Purple Creative 30th Anniversary Celebrated with Hand-Crafted Panamanian Rum

Purple Creative, the independent creative studio based in London, have just turned 30 years old. To celebrate and honour this milestone, a one-of-a-kind premium sipping rum has been created for them by Varela Hermanos, owners of the Ron Abuelo brand.

Called The Pearl of Panama, it’s a traditional solera-aged rum, blended from their rarest reserves of up to 30 years old. The name signifies the uniqueness of the liquid but also relates to Purple’s story – a pearl is the traditional gift for a 30th anniversary.

Purple Creative was founded by three friends, Steve Bewick, Andy Harding and Gary Westlake in 1993, straight after finishing their degree at Preston Polytechnic (now the University of Central Lancashire) and is now a 40-strong agency, working on an array of high-profile global brands.

But their relationship with Ron Abuelo, a family-owned rum brand based in Panama, is very special; a real meeting of minds since the start. They’ve been working together for almost 10 years now, with client services director Becca Drake, creative director Gwyn Edwards, founding partner Andy Harding and the team pushing creative and strategic boundaries for every new Abuelo release. 

“We love working on Abuelo! Ever since our first conversation in 2015, we’ve just clicked. Great brand, fascinating story, passionate people – and we share their quest to put premium Panamanian rum on the map, as one of the world’s best. We are truly touched and humbled by Luis and his team for going to such efforts to honour our anniversary. We look forward to many more years of friendship and partnership.” said Becca Drake, client services director, Purple Creative.

The rum itself boasts Abuelo Centuria at its heart, a rare and exquisite rum that was created in 2008 to celebrate a century of rum-making tradition for Abuelo (which means grandfather in Spanish). It consisted of a blend of 30-year-old rums, preserved through time using the solera system. In Panama, rum ageing in oak happens much quicker thanks to the tropical climate. In the heat, the rum in each cask evaporates (romantically called the angel’s share) at an astonishing 8% a year – so the solera system allows Luis and his team to keep replacing the lost liquid, which in turn adds extra complexity and character and adds a unique freshness. Finally, The Pearl of Panama rum was finished in toasted virgin American oak for 12 months, and further blended with rums from their oldest reserves dating back to 1978, to add extra layers of sumptuous flavours.

“It has been a real privilege to be able to create this special rum for Purple Creative. They have played such a key role in Abuelo’s success over the years, with beautiful creative work for all our expressions. They’re more than an agency to us – they’re part of the Abuelo family and we greatly value their expertise.” said Luis J Varela Jr, president & CEO Varela Hermanos.

Only 12 bottles of The Pearl of Panama have been created, each carefully hand-painted with purple ‘pearls’ by talented Panamanian artist Luz Crespo using her unique vibrant and energetic drip style.

Purple were presented with the bottles at an anniversary party for all current and past employees, with a surprise special guest appearance from Luis J Varela Jr and Cristóbal Srokowski, Abuelo Global Brand Ambassador, who’d flown in especially.