Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Dominican rum: Brugal is your top choice

The Dominican Republic is known for a few things that the country does really well.  Currently the list probably starts with baseball and then cigars, or cigars and then baseball.  Tourism has become one of the top three industries in the country, so the beaches and golf course are also identifying characteristics of the country.

And along with these four things, add rum, and particularly Brugal rum, to the top five things the country is known for.  The Side Dish recently put out an article in that featured Brugal and the production process of the Dominican rum.  The Dominican Baseball Guy agrees with the article, in the sense that Brugal is the most important and most popular spirit in the Dominican Republic.

Brugal is definitely the drink of choice in the DR, along with Presidente beer.

Typically people buy the one liter, cheapest version of Brugal, the white rum. It costs about 5 dollars if I remember correctly. Dominicans head to a colmado (a Dominican convenient store/bar), buy a bottle with 3 plus friends, and sit around in a circle and pass it around, drinking strait from the bottle, typically no chasers.

I tried to buy a Coke the first few times, then started to realize that buying a Coke is two dollars and the rum is five dollars.  Most people do not have the budget to buy the Coke, and would rather spend a little more and just get the Rum.  So, I stopped spending two dollars on Cokes because it seemed like it was almost offensive spending that much in front of someone that may live off $5-10 per day.

I often bought a Presidente after this, just to have something to wash it down a little.  Then my Dominican friends would say I was a drunk, drinking rum and beer back to back.  So, I really could not win in that dilemma.

I would say this process repeated itself four to five times per week over the four plus months I was in the country.  And the process repeats itself a million times over, every day in the Dominican Republic.  Brugal of course is always a good accompaniment for Dominican baseball games too.

Brugal rum IS the rum in the Dominican Republic: ubiquitous and tasty and Dominican to it's core.
The Dominican Baseball Guy drinking the famous Dominican rum, Brugal.  A typical night in the
Dominican Republic: six guys sitting in a circle passing around a bottle of Brugal.

1 comment:

  1. Getting amongst the people and trying local things makes the experience even more authentic. Brugal and a group of mates = fun!

    ReplyDelete

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