Pernod Ricard has released 1,000 bottles of a Havana Club expression in honour of the Cuban brand’s late rum maker.
The new Havana Club Don Navarro was created in tribute to the late José Pablo Navarro Campa, who received the title of ‘primer maestro del ron Cubano’ (first master of Cuban rum) in 2000. He died in September 2020.
The brand said Navarro had devoted 50 years of his life to making rum and had pushed boundaries in Cuban rum, including the creation of Havana Club 7 in the 1970s using continuous ageing techniques.
Anne Martin, global marketing director for the brand, said: “It’s an honour to pay tribute to the father of Cuban rum as only we know how and enjoy it today with an extraordinary offering from the Havana Club cellars.
“When we welcomed all the maestros to our San José Distillery, we remembered don Navarro who used to say that ‘rum is not born from a magical combination. It is a cultural heritage that is transmitted from maestro to maestro, from heart to heart, from Cuban to Cuban’.”
The 40% ABV expression is made from a collection of aged rums from Havana Club’s reserves, including the base of Centenario, created by Navarro more than 40 years ago.
The resulting liquid offers a nose of dried fruit, honey and bitter chocolate, leading to flavours of nuts, spices, chocolate, tobacco and coffee.
Don Navarro will be available in Cuba for RRP US$125 from October 2022. In the UK, it will be sold exclusively through The Whisky Exchange from November 2022, priced at RRP £130 (US$146).
The brand claims to be the third-biggest rum in the world outside the US and the leader in super-premium-and-above rums. The Cuban rum sold more than 4.6 million cases in the year ending June 2022.
Last month, the Pernod Ricard-owned brand created a new digital platform for consumers to redesign its Havana Club 7 label.