How Rum Became a Spirit Worth Sipping

rum

This story was originally published in Penthouse magazine.

For decades, rum has been the cheap floozy of the spirits world, a tacky booze to mix with Coke for a quick buzz or whir into a umbrella-topped libation that’s embarrassing to sip anywhere beside a Caribbean beach. Captain Morgan, Bacardi, Malibu—they’re the names you curse through the inevitable jackhammer hangover.

            But lately, rum—a grab bag of distilled spirits crafted from sugarcane and its by-products, mainly molasses—has rehabilitated its besmirched name. The white and spiced rums you pounded in college have been joined by oak-aged elixirs and artisanal spirits that are on par with, and sometimes exceed, more revered dark spirits. “Whiskey and Scotch converts are leading the way to the rum shelf,” says spirits expert Edward Hamilton, who runs the Ministry of Rum website.

So which rum is worth opening your wallet? For starters, look toward rhum agricole—yes, the spelling is correct (it means “agricultural rhum”). Instead of molasses, the French West Indies specialty is constructed with fresh-pressed sugarcane juice. After distillation, the rhum sits in stainless steel vats for at least three months, when it’s bottled as a blanc. The result is fresh and grassy, floral and citric, making rhum agricole great sipped neat or in a cocktail, such as the simple lime-and-sugar Ti Punch.

“Rhum agricole, which was unheard of five years ago, is now on the lips of any mixologist worth his shaker,” says Hamilton. In addition to the blanc, fresh rhum agricole is also aged in barrels, mainly French oak, to impart the lush notes of vanilla and wood and darker tint that bourbon fans will favor. After at least three years of marinating in a barrel, the agricole is dubbed rhum vieux, or “old rum.”

When buying a rhum agricole, examine the label. While numerous Caribbean distilleries use sugarcane juice, France’s Appellation d’origine controlee—a regulated designation given to regional delicacies such as cognac, champagne and even Dijon mustard—certifies that only Martinique’s seven distilleries can lay claim to rhum agricole. Brands worth buying include Rhum J.M., Rhum Clement, Neisson and Depaz, which specializes in aged rhums.

While rhum vieuxs require just three years of aging to earn their appellation, other rums are slumbering in oak for 12, 15 or even 30 years, making them as complex and nuanced as a snort of Scotland’s finest. In fact, Renegade Rum takes its super-rare, single-vintage rums (perhaps a 16-year-old rum from Guyana or a 15-year-old Jamaican rum) and “enhances” them with oak-cask aging at Scotland’s famed Bruichladdich distillery. The results are snifter-worthy sensations best served straight—mixing would be blasphemy.

In Barbados, Mount Gay Rum makes two exceptional long-aged specimens. The Extra Old naps in bourbon-soaked oak for up to 15 years (aged rums are blends of younger and older batches) and presents a nose of sweet fruit and oak and a zesty finish. By contrast, the 1703 Old Cask Selection—named after the year Mount Gay was born—incorporates rums aged from 10 to 30 years: expect a nose of cigar-friendly leather and oak, and flavors that flit from bananas to candied fruit. From Guatemala, you’ll find the fab premium rums of Ron Zacapa. The distillery’s exquisitely nuanced Centenario line stars spirits aged up to 15 or 23 years (the elder version is somewhat sweeter), and the exemplary XO (extra old), which ages in bourbon, sherry and wine barrels, before being finished in cognac casks.

To splurge on a once-in-a-lifetime liquor, look toward Ron Abuelo Centuria. In honor of Varela Hermanos’ hundredth anniversary, the Panamanian distillery released an extra-antiquated version of its benchmark Ron Abuelo rum. The Centuria is a select blend of private-reserve rums aged up to 30 years in oak barrels that once held bourbon. The result is a beguiling tango of butterscotch and dried fruits, with a prickly, peppery finish and a nose of vanilla and smoke. It’s equal parts familiar and unexpected, a tropical luxury worth savoring beneath, not with, an umbrella.