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| Yves Assier de Pompignan |
“I always dreamed of making rums,” Yves Assier de Pompignan
tells me, walking through the waving stalks of a sugarcane field.
Martinique is an
island where there are more rum distilleries than anywhere else on earth,
creating a new one is a tall order, especially when most brands have centuries
of heritage. That’s what makes the
product of these dreams so rare, Assier de Pompignan has accomplished the
remarkable here in Martinique on a small, centuries-old sugar estate that
was the home of the former governor of Martinique and the rum is called A1710.
Assier de Pompignan
has taken a small property in southeastern Martinique and created the island’s
newest working rum distillery. It took
three years of jumping through hoops, planning and plotting, but a life-long
dream has become a reality.
The challenge for any new rum brand,
particularly in a place like Martinique, is the aged variety. White rum can be produced in a few months, but
an aged variety of quality needs years.
A1710, named for the year his family first came to Martinique, has
initially released three expressions that are special blends of rums from both
Martinique and Guadeloupe, using significantly aged rums, some as old as
17 years, to create what is a truly French Caribbean rum. The result is splendid, with rich, complex
flavors with all of the texture you expect from a great French rum.
The white rum is the
heart of this story, produced beginning last July right on the Habitation, and
soon to hit the shelves in Martinique. This
rum, produced using a rebuilt former Cognac “Charentais” still, converted into
a hybrid column-pot still that produces the only pot-still white rum in all of
Martinique.
The White Rum is a bold, sweet, vegetal with a wonderfully
earthy taste; while Yves is humble, it’s clear he knows how good it already is. Some of the white rum, about a third, will
be hidden away in bourbon barrels for long-term aging. It will be a few years before the aged
expressions will come from the new distillery, but I’m sure that they will be
wonderful.
