Description: We took a taxi to Puerto Plata, which is often the best transportation here on the north coast of the DR. It was about a 45-minute drive from Cabarete, past all sorts of Dominican countryside. We especially saw sugarcane fields, which we appreciated, since our first stop was the Brugal rum plant.
The plant tour is very brief. Brugal is a family-owned rum manufacturer. They harvest the sugarcane, then press it to extract the juice, which is then processed into molasses. The molasses is distilled into 96% alcohol. The alcohol is then cut with water to produce the 80 proof (40%) rum we are used to.
Between these steps, the juice and rum is sent between various locations via truck and train. Most of the processing is done outside Santo Domingo. Finished rum is shipped back to Puerto Plata, where it is primarily bottled. They were not clear where it is actually added to water or where it is aged, although the travel guides stress that it is only bottled in Puerto Plata.
The tour begins with a video explaining all of this, which lasts about 20 minutes. It is pretty well done and interesting. Then your guide takes you into the bottling plant, where you can watch workers bottle and case the rum. We saw four or five running bottling lines, first the bottles being washed and sanitized, rinsed, then filled with rum, capped, plastic around the cap put on, and finally labelled and cased. We walked down the length of the bottling line. After we exited the bottling room, we were met with a small daiquiri, and the opportunity to buy rum (which, at about $4 or $5 a bottle, we picked up four 750ml bottles of). The daiquiri was rum, lime juice, and creme de menthe, which was a little bit strange, but enjoyable.
After we finished at the plant, we headed down the Malecon, which is the road that goes down along the water and has all the restaurants and clubs along it.
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