Colada morada

Colada morada is a warm, deep-purple Ecuadorian drink thickened with purple- or black-corn flour and cooked down with Andean berries, tropical fruit, panela and a long list of warming spices and aromatic leaves. Its colour comes from purple maize together with mortiño (Andean blueberry), blackberry and the red herb ataco, and its scent from cinnamon, clove, ishpingo and lemon verbena. It is non-alcoholic, served hot or warm, and is drunk above all on the second of November — Día de los Difuntos — alongside guaguas de pan, the little bread figures shaped like swaddled children. More a spiced fruit porridge to sip than a thin cordial, it is one of the defining seasonal drinks of the Ecuadorian highlands.