Just like the rum he blends to perfection, Troy Arquiza easily blends with people of various cultures. He speaks about his life and times with Bacardi to a mixed crowd in a popular bar, and never misses a beat.
He wasn’t always as confident, of course. “It took me a lot of time to get where I am,” Troy Arquiza tells the Daily Tribune.
Where he is, at this point in his career, is at the zenith of the rum-making business — as the very first Filipino Global Master Blender for Bacardi.
“I guess you can call it passion. I’ve come a long way from being a training engineer coming from Manila, supposed to be just for three years. And now here I am,” he added.
Arquiza recalled seeing an ad for a job opening after graduating from Mapua University. He had no idea it was a job at Bacardi, that it would take him on his first trip abroad, and that it would take him even further to exciting opportunities.
“Fate played a hand,” he said, but a large part of his success has been his positive attitude towards all things that came his way, no matter how they went against his initial expectations.
Twenty-five years later, Arquiza has come home. His homecoming was celebrated last 11 August 2022 at The Spirits Library in Poblacion, where he talked about his humble beginnings and his journey to the coveted position as Maestro de Ron.
Bacardi is the largest privately held spirits company in the world.
Arquiza has worked for more than two decades with the family-owned company Bacardi, honing his craft as a rum blender and training for many years under industry legend Jose “Joe” Gomez. When Gomez retired after 41 years with Bacardi, Arquiza succeeded in the very prestigious role.
With the coveted title of Maestro de Ron, Troy continues the legacy of his predecessors following in the same exacting standards set forth in Santiago de Cuba almost 160 years ago when Don Facundo Bacardi Massó created Bacardi Carta Blanca, the first mixable rum, and changed the way rum was made forever.
Based at the largest premium rum distillery in the world, Casa Bacardi, in Cataño Puerto Rico, Troy heads a team of rum blenders with the responsibility of protecting the integrity and quality of every drop of Bacardi rum enjoyed all around the world.
He also oversees the distillation on aging of Bacardi rum, help develop new innovations that continue to lead a dynamic rum category and share his passion and skills to nurture the future generation of Master Blenders.
In his new role, Troy joins a prestigious family of Master Blenders and Master Distillers including Stephanie Macleod, DEWAR’S® Blended Scotch whisky; Anne Brock, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® gin; David Rodriquez, PATRÓN® tequila; Beppe Musso, MARTINI® vermouth; and François Thibault, GREY GOOSE® vodka, whose expertise help craft the iconic drinks in the Bacardi portfolio.