company website

since 1888

Dominican Republic

On my first trip to the Dominican Republic in 1988, I didn't know Brugal was celebrating their centennial anniversary. Moored stern to the old concrete dock in Puerto Plata, the old Brugal bottling plant was only a few blocks from the guard shack at the end of the dock. Whenever there was a small cruise ship in town, the back door of the bottling facility would open for the tourists and the helpful guard would gladly help a few sailors to a rum punch or four.

A few years later I learned that Brugal rum is born more than a hundred miles to the east on the flat plains of this historic country. Though Columbus brough sugar cane to Hispaniola, the name of this island that is today shared with Haiti, in 1493, it wasn't until much later that sugar cane became an important crop on this island. Today the sugar cane industry is under a lot of pressure from international competition but sugar cane is still an important agricultural crop and rum is an important export from this country that has endured significant political and economic turmoil in the last four centuries.

Molasses from the La Romana sugar mill is fermented at the distillery where it is distilled in a two-column stainless steel and copper still. The fresh distillate is then trucked to the north coast aging warehouses located east of Puerto Plata. Used American bourbon and whiskey barrels hold a few million gallons of aging rum. When I visited this distillery in 2000, the aged rum was blended with a proprietary blend of spice and fruit extracts before being aged again prior to bottling. Each of the hundreds of thousands of barrels has a small card stapled to it that contains information about the product, the volume of the barrel and date it was filled. This information is used by the distillery to ensure quality control and by customs to determine the appropriate taxes to be paid to the government.

In addition to the rum business the Brugal corporation is involved in a variety companies that import wine, spirits, hardware and other commodities. Brugal also owns several resorts around the Dominican Republic and is considered one of the economic pillars of this emerging country.
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There are 6 products in our database distilled by Brugal.
Brugal 1888
Brugal Añejo
Brugal Extra Viejo
Brugal Gold Label
Brugal Ron Blanco Especial
Siglo de Oro

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Last updated November 29, 2011