This morning we took two tours of family businesses. First, we toured a pottery business located in a family home. The parents and grown children throw, paint, and fire pots. They also make decorative items made with slabs of clay. All family members live there.
Next we went to a bakery. Employees often work for eight hours with hardly any breaks. We got to make some fancy braided rolls, then they were baked. We enjoyed eating the hot rolls.
Some of our group were dropped off at the hotel, then the rest of us went on an optional tour of Abuelo Rum Distillary. First, we went to the old family home and heard about the beginning of the business. Next, we rode by the sugar cane fields in oxen-pulled wagons, then we tasted ice-cold sugar cane juice. Before lunch we enjoyed drinking the colorful orange and red welcoming mixed fruit and rum drinks. After lunch we toured the rum aging warehouses with thousands of used oak barrels bought from Jack Daniels. Then our the factory guide took us where the cane is pressed to extract the cane juice. We saw the fermenting tanks, distillation towers, pipes, and other equipment used in the process. After we left the building, we went back to the visitor center and learned how to taste the four types of rum. They make five-year, 7-year, 12-year, and 30-year (Centurian) rum. There was a definite difference in the rums. As they aged, they tasted more mellow.
We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. They served salad, wine, and trays of pasta with three kinds of sauce served family style. We returned to the hotel where there was a wedding happening. Our rooms were assigned away from the reception area because the celebration would last until 1:00 A.M.
Kiln at family pottery business in La Arena
Oven at bakery La Arena
Abuelo Rum aging in used Jack Daniels barrels
Tasting all four types of Abuelo Rum