Gran Canaria Tasting Wines Rum Tour
Enjoy a trip with the flavors of Gran Canaria. Today we taste canarian wines and the most famous spanish rum from Arucas. During our trip we will have a visit to the oldest winery on the island, the oldest rum distillery in Europe and the best cakes in Aguimes. We travel in in small groups, with a local english speaking guide, who shows you everything what is worth to visit in Gran Canaria. The trip takes place on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We pick up directly from the hotel. The start is always around 9:00 am (confirmed individually the day before departure).
Gran Canaria things to know
Reservation possible by e-mail at tours.simon@gmail.com or by phone +48667674789. Payments can be made in cash or by card. It is worth taking long-sleeved clothes on the trip, because it is a bit cooler in the north of the island. The trip is accessible to everyone, there are no long and steep climbs. We invite you to book and to our Instagram profile.
Simon Tours Gran Canaria
We are a local travel agency realizing trips for individual tourists and company groups. Our guides are licensed and focused on showing the beauty of the island. We also carry out private tours on request. Find us and rate on Tripadvisor!
Check our other trips:
Canary Flavours and Mountains
Gran Canaria All Highlights
From South to North
One thing to know about Gran Canaria and rum,
where does the name come from?
It comes from rummers, the Dutch word for oversized drinking glasses used by sailors from the Netherlands—during a time when Dutch settlers farmed sugarcane in Barbados, the birthplace of rum as we know it today.
It derives from the 17th century English slang term “rum” which meant, approximately, ‘the best.” And since the New World spirit was not whisky or brandy or any of the other brown liquids, it needed a new name.
It’s coined from the final syllable of saccharum, the Latin word for sugar.
“Rum” grew out of another English word, “rumpullion,” sometimes also rendered as “rumbustion.” Both terms refer to “a great tumult or uproar” and may derive from 17th century slang used by English settlers in Barbados. Described as a “hellish, hot liquid,” early rum was rough around the edges, and the term may have been coined as combination of the adjective rum (from the Romani word meaning, ‘male, good man’) and boullion, a French term for “hot drink,” then simply shortened to rum. Got that? It’s actually the most widely accepted theory.
Not for nothing, but there’s a sugar-based spirit invented by the Malay people in the 14th century that’s called brum.
Tour Plan
We set off to the north of the island stopping at the edge of the largest volcanic crater on the island – Pico de Bandama with famous vineyards. The Bandama Natural Monument is part of the Tafira Protected Landscape on the island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, Spain. It’s considered a point of geological interest, because of the Caldera de Bandama. This volcanic crater, which is geologically a maar rather than a caldera,[1] reaches 569 m (1,867 ft) above sea level at the highest point on its rim, Pico de Bandama, and is about 1,000 m (3,300 ft) wide and 200 m (700 ft) deep. The bottom of the caldera contains volcanic ash of different colors, and some botanic species of Canary Islands origin.
Next we enter the area of the oldest Gran Canaria winery. Our local guide will tell us about the specifics of the production of canarian wines. Every person will delight the atmosphere of the over 200-year-old garden of a country estate that creates a winery. At the end we have a tasting of local wine and cheese. The San Juan Winery was founded on June 11, 1912 by Don Juan Rodríguez Quegles and his wife, Carmen Millán Socorro. The couple acquired the winery from Lieutenant Manuel Marcos Benítez who had taken part in the Cuban War of Independence.
We will continue our tour by visiting one of the oldest rum distilleries in Europe, whose products appear on the tables of the Bourbon royal family. We will have the opportunity to try a dozen flavors of local production. On August 9, 1884 it was inaugurated in Arucas, Gran Canaria, La Fábrica de San Pedro, mainly dedicated to the production of sugar, and to a lesser extent to the production of cane and rum spirits, precursor of the current Arehucas Distilleries. The artisanal process to convert cane juice into rum, combined with the use of modern devices, made „La Fábrica”, as it was popularly known, get its first successes.
The tour will end with a visit to the charming town of Aguimes, where we will try local bakery. After the careful restoration of the old town, this has become the best example of a traditional Canarian hill town. The streets of the old town exude a gentle, relaxed, timeless atmosphere, and the carefully positioned street statues and sculptures add a series of surprises to a visit to the old town. The local plan for 'rural tourism’ has led to the development of other small visitor centres on the district, the biggest of which is in the Guayadeque ravine. This area has many cave houses dating back hundreds of years, and a complete village excavated into the hillside, still occupied today, with its own cave chapel, cave bar and cave restaurants.
Trip starts around 9:00 (to be confirmed) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Check our other trips:
Canary Flavours and Mountains
Gran Canaria All Highlights
From South to North
Tour Location
Pico de Bandama (wine tasting) – Arucas (rum distillery and tasting) – Aguimes (desserts and walk around the Old Town)
