“Consumers
need to be re-educated about the significance of age statements associated with
rum and understand the importance of maturation better, a distiller has stated.”
 |
| Bacardi UK brand ambassador Metinee Kongsrivilai |
Bacardi
UK brand ambassador Metinee Kongsrivilai explaining the distillation process of
Bacardi rums, A
London Cocktail Week seminar called ‘Does age matter, an exploration with the
expert’, hosted by Bacardi UK brand ambassador, Metinee Kongsrivilai, in
association with Abhishek Banik, former teaching assistant of the International
Centre for Brewing and Distilling and distiller of Ogilvy Spirits, Banik stated
that “maturation is what’s important, not ageing”.
The
hour-long presentation delved into the importance of age statements for rum,
its involvement in the character of the product and other factors that
contribute to the flavor, taste and appearance of the spirit.
“If
you age it for too long you get too much of the wood,” Banik said. “People
focus on the number of years something has been aged, but maturation is what’s
important, not ageing.
“The whisky
industry has already realized it and there are definitely parallels to be
drawn across the both categories, but I think the rum industry has got a job
making people aware that age does not equal quality.”
Defining
quality
Both
Kongsrivilai and Banik stressed that Bacardi’s focus was not on age as each
product is blended to a specific flavor profile, not time frame.
Bacardi
8 is the only Bacardi rum to carry a number, which represents the youngest rum
in the blend rather than the oldest because the “oldest rum varies as we blend
to a specific flavor profile,” explained Kongsrivilai.
“Consumers
are more curious and more picky to understand about quality,” Kongsrivilai
added. “They are definitely interested but they have not reached that stage
where they really understand that age doesn’t define a product’s quality.”
I have always found that believing in age
statements doesn’t buy you quality in
most rums that I have been associated with.
I have found some very young rums to have better flavor profiles that
many of the ones with older age statements.
In fact, I have found very few rums that boast age statements over 2o
years that have impressed my palate.
I tend to agree that the blending of
several aged rums with different barrel histories has overall been more
impressive to my palate that those with all of the wines being of the same
age. Different woods and what the barrel
was used to age prior to the rum seems to have more influence on the flavor of
the finished product that does how long it has been in the barrel. ;o)
