- It's a giant herb that can last for five or six meters. The thick and powerful stem that holds the grass has a flexible, difficult and robust cane structure. It is a sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum). In the subsoil, it forms a hard network of cane roots that support, standing, the wind over the dressing rooms, the grass to such an extent.
Sugar cane comes from Asia, just like the word sugar. It is said to have been from New Guinea. The name of the Greek genus Sákcharon and saccharum saccharum, sugar cane, comes from the words used to say sugar in Malaysia, India, Iran, etc., on the long way to us. He was moved to Andalusia by the Arabs over a thousand years ago, from where the Spanish Empire first extended him to the islands of Macarronesia (Madeira, Canary Islands…) and from there to tropical America. The spread of his work was closely linked to that of slavery.
Sugar cane grows well in warm, humid places. In the harvest all the cane is cut and renewed with new outbreaks below. The same plant may take between six and eight years, and then a new field of cultivation can be carried out by planting pieces of cane in crushed. The sugar is generated from the cane that is harvested, squeezed and heated the must; 10% of the weight of the cane.
Although sugar is a high-value benefit, it is not the only benefit left to this cane. Alcohol is also important, as well as biofuel as our internal fuel: Rum from the Caribbean, cachaça de Brasil, poncha de Madeira, ronmiel de Canarias, etc.
Among Ron, the Cuban has been the most famous. Then Cuba's walking snorkelers have followed here and there in the making of orujos. One of them is the Oliver&Oliver company, which runs the Vizcaya Ranch VXOP, considered one of the best in the world in the Dominican Republic. The cator of the company Ricardo Giuliano and the master mixer Omar López are the authors of this very special rum. They created the rum that they were going to drink to their liking.
Bizkaia plays an important role in the restoration. In Gordexola, Teodoro José, son of José Aretxabala Lartuondo and Juana Aldama Gastaka were born in 1847. As a young man he had his own liquor company Kubaratu and 1878: “La Vizcaya”. In 1934 he launched the famous Havana Club. On the label of the Havana Club rona he put the shield of Bizkaia from his heart. This shield, as well as that of Bilbao, appeared in its other liquors: anise, gin, bermuda, cognac, medical alcohol… Later, after the expropriation of the company after the Cuban Revolution, the exiled family Miamira sold to the company Bacardi the right to sell Havana Club in the USA, which include it in the labels of several limited editions. The Cuban Government, in addition to the French company Pernod Ricard, shares around the world the same brand rum that they make without the shield of Bizkaia. Another part of the family of Aretxabaleta performs in Panama the famous ron Arechavala.
The City Hall of Gordexola is located in the Indians' house that Teodoro José built for him. In the basement of that house, what happens now in the old winery?