I’m taking a quick trip to Panama and was thinking of bringing back some rum. Normally, when I travel, I grab a bottle or two at duty free and I’m done, but I started thinking about bringing a wine check and bringing a dozen bottles of rum back for friends, etc.
If a bottle is not either (a) exceptionally rare or (b) significantly cheaper, does it ever make sense to bring bottles back from overseas?
I’m not a personal fan of duty free, especially in foreign countries. Even if you’re not getting fakes, you’re often getting special for duty free bottlings that aren’t retail quality.
You might seek the Ron Abuela Centuria, I’m sure you can taste at a bar before you decide to buy it. I’ll take one if you can find it.
Brown rum distilled from fermented molasses. Aged 30 years in used whisky and bourbon barrels.
Bottled to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the family estate in Panama, Centuria is a blend of select barrels of aged rum from Varela Hermanos. Only 500 6-packs of this rum were bottled for the world market
they also make a cane gin if that’s of interest to you.
I’m also going to ask my buddies if they know of anything else.
Last time I went to the Dominican I brought back a number of inexpensive, hard or impossible to find rums. They’ve been good drinking for the last year and a half.
I bring back a box of 6-8 bottles of spirits when returning from abroad twice annually. Duty is calculated on abv, not cost/value of the bottle, which customs officers appear to consider unworthy of the time/effort to calculate and collect. I have always declared, never been questioned, and never paid any duty. And I always bring back a couple of Havana Club 7.
I actually had a 12 bottle shipping box - and brought back a bunch of “Eau de Vie” type liqueurs from the Yucatan with the rums - I have an import license and applied for a waiver to bring them in - but I still had to pay duty - around $18 I believe -
I brought back wonderful rums from Barbados and the Dominican during my last trips, rums that were not available in my home state and are, of course, exceedingly difficult to ship. It was totally worth it.