Today in Cocktail Culture the first part of the history of my favorite rum “LA HECHICERA”.
LA HECHICERA (etch-ee-seh-rah) is a fine blend of rums of 12 to 21 years of age, gracefully matured in American white oak casks. Straight from Colombia’s exuberant Caribbean coast. Spanish for “enchantress”, this rum celebrates the seductive beauty of Colombia’s natural landscape, the vibrant biodiversity of our Caribbean and the irreverent allure of a nation.
“Rum, just like a person, is appreciated more for its maturity than for its age”
Miguel Riascos Noguera
Founder and President of Casa Santana, COLOMBIA
LA HECHICERA comes from Colombia, the most bio-diverse nation on Earth per square kilometre.
It is a country nestled between two majestic oceans and marked by three mountain ranges that protect a myriad of ecosystems, with tropical rainforests, cloud forests, mountain steppes, deserts and plains. Colombia is filled with incredibly diverse pockets of culture and is a melting pot of races, music, dances and colors.
FAMILIA
For three generations, the Riascos family have been creating fine rums in Colombia for over two decades with uncompromising dedication to quality and taste.
Travelling around the Caribbean sourcing the finest raw spirits, finding the richest casks, attracting the most talented master blenders, the family has created a signature style with a very peculiar history.
LA BODEGA – CASA SANTANA
At the heart of Barranquilla, nestled between the long-winding Magdalena River and the Caribbean Sea, is an unassuming little bodega that has been ageing and blending the best rum in Colombia for over twenty years. It is an oasis of silence in the midst of a bustling city where our barrels rest under the watchful eye of the Maestro Ronero.
MAESTRO RONERO
La Hechicera is the result a labour intensive process that not only demands knowledge and craft, but also a good deal of intuition. An intuition the Master Blender has honed with the holistic understanding of the barrel, atmosphere, spirit and time.
Giraldo Mituoka Kagana started his career cutting sugar cane for the Cuban revolution and has, since then, been perfecting his knowledge of sugar and its distillates in order to become Master Blender.
The son of Japanese immigrants, Giraldo combines the precision of the samurai with the effervescence.
RITUAL
LA HECHICERA
is a naturally ‘unpolished’ rum, which means it has not been rounded up with additives or sugar, its smoothness and flavour are the result of the noble wood it is aged in. This is the traditional way of making rum that does not require any polishing or ‘finishing’, any additive would only opaque its innate brilliance.
LA HECHICERA’s flavour profile is exactly what we expect rum to be; deep woodiness with characterful notes of things Colombian; a heady scent of toffee and orange peel on the nose followed by a bold burst of flavour on the palate with distinctive notes of tobacco and roasted coffee. Is ending is crisp and smooth.
Cheers! 💀☠