Rum (ron in Spanish) production has been an important part of Puerto Rico's economy since the 16th century. While sugar cane harvesting has virtually disappeared in Puerto Rico (except for a few isolated farms and agricultural experiments), distilleries around the island still produce large amounts of rum every year. Don Q is the top-selling rum brand on the island, where more than 70% of the rum consumed in the United States is produced. [1]
The main rum producing enterprise in Arecibo is Barceló, Marqués Y Co. Its flagship brand was Ron Palo Viejo. Ron Palo Viejo is now owned by Serrallés, whose flagship rum is Don Q.
Rum has been produced in Arecibo since the second half of the 19th century. Roses, García y Co. was bottling their Ron de la Casa de Roses as early as 1868. Ron Llave dates from 1891, and by 1893 they were purveyors of rum under license from the Royal house of Spain.
There were several rum producers in Arecibo by the beginning of the 20th century. Most of them merged their distillery operations into a single entity, the Puerto Rico Distilling Co., which was formally incorporated on February 2, 1911. The new company eventually became the principal supplier of partially refined or final product to rum aging, blending and bottling companies in Mayagüez and Bayamón. During Prohibition the company turned into producing denatured alcohol, bay rum (up to 265 different brands of bay rum were eventually produced at the main distilling plant, including the best-selling Alcoholado Superior 70 and Alcoholado Santa Claus) and other industrial products. Rum production returned in 1934, with Ron Candado. In 1935, a joint venture with Florida Cane Products, Inc., spawned a new corporation, Ron Rico, whose flagship product was the Ronrico rum and which had considerable success selling rum in the United States. A new distilling plant was opened in 1942.
The following are rums produced in Arecibo (or in nearby Barceloneta while the holding company was Arecibo-based):
The company producing it was founded by Edmundo Fernandez in the early 19th century. It has produced its rum inside a brick and mortar windmill tower located originally within a sugar cane plantation, the Hacienda Santa Ana, now an industrial park in the outskirts of Bayamón. Its yearly production run is a limited one. The company is known for a rum liqueur which is made with honey. The company was sold and recapitalized by a partnership led by a member of the Bacardi family including other local investors. It has diversified its product to include premium aged rums. [3]
In 2014 it was announced that CC1 Industries Inc. would be constructing a new rum distillery Club Caribe Distillers in Cidra, Puerto Rico. This was the location of a pharmaceutical plant owned by GlaxoSmithKline which had closed. The new distillery however included a hospitality center and function hall contributing to local tourism. CC1 Industries Inc. is affiliated with Florida Caribbean Distillers which is based in Florida. [5] The distillery was completed and ran its first distillation run in September 2018. [6]
The word pitorro is something deeply engrained into the collective consciousness of Puerto Ricans. For decades, the production of this rum has been deemed clandestine by the authorities, simply because it did not pay taxes. Destilería Cruz is a company founded by José Luis Cruz and produces PitoRico in Jayuya, Puerto Rico. Mr. Cruz, a native of Jayuya, remembers fondly how his uncle and other family members would skillfully brew the pitorro, especially during the Christmas season. The drink is made in various fruit flavor, including passion fruit, coconut, anise, and tamarind.
The city of Mayagüez had various rum producing companies, some of which were contractors for United States- and Bahamian-based public and private brands. The most successful was José González Clemente y Co. (JGC); other companies were: Ron Oro Nativo (RON, whose parent company was Seagram), Alfredo Vega Toro y Co. (AVT), Baltasar Cruz y Co. (BC), Luis García y Co. (LG), Julio Maldonado y Co. (JM), the Mayagüez Rum Company (MRC), and "Primitivo Grau y Co (PG). Among the brands produced in Mayagüez were (bottler in parentheses):
Samples of all these brands or their labels are kept as part of the historical collection of the Castillo Serrallés in Ponce.
The Puerto Rico Sugar Company established a new rum distillery in Mayagüez in 2009, named Destilería Coquí; its production is limited to 100 bottles a day. The Destilería's main product is an artisan rum called Pitorro, analogous to the name in common use to describe Puerto Rican moonshine rum. [8]
The main rum-producing enterprise in Ponce is Destilería Serrallés, Inc. , which has been producing rum in site since 1865. Its flagship brand, Ron Don Q (short for Don Quijote, the favorite character of one of the Serrallés family heirs [12] ) dates from 1932. Don Q is Puerto Rico's top-selling rum. [13]
In addition to the brands mentioned above, illegal makers of "moonshine" rum, nicknamed cañita (not to be confused with the current "legal" brand, which merely adopted the popular term, and which had a precursor in the late 1930s) or pitorro rum, tend to operate in Puerto Rico, particularly around the Christmas season. The word "pitorro" is actually a corruption of the word "pintorro", an Andalusian term used to depict inferior-quality wine or rum that had a weak color (hence the name). Clandestine rum operations are rather uncommon nowadays in Puerto Rico, given the fact that sugar cane production has dwindled in Puerto Rico since the closing of government-owned "centrales" or mills. Nevertheless, authorities confiscate many cañita/pitorro rum productions every year. A town renowned for its "pitorro" production is Añasco, given its proximity to Mayagüez (rum production talent and recipes) and its former (and current, in some areas) harvesting of sugar cane.
Pitorro is also a term given to homemade flavored rum, prepared by adding various fruits spices and/or flavorings to ferment over a period of time. A particularly favored variety made with quenepas called Bilí is made in Vieques.
Bacardi Limited is the largest privately held, family-owned spirits company in the world. Originally known for its Bacardí brand of white rum, it now has a portfolio of more than 200 brands and labels. Founded in Cuba in 1862 and family-owned for seven generations, Bacardi Limited employs more than 8,000 people with sales in approximately 170 countries. Bacardi Limited is the group of companies as a whole and includes Bacardi International Limited.
Mayagüez is a city and the eighth-largest municipality in Puerto Rico. It was founded as Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Mayagüez, and is also known as La Sultana del Oeste, Ciudad de las Aguas Puras, or Ciudad del Mangó. On April 6, 1894, the Spanish Crown granted it the formal title of Excelente Ciudad de Mayagüez. Mayagüez is located in the center of the western coast on the island of Puerto Rico. It has a population of 73,077 in the city proper, and it is a principal city of the Mayagüez Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Mayagüez–San Germán–Cabo Rojo Combined Statistical Area.
Juan Eugenio Serrallés Colón (1836–1921) was the founder of Hacienda Mercedita in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and what was to become Destileria Serralles, producers of "Don Q", a brand of Puerto Rican rum.
Brugal is the name and brand of a variety of rums from the Dominican Republic produced by Brugal & Co., C. por A. Brugal and the other Dominican rums, Barceló and Bermúdez, are collectively known as the three B's. Brugal has three distilleries, one in Puerto Plata and two in San Pedro de Macorís.
Havana Club is a brand of rum created in Cuba in 1934. Originally produced in Cárdenas, Cuba, by family-owned José Arechabala S.A., the brand was nationalized after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. In 1993, French-owned Pernod Ricard and the government of Cuba created a state-run 50:50 joint venture called Corporación Cuba Ron. They began exporting this version of Havana Club globally, except for the United States due to the embargo put in place by the U.S. government.
Castillo Serrallés is a mansion located in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, overlooking the downtown area. It was built during the 1930s for Juan Eugenio Serrallés, son of businessman Juan Serrallés, founder of Destilería Serrallés. The structure sits on a 2.5-acre (1.0 ha) exceedingly manicured property. Nowadays, the structure functions as a museum, Museo Castillo Serrallés, with information about the sugar cane and rum industries and its impact in the economy of Puerto Rico. It is also increasingly used as a venue for social activities, including destination weddings. The property was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 1996, the structure was featured in the American TV series America's Castles.
Don Q is a Puerto Rican rum, distilled, manufactured, bottled, and distributed by Destilería Serrallés from its corporate facility in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Don Q, "Puerto Rico's best-known rum", is the top-selling rum in Puerto Rico, where over 70% of the rum consumed in the United States is produced. The rum derives its name from Don Quixote, the protagonist in Miguel de Cervantes' classic Spanish novel. The rum is sold internationally, competing against Bacardi for market share. Available in the continental United States since June 2009, Don Q continues to outsell Bacardi in Puerto Rico.
Destilería Serrallés is a rum producer located in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and best known for its Don Q rum brand. The company is Puerto Rico's oldest family-owned company and has revenues of over 100 million dollars. In 2011, it was responsible for pumping over $300 million annually into the Puerto Rican economy from the sale of its rums in the United States mainland alone.
Puertorriqueña de Aviación, previously known as Aerovías Nacionales de Puerto Rico was an airline company that operated during the 1930s. It was the first documented attempt by Puerto Ricans to have a flag carrier in the country.
Hacienda Mercedita was a 300-acre (120 ha) sugarcane plantation in Ponce, Puerto Rico, founded in 1861, by Juan Serrallés Colón. Today Hacienda Mercedita no longer grows sugarcane and its lands are instead used for growing mangoes, grasses, landscape plants and palms, coconut palms, bananas, and seeds.
The Museo de la Música Puertorriqueña is a museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that showcases the development of Puerto Rican music, with displays of Taíno, Spanish, and African musical instruments that were played in the romantic danza genre, the favorite music of 19th-century Puerto Rican high society, as well as the more African-inspired bomba and plena styles. Also on display are memorabilia of composers and performers. The Museum traces the rich musical history of Puerto Rico through memorabilia of prominent musicians and displays of the musical instruments associated with the three genres of music that originated in this Caribbean island.
Casa Serrallés is a historic building in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico. It was built in 1911 by Alfredo Wiechers Pieretti for Don Juan Eugenio Serrallés Pérez, son of businessman Juan Serrallés Colón, founder of Destilería Serrallés, and himself the CEO of the company that founded Ron Don Q. The building is currently home to the Museo de la Música Puertorriqueña.
José Ramon Fernández, 1st Marquis of La Esperanza (1808–1883), was the wealthiest sugar baron in Puerto Rico in the 19th century. He was also one of the most powerful men of the entire Spanish Caribbean. He owned an immense plantation of nearly 2300 acres on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, and a sugar mill with an advanced steam engine. His wealth and political connections gave him the power to convince the Spanish Colonial government in the island to split the municipality of Manati in two, and thus found the municipality of Barceloneta.
Museo Castillo Serrallés, a.k.a. Museo de la Caña y el Ron, is an agricultural museum in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, that showcases the history of sugar cane, its derivative rum industry, and their impact in the economy of Puerto Rico. The most notorious feature of the museum is the building it occupies. The building is a large four-story structure built in the 1930s for the owner of Ponce's Destileria Serralles, one of Puerto Rico's largest rum distilleries. The distillery was once also home to Puerto Rico's largest sugar-factory called Central Mercedita, producers of the Snow White sugar brand. The building, known as Castillo Serrallés, was designed by Pedro Adolfo de Castro in 1930 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style.
Serrallés may refer to:
Spanish settlement of Puerto Rico began in the early 1500s shortly after the formation of the Spanish state in 1493 and continues to the present day. On 25 September 1493, Christopher Columbus set sail on his second voyage with 17 ships and 1,200–1,500 men from Cádiz, Spain. On 19 November 1493 he landed on the island, naming it San Juan Bautista in honor of Saint John the Baptist.
Palo Viejo is a Puerto Rican rum brand.
