It is said that her father is also behind the fact that Gabriela will start making rums, where she will create not only its taste and aroma or decide how much alcohol it will contain, what it will be called and in which designer bottle it will appear on the market. “My father was a microbiologist, I spent my childhood in the laboratory, I liked it, so I studied chemistry myself. You keep stirring things up there. It’s only a short distance from there to mix the rums,” laughs the woman, who is also inspired by the place where the only distillery in El Salvador, Central America, is located.
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In the Cihuatán Valley, the Mayan tribes once built a city of the same name, they lived there between 900 and 1200 AD. Many legends are also connected with the community, in which mathematicians, astronomers or merchants were not missing. Cihuatán rum is inspired by them.
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A taste associated with a legend
“One of my favorite rums is Obsidiana. On the label you can see a butterfly, in this form the Mayan goddess was depicted, who was the protector of all travelers. The butterfly has blades on its wings made of obsidian, a volcanic glass that it used as weapons to protect wayfarers. Rum combined with a butterfly has such a feminine, delicate aroma. You can feel the sharpness of the blade when you taste it, the oak barrels in which it matures give it its distinctiveness,” explained the master blender at the rum festival in Prague in May, adding that their company already supervises how farmers grow sugar cane.
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“Thanks to this, we have control over the entire production process,” adds Gabriela, who also decides whether there will be more aromatic substances in the rum, or whether alcohol will predominate. Accordingly, he chooses the barrel in which he will mature. “We have oak barrels, for example, for wines from the French Rivesaltes appellation, for Oloroso sherry or cognac. We were also the first to use local wood from the local ceiba maya tree.”
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Mayan legends on labels.
Photo: Roman Mašín
The tropical tree, up to seventy meters high, has the Czech name vlnovec, and its strong trunk branches out into the crown to a relatively considerable height.
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The white rum is aged in barrels for at least four years, and is represented in the menu by, for example, Cihuatán Jade, made in honor of the Mayan goddess of art, Chac Chel. Aged in American white oak barrels where bourbon had previously been. Notes of lemon, mint, white chocolate, vanilla and white pepper appear in the taste. It is ideal in mixed drinks. Golden rum must then age in barrels for at least eight years, for example Cihuatán Obsidiana.
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Folklore series
Fans of this type of alcohol now have the opportunity to taste what the rum distillery did at the beginning of its establishment in 2004 thanks to the limited single barrel Folklore series. “It is the history not only of our brand, but also mine, I have been with the company since its inception. From that time, we have eighty barrels in which single-species rums matured. So far, we have released thirteen barrels for connoisseurs,” says Gabriela Ayalaová, adding that three barrels have also reached the Czech Republic.
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One was bought by the Warehouse 1 store, the other was kept by the Cihuatán fan page, and the last one was taken by the rum cz/sk Facebook group. Salvadoran artist Valerie Corciosová decorated the individual barrels with paintings inspired by Mayan legends. “We wanted to show how different barrels affect the aging of the rum. In the second series, in which we will once again release a limited number of barrels in a year, we will focus on the effect of the amount of alcohol used compared to the amount of aromatic substances on the final flavor of the rums,” reveals the master blender.
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And how, according to her, should Cihuatán rum be served? “We have rums to suit every occasion. You can serve it at your own discretion. But before you put ice in it, I think it’s a good idea to try how our rum tastes and smells on its own. Only then decide what to combine it with,” concludes Gabriela Ayalaová.
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