Barbancourt is an interesting distillery. Calling the House of Barbanourt eccentric would be a stretch, but it is definitely an anomaly in the rum world. Standing out as it does from the pack, Barbancourt attracts more than its share of controversy. While few deny that Barbancourt produces delicious and quality rums, some question the raw materials used.

The marketing blurb goes that Barbancourt distills exclusively from fermented fresh sugar cane juice, following the seasonal rhythms of the sugar cane harvest to produce a Haitian version of Martinique’s famous agricole rums. However, some say Barbancourt takes a less discriminating approach, feeding its fermenting vessels and stills with sugar syrup and molasses during the seasons when fresh sugar cane juice is unavailable, producing a delicious but odd hybrid that is quite unlike the rums of Martinique. Through visiting the distillery I hoped to learn about how Barbancourt is made, what makes it unique, and where it fits in comparison to other rums.

The Barbancourt distillery is located on the northern outskirts of Port au Prince, on the edge of the Plaine du Cul de Sac. Skirting the west side of the airport you head north on a road leading out of town. As you draw closer to your destination, the industrial estates around the airport give way to a more typically Hatian array of ramshackle roadside business, in particular the ubiquitous wooden shacks housing lotto shops. Eventually you turn left into a potholed lane. This lane takes you through sugar cane fields, and then along a tree-lined avenue that leads to the gate of the distillery itself.

You cannot casually turn up at Barbancourt and expect to get inside. An appointment is necessary. I arrived nearly an hour late for mine. My first driver failed to show up on time, and his replacement took time to arrive and then got me where I needed to be only very slowly. First he had to stop and retrieve a piece of his car (those potholes again), then he got lost. Fortunately my late arrival did not cause undue problems. The gatekeeper made some phone calls, and after a little waiting around, a supervisor of some sort, Mr. Denis, arrived to let me in.

Mr. Denis’s English was not great, which meant I never found out exactly what he supervised. He seemed slightly bemused to have a visitor, and unsure of quite what to do with me. As we walked into the complex one thing became immediately clear; the sugar mill that sat to the left of the main gate was completely idle. Not only that, the fermenting vats were empty, the still was as cold as could be expected on a sweltering Haitian afternoon, and none of the workers looked particularly busy. Mr. Denis apologized for having nothing much to show me, saying that things were quiet until the sugar cane ripened in November. While the bottling plant operates year round, actual rum production shuts down for the four months from July to November.

The distiller, Mr. LaFortune, showed me the still. Mr. LaFortune spoke better English than Mr. Denis, and with him acting as translator I was able to learn a fair bit about how the rum is made.

The base material for the fermentation is primarily fresh sugar cane, sourced from within a roughly 15km radius of the distillery. Roughly a quarter of the sugar cane used comes from estates owned by Barbancourt. The remainder is purchased from various local suppliers. As a supplementary base material, small quantities of concentrated sugar cane syrup are sometimes sourced from further away. The sugar cane juice is extracted on site using the cane mill. After pressing, the fresh juice is adjusted to 14.1 brix using water, or a combination of water and sugar cane syrup. The liquid thus yielded is called vesou. The vesou undergoes a three day fermentation with a house yeast.

The sugar cane mill sits idle. . .

Given the controversy regarding the base materials used by Barbancourt, I was interested in what proportion of concentrated sugar cane syrup was used to supplement the fresh cane juice. Mr. LaFortune was coy on this point, saying that he could not answer because it was not a fixed figure. However, he maintained that the practice of adding sugar cane syrup was limited to certain production months, and only done in small quantities. He stressed that the fermentation was always primarily of fresh juice, and sometimes exclusively so.

The supplementing of fresh cane juice with sugar cane syrup seems to be one point where Barbancourt differs from the Martinique agricole rums. I have heard that some distillers on Martinique dehydrate their ‘fresh cane juice’ to enable it to be stored while waiting for the still. When does ‘dehydrated fresh cane juice’ become ‘sugar cane syrup’? I should have asked Mr. LaFortune the brix of the sugar cane syrup. However, the syrup Barbancourt uses is presumably fairly concentrated (to enable it to travel significant distances), and may be more concentrated that the ‘dehydrated fresh cane juice’ allegedly used by some Martinique producers. So far as I know the Martinique distillers who engage in this practice do the dehydration on site, while Barbancourt’s syrup comes from some distance away. Therefore, if ‘dehydrated fresh cane juice’ really is used to produce rum in Martinique, the material used is probably fresher and less concentrated, and possibly more flavorsome, than the sugar cane syrup used by Barbancourt.

Mr. LaFortune and his still

Since I am no expert on stills, the following information may contain errors.

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.

The first column of the still is stainless steel, while the second is copper. The copper second column is new, and represents a recent refinement. Barbancourt switched from copper to stainless steel in 1999, a change that negatively influenced the quality of the spirit. It has taken them nearly a decade to switch back to copper (as I found for myself things happen slowly in Haiti). However, they have finally done it. Sadly I guess there is a decade worth of less-than-perfect Barbancourt to be drunk.

Barbancourt’s enormous French limousin oak aging vats.  You could go for a swim in these things.

Following distillation the spirit is cut with water to 50% alcohol by volume before beginning the aging process. Aging is done primarily in enormous vats made of French limousin oak. Alongside these large vats, some smaller barrels are also used. Supposedly the Domaine du Reserve is aged exclusively in the small barrels. All of the aging vessels are sourced from France. The aging vessels are purchased both new and second hand, with the second hand ones coming from cognac houses.

I found the statement that the Domaine du Reserve was aged exclusively in the smaller sized barrels a little surprising. Comparing the Domaine de Reserve to the Five Star, the former is nearly twice as old as the latter and yet the differences in taste are fairly subtle. It seems hard to reconcile this subtle taste difference with the Domaine du Reserve being aged twice as long and in far smaller aging vessels – smaller aging vessels would mean more contact between the rum and the wood and hence the introduction of more flavors during aging. In any case, that is what Mr. Denis said.

The final stop on my tour was the bottling room. The contrast with Brugal was striking. Brugal runs a highly automated operation that appears never to pause for breath, housed in a hall that could probably accommodate a 747. Barbancourt looks positively sleepy in comparison. All the bottling paraphernalia you would expect to see are there, but the scale is small and work progresses at a leisurely pace.

Mr. Denis (left) and my driver (right)

After the bottling room it was time to say goodbye. My parting question concerned the famous ‘woman with trident’ trademark. It was rumored to be a mysterious voodoo symbol. Were the rumors true? Everybody laughed. Nobody had a clue about the origin of the trademark. Disappointed, I consoled myself with the possibility that a powerful voodoo symbol would surely be a closely guarded secret. Yes, that must be it!

I felt I had learned a fair bit. In future I will be placing Barbancourt firmly within the family of cane juice rums. My hosts were certainly keen to distance themselves from the molasses-based rum producers on the other side of the island in the Dominican Republic. Barbancourt’s production methods make it unique among cane juice rums though.

I would say Barbancourt aims for a light, refined, and delicate flavor, through practices such as distilling to a high purity, diluting the spirit considerably before aging, aging in large vessels that limit the influence of wood on the flavor, and perhaps also through adding cane syrup to the vesou and muting the fresh cane flavors. For Martinique agricole rum purists there is plenty to criticize. The results speak for themselves though. Barbancourt make fine rums with a unique and sophisticated taste. There are plenty of smoother or bigger flavored rums out there, but Barbancourt offers an exceptional balance of fire, flavor, and finesse.

The famous Rhum Barbancourt is produced by Societe du Rhum Barbancourt, controlled by a firm called T. Gardere & Cie.  The Maison Barbancourt was established by a Frenchman, Dupre Barbancourt, in 1862.  On his death the company passed into the hands of his wife, Natalie Gardere.  Since the couple had no children, Mrs. Gardere left the company to her nephew, Paul Gardere.  The Barbancourt family thus ceased to be involved in the production of Rhum Barbancourt, though their name remained on the product.  The Gardere family have retained control of the brand to this day.

Nobody could give me the precise details, but it seems that at some later date a Barbancourt family member decided to re-establish the family tradition of involvement in the spirits business.  Thus the company Jean Barbancourt was born.  Jean Barbancourt produces various liqueurs, as well as rums under the Berling label.  The Jean Barbancourt products do not have the wide distribution of Rhum Barbancourt, but they are not hard to find.

I never got a chance to taste the Jean Barbancourt liqueurs, but I gave the rum a try.  In fact, Berling rum was attracting some attention while I was in Haiti owing to having recently won a prize in a rum competition.  Some bars were offering it as a higher quality alternative to Barbancourt. One place even talked of dropping Barbancourt and exclusively stocking Berling.  What was all the fuss about?

So far as I can tell Berling currently offer just two rums, a white and a black label.  Both are aged rums with a gold hue.  I do not recall seeing any specific age statement on either, but the black label is older than the white.  The two rums seem designed to compete with Barbancourt 3 and 5 star, respectively, and are priced to slightly undercut Barbancourt.  I refer to them below as simply as ‘white label’ and ‘black label’.  In fact they are both labeled something like ‘Vieux Labbe’, and further distinguished in the small print.

Berling White Label (aged rum at 43%)

Light golden colored rum with a fairly thin consistency.  It has a light vegetal aroma. Assuming this is another cane juice rum, this vegetal aroma should be grassiness from the sugar cane.  However, unlike in Barbancourt and the Martinique agricoles, this grassiness seems to have morphed from luscious sugar cane into something ill-defined and not obviously pleasant. There is a hint of caramel and vanilla. I had to strain to get it though. This rum has less bite and fireiness than Barbancourt.  However, I would not call it smoother – there is just less going on. The predominant flavor is grassy, but it is a very ‘green’ grassy. I detect a faint smokiness that could be interesting but fails to really go anywhere. Unfortunately I cannot recommend this stuff.  I find it a thin rum with a slightly odd flavor. After tasting I was thankful it came in a tiny bottle and only cost a dollar.  This was another bottle that got snapped up by the hotel maid.

Berling Black Label (aged rum at 43%)

This is the prize winning Berling rum that recently got all the attention.  While I tried it, I have to admit not giving it a fair try.  I could not find it in a small bottle and  did not want to fork out for a large bottle that was very likely going to get tossed.

My taste of this rum came when the manageress of a hotel I dropped into late one night to use the Internet very kindly gave me a glass.  I had mentioned I was interested in rum and she basically said ‘try this’, telling me it was Haiti’s new prize winning rum.  Sadly I cannot say I appreciated it much.  Mind you,  I was not really in a rum appreciating mood.  It was late at night, the Internet in my hotel was not working and I had an urgent e-mail to send.  The walk to her hotel had been slightly stressful, as I wandered the pitch black streets carrying a laptop and wondering if any of the friendly locals would do the obvious and rob me.  In fact nothing happened except me getting blinded by a U.N. patrol that rumbled past in an armored personnel carrier and shone their powerful searchlight right in my face.  I should also note that I drank the rum on ice rather than straight (unlike the White Label).  The ice may have chilled and diluted the rum excessively and dulled the flavor.

In any case, I found the Black Label much like the indifferent White Label.  The taste was still lightly vegetal rather than truly flavorsome; the faint smokiness still did not really go anywhere; the rum still tasted thin and uninteresting.  On different occasion I gave it a try in a rum sour and it still failed to impress.  I simply do not rate this stuff.  Obviously somebody out there disagrees with me.  Just possibly the rum entered for competition was a superior version of the same product.  You never know what goes on.

Barbancourt in a coconut on the beach, an excellent reason to visit Haiti.

Strangely though, I only tried Barbancourt once before visiting Haiti*. I first tasted Barbancourt while in Cambodia, a trip on which I seem to have tried a lot of interesting products. For a small and poor country Cambodia has a surprisingly good selection of imported booze. This must say something about the type of foreigner Cambodia attracts. In any case, that Cambodian taste of Barbancourt made a big impression. I do not recall which of the Barbancourt products it was (probably the 5 Star), but it tasted unlike any other rum I had tried.

On my trip to Haiti I wanted to see what Barbancourt products were available there, which ones were popular, and how the locals drank their rum. I also wanted to visit the Barbancourt distillery and learn more about how Barbancourt rum is produced. I will write about the Barbancourt distillery later. For now lets just look at the rum.

The popular Barbancourt products in Haiti are Barbancourt 3 and 5 Star. Anything else is hard to find. Few Haitians know that Barbancourt produces a white rum, and those that do know do not much care for it.

Rum in Haiti is popularly drunk either straight, or mixed with energy drinks (Ragman being the popular local brand), or coke. Hotel bars tend to serve only the Barbancourt 5 Star, and can give it to you straight, in a rum sour, or in a rum punch. Every bar uses freshly squeezed juices. The rum sours are generally good, but the rum punches tend to be heavily diluted and sweetened long drinks with little character.

There has to be some Barbancourt in there somewhere!  A roadside wine merchant in downtown Port-au-Prince.

The most unique local rum drink I encountered in Haiti did not have a name. It was something the manageress of the guesthouse where I stayed in Port-au-Prince claimed to have invented. She made a paste by very roughly mashing Spanish limes (otherwise known as quenepe, kenep or mamoncillo), sugar, and rum. The paste was then stored in the fridge to allow the flavors to develop. A dollop of this mix would be put in a glass and topped off with rum and ice. It made an interesting fruity drink with a spicy edge. It reminded me of Barbancourt Pango Rhum (reviewed below), but tasted better.

Colorful Haitian art adorns the box of the Reserve du Domaine

I review the full range of Barbancourt rums below:

Barbancourt Blanche (unaged rum at 43% alcohol): Light tasting sugar cane rum with the typical grassy sugar cane flavor. There is an obvious similarity to agricole rhums from Martinique, but the flavors are lighter and less intense. The difference presumably comes from the combination of relatively low proof (43% compared to 50% or more for a typical Martinique agricole) and distillation to a high purity. A nicely balanced rum that is free of off flavors. This is far better than any Haitian Clairin I tried. This rum mixed nicely with both coconut water and coke. Purists would object, but I also found it made a serviceable Ti Punch.

Barbancourt 1 Star (1 year old rum at 38% alcohol): I tasted this one after tasting the Barbancourt 5 star, but before tasting the Barbancourt Blanche (see above). My initial impression was that it tasted like a Martinique agricole rhum, and did not really have the flavors I expected to find in Barbancourt. Instead of having the refined and balanced ‘culinary’ type of taste I got from the more aged offerings, this rum came across as fresh, grassy and exuberant. I never actually saw this product in Haiti, instead tasting it in the Dominican Republic. It is the only Barbancourt rum to be bottled at below 43%.

Barbancourt 3 Star (3-4 year old rum at 43% alcohol): This rum starts to have what I consider the classic Barbancourt flavor – a culinary type of flavor that makes me think of baking tins and lightly burnt butter. The youngest of the well known Barbancourt rums, this is just about smooth enough to sip on. However, it is definitely lighter and rougher than the 8 year old 5 Star. The aftertaste lacks the complexity of the 8 year old, getting stuck on burnt butter. Adding ice destroys the structure and immediately turns it into a mixing rum. This rum almost works as a sipper, makes a great mixer with coke, and would be an exceptional cooking rum. I would love to use this stuff in a Rhum Baba.

Barbancourt 5 Star (8 year old rum at 43% alcohol): Fierce, intense, rich, dry, and very well poised. This rum has the full Barbancourt flavor, a culinary or ‘kitchen’ taste comprising caramelized raisins, butter, and vanilla. I like to call the flavor ‘buttered baking tin’ or ‘raisin studded rhum baba’. This stuff tastes like the browned fragments of cake and fruit that sometimes end up stuck to a baking tin. There is also a winey bite, and a hint of tongue burning cloves. A dry and fiery rum with bite, which is simultaneously straightforward and endlessly interesting. I love this stuff and have nothing bad to say about it.

A bottle of Haiti’s finest gets sold. . .

Barbancourt Reserve du Domaine (15 year old rum at 43% alcohol): The initial impression is remarkably similar to the 8 year old. I was slightly disappointed on my first taste. In fact the two rums are different, it is just that the differences are subtle. The 15 year old is a shade darker, a couple of shades smoother, and significantly richer and more aromatic. The vanilla notes are stronger in the 15 year old, and the aroma contains a suggestion of coffee I do not get from the 8 year old. Where the 8 year old reminds me of a delicious French dessert (probably a raisin studded Rhum Baba), the 15 year old reminds me of the same dessert accompanied by coffee and cream. The 15 year old is simply richer and more filled out. However, the fundamental character of the two rums is the same.

Basically, if you do not like the 8 year old, don’t fork out for the 15 year old expecting to enjoy it any more. Smoother as the 15 year old is, it does not take Barbancourt’s dry bite and transform it into a Pyrat or Ron Zacapa. The 15 year old is my favorite Barbancourt rum, but is not quite in a totally separate class to the 8 year old.  That being the case, I would say the 8 year old is easily the better buy.  The 8 year old offers a very similar experience to the 15 year old at less than half the price.  Only the 15 year old comes in a colorful box decorated with Haitian art that just screams ‘good rum’ though.

Barbancourt Pango Rhum (flavored rum at 35% alcohol): Strongly flavored fruit and spice flavored rum that is not overly sweetened. The flavors seem to include pineapple, passion fruit, Spanish lime (also known as kenep or mamoncillo), ginger, and more. The Spanish lime provides an interesting and unique edge. The flavorings are heavy, and to make it drinkable it needs to be cut with something else, perhaps water, juice, or even more rum. Over ice it makes a nice ‘bottled rum punch’ type drink. A squeeze of lime adds zip and balances the sugar. Unlike the regular Barbancourt rums, this stuff seemed to give me a headache.

* On second thoughts I guess I also tried it in the Dominican Republic.  However, since by that stage I was already en route to Haiti I am going to say it doesn’t count.

While traveling in Haiti I made an effort to get to know Clairin. It was no easy task. Requests for information were often met with nonsensical babbling, contradictory answers, and invitations to have a swig of something horrible. Only occasionally was I rewarded. At the end of it all I was left thinking Clairin is probably a waste of time. I would like to be proved wrong, but for now that is how I see it.

Defining Clairin

Students of older cocktail recipes will probably have seen the occasional reference to Clairin. Few people are likely to have Clairin at hand, but cursory research will tell you it is a rustic, clear, high-proof, sugar-cane (as opposed to molasses) rum from Haiti. So far as I can tell this definition is only partly correct.

Whatever Clairin may once have meant, in modern Haitian usage Clairin is a generic term for a cheap locally manufactured spirit. The name derives from a French term for a kind of pick-me-up. Many perceive Clairin as a social problem, an addictive substance, and something consumed solely by alcoholics. Others see Clairin as no different from rum. Nobody could give me a clear definition of how Clairin differed from rum. The general consensus did not go much beyond the idea that Clairin was ‘the cheap stuff’.

There is no precise definition of Clairin, and in Haiti a range of different products are all labeled Clairin. A few points follow:

- Clairin is not necessarily an unaged sugar-cane spirit. Much of the Clairin consumed in Haiti is (artificially) flavored and colored. You tend not to see these colored Clairins in stores, but they are ubiquitous in roadside markets. Obviously the base spirit of these artificially flavored Clairins is unclear.  Some unflavored Clairins appear to contain industrial alcohol rather than being pure sugar-cane spirit. Clairin often contains odd sediments. Basically, Clairin can range from rough-but-pleasant unaged sugar-cane rum to unidentifiable and undrinkable hooch.

- Clairin is not necessarily high proof. The garishly colored and flavored Clairin sold in markets generally lacks labels stating alcoholic content. However, tasting some of these suggested they were no stronger than regular rum – probably weaker. The popular Clairins carrying regular labels and produced in larger distilleries mostly cluster around 40%. Some are in the 50-60% range. Clairin generally seems weaker than the high-proof rums popular in places like Jamaica. While most Haitians will tell you Clairin is stronger than rum, the facts do not really bear this out.  Of course, most Haitians will also tell you that that Barbancourt 5 star is stronger than the 3 star, which is stronger than Barbancourt White. In fact all these Barbancourt rums are the same strength.  It seems like just another case of myths being spread about alcohol.

- Clairin is cheaper than rum.

- Clairin is not necessarily rural, home-made, or in any way artesanal. The leading brands come from reasonable-sized distilleries. The nastier brands seem to be compounded in makeshift laboratories. High quality artesanal Clairin is probably out there somewhere, but I can guarantee that almost nobody in Haiti is drinking it.

- Regarding a professional local definition of Clairin, the distiller at Barbancourt told me that the difference between rum and Clairin lay in the proof to which the spirit was distilled. He said Clairin was often distilled to very low proofs, of just 30% or so, and bottled directly without the addition of water. Many of the Clairins I saw were inconsistent with his statement. His comments are probably true of some Clairin though, and perhaps the more traditional Clairin is made this way.

- There seemed to be a sense that aging Clairin (the good stuff anyway) led to it becoming rum. For example, there was talk in Cap-Haitien that the producers of Clairin Nazon had been experimenting with aging their Clairin in order to sell it as rum.

- None of the bars I visited in Haiti stocked Clairin.  These were all hotel bars.  None of them even stocked Barbancourt White.  Although the Barbancourt website  lists a couple of cocktail recipes that use Clairin, it does not appear to be a staple item in high-end bars in Haiti.

- The popular way to drink Clairin seems to be either straight, or mixed with energy drinks of the Red Bull variety (there was a local brand called something like Ragman).  Nobody mentioned doing anything more interesting with it.

It seems like time for a Clairin comparison. Two of the more common brands are reviewed below.

Clairin Lakay: 4 Kanpe (50%)

This was the first bottle of Clairin I saw in Haiti. Naturally I bought it. Later I found that the producer was a large one and offered a range of products. This Clairin came in both high and low proof versions (ranging from 40-60% alcohol by volume), as well as in a lurid red variety.

The label features the famous Citadel. This inspiring label art contrasts with the bottle’s slightly alarming contents. The spirit is a light straw color, with a weird metallic hue. A black sediment sitting in the bottom of the bottle is easily disturbed and takes a long time to settle. The inside of the bottle cap was perfectly clean and un-rusted, and all the other bottles on the shelf shared the same sediment. Presumably the sediment is meant to be there, or at least it is something whose presence does not alarm locals the way it alarms me. The producer is Distillerie H. Jean-Jacques, and wisely provides no address.

The nose is strongly chemical and sour, with a hint of anise and nothing I would associate with rum. The taste contains lots of alcohol, a distinct sweetness, a plethora of unidentifiable chemicals, and no perceptible rum or cane sugar. Besides the lack of any pleasant flavor, this stuff is surely a major health hazard. If you were unlucky several glasses might kill you. God knows what the sediment is. I’m guessing rust particles from an ancient still.

This bottle went straight in the bin. It was with considerable interest that I observed the maid later rescue it from the bin. I have to admit, albeit begrudgingly, that she turned up to work the next day displaying no ill effects. However, despite having some renewed respect for the Haitian constitution, I stand by my recommendation of ‘avoid’.

Clairin Nazon (40%)

The label depicts a wholesome rural scene of sugar cane being transported to the distillery by bullock cart. The little plastic bottle hints at cheapness, but the spirit itself is crystal clear and sediment free. The producer is Distillerie LaRue in Cap-Haitien. Not to complain or anything, but I passed the distillery a couple of times and never saw the bullock cart.

The nose is all sugar-cane rum. The grassy notes typical of a Martinique agricole are very much in evidence. That said, the aromas are not very intense or sweet, and compared to a Martinique agricole this stuff smells thin and sour. Tasting reveals the palate to be thin but not unpleasant. The alcohol comes across fiercely while the cane flavor is light. I would rate this as a rough but inoffensive sugar-cane rum.

Conclusion

Currently Clairin does not exist as a useful category. Most of what is labeled Clairin in Haiti is undrinkable poison with little resemblance to rum. The Clairin that is drinkable lacks unique characteristics and is low quality. Clairin is not a staple item in high-end Haitian bars, and is not widely used there in quality mixed drinks.  Recipes that call for Clairin are probably best made with something like Barbancourt Blanche (for the sake of the Haiti connection), or an unaged Martinique rhum (for the sake of the lower distillation proof).

I dropped by Sofitel in Santo Domingo a few days ago trying to track down Brugal Siglo de Oro.  I did not find the Siglo de Oro, but I did see they were offering interesting rum flights.  I went back last night for their ‘Rums of the Caribbean’ flight, comprising Zacapa 23 Anos, Karukera 1995, and J.M. Martin.  I have no idea why Ron Zacapa, a Guatemalan rum produced near the Pacific, is included in a Caribbean rum flight.  Maybe someone in the Caribbean is feeling jealous?

I was especially interested in trying the Zacapa. I have heard so much about this rum, and of course recently there have recently been controversies about availability – at least in the U.S. I had been tempted to buy a bottle after spotting it in the supermarket here, though at over 3000 pesos I didn’t pick it up. Now I’m wondering if the bottle I saw was not the XO.Anyhow, in recognition of all the hype and excitement surrounding it, I began with the Ron Zacapa Centenario 23 Anos. Incidentally, the rum flight came with a plate of sliced sugar cane and a molasses dipping bowl. This was a nice touch, working as a palate cleanser, and also helping identify the sugar flavors in the rums. Unless you live in a tropical country you probably don’t often get to sample sugar cane. But on to the rum. . .

Ron Zacapa Centenario 23 Anos

My first impression of the Zacapa was something like “Bloody Hell that’s nice!”, and of course I took a sip before really nosing it. This rum has a deep copper color and a viscous consistency, verging on liqueur-like. The nose, what I got of it before tasting, was a gentle and exceedingly inviting mix of stewed and caramelized fruit, caramelized cane sugar, light molasses, and a little orange. The taste was essentially more of the same, and yet I found myself pleasantly surprised rather than disappointed. It was exceedingly smooth, and the layers of smooth sugar cane masking the alcohol made for a very ‘unrumlike’ impression. I felt I was drinking the Pedro Ximenez of rums. All rums contain a hint of these sweet and inviting flavors, but this was the first time I had found them in such a concentrated form. The gentle flavors and lack of alcoholic bite made me expect a short finish, but somehow the taste lingered pleasantly on.

I decided to save the rest of the glass till the end of my tasting. This turned out to be a big mistake. The subtle flavors of the Zacapa became impossible to pick out after sampling two more full-flavored rums. Needless to say this was very disappointing.

My verdict? This is a gentle, approachable and intuitive rum that is impossible to dislike. It is an odd mixture of simple and complex. It tastes more-or-less as it smells, and the flavor is fairly uniform from start to finish, being subtle and fruity variations on caramelized sugar and molasses. Though uniform, the flavors keep shifting if you pay attention, and there is quite a bit going on. I found it disappointingly unrumlike though. This became very obvious when I returned to it after sampling the others. I would categorize Zacapa 23 Anos as a very interesting rum, and a good window on some of the tastes to be found in rum. However, beyond the beguiling syrupiness you really have to strain to pick out the flavors. Ultimately, it is just too mild to be a favorite with me. While difficult to prove in this day and age, I am firmly convinced that no pirate captain could drink this stuff without his crew mutinying.

Karukera 1995

This rum from Guadalupe had a light gold color, and an intense aroma of apples and cut grass. The taste was dry and refined, and my first impression was oddly reminiscent of calvados. I could easily have identified this as calvados rather than rum. The calvados note shrank over time though, with grassy caramel slowly emerging. The finish was dry.

I later searched online for information on this rum, and found that it seems to be a newish private label, established by Guillaume Drouin, son of the calvados producer Christian Drouin. Guillaume allegedly discovered rum could be as sophisticated as calvados while visiting Haiti (he must have enjoyed Barbancourt), and then established his own private label. Presumably the calvados quality I picked up was no coincidence.

This was my first experience of a rum from Guadalupe. Obviously this was in the same style as an aged rum agricole, though the apple notes made it different from any agricole I had previously drunk. Overall an enjoyable rum.

J.M. Martin

This aged Martinique rum poured with a light gold color. The nose was unusual and unlike any other agricole I have tried. There was the usual agricole grassiness, tempered by wood and vanilla. However, there were also a host of herbal smells, with a subtle hint of menthol, and perhaps a little apple. I was reminded of an Italian amaro. The taste was dry, grassy, herbal, complex, and hard to pin down. Maybe I should have added a few drops of water to smooth things out. I kept getting amaro-like tastes, but couldn’t really nail exactly what any of them were. The sugar cane sweetness was minimal, and this seemed to be the driest of the three rums. At time I was reminded of a light single-barrel whiskey. There was a dry lingering aftertaste, with a little woodiness.

Overall I found it hard to know what to make of this rum. Placing it in the context of other rums seems hard due to its eccentric character. I would like to try it again sometime.

It looked better full. . .

Pineau des Charentes is an interesting aperitif from France that I have only recently tried. It seems to be relatively unknown outside of France. Pineau des Charentes is generally drunk straight rather than being used used in cocktails. However, since I am interested in aperitif wines as cocktail ingredients I picked a bottle up to try it out.

Pineau des Charentes (also known simply as pineau) is said to have originated in the 16^th Century when wine must (i.e. unfermented grape juice) was accidentally poured into a cask containing cognac eau de vie. The cognac prevented the must from fermenting and the barrel was set aside as an unfortunate mistake. However, it was found that extended maturation saw the flavors of the wine must and cognac blend to produce a fine drink. Pineau has been a specialty of the Charentes region ever since. The Charentes region seems to be sub-region within Cognac by the way.

The regulations governing production of Pineau des Charentes are quite strict. For a start the product must come from the Charentes region. The grapes used for the must should be Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche, Colombard, Sémillon, Sauvignon or Montils. Pressing must be light to ensure the pressed juice is of high quality. The cognac used for blending must be a minimum of one year old, 60% or higher alcohol by volume, and from the same vineyard as the must. According to the Comité National du Pineau des Charentes the finished product must be matured in oak barrels for a minimum of 18 months. Other sources mention minimum maturation of 8 months for red pineau and 12 months for white, so there seems to be some ambiguity on this point. Old pineau can be aged for 10 years or longer. The alcoholic strength by volume must be in the range 16-22%. Most pineau is a blend of roughly one quarter cognac to three quarters wine must, with an alcoholic strength of around 17%.

The vast majority of pineau is either consumed within France or exported to Francophone markets. Less than 25% of pineau production is exported, and over 90% of exports go to Belgium and Canada. In practice France and Belgium together consume almost all pineau production. Canada follows a very distant third, but still consumes several times more than the next largest pineau drinking nation. I am guessing Quebec is the center of Canadian pineau consumption. The French are keeping this one very much to themselves. So enough of facts and figures! It is time to open that bottle and see what the French are hiding. . .

The taste is mild but interesting, and unusual compared to other aperitif wines. No herbal flavors, bitterness or spice leap out at you. There is also little of the matured complexity of aperitif wines like port or sherry. This stuff is simply sweet, full bodied, and extremely ‘fresh’. It tastes like a very fruity wine, but also reminds me strongly of mead (honey wine). It is hard to believe it contains no honey since the honey taste is so strong. There is also some apple aroma, though again no apples were harmed in its manufacture. It has an unusual ‘primeval’ character, reminding me of the opening titles in Werner Herzog’s ‘Fitzcarraldo’, which describe the Amazon is described as a place where God never finished his creation. Yep, it tastes ‘unfinished’, in a good way. Pineau seems slightly rough-and-ready, with a plethora of interesting aromas that threaten to erupt all over the place and are disinclined to sit still. This stuff should have potential as a cocktail ingredient. I wonder why it isn’t used more?

In terms of mixing I would tend to think (roughly in order of potential) along the lines of cognac (the obvious choice), calvados, rhum agricole, pisco, Cuban rum, and whiskey. Pineapple juice also springs to mind, and perhaps Cynar could be another idea. This is not experience talking. I am just making some guesses as to what might work. I should also note that I did not dream up the rhum agricole angle. I bought a bottle of pineau partly so I could make a rhum agricole drink, the Pompadour, from the Esquire Drinks Database. Lets start with the Pompadour then. . .

The Pompadour
1 ½ oz rhum agricole vieux (I used St. James Ambre)

1 ½ oz pineau

½ oz lemon juice

This shows off the characteristics of both the rhum and the pineau. It is weird and unlike anything you are likely to have drunk. It is also fantastic. There is a full on aroma symphony, with the fresh and aromatic characters of both ingredients getting a chance to shine. You should seek out Pineau des Charentes for this drink alone.

Next up are a couple more pineau cocktail recipes I found online. I will include some experimental recipes of my own in a subsequent post. This next recipe is from the website site of a producer of Pineau des Charentes.

Charentais

2 1/2 oz pineau

½ oz cognac

¼ oz crème de framboise

1 tsp lemon juice

This smooth and tasty refresher is just lightly spiked pineau. The source of this recipe was unclear on whether a liqueur or eau de vie framboise was called for (mentioning both in different places). I did not have an appropriate eau de vie so I went for a liqueur. The lemon juice was added by me as an afterthought to give it some zing since it tasted a bit flat.

The next was something not unlike the above, but with the addition of a dash of pineapple juice and the whole then being brought to life with champagne. Again the recipe was from the website of a pineau producer.

Reaulais

2 oz pineau

½ oz cognac

½ oz pineapple juice

1 dash grenadine

2 oz champagne or sparkling wine

Shake everything except the champagne over ice. Strain into a glass and top with champagne.

A very rich yet slightly lively drink. There are no real surprises but it is most pleasant.

The next recipe was from a French language website – hence a little ambiguity over what liqueur is meant.

Ambassade

1 ½ oz pineau

½ oz gin

½ oz ‘orange liqueur’ (I used Grand Marnier)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Another “take Pineau des Charentes and spike it with a little hooch” type of drink. It tastes good though. French style cocktails, by which I mean drinks that are heavy on aperitif wines and light on spirits, are tasty. Made with Grand Marnier the drink is rich and smooth. With Cointreau or some other triple sec it would probably be more fresh and fragrant.

I love the way the French can’t help adding London Dry Gin to things. It has to hurt them, right? Something like an “every time you spike your drink with gin, somewhere in the world a DGSE operative in scuba gear dies” kind of thing.

Sorry, I’m unrelenting about the Rainbow Warrior Affair aren’t I? The French are a fine race, and have punched well above their weight in terms of inventing delicious aperitifs. I’ve had better cocktails than this one, but I’ve also had much worse.

In my next post on Pineau des Charentes I will experiment with some recipes of my own.

Passion Fruit Rhum

1 ½ oz rhum blanc

pulp of 1 passion fruit (about 1 oz)

juice of ½ a lime

1 ½ tsp golden syrup (substituting for cane syrup)

Put the passion fruit pulp in a highball glass and give a quick muddle to help break down the seeds. Add ½ a lime cut into wedges and muddle some more. Add syrup and stir. Add rhum, then finish with crushed ice.

This is great. The aromatic rhum agricole is an amazing match for the passion fruit. A simple and excellent drink. You have to try one of these. It does no harm to also try this with an aged rhum.

I just dumped the passion fruit pulp into the glass because I was too lazy to wait for the juice to drip through a sieve, and anyway I thought the pulp would look nice.  If you do not like my method you can use the following Caribbean trick.  Place the pulp in a sieve over your glass, press with a spoon to extract as much of the juice as you can, then pour your rum through the remaining pulp.  This way you will really get the last of the juice out.  Of course now some of your rum is sitting in the spent pulp.  Life is all about trade offs.

Given the aromatic nature of passion fruit and rhum agricole, I couldn’t help wondering how they would fare when paired with maraschino, an aromatic liqueur.

Passion Fruit, Rhum and Maraschino Daiquiri

2 oz St. James White

¾ oz passion fruit pulp

½ oz lime juice

½ oz maraschino

Shake hard over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

This was on the thin and sour side, without the passion fruit leaping out to assert itself, but oddly moreish. Again it needs some work, probably including some more sugar, and was not what I expected. However, the whole maraschino, passion fruit, and rhum agricole thing is worth exploring further. These are three highly aromatic and funky ingredients, and their combination makes a very interesting sour. I may come back to this some time.

Passion Fruit Nacional Daiquiri

2 oz Cuban Rum (I used Havana Club Blanco)

1 oz passion fruit juice

½ oz lime juice

1 tsp dry apricot brandy (i.e. eau de vie)

2 tsp gomme syrup (or substitute simple syrup)

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

I used a generous dose of gomme syrup to add body. Passion fruit can have a thin and grainy mouth feel that is best counteracted.

This is very quaffable but not a stand out. I was hoping for the passion fruit and dry apricot brandy to work a little magic as they had in the Fitzcarraldo, my recent pisco experiment. They partner up nicely, but something seems to be lacking. The drink is still kind of sour and thin. One idea could be to make a 50/50 split between passion fruit and pineapple – pineapple would add more body. Another idea could be to change the rum. There are two possible directions, using the 3 year old Havana Club to give a little more body and sweetness, or using a rhum agricole to increase the dry aromatic element (and simultaneously perhaps up the sugar).

The recipe:

2 parts white agricole rum (I used St. James)

1 part Green Chartreuse

1 part French Vermouth (I used Martini Rossi)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a sprig of mint if you happen to have one handy. Introducing a little mint scent via a garnish, and perhaps by rubbing the rim of the glass with a mint leaf or two, could improve the taste a notch. However, the drink tastes pretty good without it.

This drink good should go down well with people who like Chartreuse. It is also a good one if you are looking for a complex tasting rum drink that does not require fruit juices. The aroma is mild, like sugar cane. However, on tasting the drink the herbals in the liqueur and vermouth provide lots of complexity. The sugar cane character of the rum, plus the large dose of sugar in the Chartreuse, help tame the strong herbal flavors and make the drink almost gentle.

I have no idea why it is called the Affinity Cocktail #2. The original Affinity Cocktail was a mixture of equal parts scotch, French vermouth, and Italian vermouth, with a touch of orange bitters, and so far as I know is not very widely known. There is no obvious connection between the two that I can see. Maybe Philip just thought the name was good enough to deserve recycling.

There is a club in Phnom Penh called the Heart of Darkness where I spent a couple of memorable evenings back in August. I drank Guinness and Tequila Slammers. The environment was a confused medley of Cambodian elites and their gun toting body guards (the doormen were very selective when searching customer for weapons), local foreign residents, higher class working girls (since the working girls apparently had to pay a fee to get in), and bemused looking tourists. It was lots of fun, but not really a sit-back-and-savor-your-drink type of environment. I have no idea if Heart of Darkness served Martinique rum. I discovered the dry and complex tasting Martinique rums at some other bars in Cambodia, most notably Riverside in Battambang, which gives huge pours of the excellent St. James Ambre for just US$1.

I met an interesting girl in the Heart of Darkness. She was easily the best looking girl in the place and for some reason ended up hanging around me for most of the evening. She spent most of the evening gyrating around me in a manner that I am sure would have made the Bunnyhug, however lewd it may have been, look very tame indeed. Since I don’t dance I settled for sipping my Guinness with rhythm. I think it worked better than it sounds, certainly better than me actually dancing. In any case, she was attracting plenty of attention all by herself. The Tequila Slammers were her idea and she even paid for them, adding to the surreal nature of the situation. A elderly Scandinavian couple looked gratifyingly shocked as she writhed around me and theatrically knocked back tequila. Meanwhile, I kept an eye on the door waiting for an irate boyfriend, pimp or husband to burst in and gun us both down. Learning that each of her numerous pieces of jewelry had come from a different guy, each representing a different country, did nothing to reassure me.

Cambodia is a small country, and while drinking St. James rum at Riverside in Battambang I met an Italian girl who knew the Heart of Darkness girl. My concerns had not been totally unfounded. The Heart of Darkness girl had recently married a French guy living in Vietnam. His friends had all warned him to have nothing to do with her, but she had promised to give up her life as a working girl and he had believed her. He spent a lot of time in Vietnam for business, and whenever he was away she would be out in the bars again picking up customers. It was definitely the same girl. The Italian told me that her long her long fake blonde hair was in fact a wig, and sure enough when I was back in Phnom Penh I saw the Heart of Darkness Girl in another bar without her wig. I was probably lucky that the French guy wasn’t the gun-toting type.

While in Cambodia I decided that the Heart of Darkness would make an excellent name for a cocktail, and that the drink should include St. James Ambre rum. Planning the drink in my mind I decided it should include St. James Ambre and Marie Brizzard Crème de Vanille (something else I picked up on my holiday there). In reality though I found the taste of the Crème de Vanille was not nearly strong enough to work well in a drink using a strong tasting rum. The Marie Brizzard Crème de Vanille is really just a vanilla perfumed syrup. I also found Martinique rum quite hard to mix with because of its strong taste. I considered another couple of other possibilities but basically forgot about the idea for a while.

Recently however, I picked up a bottle of Poire William and started thinking about what I could do with it. I decided to try and make something rich, spicy, and a little exotic. Poire William has a very strong taste and I decided it would pair well with a strong, dry rum like St. James. I used Dolfi crème de cacao to add some sweetness. For further complexity and to bring everything together I tried Italian vermouth and then Dubonnet. The slightly bitter Dubonnet works very well.

The Heart of Darkness

2 parts St. James Ambre

1 part Dolfi Poire William

1 part Dolfi dark crème de cacao

1 part Dubonnet

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

The result is dry, fruity and spicy. It tastes a little like a cake made with rum and fruit. My original recipe had equal parts of the four main ingredients which makes for a fruitier drink, but I think a drier version with more rum is better. I may play around with the recipe some more, but this seems good enough for now.

I tried it out on a couple of friends. The first friend liked it and the second friend suggested cutting back the bitters. Obviously I no longer speak to the second friend. Still, if you were to change the recipe you could try reducing the bitters for starters.

I dropped into Trader Vic’s recently opened Shanghai restaurant last night for a Shanghai Expat (www.shanghaiexpat.com) hosted cocktail party. The service at Trader Vics is five star, the Polynesian décor takes you a world away from the grime and grind of Shanghai, and the food and drinks are not half bad. However, you can’t help thinking the cocktails could be better. The drinks are by no means bad, but when patronizing the joint that invented the Mai Tai it is depressing to drink a Mai Tai that is merely a shadow of what it could be.

Unlike most places, Trader Vic’s make Mai Tais more or less to the original Victor Bergaron recipe. That is, they don’t add any fruit juices other than lime, they use freshly squeezed juices, they use orgeat rather than almond liqueur, they don’t add strange liqueurs like apricot brandy, and their drink is a rum-focused sweet-and-sour drink rather than a confused tropical punch with no rum taste. In short, they make a pretty good Mai Tai. Sadly they don’t use good rum.

The other disappointing thing is that Trader Vics do not use what I would consider a good quality mint. The mint they use is the mild and herbaceous mint with soft leaves common around Shanghai. This mint doesn’t do a lot to the taste of a drink, or anything else for that matter. More intense mint with stiffer leaves is sometimes available in Shanghai, just a littler harder to find. I think the stuff with stiffer leaves is peppermint, and maybe that is not the ideal mint to use. In any case it seems better to me than mint with no real flavor.

The Mai Tai was originally concocted with Wray Nephew 17 year old Jamaican rum. As his chain of restaurants expanded and stocks of the Wray Nephew 17 year old became depleted and increasingly expensive, Victor Bergaron began using lesser rums. In particular he began mixing lesser Jamaican rums with the very dry Martinique rums to obtain a similar complexity to the original Wray Nephew product. Unfortunately in Trader Vic’s these days they use standard Meyer’s rum plus a house Mai Tai mix. I guess there is some aged rum in the Mai Tai mix, but in any case the result is underwhelming.

Anyway, after the Trader Vic’s experience last night I thought I’d make my own Mai Tai today. Since aged Jamaican is unavailable in Shanghai I used a mixture of aged Cuban rum and Martinique rum. I found Marie Brizard Orange Triple Sec the other day, so that was another reason for trying the drink again. Previously I’ve only been able to find cheap Bols triple sec or Cointreau. Cointreau is nice, but the taste and alcohol content may be a little too intense to make it a perfect triple sec substitute.

My Mai Tai

1 oz Havana Club 7 Anos

1 oz St. James Amber

1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice

1/2 oz Marie Brizard Orange Curacao

1/4 oz Monin Orgeat (Monin is quite intense so I reduced slightly from the 1/2 oz recommended in a lot of recipes)

1/4 oz simple sugar syrup

Shake over crushed ice and serve in a double rocks glass, putting one of the spent lime shells in the drink. Garnish with some nice quality mint if you have it. I didn’t have mint handy so used a pineapple spear with maraschino cherry.

The version makes a nice drink. The rum taste could be stronger, but the complexity is there. The nutty flavors of the Martinique rum go well with the orgeat. In the absence of a decent Jamaican rum Havana Club works OK. The citrus flavors seem far more of a background note using the Marie Brizard Curacao compared to Cointreau. I could be wrong though since it has been at least six months since I made this with Cointreau. If the drink has any weakness it could be that the Orgeat comes through a bit strong. Perhaps some more adjusting is in order.