Dominican Republic Rum

Light, smooth and mellow: Dominican rum is almost always distilled clean and high on column stills and takes its character from maturation in the tropical heat, where a barrel matures far faster than in Scotland, rather than from a heavy distillate. White rum is usually aged first and then filtered clear, as at Barceló and Brugal. That makes the island the easy-drinking end of Caribbean rum: if you want smooth and easy over wild and intense, this is your island. More power comes from bottlings at 50 percent and above such as the Kirk and Sweeney XO.

Despite dozens of brands, industry overviews name only two active rum distilleries today: Brugal, which distils molasses for its own rum, and AFD, a joint venture of Barceló and Yazoo that distils cane juice for Barceló and sells much of its spirit in bulk. People still talk about the Three Bs, Brugal, Barceló and Bermúdez, but that picture is dated. Bermúdez, one of the historic houses, dating to 1852, stopped distilling its own rum around 2001 according to one industry profile and now ages bought-in spirit in Santiago; where that spirit comes from is not public. Matusalem does not distil either, and Oliver & Oliver says it buys its distillates in Panama, Guatemala and Trinidad. Many labels therefore age and blend spirit from these two distilleries or from abroad.

Brugal distils its own molasses rum, while Barceló does not distil itself: its rum is made from cane juice at AFD, in which Barceló holds a stake, then aged and bottled under the Barceló name, led by the Imperial. Brugal has been majority-owned by Scotland's Edrington since 2008 and leads the home market, by its own figures with about four fifths of legal rum sales in 2018. It ages mostly in ex-bourbon casks and uses sherry casks for its top bottlings, with the double-aged 1888 its signature. The Brugal Leyenda is a different kind of bottle: a 2022 description of its back label lists 80 percent aged rum and 20 percent Spanish wine. Both houses are built to be smooth and approachable.

From people and money rather than a recipe: Cuban capital rebuilt the sugar industry from the 1870s, Andrés Brugal learned the trade in Cuba, and later Cuban exile houses such as Matusalem and Oliver set up here. The backdrop is older. The Dominican Republic fills a little under two thirds of Hispaniola, the island Columbus reached in 1492, sharing it with Haiti. Around 1516 the first sugar mills of the New World stood here. In 1714 the Spanish crown banned distilling cane spirit in all its colonies to protect Spanish wine and brandy, but people kept distilling anyway.