Barcelo Imperial Onyx Rum

A wonderfully different Dominican Rum.

The Dominican Republic has a lot of Rum producers, but the world of Dominican Rum is ruled by "Three B's" — Bermudez, Barceló, and Brugal. Founded in 1930, Ron Barceló is headquartered in the capital of Santo Domingo, but has its distillery in the heart of the sugarcane fields near the town of San Pedro de Macorís about thirty miles east of the capital. The company was founded by a young Spaniard — Julián Barceló — who arrived in 1929 specifically to start making Rum. The company makes a wide range of Rums and is exported across the Caribbean and around the world.

Ron Barcelo Imperial Onyx Rum definitely stands out among Dominican Rums. For one, it's made from estate-grown fermented sugar cane juice instead of molasses. Then, it spends 10 years in ex-Bourbon barrels with a heavy char grade instead of a medium-light char grade. But what's perhaps even more interesting – it's filtered through onyx stones. What you get is a smoother, rounder palate that offers you sweet vanilla, coffee, milk chocolate, and cola notes. If you ever wondered what an afternoon on a tropical beach in the Dominican Republic tastes like, this is pretty much it.