We're going to veer off the wine path for a moment to address a phenomenon known as Rhum. The stuff has been showing up at my door a lot lately, equipped, like Barbie, with a host of cool accessories: flasks of pure-cane syrup, lime-squeezing gadgets, odd shaped glasses. It comes in the sort of exotic bottles that clog an industrial packing line, wrapped in raffia or leather and stoppered with glass or cork.
It practically screams "Important & Artisanal!" But beyond the art and the H, is Rhum any different from plain old rum? To find out, I set off on a research mission armed only with hot butter, a pair of coconut shells and a thousand tiny parasols.
The story starts with the sugar cane plant, native to Papua New Guinea. A restless vegetable, it managed to work its way through Asia, Africa, India and Spain before landing, along with Columbus in 1493, in the West Indies.
Sugar was not a cash cow at first for islanders. The process involved separating rough crystals from the industrial waste known as molasses, which was usually dumped in the sea. Then, one day, a Martinique priest by the name of Père Labat noticed that, if left alone, this sludge had a tendency to spontaneously ferment. He did what any man of God would do: he distilled it. And so rum was invented.
By the 1600s, the islands were carpeted with sugar plantations, most doubling as distilleries. Some molasses, though, was sent up north to New England where colonists fermented their own rum. This leg of the infamous triangle trade--molasses to rum to slaves--proved so successful that by the 1700s, Colonial America had become the largest producer of rum in the world.
It reigned as favorite Yankee quaff right up until Britain’s parliament passed the Molasses Act of 1774, which not only raised taxes on treacle, but also prohibited its import from non-British isles. This didn't just anger New Englanders. It pissed the hell out of French Caribbean planters, faced with losing their biggest export market. In fact, it riled them up so much they donned uniforms and helped win the Revolution.
Lot of good it did them. No sooner was the war over than newly-minted Americans turned their attention to home-grown products, namely whiskey. It looked like the end for Caribbean rum.
Two things saved it. One was a sudden hot fad for rum-punch among the fashionable set in Europe. The other was a long-standing contract as the exclusive booze provider to the unquenchable British Royal Navy.
Admiral Nelson was one of those stalwarts. When he simultaneously won the battle but lost his life at Trafalgar, his body was shipped home for burial preserved in a vat of rum. Thirsty seamen onboard, apparently not too fussy about decomposing-officer funk, sipped around him through straws of macaroni. This gave rise to a British expression “Tapping the Admiral.” In 1895, a bout of malaria sent Prince Henry of Battenberg home from Africa in the same sort of pickle.
Rum didn’t catch back on in the States till after Prohibition, chiefly when World War II restricted the supply of cognac and scotch. Rum's glamour days followed: playboys sipped Cuba Librés, Mojitos and Mai-Tais around the pool of the Tropicana and Nacional hotels of pre-commie Cuba. Generations of young women relied on rum and Diet Coke to get them simultaneously drunk, sober and thin. Or maybe that was just me.
Cocktails are usually made with white rum, bottled right after distilling. Darker rums get their oomph and copper hue from aging in small oak barrels.
Then there’s sipping rum, quickly elbowing its way into the cigar and leather-filled province of single malt scotch and cognac. It takes many years in barrique to mellow this rum and infuse it with smoky vanilla flavors. After all, rum was not built in a day. Still, exactly how long it ages is a tricky question. Caribbean heat evaporates up to 15% of the rum in a barrel every year. After twelve years, there might be less than five gallons left in a 52-gallon barrel. Which makes 24-year-old rum every bit as suspicious as it's delicious.
But none of that makes it Rhum. It's still part of the 95% of the world’s production distilled from fermented molasses. But there's another way. Here's how it came about. In the mid-19th century, the rise of beet sugar began to threaten the cane market. Faced with a glut of sugar cane, Martinique producer Homère Clément thought of squeezing fresh cane juice and fermenting it just like wine before distilling. That fresh-squeezed cane-juice rum became known as Rhum Agricole (as opposed to Industriale - the molasses kind). In Brazil, they call it cachaça (ka-shah-sa), and it's the key ingredient in their signature drink, the caipirinha (kai-pure-en-ya), a delicious but dangerous drink that inflicts women with an uncontrollable desire for liposuction and breast implants and causes the damndest men to think they look fine in a thong.
While regular rum is a by-product of sugar, Rhum uses the entire cane crop. Rum is made year-round, but Rhum can only happen during the short harvest season. All this makes it a tad more expensive.
Is it worth it? Depends. Like the highest-price wines, it can be quirky. Along with rum's usual buttery, caramel flavors you get complex, grassy, vegetal notes plus mysterious reminders of rocks and rain. As befits a product that reflects Mother Nature more than the factory, the flavors can vary tremendously from producer to producer. Some are exquisite enough to leave poor old rum crawling through the dust wondering who you need to know around here to get an H. But like everything that goes in your mouth, it comes down to personal taste. Whichever you end up preferring, let me know if you're planning on making cocktails. I’ve got some parasols to unload.
Recommended
Rhum
Água Luca - Brazil
10 Cane - Trinidad
Rhum Clément - Martinique
Rhum JM - Martinique
Barbancourt – Haiti
Neissen – Martinique
Depaz – Martinique
Oronoco – Brazil
La Favorite - Martinique
Agua Luca - Brazil (cachaça, actually)
Rum
Santa Teresa – Venezuela
Zacapa Centenario - Guatemala
Pyrat XO Riserve - Carribean
English Harbour – Antigua
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