Santa Teresa

Our history begins in 1796, when Hacienda Santa Teresa was founded. It grew coffee, cocoa and sugar cane, the main raw materials for rum.

Located in the mountainous Aragua Valley, it is more than a house. It has withstood wars, revolutions, invasions and even dictators. There has always been sugar cane, and since 1830, there has always been rum. Hacienda Santa Teresa represents the nature of success, no matter what the world throws at you.
In 1830, a young German merchant named Gustav Julius Vollmer arrived in Venezuela and met a woman with revolutionary blood, named Panchita Rivas, marrying in the same year and giving birth to the Vollmer family: his descendants of Santa Teresa rum today.

We believe that the exceptional balanced smoothness of our rum is only possible by working in harmony with the exceptional natural beauty surrounding us. It is for this reason that we are inspired to improve the communities around us, investing in their future to instil values and ideas that will help future generations flourish.

Proyecto Alcatraz is a programme that recruits criminal gangs, rehabilitates them and reintegrates them into society. It combines vocational training, values training, psychological assistance, academic education and rugby. Through rugby, the values of respect, discipline, teamwork, sportsmanship and humility are taught as keys to success in life.
Of all St Teresa's social transformation initiatives over the 200 years, the most emblematic came about in an unexpected way. In 2003, a group of gang members broke into the Hacienda and ambushed a security guard. The criminals were caught and offered an unusual choice: work to pay for their offence or be handed over to the police. The men accepted the offer. The Alcatraz project was born.

Proyecto Alcatraz is a social reintegration programme for young people and adults with behavioural problems, through training in values, education for work, restorative justice and in which rugby is the vehicle of transformation needed to move from the world of darkness to light.
Bands of young people participate on a voluntary basis, who decide to take the opportunity to change their lives and transform their violent leadership into virtuous leadership.

Intervention Routes

Reintegration into society:

Recruitment of gangs: Recruitment is done through direct contact and without the use of repressive mechanisms, as the aim is for entry and permanence in the programme to be voluntary. Under this scheme, the participants go through four phases of work in which, assisted by a multidisciplinary group of professionals, they develop new social and work skills to face the remains of a new life.

The objective? To offer young people and adults with behavioural problems the opportunity to reintegrate into society, through training in values and the development of life skills, thus contributing to the reduction of crime rates in the municipality.

Restorative Justice: Restorative Justice is a new paradigm for the peaceful resolution of conflicts, through which the affected relationships between victims and perpetrators are restored through a process of reconciliation and reparation of damage, with the participation of a mediator and the community.

In order to increase the capacity for peaceful conflict resolution, the Restorative Justice programme evolved into a diploma programme, which seeks to train people capable of responding effectively to crime and mediating conflict resolution in their communities.

Prison Rugby: is a programme that uses training in values, through the constant and disciplined practice of rugby and psycho-educational support, as a tool for the reintegration of prisoners into society.

Every week, more than 800 inmates held in Venezuelan prisons receive theoretical and practical training from the Alcatraz team of coaches to facilitate their development as rugby players. They also receive psycho-educational attention to enhance their chances of reintegration into society.

To increase the chances of successful reintegration, the Alcatraz Project team started Diamante, a pilot plan to reinforce individual and group psychological support throughout the transformation process of the individual who decides to change his or her life.

Prison rugby began with the request of a former participant of Proyecto Alcatraz, who, after being detained after deserting the programme, asked to be given a ball to train in prison together with other of his companions. Eventually they formed a team and requested a coach from the Santa Teresa Foundation to come weekly to give rugby practice.

At the end of 2013, this first team participated for the first time in history, as a prison team, in the Rugby 7's Tournament organised by the Santa Teresa Foundation.

Prevention:

School Rugby: is a programme of values formation through sport, whose purpose is to prevent violence and delinquency among children and young people in the municipality of Revenga. This programme is led by a group of coaches who are graduates of the same programme, who also form part of the Alcatraz Rugby Club.

The Santa Teresa Foundation's School Rugby programme started in 2007 on the initiative of Derwis Rebolledo, a young participant in the Alcatraz Project, who saw the opportunity to take the children and young people of the community away from the world of violence and delinquency through the practice of rugby.

Little League: is a programme designed to develop the next generation of rugby players.

Through a programme that includes physical training and more demanding sporting technique, the participants in the school rugby programme, who are in the best condition for the sport, receive preparation that could lead them to the Alcatraz Rugby Club Academy.

Alcatraz Rugby Club: is a club made up of five competitive teams (Infant, M-14, M18, Senior female and Senior free) in which players developed in both the prevention and reinsertion programmes of the Alcatraz Project participate.

SANTA TERESA RUM 1796

Santa Teresa 1796 is a bold and elegant rum with blends up to 35 years old, aged in oak bourbon barrels using the solera method, resulting in a dry, smooth and balanced rum.

Transferred from master to master, the solera method ensures that every bottle of Santa Teresa 1796 is from the first cask of 1796. This is because the original cask has never been empty. Instead, each time a bottle is drawn, the cask is lightly refilled with a younger rum. And this is repeated with each and every bottle of Santa Teresa 1796.

Everything about Santa Teresa 1796, from the special rum still to the Solera Method, the bottling system and the manual application of the wax to seal the cork, makes each bottle a unique and exclusive piece.

ST TERESA GRAN RESERVA RUM

Santa Teresa Gran Reserva is a Venezuelan dark rum with Controlled Denomination of Origin (DOC). Its production process takes place entirely at Hacienda Santa Teresa in Venezuela, and results in an aged rum that blends light and heavy rums, aged up to 4 years in American White Oak barrels and casks. A smooth, young rum, ideal for mixing in cocktails or with cola, lime, lemon or orange sodas.