New Orleans Rum, new and old

Last week I joined a half-dozen other rum lovers at Celebration Distilling's factory in New Orleans for a late afternoon sampling of some of the new rum products now working the way through the pipeline.

We sipped some of their commendable amber rum (aged three years), both the version currently on the market and one that's been slightly reformulated. We tried their new spiced rum (not yet released – but worth looking for when it comes out). We admired their handsome new, type-driven labels – Celebration Distilling has been nothing if not prolific with their labels in the past, since the company is owned by a New Orleans artist.

And best of all, we sampled some of their 10-year-old rum, which was strikingly complex, and filled with the suggestions of ripe fruit. The company recently found 10 barrels of the quietly aging stuff (the company has been producing rum for 14 years), with about half it lost to evaporation. That still leaves some 300 gallons of honey-colored barrel-proof rum, making it worth considering a limited bottling rum. They're still debating whether to put it up as a straight ten-year rum, or blend it with some younger rums. But they do know it will be available exclusively at their factory when it does come out, probably some time this summer.

Which is yet another entry on the growing list of reasons to visit a happily reviving New Orleans these days.

Celebration Distilling

The oldest rum

About once a month or so I chat with Ed Hamilton, the Minister of Rum, about some rum-related issue. And during that conversation, either he'll ask or I'll ask: "So, have you found any good evidence of rum predating Barbados?"

As I write in my book, Barbados has long claimed patrimony of rum. The islanders often insist it was invented shortly after Barbados was settled by the British in 1627. Indeed, the first documented appearance of rum that I'm aware shows rum, then called kill-devil, being exported from Barbados in 1638.

But it seems more than likely that some sort of sugar cane spirit would have arisen prior to then in one of the several Spanish or Portuguese colonies, where sugar was being produced for more than a century before Great Britain got into the game on Barbados. Beverage distilling technology had been around for about two centuries. That sugar and distillation didn't meet for a century seems seriously improbable.

Yet, no one has come up with a single ship's manifest or plantation deed or journal reference to rum being made or exported from Cuba or Brazil or Guyana or anywhere else prior to 1638.

Why no evidence? Any number of reasons suggest themselves.

First, we English speakers tend to use English language sources, and few of us have ventured into the Spanish or Portuguese archives. Second, Spain had banned rum production (to protect domestic brandy producers), so early rum-making would have been illegal, and not likely to yield a paper trail. Also, as Ed points out, the colonial archives often didn't last long – coastal ports were sacked and burned with numbing regularity.

Anyway, I was thrilled to recently track down a scholarly 2004 book by José Curto entitled "Enslaving Spirits: The Portuguese-Brazilian Alcohol Trade at Luanda and its Hinterland, c. 1550-1830." The title certainly held out the possibility of early rum or cachaça production in Brazil. But no: as the book recounts, the 16th-century trade with Africa involved mostly wine from Portugal. Only later do the traders start with Brazilian rum.

In fact, the documentation mentioned in the book doesn't do anything to upend the Barbados-first theory. Curto notes that cachaça (which he sometimes calls sugar cane brandy) was eventually important for ballast in outgoing voyages, and Brazilian tobacco was also exported in quantity. But, he writes, "neither of these Brazilian colonial products were found amongst the numerous items of exchange utilized prior to 1641 by the Portuguese merchants based in this West Central African seaport to procure slaves."

Another excerpt:

Precisely when Brazilian trading interests began to forward cachaça and tobacco to their commercial representatives in the colonial capital of Angola has not been satisfactorily established. In the case of sugar cane brandy, some scholars have stated that it began arriving sometime in the seventeenth century. Others, on the other hand, have been far more specific by suggesting the year 1660. .... The first reference to sugar cane brandy being used to acquire slaves in the hinterland of Angola's colonial capital comes from the late 1650s. Thus the first tobacco and cane brandy shipments from Brazil probably arrived around 1650.

This is certainly not a comprehensive statement – the book deals with rum exports, not Brazilian production. But it does raise a question: If Brazilian rum was being made in quantity by the late 1500s or early 1600s (as many of us assume), why would traders wait a half-century or more to start shipping it abroad? It's the dog that didn't bark.

So the search for documentation continues. In the meantime, Barbados retains bragging rights.

St. Lucia, gnarly brown, and peanuts

I recently laid my hands on a bottle of Castries Peanut Rum Crème because, well, it's got rum in it. And I sometimes like an emulsified cream liqueur, like Bailey's. But I have to admit, my first thought was: Peanuts? Ewww.

Castries has a story and tradition behind it: peanut punch is pretty common throughout the West Indies, just like soursop punch, pumpkin punch, and banana punch.

It's way to take a common ingredient and put it to work as a cooling potion. It's often made with peanuts ground up and mixed with water, milk (often evaporated), sugar and maybe some vanilla or nutmeg.

But mixed with rum? Not all that common.

Castries Rum Crème is made on St. Lucia, and uses African vanilla, peanuts, a few spices, and local rum. It's sold in an opaque bottle that looks a bit like it swallowed a few tennis balls. It's 32 proof (about the same as Bailey's), and thick and luscious. And it smells like peanuts.

The taste: actually, not all that peanuty. At least not at first sip. The initial hit is more of cream and liquor, although the liquor isn't immediately identifable as rum. The aftertaste is slightly peanuty, and in a good way. Not roasted peanuts, but raw and fresh. My chief hesitation: the product is thick and viscous – it seems somehow thicker and more mealy than the always-velvety Baileys, but that might be more the power of sensory suggestion ("peanuts!") than anything tactile.

I started thinking about a cocktail that might employ this to good effect. Castries has some cute drink suggestions, including a peanut butter cup (with chocolate liqueur and vanilla vodka). That's not bad. I also played around with a peanut-butter-and jelly cocktail using crème de casis, but that's not an experiment I need to repeat any time soon.

Then I started thinking about Thai food. Mmmm... Thai food. So I mixed it with ginger ale – it's my belief that peanut and ginger is one of the world's great combos. And this mix actually worked fine – about two parts ginger ale to one part Castries yields a concotion with a taste that engages. You don't think "Thai," but it strikes the comfort food chord better than the peanut butter cup or the PB & J. (At least it did for me.)

Problem: the appearance. You know how it looks when you mix vanilla ice cream with root beer – you get those filmy, gnarly brown bubbles that climb up the side of the glass. Yeah. And what looks like a bit of curdling, or at least de-emulsification. (Lime with your peanut and ginger? Don't go there.)

But lean back, close your eyes, and sip – and it's pretty OK.

It's probably still best served neat, consumed by someone who truly loves peanuts. That, sadly, is not me.

Castries Peanut Rum Creme

New American Rum: mind the wave

Last week I spent four days at the American Distilling Institute's annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. This year's focus was on rum distilling. (I gave a short talk on rum history. And sold some books. See photo below.) This was chiefly a gathering of microdistillers, who seem to be happily growing in number by the day. And the rum focus this year drew folks out of the woodworks interested in making our great American spirit. I'm here to tell you that American rum seem to be poised to go big.

Most of the current rum microdistillers I knew about were here: Rogue from Oregon; Dogfish from Delaware; New Orleans Rum from, well, you know; Bardenay from Boise, Idaho; and Prichard's from Tennessee. Pirate's Choice also made an appearance (they market two rums, a lime flavored rum and an aged rum, both produced under contract by Phil Prichard). Maui rum was here in spirit, if not represented by a distiller.

But then there were the new kids on the block – or rather, the new kids visible down on the next block: Newport Storm brewery from Rhode island has been producing rum several weeks, putting some in the barrel and getting some ready to sell sooner as a white rum. It should be on the shelves this summer, although they're not yet revealing what the name is. They're looking to emphasize the historical connection of rum to New England – an idea so simple and powerful I'm puzzled that no one else has gotten there first.

Someone is on Newport Storm's heels, however. Another Newport, R.I., resident flew into the conference, with a head full of plans to start producing a New England rum and a whole bunch of domain names registered in advance. He's done a bunch of research on Rhode Island rum history, and was raring to go. Not surprisingly, he was a bit crestfallen to find out that someone had anticipated his idea, and was out of the gate ahead of him. But he insists he's still pushing on. I'll update as I hear more. (In the small world department: they're both graduates of the same college: Colby in Maine.)

I also spoke with a North Carolinian headed to New Mexico to distill a molasses-based rum on the Rio Grande south of Albuquerque. It will be called Rio Grande Rum; they haven't yet applied for permits, but they have a facility already. Rum and the southwest don't have much of a history, but he's made a connection, if with tongue a bit in cheek: Rum is from the Caribbean. The Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Slogan: It took 400 years to make it to the headwaters.

Green Bay Distilling in Wisconsin also has rum in the pipeline. They're producing a white rum that's aged six months then filtered, as well as one- and three-year rums aged in old bourbon barrels.

Those are the folks who are moving along. I met several others with ideas and lots of ambition, but as yet no facility nor permit nor firm timetable. But rum distilling seems to be seriously returning to American shores. Clearly, it's not just palm trees and piña coladas anymore.

I'll try to update as I get a chance to savor some of the New American Rums, and report back when some of those in the pipeline start to decant onto the shelves.