A Few Things You Should Know About Rum

It Must Be From a Derivative of the Sugar Cane.

     Sugar cane which is a type of grass that grows best in warm tropical climates, like South and Central America, the Caribbean and the Central Pacific. Once the juice is extracted from the sugarcane, it can be turned into molasses or kept in its raw juice form. On its own, it has a sweet, grassy taste that gives you a major sugar rush. Mixed with yeast and water, it begins the fermentation process.

It Has a Lot In Common Other Brown Liquors.

     The barrels! After the fermentation process, rum is distilled to extract the ethanol from the rest of the stuff in the fermented wash . After that, the alcohol is often aged in American bourbon barrels. Why? When making bourbon, the rules of Bourbon say that you can only use new oak barrels to age it. These oak barrels are then sold to rum and other spirits companies, where they are used aging rum and other spirits.

There’s A Lot Of Fire Involved.

     A good rum has a broad spectrum of flavors, from caramel and vanilla to smoke. How do rum makers achieve this complexity?   Fire, that chars the insides of the oak barrels, imparting a toasty flavor on the rum aged inside. So those notes of wood ,vanilla, and caramel you're tasting.

White Rum And Dark Rum Are More Similar Than You Think.

     After the rum has been aged to the distillery’s liking, some of the aged rum is filtered through charcoal filters to remove some of the color and a bit of the oaky flavor. This is what we refer to as white rum, the preferred rum for mixed drinks. Dark rum, its counterpart, maintains more of the charred woody flavor and is usually consumed neat or with ice.

You Can Do Your Own Quality Check.

     Good spirits depend on your senses to determine if it is a rum that you will enjoy.   Pour it into a clear glass and examine its color and clarity, dark rums will have an amber to mahogany hue, White rums should be clear and free of debris or cloudiness.  Some of the age white rums may still have a hint of color that was not complexly filtered out leaving some of the flavor of the barrel.   Take a small sip, then swoosh it around in your mouth, if alcohol the first thing you taste, that sharp burn is often indicative of a cheaper bottle.  The quality rum will give you complexity immediately of sweet, smoky, and smooth mouth feel. This is the type of rum you want to sip slowly.   The whites are best saved for quality cocktails like a Mojito or other fine mixture.