time

In Guatemala, Botran is synonymous with rum, and for experts in sugar cane distillate, Botran is synonymous with a very particular way of making rum. Instead of letting the rum age by forgetting it in barrels, at Casa Botran, in Quetzaltenango, the rum does not spend much time still.

What is more, in the cellars of the old Xelajú, its liquids chain successive periods in different barrels, after which they are recombined. These crossings, this alchemy, this journey through the wood is what is called dynamic aging.

Botran wanted to launch a historical edition that celebrated its distinctive feature and also commemorated the arrival of the five founding brothers to Guatemala from Spain.

To this end, we had the opportunity to immerse ourselves in Casa Botran, its archives, and learn, nuance by nuance and barrel by barrel, how the signature of a Botran rum is configured and how the three master rum makers have taken up the baton from the five Botrán brothers.

We soon discovered something fascinating: the master rum makers of Botran had selected some Spanish wine barrels to give the final finish to this rum, after passing through old whiskey and sherry wine barrels.

Checking the documentation of the Botran house and what we investigated independently, a realization came: the acquired barrels came from near Roa de Duero, the town where the five Botrán brothers were born.

Thus, the opportunity was clear: a rum that tells a true story, a round trip, from the land of wine to the land of rum.

On the one hand, there was the emigration of the brothers from the Spain of the time and practically a century later, three master rum makers who defended their surnames, symbolically returned to the land to which none of the five brothers returned.

We symbolized this double origin that became destiny through a name that offered exoticism but was inspired by the two key locations of the new liquid and the history of the Botrán family.

The label and its storytelling were constructed with real and fictionalized data from archives with an aesthetic of travel imaginaries from different eras. Just as in a blend of liquids, the bottle was constructed through a superposition of elements creating a uniform universe but with internal complexity. The journey of the past and the journey of the present.

To enrich the story, we consulted the passenger registry of the Spanish Transatlantic Company digitized by the University of Cantabria in search of Botrán brothers, and although we did not find the documents of the trip that they surely made, we did discover a definitive sign of establishment in Guatemala: the trip to the New World of the parents of the five, on December 19, 1922, accompanied by Alejandro Botrán.

Probably the most stimulating project I have worked on, not only for the opportunity to get to know in situ Casa Botran in Guatemala but also for the guide and tasting through the aromas of Botran with the master rum maker Yasmin Chapetón. Tasting the rum straight from the cask in the dim light of the cellar where it ages had something almost mystical, which is then reflected in the history of the product.

A journey that is then completed by having the opportunity to delve into the digitized archives of the Spanish Transatlantic Company and with the thrill of discovering the names of the parents of the Botran brothers in the manifests of the ships.

The opportunity to illuminate a brand with true stories and bring it out of the shadows of the cellars has not only been a challenge but almost a privilege.