The Story
The Ron Colón story begins in 2018 with two fellow friends, Thurman Wise and Pepijn Janssens. With a combined 20 years of experience in the spirits industry, Janssens and Wise spent a lot of time traveling the world and exploring new markets for emerging brands. In 2018, that very job led them on a 22-day barhop tour of Latin America, traveling to 16 countries. One small country on that trip stuck with them: El Salvador (“Sivar” in slang).
El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, located on the Pacific coast and bordering Honduras and Guatemala. The state is known to many for its complex political history, marked by a brutal civil war from 1980-1992.
Unbeknownst to most, however, this country stands out for magnificent volcanoes, world-class surf spots and incredible produce – El Salvador produces outstanding sugar cane and excellent coffee.
The trip to El Salvador sparked the desire to create a product that reflects the true face of the country – the magnificent and colorful “Sivar”.
The name Ron Colon
In the early 16th century, Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado named the newly discovered province of El Salvador (El Salvador translated means “The Savior”) after Jesus Christ.
In 1892, the government of President Carlos Ezeta decided that the Salvadoran peso should be called the “Colón” – a tribute to Christopher Columbus. The colón remained El Salvador’s currency until 2001, when it was replaced by the U.S. dollar.
Ron Colón want to pay tribute to the old “Colón”, so you can find the old banknotes on our bottle label and the unique coin is part of the cork and can be removed and collected.
Coffee and El Salvadore
Since 1880, coffee has been El Salvador’s largest export product. The country is predestined for the cultivation of coffee plants, they thrive there at tremendous altitudes next to volcanic mountains and in a warm climate.
The coffee farms of Jags Head Coffee are located on the mountain top of the Santa Ana Volcano. This is part of the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range, which is one of the most famous areas of El Salvador.
The Trigueros family has been growing coffee there for more than 150 years. They own a total of four farms, all of which are located between 1200 and 2830 meters above sea level. The variety of coffee beans is large: “Bourbon” (Red, Orange, Pink and Dwarf), “Pacamara”, “Caturra” and many other varieties.
The plantations are managed by Tomas Trigueros and his teams in El Salvador. The freshly harvested coffee beans are shipped to North Carolina to the company’s own roastery, where his son Andres Trigueros does the roasting. Each bean is personally inspected and then approved by Tomas before its journey to the U.S.
The goal with Ron Colón Salvadoreño Coffee Infused Rum is to bring out all the flavors of the El Salvadoran coffee beans – which is why it also completely eliminates the addition of sugar.
Packaging
For the producers of Ron Colón, the content of the bottle, the “liquid gold” is the focus. For this reason, they decided against fancy mold bottle designs and opted for an unspectacular wine bottle. The important thing here is that wine glass is 100 percent recyclable and can be reused an infinite number of times without losing quality or purity.
In the design of the label, the former currency “Colón” was brought to life in a whole new way.
