Distilling the Future of Rum – Featuring Destilería Serrallés SVP of Manufacturing, Silvia Santiago

The VentureFuel Visionaries

This week we sit down with Silvia Santiago, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and Maestra Ronera, Master Blender at Destilería Serrallés. Besides being responsible for the entire manufacturing process, starting with purchasing sugarcane molasses up to bottling the finished product, blending, and tasting distillates and aged products is part of Silvia’s daily work. Destilería Serrallés is a rum producer located in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and is best known for its Don Q rum brand. Serrallés is Puerto Rico's oldest family-owned company. We speak with Silvia about her career and how she became the first female Master Blender in Puerto Rico – anchored by a lifelong curiosity and love of learning; how to preserve time honored tradition while ‘shaking the tree,’ to drive change and the human side of innovation; finally, we discuss sustainability: Don Q is one of the most environmentally sustainable distilleries in the region – if not the world; Silvia shares with us why sustainability matters to the manufacturing process, the company and the people at Serrallés.