Inventive barrel finishes are everywhere on liquor shelves these days. But if you think you’ve seen it all, Brugal has a new bottle of ultra-premium rum. Last year, the 135-year-old Dominican distillery launched Colección Visionaria, an ongoing series of matured cane spirits, in which each edition is inspired by—and flavored with—an ingredient unique to its Caribbean island home. For Edición 1, that component was cacao. Today, we’ve got an exclusive first look of Edición 2, finished in coffee-toasted barrels. It’s unlike any rum we’ve ever tasted before.
And for good reason. The new liquid, arriving on shelves this month, was shaped by a bespoke style of barrel, developed by Brugal’s fifth generation master distiller, Jassil Villanueva Quintana, using a proprietary toasting technique.
High quality, locally grown Arabica coffee beans were gently roasted beneath French oak casks, imbuing the staves with robust, mocha-like tonalities. Those same elements, in turn, exert themselves upon a robust and velvety aged rum, combining to form a 90-proof sipping spirit that sings with the best of both beverages.
“The coffee used is from Jarabacoa, in the central part of the country, and is highly cherished by the Dominican people,” says Brugal’s resident rum expert, Gabe Urrutia. “In fact, only 20 percent of these beans ever make it off the island. So it’s not something that many people outside of the DR have ever had a chance to taste.”
In a bottle of Edición 2, these elusive beans express themselves in delicate waves of clove and nutmeg. They envelop the dried dark fruit threads of the rum in an unctuous roast as you sip it slowly from a snifter. Indeed, the dark golden elixir was engineered to be enjoyed in an unhurried fashion. Villanueva Quintana crafted it as an ode to the cafecito moment, a Dominican ritual during which friends and family gather—typically around strong coffee—to pause and savor the sanctity of life.
“Many stories and laughs have been shared over a cherished cafecito in the Dominican Republic,” she says. “It is these fond moments and nostalgic aromas that we wanted to recreate in Colección Visionaria Edición 02. It’s an invitation to enjoy the warmth of good company and the rich, inviting flavors of our homeland.”
Such an enticing invite is, in my opinion, a bargain at the suggested retail price of $100 per bottle. The decanter will be instantly recognizable on shelves, as it's covered in latticed netting, a signature packaging flourish of the brand since 1940. Just 35,000 bottles will reach global markets, pulled from six batches worth of the speciality barrels. When they’re gone, they’re gone for good. In other words, sip slowly, but purchase swiftly.
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