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.
