If you’ve been to a rum festival, you’re familiar with the routine. 

A large indoor conference hall, crowded booths, typically thousands of miles from the Caribbean. 

But if you love rum, there is another option: Bonaire Rum Week. 

The Caribbean’s coolest new rum festival is back again for 2023, with a week of fantastic rum and culinary events on one of the region’s most exciting islands — with a focus on premium rum. 

This year’s Bonaire Rum Week, Presented by Caribbean Journal, will run from June 12-16, 2023 with a full slate of rum tastings, beach parties, bartending seminars, rum-pairing dinners and cigar pairings. 

The event concludes June 16 with a new addition for 2023, when the island’s popular Taste of Bonaire culinary street fair joins forces with Bonaire Rum Week for a culinary fete with a sugarcane twist, set in the heart of Kralendijk. 

“The inaugural edition of Bonaire Rum Week was a tremendous success, and 2023 will be bigger and better,” said Alexander Britell, editor and publisher of Caribbean Journal, which organizes Bonaire Rum Week in collaboration with Tourism Corporation Bonaire. 

Also new for this year will be an island-wide cocktail competition that lets visitors and locals sample cocktails at top bars in Bonaire and vote for their favorites online during the week. On the final day, the island’s Best Cocktail will be announced. 

The rum lineup will be even more robust in 2023, from Ron Diplomatico to fast-growing Dutch Caribbean brands like Ron San Pablo.

“After a successful first edition, we are happy to organize the second edition of the Bonaire Rum Week together with Caribbean Journal,” says Miles Mercera, CEO of Tourism Corporation Bonaire. “During this edition we hope to have more partners join, so that it can be an exciting week, where our locals and visitors can mingle while experiencing Bonaire’s culinary scene.”

The event shines a spotlight both on Bonaire’s burgeoning rum and cocktail culture and on its sizzling culinary scene, one with an enviable collection of restaurants that also includes the number one restaurant in the Caribbean, Brass Boer, at the Delfins Beach. 

“This is an amazing and totally unique event,” said Guy Britton, executive Vice President and managing editor of Caribbean Journal.  “The way each event is hosted and managed is representative of each hotel’s and restaurant’s specialities. The event offers a very personal sampling of Bonaire’s unique experiences.”

Bonaire Rum Week is part of the Caribbean Journal Rum Festival Portfolio that also includes the Caribbean Rum Awards St Barth, which takes place each November. 

For more, visit Bonaire Rum Week. 

For all questions, please contact rum@caribjournal.com.