The house is popularly known as Finca del Ceregumil after ‘Ceregumil’, a famous medicinal syrup made from cereals and legumes mixed with honey and sugarcane, that is still manufactured, in Spain and the USA. It is still marketed as a nutritional aid for the elderly and for those with eating disorders and nutritional deficiencies, plus nowadays, of course, as an elixir to alleviate work stress.

The concoction was originally created in 1907 by Bernabé, an apothecary from Granada, who was determined to help people with gastric intolerance, a condition that also caused high infant mortality at the time. Indeed, his own two year old son fell seriously ill with it but fortunately, thanks to the syrup, the child started to eat again and so was pulled back from the brink of death. Bernabé had proved the efficacy of his product.

The word spread like wildfire throughout Andalucía. The formula, in which extracts of wheat, barley, corn, oats, beans, lentils, honey, calcium glycerophosphate, sugar cane and water are macerated, worked perfectly, there were never any complaints. Doctors and scientists came to see him, and product demand began.

Then, thanks to his wife, Blanca Canivell Pascual, whose family had had previous business experience, the syrup was developed commercially. The labelling was done by Fernandez Sanchez himself, who described the product as: ‘a food tonic and for remineralizing the body, especially useful in cases of acute and chronic enteritis, anemia, scrofula, organic dyspepsia, and weakness.’

By 1912, the competition from similar syrups, and even imitators, led Bernabé to register it and patent it with the name of ‘Ceregumil’, an attempt at an acronym formed by some syllables of the words ‘cereal’, ‘legumes’ and ‘honey’. By 1921, the fame of Ceregumil had crossed borders and sales began in Europe, South America and the United States.

Even the Spanish royals succumbed to the sweetness of the syrup, and the signature of Isabel de Borbon, Infanta of Spain, was stamped into a book about Ceregumil produced for the Ibero-American Exposition in Seville in 1929.

The Casa del Ceregumil was acquired by Fernández-Sanchez as a home laboratory, but also a place of rest and recreation for the pharmacist. It was a cultural meeting point, where in its rooms gathered renown painters of the time as well as members of the ‘Generación del 27’, an influential group of poets that arose in Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927. However, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, (1936 to 1939), the house then became a clandestine factory for the syrup for a while.

In 1955 the house was sold and became a training and boarding house for male rural teachers. Later it became a college for entry into the Seminary (theological college). The house now belongs to the Diocese of Málaga, and they call it ‘La Casa de Espiritualidad Trayamar’.

However, the house is still known locally as the ‘Finca del Ceregumil’, due to the long-lasting affection of the product. During the Franco years and well into the 1980s, Ceregumil was kept in many homes because people trusted the brand and believed that the syrup could, as the 1920’s poster said, ‘treat the child and support the elderly’. Moreover, such was its efficacy, that it was also available in hospitals because it was considered a medicinal product. Although by the end of the 20th century the market was filled with products to alleviate the fatigue of modern life, etc, since combining with another Spanish company a few years ago, Ceregumil is still a multi-million euro business (http://www.ceregumil.com/).