Rum Interest Will Celebrate the 3rd Edition of the London Venezuela Diplomático Rum Festival

The London Venezuela Diplomático Rum Festival is back! Rum Interest, in collaboration with Diplomático Rum, is set to celebrate the third edition of the charity event, which will take place on July 1, 2023, at Shoreditch, London, United Kingdom.

Thanks to the success of the previous two festivals, it was possible to distribute medical and food supplies around Venezuela, helping hundreds of children in need. In this edition, the main goal is to collect funds to aid Coromoto 2020, a Venezuelan non-profit organization created to strengthen the most vulnerable families in their food needs and instill values.

100% of event proceeds Coromoto 2020 will use directly to help families, children, teachers, and students with food and educational support. To date, the organization has helped over 90,000 families, and this event will help them towards their target of supporting more than 3,000 students, over 300 teachers, and around 200,000 families.

Diplomático Rum Festival Agenda

The London Venezuela Diplomático Rum Festival will last one day, from 12 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and will include:

• Diplomático Masterclasses hosted by the UK Brand Ambassador, Dean MacGregor:
  • Sample the classic Diplomático range such as Mantuano, Planas, Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva, and Diplomático Selección de Familia.
  • Sample the Limited Collection that allows Diplomático aficionados to experience the pure essence of the rum’s different distillation styles: No.1 (Batch Kettle), No.2 (Barbet), No.3 (Pot Still), and the classic Reserva Exclusiva.
• A Diplomatico Pop Up Bar with a specially designed cocktail menu, with subsidized drinks all day at £7.
• Cacao Drinking Masterclass, hosted by the Founder of Amazonik Cacao, Marjory Carrero. It consists of sample three Venezuelan single-origin cacao drinks:
  • 1 x Cacao & Rum Blend
  • 1 x Cacao & Orange Blend
  • 1 x Cacao & Tea blend
• Live music from Venezuelan rising stars like Baldo Verdu (who will release his first album) and Latin DJs.
• Salsa and Merengue Sessions with three Venezuelan instructors.
• Traditional Venezuelan food for purchase from one of London’s leading Venezuelan food services, Papelon.
• A raffle with Diplomatic prizes.

In addition, other rum brands like Angostura also contributed with rum bottles for the rum tastings.

For this edition, they are selling around 180 tickets. The General Admission ticket costs only £13.96, as they want to make the event accessible to the general public. It includes an all-day festival entrance, subsidized cocktails all day, and dance sessions. The tickets for the masterclasses are sold separately; however, all attendees to the masterclasses will receive a 10% discount at the Diplomático Pop Up Bar on pours of Single Vintage 2007 and Diplomático Ambassador.

About Rum Interest

In 2017, Marcos Pilavakis, a British rum aficionado with Greek Cypriot roots, founded Rum Interest to connect other rum enthusiasts from around the world who do not have access to the large offerings of rums or who are unable to attend the increasing number of rum festivals. Hence, Rum Interest was created to represent their voices and share as many stories as possible while promoting the diversity of rum.

After starting the Rum Interest site, he started to connect with small rum brands, producers, and rum bars across Colombia, Brazil, Jamaica, El Salvador, Bermuda, South Africa, Madagascar, Laos, Malaysia, and Cyprus, among others.

In the last few years, Rum Interest has organized many fundraising events to support various charity organizations in Venezuela. The country is indeed close to Pilavakis’ heart as it is where his passion for rum began. While living in Venezuela, he developed a particular interest in both its rum and culture.

The Rum Lab had the opportunity to interview Pilavakis and get some impressions about the significance of this festival.

“This is the right time to give back to a country that had looked after me so well when I lived there (…). All the events I’ve organized so far have as a main purpose of collecting funds for charity, mainly for organizations that work for the Venezuelan community. Personally, Venezuela is a very special country for me, and I want the world to know its virtues and treasures through its rums, its food, and its music.”

In addition, he concluded:

“For me, the most important thing is to help people in need through these events while promoting the culture of their countries. This festival, in particular, is a celebration of the Venezuelan traditions. I want to show visitors the Venezuela I met as a foreigner when I was living there.”

The organizers have set up a donation page where anyone interested can make further donations. For more information about the tickets, follow @ruminterest and @thamyixer or contact marcos@ruminterest.com.