Rum is simply indispensable in old pirate stories. In the 18th century, the myth of the pirate who belted out “Jo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum” with his crew was consolidated. Whether that ever happened is questionable – the song is from the book “Treasure Island” from 1881, pirate legends like Edward “Blackbeard” Teach lived long before that.
However, at the latest since “Black Dead Day”, the last day on which rum rations were officially issued to sailors in the British Royal Navy, the rum success story initially ebbed away. That was on July 31, 1970. However, the hype has reignited for a few years now – and coveted bottlings change hands at auction for tens of thousands of euros. This is also due to the high quality and the unique taste of some types of rum, which were left to mature in old warehouses for many years during the “time out”. The calm is now over, because experts are already talking about the “second golden age” of spirits. But what actually makes good rum? A search for clues.
“When I started with rum, it must be about 20 years ago, it was all Bacardi. That’s it. That was all for Rum-Cola,” reveals Joshua Singh, founder and owner of Danish premium spirits importer 1423 World Class Spirits”, which, with over 20 brands, also sells spirits from the band Rammstein and rarities under the S.B.S. sold. “I only discovered real rum, or let’s say finer rum, about 15 years ago. I still remember it very well. It was at a whiskey fair in Germany and I was blown away.”
But Singh noted that he seemed to have encountered a rarity. “After that, some of my friends and I tried to buy rums like this. But we couldn’t find much even in specialty shops. There were huge amounts of wine, lots of whiskey and a bit of cognac, calvados or brandy. And rum, if there was it said somewhere in the back corner of the store, and then it was usually Zacapa, El Dorado, and Pirate — a small bottle with a “PI” on it. Those were the rocky beginnings.”
One looked in vain for a single cask rum with special properties, which is relatively easy to obtain today – it was neither exported nor in demand. What was missing was marketing and a good argument against common spirits such as whiskey or cognac. The solution: sugar. Singh: “It really picked up speed when larger brands such as Zacapa and El Dorado entered the market at full speed. But those weren’t the rums we know today, but mainly heavily sugared stuff. Questioned that None – because in people’s minds rum was made from sugar cane, so it had to be sweet. That’s absolute nonsense, of course, but that’s what a lot of people thought.”
The recipe worked. Singh remembers that at family celebrations nobody was really interested in a hard nightcap because most of them thought whiskey or brandy was too sharp and bitter. Rum had the solution: lots of alcohol but sweet enough to make it more approachable. That could be sold – and still acts as a door opener for high-end products, the production of which is far less economical.
Because you still can’t make a living from expensive premium rum today, explains Singh. “My company also sells sweetened rum – in large quantities. Compañero or Cristóbal are among the most successful brands for us. They are commercial brands that sell masses. The McDonald’s of the rum world,” he says. “If we look at brands like S.B.S. or Worthy Park, we don’t get to the sales for a long time. The market just isn’t big enough for it at the moment. If I were only selling single cask bottlings, I wouldn’t be in my office that I have today. Sugar pays gives us the opportunity to offer exceptional products in the first place. That is the basis on which we build.”
Sweetened rum is not only important for your wallet. Depending on the situation, Singh would prefer the accessible drinks to any high-end rum. The reason: “The best rum is a rum that suits the situation. When I sit down with experts, a good rum is something that inspires us. I call it ‘Geeky Rum’. When we’re out or celebrating with the family , it has to be one that everyone likes. The best rum with the highest ester and alcohol content doesn’t help you if nobody likes it – so you can’t please anybody.”
But if no sugar is involved, the flavor must come from other sources. So: How does a real rum without sugar get its taste at all? Singh: “Everything starts with the growing area and the variety of sugar cane. Just like there are different apples, there are big differences with sugar cane. And where it grows makes a lot of difference. What is the climate like? What is the soil like? After that Water, yeast and the type of fermentation set the tone. Does the mash ferment closed? Is fermentation open and do wild yeasts work in the mash? And then of course the distillation – what goes in, which still is used, and and and. Should “If it’s a stored rum, then the barrel comes into play. What wood is it? What was in it beforehand? Basically, every step, no matter how small, results in a different rum note in the end. Some are more dominant, others less noticeable.”
Anyone who moves in the world of rum will sooner or later come across another important building block for special aromas: esters. These are chemical compounds that are formed when alcohol reacts with acid. There are, for example, butyric acid ethyl ester, hexanoic acid ethyl ester, lactic acid ethyl ester, isopentyl acetate or ethyl capric ester. The Jamaicans in particular are known for this – they like to call it “funk” there. Two components are used to control ester levels, particularly in Trelawny County: Dunder and Muck. Dunder is the residue from the still that remains after a distillation. This can be dumped back into a mash tun to intensify the flavors. With bourbon this is called “sour mash”. Particularly aromatic rum is also enriched by Muck. This “crap” or “dirt” lies in a pit under the fermentation vats at the Jamaican Hampden distillery, for example.
“You can think of it as a black, foul-smelling, bubbling broth that has bacteria in it that make carboxylic acids. Like butyric acid. In its pure form, it smells a bit like vomit. But when it reacts with alcohol, it becomes a Smell of fruit and pineapple – typical of Jamaican rum. Nobody knows exactly what lies in the pit that has been brewing there for hundreds of years. Nobody goes there. A bucket is drained for the fermentation, the broth is taken and in tipped the tanks. A fascinating chemistry that is quite repulsive on site – at least for outsiders. I love it very much. You may know the principle from sourdough in this country – you always keep a bit of the original product and use it again.” , Singh enthuses.
He elaborates: “And if that still isn’t enough, you use a process developed by the chemist Herbert Henry Cousins. He was an island chemist on Jamaica 120 years ago and invented a process for adding acids to the second distillation retort of a double-retort still If you do this you speed up the production of esters many times over A rum from this process can have up to 7000 grams of esters per hectolitre of pure alcohol (gr/hlpa) As a reminder, at 1600 the Jamaican government pulls the limit for export.”
A bubbling black mass – delicious. But that’s not the worst thing that Joshua Singh had to see with his own eyes on his travels: “The muckpits are simply undefinable – it smells nasty and is black. But what shocked me are the open fermentation tanks. In the beginning you just have it there a liquid with a bit of foam – just fermentation. But if you leave it for a long time, three to four weeks, it still does a lot. After three weeks it’s a solid crust and mold everywhere. It really doesn’t look good. Unhealthy , if you want to put it kindly. And it smells.”
Which also explains the reason why no comparable spirit drink with such “funky” aromas is produced in Europe – it would simply be impossible to do this without violating the hygiene regulation. “It would never work here. If we tried it in Northern Europe, the health department would come, seal the doors and book everyone involved. You would go to prison for something like that. Producing food in this way is unthinkable here. But if you do “If you read and learn about it, you’ll understand why rum is made the way it’s made. There’s a reason for all of that – and to be honest, it’s all very fascinating,” explains Singh.
He adds: “But I know people who are trying to find ways and means of doing something similar under different conditions. In the end, it’s all about taste. I would say J. Gow in Scotland is very far . My brother is also currently working on a project like this in Denmark, so I don’t want to rule out something like that coming soon.”
Jamaica also has an alternative to pits and still bottoms: pre-fermentation. When Worthy Park completely rebuilt the distillery in 2005, they planned without muck and dunder right from the start – but still wanted to get a lot of ester into the bottles. This was achieved through a further step in the production of rum. As Singh describes, at Worthy Park, before the actual fermentation, a tank is set up where molasses, sugar cane trimmings and sugar cane juice come in. It stays that way and a kind of modern equivalent for Muck and Dunder is formed by wild yeasts and bacteria. “This mass then goes into the fermentation vats of the mash. That works too. So far, however, Worthy Park has been alone with that. People know from Long Pond and Hampden that they rely on Muck and Dunder and they expect the same from New Yarmouth – in the latter But no one knows for sure,” Singh adds.
Joshua Singh has been dealing with rum for a decade and a half now. During this time he has tried many varieties. He doesn’t remember how many. It is all the more difficult for a rum to be remembered by Singh. He usually associates such a rum with experiences or milestones. Among his treasures is a 1986 Rockley Still made from Bristol Spirits Sherry Cask. A rum that he didn’t like at first, but then became more and more accessible. From this bottling, Singh could measure how his taste slowly changed.
But that doesn’t mean that he likes every rum: “I can taste the 1993 Trinidad Caroni ‘The Beast
But that doesn’t stop him from experimenting, says Singh. Most recently, for many years, he had been looking forward to the day when he would finally be able to bottle the “S.B.S. Guyana 2014 PM/DHE” (Port Mourant/ Diamond High Ester), a high-ester rum from Guyana. This makes him the first dealer in the world who was allowed to restrict this. Restricted because the manufacturer DDL mixed the highly aromatic product from the DHE still with another rum on site (barrel blend) and does not release the high-ester rum pure.
In the future, he is particularly looking forward to rum from previously unknown countries, which can already boast a handful of products. “In the next ten years we will see a lot from Africa and India, which is really exciting. The whole continent of Africa is very exciting. The climate for sugar cane is perfect in places and there are distilleries there. As I’m half Indian, of course I want to I also know what comes from my home country. But currently a lot of what comes from there is really miserable. I’m curious to see when and how that will change. I think it will be in three or four years. We are definitely living in the second golden age of rum after the first peak in the 18th century,” he sums up.
As far as trying it is concerned. As far as big bucks go, the train seems to have already left. Anyone who missed the beginnings of the legendary bottler Luca Gargano and his label Velier can only get hold of the bottles with a lot of money today. This also applies to Singh’s probably most expensive possession, a wooden box with two original Navy Rums from the British Navy, which was actually supposed to go to sailors in the sixties. Inside are two ceramic bottles, each containing 4.5 liters of rum. Singh reckons this box would fetch five figures at auction.
But Singh also has an opinion on such runaway unicorns: “I’m not sad about it at all. Great new bottlings come out every week, which can at least keep up with the high-end collector’s rum in terms of quality. It will never be the same, but at least similarly good. So don’t worry.”
At this point, Singh also dispels the myth that an old Demerara rum from Guyana will never come back like this: “The old vintages may be sold out, but the taste of these rums is no secret. I can confirm that from numerous blind tastings. How That’s it? Very simple. They’re sweetened. Most of the time we’re talking about Guyana rums here – and they’re made to a specific recipe that hasn’t changed much in decades. An important ingredient in the old recipes is caramel. Not industrial stuff, but a proprietary blend that goes into the barrel right after the distillation with the rum. This is for the color and of course the flavor. The caramel for the old recipes comes straight from Demerara sugar cane and, unlike industrial caramel for the colouring, contains A lot of sugar. I would guess that an old skeldon has between five to ten grams of sugar per liter. So basically that’s sweetened rum because that’s how the recipe works. This only has a limited connection with maturation. Of course, long tropical maturation does something different to the rum than continental storage – and of course the cask also plays a role. But the old Guyana rums get their character from the caramel.”
Old is still premium – Singh is sure of that too. Because most bottlings that are over 20 years old are simply less interesting from a company’s point of view than a rum that is twelve years old, which can still be priced fairly. “The more expensive a rum is from the factory, the more work it is to sell it. Which brings us back to the market. First of all, you serve the masses with a product that sells very easily and is already very good in itself. For connoisseurs and enthusiasts you tend to work on the side, maybe because you’re one yourself – but you don’t do it for the big money,” he reveals.
Basically, this is a reassuring thought: Because there is something for every taste and every budget. For Singh, there will be more and more barrels in the future: “We are currently focusing on unaged rums, which is really exciting. This way you can show experts and cocktail lovers the differences between the manufacturers without barrel influences and – what is perhaps even funnier – the Try original versions of the bottlings that we’ll be releasing in 10 or 15 years. I say yes – golden age.”
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