Wine for sale: Millonario

Millonario

Hacienda Agrícola de Chiclayo was founded in the north of Peru in 1904 by local farmers. At the time it was a small sugar refinery. The Piera de Castillo family, with Don Rolando at its head, bought the estate in 1922, but the techniques used were rudimentary and its output limited. His son Augusto was sent to study in Cambridge in the hope of finding a solution. Augusto returned to the estate in 1938 with a copper Scottish column still and the first rums were released in 1950. These were originally reserved for just a handful of wealthy people, leading them to be dubbed “por los millonarios”. The rums today are produced at the Prolisa S.A. distillery in the north of Peru by the Italian group Bari. The molasses used comes from sugar cane grown on volcanic soil. Some bottles are wrapped in a straw similar to that used to make Panama hats.