Rum 101

Let’s Talk Rum!

Rum has been gradually rising in popularity with the resurgent interest in tiki (see: What is Tiki?) and the general craft cocktail movement. As an aged spirit, rum is one of the best bangs for your buck and is absolutely delicious, diverse, and well…often misunderstood and misrepresented.

Starting out: what is rum?

Rum is defined as a distilled spirit made from sugarcane and its derivatives (fresh sugarcane juice, cooked sugarcane syrup, or molasses). It can be made anywhere in the world using various methods (pot stills, column stills, different yeasts and fermentation processes). As such, there is huge variety in the spirit and unlike other spirits that have widely-circulated and understood sub-categories (i.e. whiskies: rye, bourbon, scotch; brandies: Cognac, Calvados, Pisco), rum sub-categories are less recognized by consumers and also have limited regulatory enforcement for labeling.

That all said, “getting into rum” can be confusing. The list of brands and styles of rums called for in tiki and other recipes is vast and can be overwhelming. Depending on where you look, there are dozens of ways of “categorizing” rum. Dark/Gold/Silver? Flavored/Spiced/Unflavored? Aged/XO/Unaged? English/Spanish/French? Premium/Mixing/Overproof? Column-still/Pot-still? In this series, I’ll go over some basic topics on rum including common misconceptions, along with some recommended bottles to start your collection with, so you can build a knowledge baseline to navigate around all the various styles and products out there. Sooo, grab yourself some rum and get ready.

Topics

Rum and Sugar

The association of rum being sweet is one of the biggest misconceptions and injustices to the spirit. Whiskey and other spirit drinkers may scoff at rum, noting its sweetness as a turn off, and cocktail aficionados may write off rum as something reserved only when you want a sugar high. There are reasons for these associations, but let’s set the record straight.

Rum is a distilled spirit just like whiskey and vodka and brandy. To produce a distilled spirit, you need a starting ingredient that has sugars, whether that be from grains (whiskies), fruits (brandies), agave sap (mezcals), sugarcane (rums), or any other carbohydrate-containing substance (vodkas). As part of the spirit-making process, the starting ingredient is broken down into simple sugars, and yeast is added to convert the sugars to alcohol. Essentially, yeasts are micro-organisms eat the sugars, and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide as byproducts (which is why you see bubbles in fermentation). Eventually they die off once the alcohol content is too high…kind of sad, right? Dying from their own byproducts… I digress. ^_^

Distillation then concentrates the alcohol by separating it from the rest (water, remaining solids, etc). The resultant product has NO RESIDUAL SUGAR, regardless of the starting ingredient.

So then what makes people think rum is sweeter than other spirits?

  1. Many rums marketed as ‘premium sipping rums’ tend to have lots of ADDED SUGAR post distillation. This can create an illusion of being ‘smoother’ (whatever that means), and unfortunately is abused much more in rums than other spirits
  2. Similarly, many lower quality or younger rums may also add sugar or other additives to mask its actual flavors
  3. Rums are often mixed in poorly constructed fruity drinks that employ high doses of corn syrup or other artificial ingredients

I’m not saying that sugared rum is always *bad* and low quality (sometimes it’s actually very good, like one of my favorites – El Dorado), but you should know what you’re drinking to select a bottle to suit your mood and palate. How would you feel if you bought a bottle labeled as bourbon and instead got something like honey whiskey? Yeah, exactly. And if you’re looking for unadulterated non-sugared rum, select a bottle made in Barbados, Jamaica, or Martinique, which all have national regulations that prevent additives. There are others of course that are non-adulterated, but you can’t go wrong with anything from those countries.

Rum and Color

This is a topic that is super important to understand in this world of marketing deceit. Rum is a spirit made from sugarcane and its derivatives (raw sugarcane juice, cooked sugarcane syrup, molasses), and can be either bottled directly after distillation, or aged in barrels. Before bottling, the rum can be blended with other rums, and also is often tweaked with select other ingredients. One of these is color (for more on sugar additives, read on).

There is only one natural way for rum to take on color, and that is through barrel-aging and getting its color from the wood. No matter how long it ages, it will never get darker than a shade of gold/amber. However, color can be added in the form of caramel coloring, spices, molasses, and other random add-ins, to change the look (and sometimes mouthfeel and taste) of the finished bottled product.

In this photo, all the rums are similarly aged no more than a few short years max, but the colors vary significantly. So, please don’t judge a rum by its color; it’s like judging an M&M by its colored shell.

There are different reasons and goals (not all deceptive) for coloring rum, achieved thru various means. A few common ones:

  • Spirit caramel – potent coloring agent that generally has trivial effect on taste and sweetness. It’s often used to ensure a consistent-looking product batch after batch since barrel-induced coloring may be inconsistent, which can make consumers wary. Coloring added for this reason is so insignificant that it’s generally not considered an ‘additive.’ However, it can also be used purely for aesthetic reasons, and in some cases, to make younger rums appear older.
  • Molasses/spices – these coloring agents will change the flavor of the rum and is also often accompanied by added sweeteners. Often found in spiced or “dark” rums.
  • Charcoal filtering – this STRIPS out color from rums that might have been barrel aged. Employed to achieve a clean, crisp color, usually for aesthetic reasons.

Rum and Number Labeling

Ok, so you go to the store and look at the rum shelf searching for a new one to buy. There’s a general notion that longer aged spirits are smoother and more complex (and often more expensive too), so you search for the age on the bottle. You see numbers, and the first assumption might be that the number represents the number of years it’s aged for…I mean, why else would there be a random number on the bottle? Wellllll, not so fast.

Just like any industry, sales are important, and consumer marketing is thus vital to sales. Companies know you’re looking for that number (and a higher number usually means they can hike up the price), so they may put a deceiving number on that bottle that really means nothing at all. It doesn’t mean the rum in the bottle is necessarily bad or low quality, but it does mean you’re not getting what you might be led to think you’re getting.

How to avoid this trap? Look very closely for the phrase “aged _ years/años” on the label. If it doesn’t specifically say that (and be careful, they can be tricky!), then what’s inside likely isn’t aged for that long. In this photo, all 6 rums have numbers, but if you inspect it, the left 3 (Zacapa, Flor de Caña, Banks) do not say those words exactly, while the right 3 (Doorly’s, El Dorado, Appleton) do. Does it mean one is better than the other? No, taste preference is personal, so drink what you enjoy, but know what you’re getting.

  • No Age Statement
  • Valid Age Statement

Rum and Aging

Have you heard that the reason rum is often more affordable than other aged spirits (like whiskies or brandies) is because it “ages faster” in warmer tropical climates? What does that actually mean?

Well, what is aging? Aging represents the changes that occur between the freshly distilled spirit and its form after sitting inside a wooden barrel for some time. During that time, nature works its magic as the wood interacts with the alcohol, changing its chemical composition and leaching flavors. Additionally, since wood is a semi-porous material, evaporation is inevitable and each year, as much as 5-15% can be lost as the “angel’s share.” The rate at which all these changes occur is largely dependent on the temperature (as well as type of wood barrel, level of charred-ness of the wood, etc). In the Caribbeans (where most rum is made/aged), temperatures stay consistently hot year round, so this process happens much quicker than in colder regions where barrel-aging occurs (i.e. Scotland, US midwest, France, etc). As a result, a 5 year old rum aged in the Caribbeans may have similar levels of barrel-spirit interaction changes as a 10 year old scotch (aged in Scotland). Which means…more bang for your buck.

Since so much volume is lost each year due to evaporation, it becomes incrementally more expensive to sustain a longer-aged product. Not only does it take more time before they can put their product on the market, they essentially also lose sell-able volume each year. This is why longer-aged products are often non-linearly more expensive than their shorter-aged counterparts.

In conclusion: save $$$ and drink more rum. 😉

Great, you’ve made it this far! Now that we’ve got the basics covered and you’re ready to invest in some bottles to build up your home bar, check out myRum Home Bar recommendations to stock a versatile, cocktail-ready collection!

And if this has just tickled your interest and you’re ready for more reading, here are some of my suggestions for further reading!

Web

Books

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