Ace Beverage - In Store Tasting - Alambique Serrano Barrel Pick!

This is one of the tastings we’ve been waiting to put on.
At the center of the table is , the barrel we traveled to Oaxaca to select ourselves. We’ll taste it alongside three different Alambique Serrano 3 Años releases, with a representative from PLDC and the Alambique Serrano brand ambassador in the shop to take the conversation well beyond basic tasting notes.
This is a chance to get properly nerdy about rum while keeping the conversation approachable. We’ll dig into fresh sugarcane juice, natural fermentation, ester development, the role of fermentation time, dunder and muck in the broader world of high-ester rum, Alambique Serrano’s custom stills, barrel selection, humid versus dry aging, and how different oak programs can completely reshape a spirit.
Alambique Serrano ferments freshly pressed cane juice with ambient yeasts, typically for six to ten days, before distilling across both the family’s custom eight-plate Krassel still and traditional copper alembics. Their aging program stretches across multiple environments in Oaxaca and uses everything from ex-Bourbon and ex-Cognac barrels to French oak, Sherry and other casks.

What We’re Tasting
This is the reason for the tasting. Barrel #267 was selected by Ace Beverage in Oaxaca after tasting through barrels at the distillery. Distilled by Axel and William Krassel on the family’s Krassel still, it spent 58 months in an ex-Bourbon barrel in the humid aging cellar before being bottled at cask strength. Only 150 bottles were produced.
What grabbed us was the ester profile. Lemon and orange on the nose, vanilla, plantain and caramel through the palate, then bright citrus coming back through the finish. This barrel had its own fingerprint, which is exactly what we went to Oaxaca looking for.

A blend of Krassel column still and copper pot still rum aged for at least three years across ex-Bourbon and new French oak. This edition became especially interesting for its vivid fruit character, with watermelon, tropical fruit, citrus and spice showing just how far fermentation-derived aromas can travel once distillation and oak get involved.

Alambique Serrano 3 Años 3rd Edition
The newest evolution of the 3 Años series. Having multiple editions on the same table gives us a rare opportunity to taste how changes in blending, barrels and individual distillates can shift the personality of a rum even when the producer and underlying philosophy remain the same.

Alambique Serrano 3 Años Prestigio Cask Strength
A cask-strength look at the 3 Años concept, with the dilution taken out of the equation and the barrel given more room to speak. It’s a great counterpoint to the blended editions and another piece of the conversation around proof, maturation and oak.

Bonus
Get 10 percent off the Ace Beverage Alambique Serrano Single Cask #267 during the event.

This one is for the rum drinker, the whiskey drinker, the fermentation geek, the mezcal obsessive, and anyone who has ever smelled a glass and wondered, “How the hell did sugarcane turn into that?”

We went to Oaxaca to find this barrel. Now we get to open it with the people who can explain exactly what happened between the cane field and the glass.