The Rum Lab present at the Caracas Ron Festival 2017

Last weekend, on November 24th, 25th and 26th, the 2nd edition of the Caracas Ron Festival took place at the Pestana Caracas Hotel from 2:00pm to 10:00pm. The Rum Lab had the chance to visit for the very first time this promising Venezuelan Rum Fest.

The Caracas Ron Festival gathered the most important rum/liquor brands of Venezuela. Among them there were: Diplomatico Rum, Ron Carupano, Ocumare, Pampero Ron Añejo, and Ron Santa Teresa with the support of Nueve Grados Premium Mixers, El Nacional, Dunhill and Salsa Travel Producciones.

The attendants of this fest had the opportunity to meet each brand of Venezuelan rum up alongside part of the team behind each of them. Personalities of the rum industry such as Masters Distillers Luis Figueroa (Pampero and Cacique) and Nestor Ortega (Ron Santa Teresa) made presence during the night our team attended the event. Ron Santa Teresa offered a great show with one of their very own bartenders and kept the attendees well entertained. All the brands had a great variety of cocktails –rum based of course- to delight every single palate on the building.

During these three days of rum tasting there were other activities the participants had the chance to attend. The fest offered guided tastings which allowed people to learn how to properly taste rum and how to identify differences between ageing, nose, palate and eye of each brand that was used for the activities. They also had rum talks that included topics such as: Rum for dummies, Nueve Grados Premium Mixers: Reinventing Cocktails and Rossana Di Turi’s book “Ron de Venezuela”.

Diplomatico Rum took the chance to release their new expression: Planas. Although this expression already had a few months out, Leonardo Rodríguez –brand manager-, told us the fest was the perfect chance to officially release this expression on a marketing level so people could taste it in their cocktails and get familiar with it. Planas has the particularity of being the only crystalline rum that possesses 47 in alcoholic strength which is rare for its type.

Being the 2nd edition of this fest, Venezuela has shown its talent to produce not only high quality rums but also epic events that let people get closer to an industry that day by day grows as fast as a child in constant growth.

If you’d like to see more of this event, check all the photos on our Facebook Page: The Rum Lab and share your thoughts with us.

Photography by: Miguel Teixeira