’d lap up fresh-caught conch in the company of his uncle’s talking green parrot.
“I had to learn what was good tuba because, if there were complaints, I would have to return it,” says Pacho. He spent most of his adult life as an administrator for the City of Los Angeles, but he never stopped thinking about tuba. So, when he retired in 2015, he wrote a book about it,