Ron Don Q

Ron Don Q

A bottle of Ron Don Q - Cristal
Invented by	Juan Serrallés Colón
Launch year	1865
Company	Destilería Serrallés
Availability	Today
Current supplier	Supply Chain
Last production year	Ongoing
Website	http://www.donq.com.pr/ and http://www.donq.com/

Don Q is a Puerto Rican rum, distilled, manufactured, bottled, and distributed by Destilería Serrallés from its corporate facility in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Don Q is the top-selling rum in Puerto Rico, where over 70% of the rum consumed in the United States is produced. The rum derives its name from Don Quixote, the protagonist in Miguel Cervantes' classic Spanish novel. The rum is sold internationally, competing against Bacardi for market share. Available in the United States since June 2009, Don Q continues to outsell Bacardi in Puerto Rico.

The Serrallés family migrated from Catalonia to Puerto Rico in the mid-1830s, and established a sugar cane plantation in the outskirts of Ponce. They were successful in harvesting and refining cane sugar and exporting it to the United States, the United Kingdom and France. The plantation became very prosperous, and virtually became a company town, with its own rail line, workers' housing, transportation fleet, commissary, and private—later public—airport (Ponce's Mercedita Airport). Most of these operations were eventually annexed to the municipality of Ponce, in whose lands the plantation is based.

In 1865, the family opened a rum manufacturer at the plantation, "Hacienda Mercedita". On that year, Juan Serrallés, who would go down as one of the most successful liquor salesmen in Puerto Rican history, imported a still from France, which enabled him to produce his first casks of rum.