Venezuela’s DUG Group is targeting the super-premium end of the rum category with a new brand that has been lined up for an international release this month.
Ron Tepuy, which is produced by the company’s Destilería Unidas unit in Venezuela, comprises two expressions that have been designed to “offer a different point of view on Venezuelan super-premium rum”, the company said. DUG agreed the sale almost four years ago of its Diplomático rum brand to Brown-Forman for an undisclosed sum.
Rolling out in the coming weeks in France, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US, the range consists of:
- Destino, an eight-year-old kettle-distilled rum, matured in American oak and then finished for an unspecified period in ex-amontillado sherry with an ABV of 40%, and
- Monumento, a 12-year pot still blend, aged in ex-bourbon and then finished in a mix of ex-Pedro Ximenez, -amontillado and -oloroso casks, also at 40% ABV
Financial details were not immediately available.
“Ron Tepuy is our tribute to both a love of Venezuela and our family’s rum legacy,” said DUG CEO José Rafael Ballesteros Meléndez. “We have created something inspired by our country’s spectacular nature and the generations of craftsmanship that have shaped our journey.”
Elsewhere in rum this week, Stoli Group’s Bayou brand was the subject of a recipe update. The Louisiana rum’s brace of expressions also benefitted from a packaging refresh, backed by an “aggressive new pricing model”.
