This past weekend I attended the NY Rum Fest for the first time, and it was a fantastic experience. Imagine a conference room lined with about 30 tables, each representing a different company, and some offering upwards of 20 different bottles for tasting. Obviously, I could not try everything; even pacing myself and only taking small sips, I feel like I made it through less than a third of the bottles on offer. I will definitely be coming back next year. Cane juice aguardiente I took plenty of notes, but I wanted to start by spotlighting one company in particular: Nicoya. Their table stood out because Pierre Bardinet pulled a Hampden Estate and actually brought Nicoya's individual unaged marques for us to taste. Nicoya currently produces three marques: aguardientes of cane juice, cane syrup (aka cane honey), and molasses. Instead of using the much more common continuous multi-column setup, each ferment is batch-distilled in copper pot stills and then re-distilled in a copper column. These components are ultimately blended to create both their Blanco and Añejo expressions. Pierre let me try all three marques. Cane juice: Immediately reminiscent of Haitian cane spirits like Clairin Sajous. Vegetal, peppery, fruity, and sharp. Cane syrup: This one was more complex. There was still some vegetal notes, but now it was more deep, robust, and smoky, like Clairin Le Rocher, or Caña Criolla from The Rums of Mexico, with an aftertaste of buttered popcorn. Cane molasses: Interestingly, on the nose and initial palate, this one was the most subdued. Just typical notes of column still rum, but it had a deep umami note to it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. After trying each individually, I asked to have all three mixed together. The result was like an orchestra, where the cane juice was the top note, cane syrup was the melody, and molasses was the bass. Then I asked for more molasses because you always need more bass. It was actually incredible, and had it not been near the end of rum fest with a few more tables to visit, I would have stayed and played around with the blending some more. It was so fun! What other producer lets you taste cane juice, cane syrup, and molasses rums all produced from the same place in the exact same way, side-by-side? History Taboga is a new, small-scale distillery in Costa Rica, but its roots stretch much further back. Taboga Sugar Factory Harvesting sugarcane at Taboga. The Sanchez estate was established in 1916, and the Taboga Sugar Factory followed in 1958. It is an institution in Costa Rica, responsible for 20% of the country's sugar production. They also have operated an industrial alcohol distillery and have been exporting alcohol to Europe since 1997. In 2019, Taboga expanded its operations by opening Destilería Artesanal Taboga to produce artisanal rum. It's important to note that in Costa Rica, the state holds a monopoly on alcohol production. Fábrica Nacional de Licores (FANAL) has historically held the exclusive right to produce and distribute alcohol domestically, and they are likely to be the source of the distillate for Ron Centenario, the dominant rum brand from Costa Rica. Les Bienheureux Alexandre Sirech previously worked for Pernod Ricard, helping to revitalize the Cuban rum export business with Havana Club, before transitioning into the wine industry with his wife. In 2013, he partnered with Jean-François Moueix to found Les Bienheureux. They immediately dove into rum, releasing a cachaça and a cocoa rum in 2014, followed by Embargo in early 2015, and El Pasador de Oro in late 2015 (which I have previously reviewed). Crucially, none of these early rums were distilled in-house. They were sourced, blended, and finished in France. A similar approach was taken with their French whiskey brand, Bellevoye, which became a top-seller in France after being finished in cognac casks. From both a production and consumer preference standpoint, the French clearly possess a deep affinity for cognac cask finishing. Nicoya Pierre Bardinet joined Les Bienheureux in 2020. During a 2021 trip to Costa Rica, he decided that Taboga would be the ideal location for Les Bienheureux to begin distilling rum. Their guiding philosophy was to build a true single-estate distillery, a narrative that you will see throughout Nicoya's marketing and literature. They boldly claim, "Costa Rica deserved a great rum, and so we created Costa Rica's first rum distillery!", a direct jab at Ron Centenario. However, as you'll see, their claims of breaking the state monopoly and creating a single-estate distillery... have some nuances. The Pura Vida and Nicoya bottles. Products The Taboga distillery produces Ron 1916 and industrial alcohol as house brands, while producing Pura Vida and Nicoya specifically for Les Bienheureux. I don't know if Pura Vida remains a separate brand or if it underwent a direct rebranding into Nicoya in 2024, though I suspect the latter. Production Fermentation The distillery ferments its three marques (cane juice, cane syrup, and molasses) separately. Fermentation is strictly temperature-controlled between 28-32°C, and they use a commercial yeast strain from Lallemand. Distillation Stills at the Taboga distillery. The three components are batch-distilled separately in 5,000L copper pot stills, then re-distilled through a 14-plate copper column still. The cane juice is distilled to a final ABV of 82%, while the syrup and molasses are distilled to a final ABV of 88% ABV. Marketing photos reveal at least one column still and two pot stills on site, though there may be more outside the frame. Aging Each marque is aged individually, primarily in young ex-bourbon barrels sourced from Green River (Tennessee) and Wild Turkey (Kentucky). Roughly half of their inventory consists of first-fill barrels. These factors impart a heavier oak and vanilla influence. The XA expression, and perhaps others, are also finished in cognac casks in France. Oliver Dumont is the Cellar Master at Nicoya. Pierre is quick to declare that he feels that age statements are overrated. You might notice a lack of age statements across the Nicoya lineup. Neither the Añejo, XA, XO, etc. This caught my attention, particularly since Les Bienheureux's other major release, El Pasador de Oro, is a solera-aged product sourced from DARSA (the same distillery behind Zacapa) before being finished in France. I reached out to Pierre for clarification on this philosophy: > Q: None of the Nicoya expressions carry an age statement. Can you explain the reasoning for that decision? Was it a philosophical choice, or are some expressions solera aged and therefore don't have a true age statement? > A: Rum is a category with no rules in which the consumer is misleaded with false statements. When it comes to ageing, I'm often surprised to see some 15 to 30 'years old rums' produced in some countries with 10% evaporation per year. These competitors use the age of the oldest drop in the blend as the 'reference' year. Our rums are young and proud to be young. We have no dogma on the age our añejo can be 6 month, 1 year or 3 years old, we bottle it when we considered that it has an age profile with the oakiness well balanced with the rum. We use no solera. While I don't necessarily agree with the blanket statement that rum has "no rules", I understand the sentiment. In a separate interview with Taste the Dram, Pierre reinforced this perspective, stating: Stop asking 'how old is it?' and start asking 'where does it come from?' Single Estate & Terroir Nicoya heavily emphasizes its single-estate origins, frequently marketing itself as Costa Rica's only "cane-to-bottle" rum. Terroir is clearly central to Nicoya's identity. However, this raises an interesting point: all Nicoya expressions are shipped to France for bottling, and some expressions, such as XA (Extra Añejo), are finished in cognac casks in France. I reached out to Pierre about this for comment: > Q: The single-estate terroir is clearly central to Nicoya's identity. How do you think about the cognac cask finishing in France for the XA in that context? > A: We see the cognac ageing in France as a 'terroir' approach because it reveals through the rum the philosophy of the makers who came originally from the wine/cognac world before entering the rum category. It's an interesting defense. Given that the founders are French, their expertise is in cognac, they built their success on cognac-finished whiskey, the finishing process is essentially an expression of the makers' terroir. Though, in my opinion, if the story is how much the land matters, shipping your rum to France for finishing works against that narrative. Similarly, while Nicoya's total transparency regarding their 12g/L dosage is highly commendable, the addition of sugar presents another deviation from their claims of absolute purity. The Monopoly Nicoya's marketing leans heavily on their role as industry disruptors. I am quoting their promotional material directly: > How could this great nation not have its own rum? > Alcoholic beverages were exclusively controlled by a state monopoly. By demonstrating to the authorities, the quality of the rums we could produce and export, we changed the legislation. NICOYA is therefore the first Costa Rican rum in history! This claim is pretty extraordinary, and so I did some fact-checking. I could not find what the exact legal changes were, nor that the monopoly changed. It appears that, since the 1990s, the monopoly simply softened, and now it's more like a concession system in practice. Taboga has possessed a license to distill industrial alcohol for decades, built an artisanal rum distillery 2 years before employees of Les Bienheureux set foot in the country, and claiming to be the "first Costa Rican rum in history" is a massive stretch when Ron Centenario has been the country's dominant brand for much longer. Last Thoughts On a final note, lot of this information has only been possible because Pierre was very responsive and engaged openly with my questions, and he even sent me a full media package and several powerpoints. I've reached out to the makers of Zacapa and Dictador and have gotten no response, so I greatly appreciate Pierre's knowledge and accessibility. References I have used the following sources for the information in this article: Marketing material provided by Les Bienheureux Direct messaging with Pierre Bardinet About Us - Taboga(https://www.taboga.cr/about-us) \Brand Focus \ The success story of Les Bienheureux - Rumporter(https://rumporter.com/en/brand-focus-the-success-story-of-les-bienheureux/) “Taste the Place: Why Nicoya Is Pushing Rum Beyond Age Statements” - Taste the Dram(https://www.tastethedram.com/single-post/2026/04/04/nicoya-rum-interview-single-estate-costa-rica/)

Matt Pietrek traveled the world, visited countless distilleries, and wrote a medical textbook-sized book on them. Luca Gargano traveled the world and gave us Caroni. I went to my local distillery in Brooklyn. Have you seen airline ticket prices these days? History Standard Wormwood is a pretty small operation in Industry City, a converted industrial complex in Sunset Park. Founded in 2006 by Sasha Selimotic and Taras Hrabowsky, the distillery is dedicated to a single ingredient: wormwood. Their website says they grow it on their own farm in Orange County, New York, and they use it as an aromatic component to a variety of spirits, including, but far from limited to, absinthe. They claim on their website that they are (perhaps?) the only distillery and full cocktail bar in the world that makes every single cocktail ingredient in-house. Production View from the lounge. View from the bar. The distillery floor is small but busy. By the windows up against the bar are what I believe are two stills. One appears to be a hybrid batch still with a 5-plate column head, with additional copper and steel segments nearby that may be swappable configurations. The other is a smooth steel column still, likely used for producing more rectified spirits. It all looks very modular and configurable, and it's unclear whether they share a boiler or whether it's two truly separate stills. They only produce one rum, Standard Wormwood Rum, and I have reviewed it. The menu describes it as > High ester rum distilled with wormwood. Vapour infused with tropical fruits to give funky pineapple and banana undertones. It sounds to me like they distill their base rum with wormwood present in the still, and then pass the distillate vapors through a botanical basket packed with tropical fruit before condensing? I'm not sure if that's right, but it would be akin to a gin-style vapor infusion applied to rum. I remember when I emailed Hovdenak distillery in Iceland for information about their rum, they told me that they actually buy molasses from Jamaica and then ferment it to be funky, and I thought that this was really cool. Taras told me that the distillery originally also sourced Jamaican molasses and fermented it themselves, but that they've since moved away from that, as the fermentation was labor-intensive, took up significant space in a small facility, and didn't even save them very much money over simply buying bulk rum from a bulk supplier. They now source from Ultra Pure. Looking at Ultra Pure's catalog on bulkalcohol.com, one product jumps out at me immediately: > Jamaican Power Blender (Origin: Jamaica) > Blend of small batch pot still rums. Flavor profile: banana, pineapple, papaya, mango, and coconut. Intended for use in 5-15% concentrations with a base spirit. So the base spirit is a light column still rum from USVI, a la Captain Morgan. In other words, Ultra Pure's product is itself already a blend: a small proportion of high-ester Jamaican pot still rum mixed into a lot of cheap USVI column still rum, essentially the same principle as Rum Verschnitt (which is when German blenders imported small quantities of high-ester Jamaican rum and diluted it with neutral spirit, to stretch the funkiness of a small amount of Jamaican rum across a larger volume). Standard Wormwood then takes this pre-blended base, redistills it through their hybrid still with wormwood, and passes the vapors through a fruit basket. Taras told me that Ultra Pure does not disclose which individual Jamaican distilleries the rums in the blend are from. It might be a bit of a shame, because making your own fermentation rich in acids to make it funky sounds totally radical! But, their final product is still very unique. It's a funky Jamaican-style rum with the bitter finish of Malört, and it makes nice mixed drinks. Though, for the price, I can't really say it's a good value, when you can buy a 1L bottle of Planteray 3 Stars and 1L Spike's Breezeway Blend combined for the same price as a 750mL of this rum. But I get it, it's artisanal, small batch rum distilled in NYC. The bartenders were really friendly and knowledgable, and I do recommend Industry City for the vibes, and while you're there,you might as well stop by for a good rum cocktail.