German Importer Shifts Focus to Smaller Panamanian Rum Producers After snag with Industry Giants
PANAMA CITY,Panama – Delicious Berlin,a Berlin-based importer,is recalibrating its strategy for sourcing Panamanian rum after encountering obstacles with the country’s largest producers. Sebastian gollas of Delicious Berlin determined that neither Panama’s PILSA nor Varela Hermanos, the maker of Ron Abuelo, were suitable partners due to their large-scale operations and sales requirements.
During a May 2025 visit to Panama City, Gollas met with representatives from PILSA, one of Panama’s leading rum producers, boasting a stock of approximately 20,000 barrels. He was guided through a tasting of their offerings, including Panama Pacífico 5 Años, an eight-year-old rum, and a cask-strength rum aged in Cardenal Mendoza barrels and finished in PX casks - a spirit Gollas expressed interest in acquiring.
However, PILSA’s sales model, focused on container-sized purchases, proved incompatible with Delicious Berlin’s needs. “At PILSA, sales are made by the container – selling just a few barrels isn’t of interest to such a large producer,” the text recounts.Despite initial price discussions, Gollas did not receive promised follow-up data.
This led him to reconsider a planned visit to Varela Hermanos, concluding that the company was “an even bigger player” and therefore not the right scale for Delicious Berlin.
“We’ll probably have to look for smaller producers in Panama,” Gollas concluded, signaling a shift in focus toward more nimble suppliers capable of fulfilling smaller, specialized orders.
Delicious Berlin, located at Pariser Str. 54, 10719 Berlin, Germany, can be reached at +49/3056596618 or via their website: https://www.delicious-berlin.com.
