Tipsy Timeline: The Curious History of Don Q Rum

What kind of rum is in your pina colada? It better be Don Q, the top selling rum in Puerto Rico, where they know about rum (more than 70 percent of the world’s rum is produced on the tiny Caribbean island). What makes it so popular remains a mystery (it could be the secret formula, which allegedly includes water from a river that winds through Puerto Rico’s volcanic region). Or maybe It was the creation of the pina colada, allegedly first poured 1954 by bartender Ramon “Mochito” Marrero, and made with Don Q. Whatever the case, the brand is still going strong almost 200 years later. Let’s go back to the beginning. [pagebreak]

The Don Q story stars back in 1820, when Juan Sebastian Serralles relocated from Spain and settled in Ponce, Puerto Rico. There, he founded the family’s first sugar cane plantation. Four years later, his son, Don Juan Serralles founded his own sugar can planation and then four years after that, produced his first ever cask of rum. That same year, 1865, he sold it for the first time. Don Q is born.

In the 1930s, Don Juan’s son, Juan Eugenio, completes the Castillo Serralles, a castle on a hill in Ponce. It’s where the family lives for the next 70 years and it remains an iconic building and a tourist hot spot in Ponce. Three years later, prohibition ends and the Serralles family really gets to work.

Just one year later, 1934, Don Q is officially launched in the general market. It’s named after Don Quixote, the family’s favorite fiction character. They say that “just as Quixote represents the search for a perfect world, Don Q signifies the family’s quest for perfection in rum.” [pagebreak]

In the 30s, the family builds a brand new distillery and continues to expand. Through the 40s and 60s, Uncle Tito becomes famous for renting an entire island (Caja de Muerto off Puerto Rico’s coast) to throw lavish parties that spotlight his own rum, Uncle Tito’s Pirate Rum. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Don Q expands again: acquiring Puerto Rican Distillers, Inc. and introducing new flavors including Don Q Cristal and Don Q Limon.

In the aughts, the family began to modernize again. Roberto Serralles comes back into the fold after a PhD in Environmental Sciences and creates a waste reclamation process that Don Q claims makes it one of the “greenest spirits producers in the world.”

The rest is hazy, tipsy history. In the last few years, Don Q has racked up countless “Best of” awards and continues to build its presence in the U.S. and abroad. Well deserved, we say; we happily stock it in our bar. Salud!