A known adventurer and explorer, José Varela Blanco left his native town of Betanzos in Spain to travel to the Americas, where he finally established himself in Pesé, Herrera province, Panama.

In 1908 he established the country’s first sugar mill and gave his sons the freedom to begin crafting the world’s finest aged rums. From the start, he established a different kind of family company.

He brought local communities together, respected the land and looked after his workers.He inspired the people around him and the generations after him.  Today, as always, Abuelo continues to be inspired and to inspire a new generation of rum pioneers.

A­fter more than 100 years, we continue to operate in the same territory.

Currently, 1,600 hectares of our own sugarcane are harvested annually during the Panamanian summer. After the milling process, we ferment during 48 hours molasses for our most complex rums and sugarcane juice for our lighter rums. We distill with a traditional column with copper head proceeding, after that, to the aging process.

We currently have over 100,000 American white oak 200 L barrels, all first fill Bourbon ”no. 1 Select”. In addition, there is a special barrel selection for our “Finish Collection”. In our warehouses two aging systems are used: “Vintage Pallet” and “Solera” where rums that have been aged for more that 40 years are stocked. The Ron Abuelo categories are the result of the blend between our most exquisite rums and our precious family reserves, declaring the weighted average on their labels.