Don Papa is a Filipino super-premium, single-island dark rum made from homegrown sugar cane and aged in American oak barrels. It is named after, and captures the spirit of, a plantation foreman who led an overthrow of Spanish rule on the island of Negros (Sugarlandia).

Don Papa exited to Diageo in 2023.

Brand Snapshot

Don Papa has benefited from being the first major Filipino rum to achieve international scale. It leverages off the country’s often difficult history with the Spanish colonialists, celebrating a moment of de-shackling when the eponymous hero, Papa Isio, helped overthrow that shadow in the 19th century. The brand borrows his name, spirit and even face, but has largely grown through a Filipino sugar provenance story, creating an almost mystical intrigue around the (very real) island of Sugarlandia. That island serves as the base, and the brand has done a good job of adding the lure of myth to it in order to create an even more compelling origin story in a rum category often driven by narrative.