Bacardi snaps up Leblon cachaça

Bacardi has taken full ownership of Leblon Holdings LLC, including its cachaça brand Leblon, the latest in a rash of acquisitions by the producer.

The Bermuda-based company has held a minority stake in the company since 2008, announcing today that a deal to acquire the remaining shares in the brand had been completed.

It follows a rash of acquisitions by the producer, which only this week announced its acquisition of premium rum brand Banks Rum. 

Earlier this year Bacardi entered the Bourbon market for the first time acquiring Angel’s Share Brands, including its Louisville Distilling Co subsidiary and Angel’s Envy brand. Just two days later the company confirmed it had acquired a minority stake in independent Scotch whisky producer Compass Box.

Cachaça is a distilled spirit made from sugarcane juice, also known as aguardente. Leblon, described as a “premium artisanal cachaça”, is produced at Maison Leblon in Minas Gerais, Brazil’s agricultural heartland.

Spiros Malandrakis, senior alcoholic drinks analyst at Euromonitor International, predicted that cachaça, “fighting old prejudices”, would become a key spirits trend of 2015, shifting from “commodity status to aspirational exoticism”.

Leblon, already popular in Brazil, will celebrate its 10th anniversary this summer, and is currently available in more than 35 countries including Brazil, the US, Canada, and select markets in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.