Five expressions. Four distillers. Three Mexican states.
5
Expressions
4
Distillers
3
Mexican states
Why we carry them
Mexico's rum tradition is older than its tequila tradition — and far less marketed. The Rums of Mexico is a project that surfaces five aguardientes from four distillers across Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Jalisco. Each is small-scale, single-distillery, made by people you can name. We brought them in because every bottle hits the boxes we look for: transparent provenance, ferocious quality, and a story that respects where the cane was grown and who fermented it.
With dozens of cane varieties, extensive terroir, and varying local production methods, this lineup is just a slice of the beauty to be found amongst the rums of Mexico.
Orlando Vásquez · Veracruz
Second-generation cane farmer and first-generation aguardiente producer. The Vásquez family spent decades focused on panela and piloncillo — unrefined sugar pressed and reduced from cane juice. About a decade ago Orlando started experimenting with distillation, working with rehydrated panela alongside fresh-pressed cane juice. The result is Caldo — layered, savory, and unlike any other rum in our store. The name is a wink at the technique: a "broth" of dissolved sugar fermented and run through copper.
Marcos López · Veracruz
A renaissance man in the agricultural sense — Marcos cultivates cane, grows coffee and limes, and keeps bees. He learned aguardiente distillation from his grandfather and father (Marcos Sr.), who still crafts stills by hand and repairs neighbors' equipment across the region. Marcos makes two of the most distinctive bottles in the lineup: Caña Dura (cane juice fermented long and run hard) and Caña Cristalina (a quieter, mineral-driven partner). Different temperaments from the same hands.
Pedro Andrés & Jorge Nájera · Jalisco
If you've been to a serious bar in Guadalajara, you've tasted their work. Pedro and Jorge run Satvrnal, a small distillery on the outskirts of the city making gin, absinthe, banana eau de vie, and small runs of molasses-based rum on a custom hybrid column-pot still they had built to spec. They are the experimental wing of the project — first-generation distillers thinking from scratch about what Mexican rum can sound like. Their Melaza con Muck is fermented on dunder (the high-acid leftover from a previous run), giving it the funk-and-banana profile that Jamaican high-ester rums made famous, but with Jalisco molasses underneath.
Pedro Bautista · Oaxaca
Second-generation aguardientero working with local cane growers cultivating heritage varieties alongside Río Monteflor. Pedro ferments in 1,100-liter closed tanks for twenty-plus days — long, patient, and unrushed — and runs everything through the same copper four-plate continuous still he's used for two decades. The bottle is Caña Criolla: clean, mineral, almost tequila-blanco-like in its clarity, but with a backbone you only get from cane juice that's been allowed to ferment to the end.
The cane, the still, the time
Across the range, what changes from bottle to bottle is everything: cane variety, fermentation type, still design, and aging (or absence thereof). What stays the same is scale — these are kitchen-sized distilleries making a few hundred liters at a time, fermenting with native yeast, and bottling at proofs the producer chose, not the brand manager. Off Premise carries every expression in the current lineup.
From the field
In stock at Off Premise
5 bottles · click to add to cart
The Rums of Mexico (700 ml) 'Caldo' Rum, Veracruz (104.6 proof)
The Rums of Mexico Caldo is a 104.6-proof aguardiente made from fresh-pressed sugarcane juice in Veracruz, distilled by Orlando Vásquez on a four-plate continuous copper still heated entirely by firew…
$65
The Rums of Mexico (700 ml) 'Melaza con Muck' Rum, Jalisco (114.2 proof)
Melaza con Muck is a high-ester molasses rum distilled at Satvrnal Distillery in Zapopan, Jalisco, bottled at 114.2 proof. First-generation master distillers Pedro Andrés and Jorge Nájera fermented hi…
$90
The Rums of Mexico (700 ml) Cana Criolla Rum, Oaxaca (103.8 proof)
Caña Criolla is an unaged Mexican aguardiente distilled from the juice of native Caña Criolla sugarcane, a traditional variety that grows wild in Veracruz. Bottled at 103.8 proof by The Rums of Mexico…
$70
The Rums of Mexico (700 ml) Cana Cristalina Rum, Veracruz (98.8 proof)
Orlando Vásquez distills this unaged aguardiente from fresh-pressed sugarcane juice in Veracruz, using two naturally high-yielding cane varieties and a four-plate continuous copper still heated by fir…
$65
The Rums of Mexico (700 ml) Cana Dura Rum, Veracruz (93.4 proof)
The Rums of Mexico Caña Dura Marcos López is an unaged aguardiente distilled from Caña Dura sugarcane — also called Caña Fierro — a pale yellow-green variety prized in the Cosautlán de Carvajal region…
