5 Minutes of Rum
Notes on rum, a few minutes at a time.
"The first three cask strength bottlings are very small batch releases with each bottle individually numbered, detailing the cask numbers and the distillery of production.The bottles are also in new design but sort of still keeping the hallmark of Rum Nation but instead of the usual cork there is a glass stopper and a new tube for an elegant gift presentation."
"Evaporated cane juice is nothing more than raw sugar (aka turbinado, or Demerara sugar [often a misnomer]) which is to say it’s white crystalline sugar with a light coating of molasses on it. If you make a distillate from raw sugar, you have not made rhum agricole, you have made “sugarshine”."
Here’s an agricole production cheat sheet from Josh Miller at Inu A Kena, if you need it.
"But producers also had another incentive to lower the alcohol content of a spirit—a motivation that has arguably had a greater influence on why spirits today are often weaker than spirits of 50 and 100 years ago: money.
Simply put, more dilute spirits are cheaper to produce. Not only does doing so allow distillers to get more bottles out of every drop of alcohol they produce (a drop in proof from 100 to 80 can create about a half-dozen extra cases per whiskey barrel for a distiller), but each of those bottles carries a lower tax burden, which, in the U.S., makes the federal taxes on an 80 proof bottle 53 cents lower than on a 100 proof one."
That part of the equation was pretty clear, ever since the dustup with Maker's Mark a couple of years back. I didn't really know where 80 came in as the baseline however. And speaking of unusual ABVs, I was gifted a bottle of Mount Gay Eclipse overproof recently - bottled at 154 proof, or 77% ABV. I wonder if 154 is the "normal" overproof number in Barbados (the origin of the bottle I believe)?
"Rattan and bamboo detail work from artist "Bamboo Ben" Bassham frames the low and glowing room, while leafy palm fronds and lots of hanging lights fill in the darker corners."
The photos in this article make the space look amazing, as I'm sure it is. I'm looking forward to visiting The Pacific Seas at Clifton's. If nothing else I know the place will look beautiful. Thanks Ben!