My Seventh Heaven Centenario Rum Sampling at SJO Airport
An hour and change before your flight’s set to depart for home is usually not the best time to discover a Caribbean destination’s choicest selection of rums. The very best blends are, more often than not, only available in their home countries, making your first blush with them a priority during the earliest hours of your overseas explorations, the better to fully enjoy them during your trip and make the right purchase before you head for home.
Throughout the entirety of my recent visit to Costa Rica, though, I didn’t have the opportunity to so much as even sniff the country’s finest rums. If you’ve ever been there, then you probably can guess why.
Honestly, there’s so much for active travelers to do, see, and experience in this amazing country that rum can easily get relegated to the rearview, even for the spirit’s most ardent of fans. You know, like me!
And so it was that I dragged my weary body, over-taxed from a week’s worth of hiking, boating, exploring, and zip-lining, to the bar nearest my departure gate at San Jose International Airport and steeled my senses against what I was sure to be an underwhelming experience.
Like most of you, I’m sure, I’d found myself more than a little disappointed with the rum selection at various airport bars along my travels before. You’re often lucky to find something solid, if not pedestrian, like Mount Gay Eclipse masquerading as a Top Shelf option owing to a hefty mark-up price.
Like a lot of other things I’d already come to discover in Costa Rica, though, this airport was far from the norm.
Not only did they have the full line-up of upper echelon local favorite To be continued…
