Region & History

Brugal from Puerto Plata and Bermúdez from Santiago de los Caballeros are the two rum houses of the Cibao, the fertile valley in the north of the Dominican Republic. Together with Barceló from the capital, they're known in the country as the three B's. As a region, though, the Cibao is better known for tobacco and cigars.

According to tradition, sugarcane arrived on the island of Hispaniola with Columbus in 1493. Enslaved people from Africa worked the sugar plantations of the 16th century under force and violence, and without them this plantation economy would not have existed. Later, a different trade developed in the Cibao: starting in the mid-18th century, settlers from the Canary Islands began growing tobacco here, around Santiago.

Bermúdez is the older of the two houses. According to the company's history, it began in 1852, when Erasmo Bermúdez Jiménez, an immigrant from Venezuela, first made medicinal bitters in Santiago. The operation is considered today the oldest commercial rum distillery in the country and remains family-owned, under the name J. Armando Bermúdez & Co.

Andrés Brugal Montaner came from Sitges in Catalonia and had learned how to make rum in Cuba. In 1888, he founded his company in Puerto Plata. Until 1920, Brugal made only white rum; the house didn't release its first premium rum, Extra Viejo, until 1976. In February 2008, the family sold a majority stake to the Scottish Edrington Group, known for whiskies such as The Macallan.

There's no dedicated protected designation of origin just for the Cibao. The designation Ron Dominicano applies to the whole country, not to the valley alone. Today two houses operate in the Cibao: Brugal is majority-owned by the Edrington Group, while Bermúdez remains in family hands.