53: Behind the Scenes at Don Q Rum & Destilería Serrallés with Liza Cordero and Silvia Santiago

In this episode, we sat down with Don Q's new master blender Liza Cordero and maestra ronera Silvia Santiago to dive deep into an iconic distillery of Puerto Rican rum. Although Liza only recently became master blender, she's worked at the distillery for nearly two decades, and Silvia has been there for 48 years. There's an absolute wealth of knowledge between the two of them, so we hit a bunch of different topics, including...

• Don Q's single barrel and cask finish releases (and what we'll see next)

• The distillery's production process and approach to blending

• Why they choose not to sweeten their rums

• The differences in their light rums and heavy rums

• The Sherry cask solera that's been at the distillery as long as anyone can remember (and how it gives them a unique blending component)

• The role of intuition in blending

• The perils of molasses sourcing

• A humble request for higher proof rums

• And more!

This is the photo of the rum pilot plant scientists mentioned toward the end of the episode:

Additional Resources on Don Q:

• Check out Matt Pietrek’s article on the distillery’s history and production process at Cocktail Wonk

• Don Q’s website

P.S. Did you know you can support The Rumcast on Patreon now and get cool extra stuff? You can! Head to patreon.com/therumcast to check it out.