A super-premium rum of exceptional quality. This Gran Reserva 23 is Matusalem's premium expression of Solera aged rum and adored for its delightful smoothness, well balanced with traces of honey, vanilla and molasses with a spiced and lasting finish.
- Distillery: Matusalem
- Type: Dark Rum
- Region: Dominican Republic
- Alcohol: 40%
- Volume: 700ml
- Goes with: Neat or over ice
This is Matusalem's premium expression of Solera aged rum, the 23 Gran Reserva. The company was once based in Santiago de Cuba, but have since moved to the Dominican Republic. They Solera age the majority of their rum to ensure their characteristic flavour remains the same from bottle to bottle. Which is good, because it's rather tasty indeed.
Matusalem & Company was founded in 1872 by brothers by Benjamin and Eduardo Camp, who left Spain to settle in Santiago De Cuba to create their own rum distillery. The Camp brothers brought with them their knowledge and expertise in the solera system of blending and distillation used in making brandy and sherry.
After the Cuban revolution in 1959, the family and the Matusalem brand went into exile, and was established in the United States. However, the Cuban government carried on making rum in the former Matusalem factory in Santiago de Cuba.
Many family feuds followed the family’s leave from Cuba. In 1995 Dr. Claudio Alvarez Salazar, the great-grandson of the founder, took control of the Matusalem trademark, and in 2002, Matusalem & Company was relaunched. The brand wanted to focus on its Cuban roots, though the rum is produced in the Dominican Republic. In 2016 the brand also opened its own ageing and bottling facilities in the Dominican Republic.
The name Matusalem is Spanish for Methuselah, the Old Testament patriarch said to have lived for 969 years. It was chosen as a reference to the solera ageing process used in producing the rum.