I recently attended a lunch at La Isla restaurant in Seattle hosted by Diplomatico Rum, celebrating the return of Diplomatico’s line of rums to Washington State stores after an absence of several years. Alex Mejido of Domaine Select Wine Estates, a wine and spirit importer led us through tastings of the Anejo, Reserva, and Reserva Exclusiva expressions. Alas, there was no Ambassador to be had that day, but everybody seemed happy with the three we tasted.
Alex started by telling us some backstory on the Diplomatico company. Although I’ve loved the Reserva Exclusiva for years, having been introduced to it by Murray Stenson during his time at Canon, I wasn’t aware that the origin of Diplomatico rum starts with the Seagrams company back in the 1950s. It seems that Seagrams oversaw the creation and owned 51% of what’s now the DUSA distillery in Venezuela to produce a number of spirits, including rum. In the 1990s Seagrams was bought by Diageo and Pernod Ricard, which jointly held the distillery until 2002, when José R. Ballesteros Melendez took control of the distillery. Today, the distillery produces Diplomatico rum, as well as Cacique rum. In addition, it supplies heavy pot still rums for use in the Pampero brand of rum. Alex also mentioned that in addition to molasses, Diplomatico rum also includes what they call “sugar cane honey”. A more accurate term would be concentrated cane juice, i.e. sugar cane juice with all the original sugars intact, but with some of the water removed.
For the Diplomatico brand, the DUSA distillery uses a combination of column and pot still rums. We started with the Anejo which is a blend of pot and column still distillates, aged for four years. Next up was the Reserva with a bit higher percentage of the pot still, and aged for 8 years. Last was the Reserva Exclusiva, which is renowned in rum circles for being very delicious, sippable and sweet, and aged for up to 12 years.
Beyond tasting the rums, I also enjoyed great conversations with people seated next to me. My friend Jason Alexander from Tacoma Cabana was on my left as we continued our ever-present tiki discussion. On my right was Colin Kimball of Small Screen Network, producers of many great cocktail videos by Robert Hess, Jamie Boudreau, and others. Also on my right was Jeff Shilling, Party Chairman of The Cocktail Party, and social media lead at Total Wine. A great lunch, good rum and good conversation. You can’t beat that!
