No doubt I got some details wrong in my report. It was kind of hard with the combination of a language barrier and my own lack of expertise.

I think you may be thinking of the other Barbancourt distillery. There are two companies using the same name.

See my post on the confusion at the following url:

http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/10/21/barbancourt-rum-jean-barbancourt-liqueurs-and-berling-rum-sorting-out-a-haitian-confusion/

I’ve seen photos of a place on a hillside (from memory it looks kind of like a castle) that I think was the second Barbancourt distillery. This one was focused more on liqueurs and flavored rums.

Wish I could have visited Haiti in 1975! It would have been interesting.

I don’t know if the Barbancourt distillery has always been in the same location, but I visited there in 1975 when Baby Doc was the President of Haiti. My impression of the country and this distillery is incredible and very memorable. It was a flawless, sunny day, and we were there for a tasting. On a balcony that overlooked a verdant hillside, white-uniformed male servers passed out samples of the various flavors of rum they produced. As I recall, my favorite was banana, and I tried them all several times.

I will never forget my trip to Haiti, and I have many more stories, but I’m glad I got to visit when things were a bit more stable than they are now.

Happy to have found your blog. Cheers!

“The Barbancourt still is a double column still, of the type used in France to produce Cognac. The spirit is distilled twice (duh!), to around 70 degrees in the first column, then to 96 degrees in the second column. This produces a highly rectified spirit. I believe this double distillation to high purity is another important point of difference between Barbancourt and the Martinique agricoles, which are pot still rums and distilled to a lower purity.”

A couple of important corrections. First is that Barbancourt uses the Charentais method (which he brought from the cognac region of France). Simply, this is a double distillation process using copper pot stills. In Barbancourt’s case the first rough concentration is achieved by batching through a single copper column still (very expensive) to concentratate the spirits to about 70% alcohol. The second distillation is performed in copper pot stills to about 90% (not 96% – this is a considerable difference.

Your observation that Martinique cane juice rums are produced in pot stills is incorrect. All cane juice rums produced under their AOC scheme MUST be produced in column stills only, to no more than 75%.

One of the advantages of column stilling is consistency and speed – the disadvantage is that subtle differences in congeners are ignored by what is a relatively industrial process. Barbancourt uses a column only to concentrate, not to divide – the division occurs in the second, pot distilling where the master distiller is in complete control and decides – drop by drop – where he will make his cuts. Heads and tails from the pot still phase are kept and can be added to subsequent pots to further concentrate and capture desireable congeners.

This is comparison to the relatively restricted column process. Another big and very important difference is in aging. You mentioned that Barbancourt ages the new make at 50% – aging at lower percentages takes longer and is considerably more expensive, but this longer maturation produces a greatly improved, smoothly aged product.

To us, the amazing thing is that Barbancourt has produced the most consistently highly rated cane juice rums that sell for far, far less than their inconsistent competitors. Sadly this is due to their third world, poverty status – only in this regard can they afford to produce what is as close to a handmade cane juice rum by art, not stifling regulation (which doesn’t work anyway).

Just a thought. Keep up the good work!

The claim is far more important to marketing than it is to quality, especially considering that Barbancourt’s products as a whole have been rated consistently higher than the cane juice products of Martinique.

The term “rhum agricole” is a generic, French, for “cane juice rum” and preceeded the “AOC Martinique” designation by over a hundred years. Thus the AOC label is simply a subset of “rhum agricole”/”cane juice rum”, and in no way defines or specifies cane juice rum in any way.

I consider the cane juice rums of Martinique as being rums by regulation, and a marketing device. OTOH I consider the cane juice rums of Barbancourt as rum by art, and as close to handmade as you are likely to find, costly and time consuming, that could only be economically accomplished in otherwise very, very poor country.

Your speculations that the concentrated juices on Martinique must be fresher on the belief that this is done “on site” remain as such is a bit of a reach, don’t you think? Where the concentration is conceived is not related to when it is used. You can be sure that Barbancourt manages all their juice with considerable quality control, as evidenced by their superlative end product.

How silly is all this? Consider that I’ve yet to see one distiller claim that their rums are made “from fresh molasses”, lol. Their are really only two basic categories of rum: those that emanate from cane juice, and those from molasses. Keep in mind too that water is removed and added repeatedly in the process of crushing, early production, fermentation, distillation, aging and finally bottling.

Mr. Hamilton relies on a distinction without a difference, and the proof – as always – is in the pudding.

I have covered these issues in great detail at The Rum Project:
http://rumproject.com/rumforum/viewforum.php?f=4

Hopefully I’ll make it to Martinique one of these days.

None of the French distillers on Martinique use anything like a dehydrated sugar cane juice.

What an incredibly interesting journey you`re on!