There are things that don’t add up. It is frequently heard how Canarian restaurants promote their kitchens with the use of kilometer 0 products and, nevertheless, at the time of the after-dinner meal they offer distillates made all over the world, it does not matter if they are gins, vodkas, whiskeys, rums and so on. to a long etcetera. And they always forget about the incomparable and unique products made on the Island, which exist and are few, as is popularly said.
This introductory reflection comes from a recent visit, that same week, to one of the farms and facilities of the Arehucas Rum Distillerywhose origins go back to 1884, in the municipality of Arucas, in Gran Canaria, which maintains the tradition of organizing dramatized meetings on the start date of the harvest in its sugar cane plantations to produce these unique kilometer 0 rums and which , as a novelty, is working on producing an organic brandy.
March, the month of the collection of cane that is used for Arehucas rum
And it is precisely the month of March when this cane collection process begins, today in the process of organic certification, which is carried out manually on the Las Vegas farm, close to the distillery under intense sun and heat, which shows the hardness of artisan work, almost never recognized as it deserves.
The dramatized visit to the farm and the facilities is carried out by the brand’s global ambassador, Óscar Lafuente, accompanied on this tour by a historical figure of the company, who is the founder, Alfredo Martín, who recounts the life and anecdotes of this hundred-year-old distillery.
The jewel of the facilities is the cellar, where rums rest and age, whose barrels have been signed by many personalities, such as Julio Iglesias; Cesar Manrique; Pepe Damaso; Martin Chirino; the emeritus kings, Juan Carlos I and Sofía; Alfredo Kraus; Felipe Gonzalez; Pau Donés, and Manolo Vieira.
Over the last few years, the company, which is still in the hands of the descendants of Alfredo Martín, has carried out significant work remodeling its facilities, with the fitting out of an area, divided into two floors and a terrace, for tastings and showing visitors, who add up to 100,000 people each year, that this company has star rums, such as the Family Selection range (Captain Kidd aged 30 years in barrels, Arehucas 18 years, Arehucas 12 years and Blanco Selección Familiar) or the limited edition of the Arehucas single cask 2002, aged for 19 years and refined for 18 months in Pedro Ximénez wine barrels.
They report some premium versions that have nothing to envy to other luxury rums on the market. An opportunity to enjoy the kilometer 0 distillates after dinner.
