A Miami tourist goes global with a unique Dominican rum drink
By Katelin Stecz
In 2014, when Alejandro Russo was lounging by his poolside bar in Punta Cana, he tried mamajuana for the first time. Like so many other tourists, he fell in love with the drink and then spent the rest of his vacation hopping from bar to bar, trying each one’s special recipe of mamajuana.
As he sampled every version in a three-mile radius of his hotel, a pattern emerged. At every bar, the bartender pulled out a plastic bottle full of murky liquid and tree bark and said the same thing: “This is my family’s recipe. This is the best mamajuana on the island.” Russo quickly discovered that most of them were wrong. Most samples reminded him more of pumpkin-scented hand sanitizer than rum. However, the truly “best mamajuanas” stuck in his mind.
After leaving the Dominican Republic, Russo tried to find where he could buy mamajuana commercially. He couldn’t, because it didn’t exist. “I had kind of an ‘aha’ moment, this eureka moment. I said, ‘Why don’t I make it? Why don’t I create the first brand that makes this type of rum that millions of people are drinking every single year, but nobody’s actually commercialized before?’” says Russo, the founder and CEO of Miami-based Candela Mamajuana.
Candela Mamajuana was officially born in 2016. The company started selling in the U.S. in 2018 and in the Dominican Republic in 2019. Now, Candela Mamajuana supplies Hard Rock Hotel & Resort, Hilton Hotels, Hyatt, and other major hotel groups in the Dominican Republic, and is carried by Publix, ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, and Total Wine in the U.S.
“2019 was a major inflection point in our brand’s history because once we started selling in the Dominican Republic, [there were] tens of thousands of Americans that were trying our product every single week. Then, they would come back to the U.S. and Google our product,” says Russo. “On any given month, we’re getting between 50,000 to 100,000 Google searches in the U.S. for our product.”
Candela Mamajuana’s popularity in the DR has only grown, and in 2022, it was named “The Unofficial Drink of the Dominican Republic’’ by Fodor’s Travel. “It’s a very fun and approachable rum. It’s a rum for people that would have never thought that they like rum, or even spirits for that matter,” says Russo. Aside from being the only premium mamajuana on the market, Russo also boasts that Candela is the most sustainable rum out there.
Candela Mamajuana first starts with premium rum distilled from fresh sugarcane juice. Then, the leftover pulp from the sugarcane is transformed into biofuel that’s used to power its Dominican distillery. Once distilled, the rum is infused with locally sourced herbs and spices and aged for at least one year in bourbon casks.
Throughout its journey from sugarcane to mamajuana, Candela’s production uses minimal electricity and relies heavily on renewable energy. The company employs natural sunlight lamps and uses “smart” building materials to keep its warehouse cool without A/C. Most water used in Candela’s production is purified rainwater.
Outside of the Dominican Republic and Florida, Candela Mamajuana can be found in New York, New Jersey, and California, or online at drinkcandela.com.
