Dominicana 2011 #5

And it is the Dominican Republic that is the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean. It lures visitors with its perfect sandy beaches, unspoiled nature, delicious culinary experience, spectacular festivals, colourful sea life as well as places and sights with great historical value. Last but not least it is a homeland of famous cigar brands, coffee, and authentic Dominican rum.

The New Age era of the Dominican rum dates back to the mid-19th century when the Spanish government tried to create a rum industry to follow up on the existing sugar industry to increase the country’s income. The oldest rum producer in the Dominican Republic is the Bermudez company which started its business in 1852 and remains one of the three most significant producers in the country. Another two significant companies are Brugal founded in 1888 and Barceló dating back to 1930. Nowadays, Barceló has its place among the leaders of the world rum production.

In this edition we are introducing you to the rum originating from the Alcoholes Finos Dominicanos (AFD) distillery which belongs to the portfolio of the biggest rum producer in the Dominican Republic – Barceló company. In the case of AFD, we can talk about a very modern distillery finished in 2010 and because Barceló company puts maximum effort into ecologically friendly production, the AFD was built with the smallest ecological impact on the environment. It is one of the pioneering distilleries in further bagasse processing (extracted dry sugar cane fiber). The incineration of this biomass and the use of solar panels installed on the premises of the distillery together provide up to 96 % of the used electricity in one year. The AFD distillery employs about 4,000 people and altogether the company farms on 80,000 ha of sugar cane plantations and from this creates about 18 million liters of alcohol yearly.

Sugar cane syrup that is fermented by the Saccharomyces cerevisiae type of yeast for up to 7 days is used for rum production there. Further distillation takes place in multi-column stills that produce 95 % ABV newmake. The newmake is diluted to 65 % ABV before it is filled into barrels. The American white oak barrels after Tennessee Whiskey are used for this purpose. Currently, the distillery’s warehouses store about 40,000 of these barrels.

A lot has changed since Christopher Columbus sailed the Caribbean. But what remains the same in the Dominican Republic is the passion and determination of the local Maestros Roneros to oversee that the liquid heart of their nation beats strongly and with the right ethos. May this Rum Shark edition be the evidence.