Bacolod Rum Fest, a toast to Tanduay’s 170th year
By Chelsea Visto
TOP RUM producer Tanduay Distillers, Inc. marks its 170th anniversary with the return of the Rum Festival at the Bacolod City Government Center from Aug. 10 to 18.
Now in its fourth installment, the festival is a testament to how Bacolodnons love their booze, food, and tunes.
Flairtending competitions, culinary exhibits and competitions, rum masterclasses, parades, and street dancing are in store during the nine-day celebration. There will also be Rum and Music Nights every day at the Food Park of the Bacolod Government Center where most of the events will be held.
The festival highlight is the annual concert, where original Pilipino music (OPM) powerhouses like Sandwich and Ely Buendia have previously performed. This year, Tanduay promises to kick the party up a notch by inviting two headliners to the show — rock band Juan Karlos and hip-hop quartet ALLMO$T.
Bacolod is once again expecting a swarm of tourists, after drawing a record-breaking attendance of 35,000 people during Arthur Nery’s set in 2022.
The rum festival has historically only been staged in Bacolod, the sugar capital of the Philippines. Its province, Negros Occidental, cultivates over 190,000 hectares of sugarcane, the ingredient essential to rum production. “Bacolod is one of the provinces or cities that has the biggest consumption, compared to all other branches in Visayas and Mindanao,” said City Councilor Em Ang during a press conference announcing the event on July 30 at the Century Park Hotel in Manila.
Today, Tanduay is the best-selling rum brand worldwide, said Lucio Tan III, President and Chief Operations Officer of Tanduay Distillers, Inc., and that is a title they’ve held for seven consecutive years he said. Their consistently high demand has allowed them to expand to other Southeast Asian countries, the United States, and Europe.
“Many rum drinkers do not know that most of the Tanduay rum they drink is produced in Bacolod. For a long time, the rum production in Bacolod has been there. It should be celebrated, just like many other things that we celebrate in the city,” Ms. Ang said.
Much like how the famous Oktoberfest is held yearly in late September through early October, the rum festival is typically slated in August. Thanks to the festival, Bacolod enjoys an economic boost and bustling tourism at that time, said the city’s Chief Tourism Operations Officer Ma. Teresa Manalili during the press conference. “The tourism arrivals now in Bacolod City, year 2023, is around 780,916, contributing to around P7 billion in tourism receipts. That is a bigger impact to our local community, especially with revenues, livelihood, and job generation in Bacolod City,” she said.
Although the rum festival is popular locally, Tanduay aspires to also promote their flagship event to foreign visitors. They hope to achieve the same commercial success as Bacolod’s Masskara Festival, one of the largest festivals in the country, attracting thousands of local and international visitors yearly.