Editor's note: Last month, Jigs interviewed Paco, the man behind Luisita Rum. They discussed the brand's fascinating history, production process, philosophy on rum and the future plans of Luisita. This is an interview compiled from Jigs' 3-part series, where he also reviews three bottles of Luisita's rums.

"There’s a story that the Japanese wanted to bomb the plantation but opted not to after someone shouted “sake!” after seeing the column still. In essence, the alcohol kept this place through the war."

The Philippines isn't that much of a rum-drinking nation.

If an American and Scot would be told that Jack Daniel's and Johnny Walker were among the world's bestselling whisky brands in recent years, one can expect that neither will be surprised. After all, bourbon and Scotch are the national drinks of the United States and Scotland, respectively. The same, however, won't likely be true if a Filipino were told that Tanduay was among the world's bestselling rum brands in recent years.

In the Philippines, beer, gin, and brandy reign supreme among Filipinos, and I don't need to look at the data to say this with confidence. Go into a local bar, restaurant, home, or any other random place where a group of Filipinos are drinking, and I'm willing to bet that in most cases, a bottle of rum isn't on the table. I can also confidently say that the same idea can be extended to what is often considered as "premium alcohol." Most Filipinos wouldn't associate the word "premium" with Philippine rum and, instead, would associate the term with imported drinks like whisky and wine.

This popular culture at home has unsurprisingly translated abroad; the Philippines does not seem to be considered a major player in the arena of premium rum. Don Papa has pioneered the flag of premium Philippine rum, especially with its success in the Europe, but most rum enthusiasts still seem to turn to rum from established rum-producing places like Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, or Martinique. To strengthen the local and international presence of premium Philippine rum, I believe that more quality local brands are needed. Luisita Rum is hoping to fulfill that need.

Established in 2016 and run by the Tarlac Distillery Corporation (TADISCO) under the company Central Azucarera de Tarlac, Luisita Rum is a brand of single-estate rum produced in the province of Tarlac.

I've had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Paco Cojuangco, Luisita Rum's "Farmer Behind the Brand," and in this and two succeeding articles, I'll be sharing what he had to say about Luisita Rum. Our lengthy conversation covered the brand's history, their production process, and details Paco's philosophy on rum and the future plans of Luisita. My additions, mostly for clarity, are presented in brackets.

"Luisita is also my way of showing what comes out of my neck of the woods... There’s a silent wave of global Filipino pride that aims to prove that we can produce world-class products, so the goal is to keep our rum of quality."

 

[Jigs]: Tell us about the history surrounding TADISCO, particularly when it first distilled rum and how it eventually began producing rum under the Luisita brand.

[Paco]: TADISCO is quite old; it was incorporated in 1958. Around that time, the paternal side of my family had bought into the Luisita estate, and along with the estate came the plantation that involved the sugar mill and the distillery put up by Tabacalera [also known as the “Compañía General de Tabacos de Filipina”]. TADISCO was incorporated to handle the distilling side of the operations – all alcohol sales – and Central Azucarera de Tarlac, which was already incorporated, was left alone for the sugar manufacturing.

The still that was eventually acquired by TADISCO was constructed in 1920 and put up in 1928, which was the first year of production for both the sugar mill and the distillery. We have newspaper clippings that show that Tabacalera was supplying the Americans with “spirit” during World War 2. There’s a story that the Japanese wanted to bomb the plantation but opted not to after someone shouted “sake!” after seeing the column still. In essence, the alcohol kept this place through the war.

After the war, Tabacalera was divesting their interests from the previous Spanish colonies like the Philippines, and the plantation landed with my family. TADISCO started manning the column still then, and this was definitely one of the big distilleries up until the ‘70s. Up until the ‘80s and ‘90s, we sold distillate to brands like La Tondeña Rum (owned by Ginebra San Miguel), Añejo Rum, Emperador, and maybe even to Tanduay Rum at one point when it was still owned by the Elizalde group. All of these contracts stopped because those brands put up their own distilleries but also because they wanted us to remove this particular banana note in our distillate.

[Jigs]: How did your family or the estate’s workers’ perception of rum change throughout the years?

[Paco]: Before the cusp of the war, my family was already in Tarlac, and they had a mill there called the Paniqui Sugar Mill [“paniqui” is a Spanish term taken from the Filipino word “paniki,” which means “bat”]. In that mill, there was also a still – I believe it was a pot still because they were making heavier rum – and they were making rum, called Paniqui Rum. From what I remember, they were using a pot still and column still, and the column still would just pump out distillate in huge volumes, while the pot still will be their “flavoring” because of its heavier aromas. They’d blend both and sometimes either color or age the rum. After distilling for a while, the war happened, but they were able to continue and expand production after the war simply because the rum was a byproduct of sugarcane.

Now, after the war, there was a shortage in gas in the country as only the military had access to it. When the American soldiers stationed at the local base found out that my great grandfather used ethanol for his jeep’s fuel, they thought that the alcohol was being put to waste and ended up trading gas for my family’s alcohol. That rum production must have stopped in the ‘50s when my family acquired Luisita, the acquisition of which was always the dream of my great grandfather. Around the ‘80s, my great uncle purchased virgin oak barrels from countries like France and Australia, put distillate from Paniqui and Luisita in those barrels, and stored them in a cellar. This rum, however, was only consumed by the family during special occasions.

In all, we can see how my family had their own small production of rum – or some semblance of it – before supplying distillate to other local rum producers after acquiring Luisita and eventually releasing our own brand.

[Jigs]: What things were done to enable or prepare TADISCO to produce and sell rum at the rate it does today?

[Paco]: In 2016, this project of Luisita Rum came along after the mill was acquired from the bigger paternal clan in 2014 by my father and his business partner, who were both wine aficionados and had dreams of running a vineyard. My father’s business partner’s nephew, who works in the international alcohol trade, chanced upon some barrels from Heaven Hill and Wild Turkey, and he suggested we make rum. One meeting led to another, and eventually, they had the idea of running a business with the concept of being a vineyard in the tropics. We already had the fields and the still, so the barrels were the missing piece.

We also got in touch with a consultant who retired after working for the West Indies Rum Distillery. After trying our distillate and picking up on the banana note that the big producers dropped us for, he gave his comments with the distillery men and women. From there, we purchased a reverse osmosis unit to filter out minerals from our deep well. We filled our first barrels that year.

Giving credit where it’s due, we saw Don Papa had entered the market at that time, and the way they premiumized their brand played a big role into how we eventually positioned Luisita as a premium, honest-to-goodness rum as opposed to being a mass-market rum. It was important that we made that decision to stick to heritage, authenticity, and what the community stood for.

To increase production capacity, we first decreased capacity. We have three other columns, but they are fully stainless steel and cannot produce the kind of distillate we are looking for. Column #3, which is what we use for the rum, is all copper. The rest produce almost neutral spirit. Our consultant challenged us to lower the final proof of the distillate, and this cuts production into half. We did this to focus purely on creating a specific distillate that we found smelled and tasted good. Eventually, we started looking into fermentation: SOPs, temperatures, making the process stable, etc. Lots of attention to detail and returning to basics.

[Jigs]: What were the challenges you encountered as you started building the brand in the Philippines?

[Paco]: By looking at other existing brands, we knew where we wanted to position ourselves. Coming from wine, we were already familiar with the concept of terroir and the craftsmanship involved in doing things in a small way. We decided that we didn’t want to nor can operate on the level of volume. Don Papa operated in a new category of premium Philippine rum, so we wanted to be there, too – on the premium shelf. We knew that our distillate was of quality, so we followed Don Papa as they carried the torch to bring Philippine spirits in a particular direction.

Here’s a good anecdote for how difficult it was to begin the brand in the Philippines. There’s a certain government agency that is in charge of giving producers operational authority, and they sent an inspector to check the facility. I remember that she pointed out a problem: food in a manufacturing plant cannot touch wood. Wait ‘till she finds out that the rum is inside the wood, I thought. After we told her how we aged the rum, she was so shocked and lectured us about the food safety implications of the rum. She also told us about other production and labeling requirements that would make it difficult for us to acquire operational authority. We were new to the game in this area, so they weren’t familiar with barrel aging and the general process of making rum. 

I politely asked if I could show her how whisky and wine producers do it, and at the end of the day, she understood. It was challenging to explain the production process, but she took it really well, and eventually, we got the green light.

"The previous generations have left their mark; the mill and plantation are still here, and the estate is still surrounded by the same community comprising ten barangays or baryos. We want to give back and work with the people who work with the land, so in a way, this project is my homage to the Luisita estate."

[Jigs]: Tell us about how the estate produces sugarcane. What happens throughout the process, from choosing the cane varieties to when and how they are harvested?

[Paco]: Sugarcane production involves a 12-to-14-month crop rotation here in Tarlac and in the Philippines, in general. While we somewhat consider the quality of sugarcane varieties, including factors like the amount of fiber and juice purity, we select varieties based more on growing conditions rather than varietal constraints or influence. At any given time, we are officially growing 10 varieties, and after about 7-10 years, we replenish and bring in new varieties, which is done through the SRA (Sugar Regulatory Administration), a sub-department under the Philippine Department of Agriculture. We are not looking at it from a rum perspective; varieties are selected based on which will be most profitable for the famer. That, obviously, translates to higher quality sugarcane and sugarcane juice. For the molasses we use for Luisita, we choose specific varieties that have the highest sugar content once they ripen.

After the growing period comes the harvest. Sugarcane is actually just taken care of from the time it is planted up until the fourth or fifth month because at that point, tractors are no longer able to enter the fields. Carabaos, smaller tractors, and people on foot can be used, but after seven to eight months, the sugarcane stalks will get really heavy and fall. We take care of it but, eventually, just watch it grow. Of course, while sugarcane grows in some fields, we plant new sugarcane or harvest sugarcane in other fields. Traditionally, cutting is done by hand by people called sakadas or tabaqueros, and we still have that in Luisita. In 2014, that was my first role here; I joined a pangkat (or team) and cut and carried sugarcane. However, the advocacy of my father and his business partner was to mechanize these jobs using sugarcane harvesters. We divert the people to jobs like spot weeding, tractor operation, or nursery work that cannot be done by machines. Luisita has always been at the forefront of mechanical harvesters. Some people say that hand-cut sugarcane tastes better, but we don’t do that with Luisita because our rum is currently molasses-based. If we were to get into making a style similar to agricole, maybe hand-cutting sugarcane is something I would do.

[Jigs]: What process and equipment do you use for pressing the cane? How do you process the juice afterward?

[Paco]: The harvested sugarcane is dumped into the mill using old trucks that were used in the war. The six mills we use are the same that have been used since 1928; each mill has three rollers: one top roller and two bottom rollers. The fiber that is left after the juice is extracted becomes the bagasse that we use to fire up the boilers for the mill. To avoid throwing up ash into the air, we installed scrubbers that shoot water at the smokestack that collect particulates like mill ash, which is a good source of potassium that we then return to the farm. We’re not connected to the grid and are not getting any energy; it’s a closed-loop system.

The sugarcane juice then goes to the boiling house. Through steam from the boiler, the juice is cooked to evaporate the water and bring up the brix [a unit of measurement used for dissolved solids in liquid, typically dissolved sugar], and then the cooked syrup is sent to the centrifuge. At the start of each year, one sugar crystal is made and dropped into a centrifuge – think of it like the production of cotton candy that turns sugar crystals into big strands. The cooked juice or syrup is spun in the centrifuge, causing it to crystallize as extracted sugar. You can do this multiple times, and the final product that still has sugars but can no longer be crystallized is the blackstrap molasses. For our rum, though, we don’t use blackstrap molasses because we want to use molasses with more fermentable sugars, so we use other grades of molasses: A, B, and refinery molasses. We make the blend and send into the distillery for fermentation whatever we find tastes good – there’s no fanciness to it.

[Jigs]: What types of fermentation are currently used for Luisita rum? What kinds of yeasts and what temperature are used? How long is fermentation?

[Paco]: The fermentation facility comprises 800,000-liter enclosed fermentation vats. The current releases aren’t made with open fermentation – yet. We also don’t use wild yeast; we use a strain that’s been with us since, probably, the 80s. That was the last time we got a receipt from University of the Philippines Los Baños, which supplies yeast in the Philippines after sourcing from overseas, including other universities and the Canadian company Lallemand. Based on the receipt, the yeast is just your basic brewer’s yeast or Y2 strain. Interestingly, every time there was a good production year in terms of efficiency, the distillery men and women (we don’t call anyone master distillers) would get from the finished fermenter and put it back in the system. I guess this practice stems from the local knowledge in breeding fighting cocks; they probably figured that they can keep improving the yeast genetics that way. To avoid losing the strain of yeast we use, we keep the yeast in four locations: one in the mill, one in the lab, one in my house, and one in a fourth location unknown to me.

We like to keep fermentation of at least 30 degrees Celcius because that’s where the yeast is active. The fermentation times range anywhere between 22 and 26 hours, depending on the brix and TSAI (total sugars as invert) readings. As those readings go down, they plateau, showing that the yeast has finished doing its thing. Lots of people talk about longer fermentation times, especially the Jamaicans who are known for their signature funky style, so we tried pushing fermentation longer to see what happens, and it seems that there isn’t much of an effect when using a closed fermentation system. Recently, steam pressure issues in the mill resulted in a fermentation tank going for 30 hours; I tried it, but I think it came off a little too funky, perhaps because it might not be the proper way to execute long fermentation. It had unique yet rancid flavors and was no longer pleasant. Given all of this data, it seems that with our current setup, longer fermentation times are not possible unless we use alternatives like open fermentation.

[Jigs]: What kinds of stills do you use? Tell us about the distillation process.

[Paco]: We use a copper twin column still, each containing about 30 to 35 plates. We have a beer column, a purifier or aldehyde column in the middle, then the rectifier. Right after fermentation, the beer comes off at about 7-8% ABV, and this is fed into the beer still, where the beer is met with steam at the bottom that comes from the boiling house. Through temperature, it fractionates at different levels and different plates. In the beer column, the temperature is very high, so we already get a lot of the “tails,” though this term is more accurate for when using pot stills. The aldehyde column and condenser help capture some tails and heads. In the rectifier, at about the 60^th plate, we get the fine alcohol, which is at 78 degrees Celcius; we use probes to measure where that temperature is, and that’s where we get the rectified alcohol. It’s always been like this; we’re just getting the fine alcohol.

However, when we got into rum, we were introduced to propanol and methyl-acetate – congeners. We started seeing if we can find these in our distillate. We learned that the distilling setup of Saint Lucia Distillers is similar to ours because they use a column still, but they talk about producing four kinds of rum. This got me thinking, and it turns out that you can stick a pipe at each plate and see what comes out. So we invested in a gas chromatograph to tell us about the alcohol from different plates in our still. I kid you not: I have 70 pipes; I punctured every plate and tried the distillate. That’s now how we make the rum, and we’ve been doing this since 2020. None of the new-make is out in the market yet. It’s still a column distillate that’s light, but there’s much more to it. Some distillates from some locations, however, are not that palatable, whether because of having too much heads or tails.

Right now, we have at least three marques that we take from three separate points of the still. It changes because it’s always about location when it comes to column stills. This is why we always have a tasting team whenever we operate; sometimes, the marques we want might move to different plates. It’s a game of hide-and-seek with the column. It’s fun! Ever since we did that, our mindset changed because there are so many more flavors available. Column stills are so underrated. We run the still for about two to three weeks in a season of production, which is what we need so far, and then we stop.

[Jigs]: What general approach does the brand take in terms of maturation? How does that approach change for the brand’s different expressions?

[Paco]: With choosing what distillate to put into the barrels, I still believe in what our original consultant taught us, which is to stick with our unique tradition and heritage. He found that the Luisita style, which we don’t want to lose, has notes of brown sugar, overripe or candied banana, and citrus pith. I always look for those flavors when we taste.

As for the barrels, we already know what flavors ex-bourbon, ex-Oloroso, and ex-Pedro-Ximenez casks will impart, but we also have new barrels. With the new barrels, the flavor of the final product is still uncertain, but we can make a calculated guess by making sure our distillate is of quality and that we know what were previously in those barrels. Some barrel makers also ask for our distillate and for what flavors we’re generally after. The fun part of maturation comes after we put the rum in the barrel and give it time. We try it every six months to see when it’s ready, but the entire process is sensory-based.

[Jigs]: How do you decide when rum is ready for bottling or blending?

[Paco]: We score every barrel every six months. It’s not going to be sustainable when we get bigger and bring in more barrels, but for the time being, it’s good fun. Currently, we have about a thousand in inventory. From there, we select our single barrel range. For blending, which is for the Small Batch or the Reserva, we choose based purely on taste and let our imaginations run free, the same way chefs might think about food. Curiosity leads to trial and error. Eventually, we hit one that’s pretty damn good, so we just have to write the process down to know what quantities of which batches were used in the blend.

Afterward, I, our distillery men and women, and Rene Rosario, our “cellar master,” arrange a tasting with my father and his business partner, and we casually taste and score each blend or single barrel rum before deciding what will go into bottling and what information we’ll put on the labels. We take a wine-influenced approach with the vintages or crop years that we indicate on the bottles. Again, it’s all sensory, a lot of gut-feel. On a personal level, I believe that doing things this way gives justice to the sugarcane. My first love is still sugarcane farming, so the rum is great because it’s value-adding; a lot of our partners in the farm or our independent planters say that they don’t just plant mass-produced sugar but also plant quality rum.

[Jigs]: What process is/was used for the brand’s packaging?

[Paco]: It involves a lot of personal touch and craftsmanship, too. While people have called us out for not being focused on craft since we operate a large mill, I believe that craft just means being true to your style and skillfully doing so. Our labels and bottles also went through a process when we’d look at different bottles. We knew that “Luisita” would be the brand on the packaging because this is where we and the rum are from, and we wanted to emphasize the community and our traditions – we threw in all those elements in the bottle, from the liquid to the packaging.

I wish we had a machine that can help us label the single barrel labels. The sherry cask release consisted of more than 500 bottles, but there were only two members of our team who were really good at labeling and could reduce spoilage. We also had to do it manually because the labels were thick, and the same is true for all single barrel releases. Originally, we wanted to print the labels, too, because writing on the bottles is arduous, but it was going to be expensive, and we didn’t want to pass that unnecessary cost on. So we decided to keep it craft and cheap. We held a sort of contest where we had our team members write “I love Luisita Rum” on a board then chose one person who’ll be in charge of writing on the label. It’s pretty funny. For the Small Batch and other non-single-barrel releases, we now have a semi-automatic machine for labeling, though primarily because the paper is thinner.

We initially wanted to use natural cork since it’s cheaper. One day, while we were looking at corks, we were already setting aside natural corks and the stories that they’d tell. Then my dad opened a bottle of wine, and Mike, our consultant, noticed that the wine was corked. At that moment, synthetic cork became the automatic choice – we didn’t want to wait years for our rum to be ready only to deal with the issues that natural cork can cause.

[Jigs]: What is your vision for Luisita rum?

[Paco]: The vision for Luisita is, on the deepest level, being able to continue the community and what has been started here. The previous generations have left their mark; the mill and plantation are still here, and the estate is still surrounded by the same community comprising ten barangays or baryos. We want to give back and work with the people who work with the land, so in a way, this project is my homage to the Luisita estate. I was part of the founding team of the brand, and the ambition is to let the brand live for as long as it can; hopefully, it stays forever and can be a mainstay. Hopefully, people can look back at this conversation and other interviews and see the history surrounding it. By staying premium, authentic, and playing up the heritage and community, we’ll be able to fulfill that goal.

Luisita is also my way of showing what comes out of my neck of the woods, that it’s not just sugar, and uplifting it to the level alongside other premium Philippine products to show the world what we’re capable of. There’s a silent wave of global Filipino pride that aims to prove that we can produce world-class products, so the goal is to keep our rum of quality. 

[Jigs]: What is your perception of “quality”? How would you describe “a rum of good quality”?

[Paco]: It’s very sensory-oriented for me. Now, I don’t want to romanticize it and simply associate quality with taste; no, a lot of it is technical, and there’s a lot of math, chemistry, and studying that comes with it. As I explained, we already have the existing distillery, and I’m just a steward, so the philosophy for quality is rooted in that heritage. 

“Adulterated” is a strong word, but I believe that when a product, aged or not, veers away from the traditional way that it is made, the final product won’t surpass a product was made naturally or traditionally. Technologies that speed up aging, for example, are not going to have the same effect as leaving rum in a barrel for four, five, or six years. Even as I’ve grown my collection of rum, it’s easy to feel and taste which brands make rum with tradition, passion, and authenticity and which brands produce rum only for profit – though, of course, we all still have to earn a buck at the end of the day. You can also tell when someone does it for fun, so I like to keep the fun there even if the process is technical or arduous. I think the moment producers lose fun, quality might not drop, but they can only take their products so far. For me, fun involves a pursuit of flavor, so I believe that keeping that pursuit – whether expressed through experimenting, tasting, or blending – in my life will translate to what most people also take to be “quality” in rum.

[Jigs]: Among rum enthusiasts, rum from the Philippines is known to contain additives like sugar and color. What are your views on the practice of adding sugar, spices, or coloring to rum?

[Paco]: Actually, I have barrels of rum that have added sugar, but I had to do it because I wanted to know. I do enjoy some releases from Plantation, and I enjoy the Don Papa Sherry Cask – I believe they all have their respective place. Different styles exist, so what matters more to me is when brands are true to their own style. And while I get the allure of styles with additives, I wouldn’t do it.

For Luisita, quality will always still remain with simply expressing what time and the land are able to produce. We don’t want to try to control it too much; we just want to create the perfect conditions in every step and see what happens afterward. We’ve been approached by a few flavor houses to make spiced rum. Initially, when we were still new to the game, we were thinking about wanting to add some maple syrup flavors. We were shown that world of flavors and spices, and we tried playing around with it just so that we knew. However, we felt that it didn’t fit the style nor do our rum justice. We had waited so much time just to add spices, sugar, or color in – it doesn’t work for Luisita. Adding those things will cause Luisita, based on our vision for it, to no longer be a quality product. For other brands, if additives enhance their product, I get it. We would’ve done the same if additives enhanced our rum, but that’s not the case.

We were raised to recognize the value of the partnership with the farmers... [B]ecause of the rum, we are slowly able to offer more for molasses and increase profitability for the farmers and help them feel proud about planting the rum. That makes me happy, and being able to philosophically uplift the crop and the community brings me joy. 

[Jigs]: What is your view on cask management when aging rum in the Philippines? For you, how does age figure in quality?

[Paco]: Cask aging plays a very big factor. We were always told that it would be fast in a tropical country, but no one prepared us for exactly how fast that would be. Our Luisita Oro blend is just a two-year-old rum with some three-year-old in it; the color can be acquired in two years and will max out in three-and-a-half to four years in an ex-bourbon barrel. I don’t foresee having a barrel that’s older than 10 or 12 years only because it might be too woody unless it’s some of the newer make we had barreled in the last three years. In all, I’m glad the rum ages well here in Luisita. I’m still trying to understand the effect it’ll have. Here in Tarlac, we’re landlocked, so the humidity is like the rest of the country for six months of the year, but then we hit this dry period where the temperature will be as low as 16 to 22 degrees, especially in January and February, with relative humidity at 40 to 50 percent. That speeds up our aging process, so in a way, I’m happy that we’re in a tropical country. It allows us to do things faster and discover more flavors in our lifetime. This is also why I’m thinking of pushing out a few more blends because my fear is that the earlier batches we made, which used a lighter distillate, might get too woody if I let them age in the next two to four years. It’s aging faster than anyone could have ever warned us, and we were already warned by many people.

"In a way, I’m happy that we’re in a tropical country. It allows us to do things faster and discover more flavors in our lifetime."

In terms of cask management, we’re also now finding that the use of second- and third-fill barrels will help us slow the aging down. I’m thinking that maybe I’d want to release rum that will have an age statement as a novelty product, and those barrels can make that possible. The aging is slower, gentler, and has a completely different flavor profile – again, there’s fun with pursuing that idea. I wish we had a cooperage in the country so we could play around with native wood, but until that comes along, I have too much on my plate and can’t get into that. It’d be cool to try out barrels made from mango wood or tamarind wood. The possibilities are boundless, especially also because of the fast aging, and I can imagine the same to be true for other local producers. 

[Jigs]: I understand that the brand recently began distributing in Singapore. What approach do you take when deciding on how or where to build the brand overseas?

[Paco]: Originally, we were thinking of distributing to Europe – really, just to follow the footsteps of Don Papa – and countries like Italy, France, and Germany. Then, I was looking at other brands and joined online rum communities, and Singapore kept popping up. There seemed to be a strong community there. Population-wise, it’s not big, but I met someone who told me in the latter part of 2021 or early 2022 that Singapore is the “showroom of Asia.” I started digging into it more, and it appears that was the case. I know a lot of people in Singapore who work for multinationals, and they easily do business. Turns out, the same was true for spirits. It made sense to have the rum there as our first salvo so that other countries can see what we’re doing. True enough, in the year that we’ve been there, two other parties from different countries approached us with some interest in having their own single barrel. It’s kind of like a gateway to the rest of the world. 

After Singapore, we’re definitely eyeing surrounding countries like Japan, Taiwan, and Australia. Then, we’d go for Europe. Eventually, the United States would probably be the last stop. I went to the 2018 Miami Rum Festival in Florida, and there was a big tiki scene, too. It’ll take time, of course. 

[Jigs]: How would you synthesize what you enjoy the most about being the “farmer behind the brand”?

[Paco]: As cheesy and cliché as it would sound, it’s really the community. We have three core values for Luisita: community, heritage, and authenticity. Those were really instilled in me, growing up, coming from a family revolving around sugarcane and politics. We were raised to recognize the value of the partnership with the farmers. There’s satisfaction in knowing that because of the rum, we are slowly able to offer more for molasses and increase profitability for the farmers and help them feel proud about planting the rum. That makes me happy, and being able to philosophically uplift the crop and the community brings me joy. “Farmer behind the brand” is exactly who I am; I’ll never stop being a farmer, and it just so happens that I have a rum brand that comes with it. It all ties back to the farming and the community. A lot of the members of our team are from the same area, too.

For example, our 73-year-old cellar master’s first job at 18 years old was to work for the distillery, and he has no intention of leaving. Our General Manager, Chuchi, has also been with us since the ‘80s. Juvy, one of our distillery women, is the third generation in her family to work in the organization. There’s joy working with people I saw growing up, working with their children, and fostering all those relationships through the brand.

[Jigs]: Are there any developments with Luisita that you want readers to know about?

[Paco]: The big news is that we have a small pot still that just came in. It’s a new toy that’s gonna give us a lot of headaches, haha! We already distilled our first batch of water – this is the first step just to clean the pot still and learn about the still while avoiding costly mistakes.

As for releases, there will be more private cask releases. There has been some interest in it, so we’re really happy about that, too. The Small Batch will be coming out this year, 2023; it’s all ready to go apart from permits and taxes, so we just need to get those done. Some time next year, expect to see our new make on the market, but primarily for the bar scene and export. It’s funny: I started bringing unaged rum to classes and tastings just to show how the aged rum we sell is different, but a lot of people kept asking if the new make is in the market. It’s great feedback, though, so we’re already working toward that release. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but the pot still rum we’ll eventually release will be a game-changer. I’m excited to see what flavors can come from pot-distilling our molasses and perhaps even the use of open fermentation.

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This concludes my conversation with Paco about Luisita. As I’ve personally expressed to him, I’m grateful for the time and passion he has shared with me and with readers; the depth of knowledge presented in this series of reviews will not exist without him agreeing to chat in the first place.

As someone who has fallen head-over-heels with rum, I am thrilled to finally have a local Philippine rum brand that I can rally behind, one that gives me hope for seeing Philippine rum on the map as a category that holds its own against the existing giants in the rum industry. The best part of my elation? The rum, itself, is consistently far from mediocre.

Unless otherwise stated, all images are courtesy of Jigs Alonzo/@thebrowndram.

The Brown Dram

A Filipino living in Metro Manila, Jigs is a whisky and rum enthusiast. His passion for spirits has led him to develop interests in photography and, now, writing. Reach him and check out his work on Instagram @thebrowndram!