Whether relating to disingenuous age claims, undisclosed sweetening agents or misrepresented countries of origin, rum has developed an unfortunate reputation as a category that lacks transparency. But as rum edges closer to glory, with analysts tipping it to become the next ‘big thing’, the appetite for change is growing, and conversations around authentic production, classifications and enforced regulation are becoming more commonplace.
An important step towards greater transparency, say critics, is to reshape how consumers understand rum, moving away from reductive colour categorisations – namely, ‘white’, ‘gold’ and ‘dark’. The term ‘dark rum’ is particularly problematic due to certain impressions it gives the consumer, says Dawn Davies MW, head buyer at The Whisky Exchange. “Consumers presume ‘dark rum’ is either sweeter or older. That’s what colour tells us, but that’s a misconception.”
Davies is referring to the fact that many ‘dark rums’ have spent little to no time in casks, instead deriving their colour from additives, while some ‘white rums’ have been aged and then filtered to become clear. “That’s why rum has been such a problem, and it’s an ongoing problem because there are these very nebulous terms that mean F-all,” she says. “They don’t give the consumer any indication of what’s going on in the bottle or what it tastes like.”
While there is a general propensity among people to simplify complex matters and neatly compartmentalise, oversimplification often negates truth and misses out important nuances. As such, colour descriptors not only have the potential to give consumers an incorrect impression of rum, but they also fail to convey the wide stylistic diversity the category has to offer. According to Alexandre Gabriel, owner and master blender at Plantation Rum: “Anybody who has tried to oversimplify rum is doing a disservice to the very nature of rum because rum, like wine, has many cultures.”
And it seems spirits connoisseurs today are ready for more information about these various cultures. “The perception of industry professionals and consumers about rum is definitely evolving,” says Edouard Beaslay, global marketing director for Venezuelan rum Diplomático. “The category is still in the early stages of premiumisation, but we are witnessing a growing interest in quality, authenticity and new tasting experiences.”
DISCOVERY RANGES
Retailers and bottlers are playing a key role in educating a broader market about the various rum regions and styles by curating laddered ranges of discovery. London-based merchant Berry Bros & Rudd, for one, has developed a three-tiered rum offering. The portfolio starts with the entry-level Classic Range, which consists of accessibly priced bottlings that showcase regional or island styles. Next comes the Single Cask range, which places greater emphasis on provenance by declaring the distillery name and cask number. The final tier is the Exceptional Cask collection, comprising older and rarer rums, sometimes from closed distilleries. “Rum is an expanding and evolving category and our aim as a bottler is to be the bridge between our producers and customers, just as we work with wine,” says Doug McIvor, spirits buyer for Berry Bros & Rudd. “It is an interesting and dynamic area and I foresee it continuing to grow as an important part of our offer.”
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In 2018, Master of Malt owner Atom Brands added another string to its bottling bow with the launch of That Boutique-y Rum Company (TBRC). Created in collaboration with rum consultant and educator Peter Holland, the range was said to “have honesty at its core” with a bespoke classification system that was “all about the process and the provenance, not the colour”. Taking inspiration from the Gargano Classification System (see box), the TBRC segments its expressions according to whether they are from a single distillery or multiple distilleries, and what types of stills were used.
“I want to normalise the conversation, to grow it, and not hide behind marketing BS; just share the details,” says Holland, adding that any new classifications need to be “simple” if they are going to stop consumers thinking in terms of colour. “If we stick with ‘white’, ‘gold’, and ‘dark’ then we may as well give up now. Anyone sticking to this – and I include the major retailers – then they are just grubbing around like a bottom feeder in a pond. It’s easy and it’s lazy and it has no sense of developing the category.”
FLAVOUR DESCRIPTORS
The Whisky Exchange (TWE) was also inspired by the Gargano Classification System when developing its own code last year. However, in addition to segmenting rums by production method – adding ‘traditionalist’ and ‘modernist’ descriptors – TWE also uses broad flavour camps to help consumers navigate its offer. According to Dawn Davies, classifying rum by production method is a “long-term project”, and today’s consumers are likely to more easily understand flavour descriptors.
TWE’s six flavour categories are: light & uncomplicated; herbaceous & grassy; tropical & fruity; fruity & spicy; dry & spicy; and rich & treacly. Davies says TWE continues to use colour descriptors to an extent “because this is how the consumer continues to shop”, but she hopes they will be faded out in the future. “What we’re trying to say is here is the information that makes these rums so much more than those terms.”
Producers are also doing more to promote the category’s diversity by showcasing their own points of difference, stepping out from beneath the umbrella of colour. The portfolio of Diplomático, for instance, includes single vintage, cask strength and cask finished expressions. The brand also has a range of rums that highlights the different qualities of its three stills, consisting of: No.1 Batch Kettle, No.2 Barbet, and No.3 Pot Still.
According to Edouard Beaslay, consumer understanding of other categories such as wine, cognac and whisky is starting to transfer to rum. “Our terminology and production processes have similarities, so as consumers get educated in a specific category, they can apply this knowledge and interest to others,” he says. “We can all benefit from a more engaged and informed consumer.” Colombian rum La Hechicera is similarly seeking to bring new flavour experiences to drinkers. At the end of last year, the brand – which sources liquid for ageing and blending – launched a Muscat wine cask finished rum as part of its new Serie Experimental range, with a number of innovations planned for the future.
“What consumers seldom realise is how many spectacular rums resulting from well-conducted experiments never make it to market, either because the batch is not quite replicable, or it’s too costly to reproduce,” says Miguel Riascos Jr, co-founder and managing director of the brand. “Serie Experimental is our way of sharing those experiments, even if it’s in limited, numbered bottles.”
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Some super-premium players have also turned to the concept of terroir to emphasise their stylistic differences. For Plantation’s Gabriel, terroir can be “imprinted at different levels”, from the substrate through to fermentation, distillation and maturation. In particular, he says, the use of local yeast and water in fermentation can imbue the final spirit with a unique local character. Gabriel adds that for the past four years, Plantation’s Barbadian rums have been distilled from local molasses. His team in Jamaica has also started to experiment with blending local sugarcane juice with molasses before distillation.
Agricole rhum producers (who distill juice from pressed sugarcane, as opposed to molasses, a byproduct of sugar production) have long touted the message of sugarcane terroir, but molasses-based rum brands are increasingly doing so too.
TECHNIQUES
Venezuela’s Santa Teresa, for instance, distills molasses derived from single estate cane. Based in the valleys of Aragua, the distillery claims that the local climate and rich soil allow it to produce quality cane with high sugar content. “The techniques we use to age and mix these rums are also an expression of the terroir – of the people who for more than two centuries have made possible the production of rum at the Hacienda Santa Teresa,” says Humberto Sanchez, director of Santa Teresa’s international unit.
However, there are some who claim that most molasses-based rums cannot truly express terroir due to the level of processing of the raw material. “Once you centrifuge the shit out of something, you’re removing any original flavour and creating something with a mass flavour,” says Davies. “Unless you’re taking the top level molasses that’s barely been touched, I just can’t see how you could blind taste-test where that product is from. Cane juice, on the other hand, I very much feel has more of an opportunity to express terroir… you’re enhancing the original flavour.”
This is precisely what Mark Reynier, former chief executive of Bruichladdich, is endeavouring to achieve at his Renegade Rum Distillery in Grenada (see box). For Reynier, it’s important to interpret terroir in a more literal way. “The clue is in the name – terre. It’s as simple as that,” he says. As such he believes terroir is only evident as an expression of raw material – how the impact of soil, microclimate and place on the sugarcane itself comes through in the final spirit – and not in distillation or maturation techniques. “What it shows is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of terroir on the one hand, and on the other a hijacking of a term by people who don’t really understand.”
The debate around terroir, like other topics in rum, seems to be one of semantics. While some, like Reynier, have a purist view, others have a broader understanding of terroir, and take it to mean the materials, techniques and cultures that together offer an expression of rum unique to a particular distillery or region.
Reynier, however, believes there could be a more sinister motive for big brands looking to mislead consumers, circling back to the issue of transparency. “I think ‘terroir’ is going to be terribly corrupted,” he says. “It’s open to abuse, it’s open to misinterpretation, it’s open to deliberate disingenuousness. It’s uncontrollable.”
As with any spirit category, there’s little to stop arguably woolly terms from being used as marketing fodder, but there is a broad movement to establish more regulation in the industry. Official classifications such as geographical indications (GI), appellation of origins (AOC) or denomination of origins (DOC) enforce criteria that hold brands to account and create a level of transparency. Jamaica recently approved a GI for its rum, while distillers in Barbados are working towards one of their own, but are at loggerheads over the specific terms.
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Distillers of agricole rhum in Martinique, meanwhile, have benefited from the protection of an AOC since the mid-90s. French drinks group La Martiniquaise-Bardinet owns four Martinique agricole brands, with additional production sites on Reunion and Guadeloupe. Martinique-made Saint James is the group’s bestselling rhum.
According to head of global corporate communication William PloquinMaurell, Martinique’s AOC for agricole rhum “represents an even more particular segment in an already very precise segment”, and is recognised globally. He believes this strict regulatory environment gives consumers confidence that they are purchasing a unique and high-quality product. “We can really say that our rhum respects the traditional and ancestral processes of Martinique because we control each stage of the process,” he says.
GLOBAL REGULATION
For TWE’s Davies, more global regulation is needed to allow the broad spectrum of rum to reach the same level of respect and recognition as whisky. “I think at the moment, the way the rum industry stands, being incredibly fragmented with very few laws in place, they will never achieve what whisky has achieved, because whisky is so much more regulated. That’s where the rum industry needs to wake up and smell the coffee.”
Global rum ambassador Ian Burrell explains that rum was the world’s most revered spirit back in the 18th century, but since it is mainly produced in developing nations, it has not benefited from the political and economic powers thrust behind spirits such as scotch whisky. He also notes that while there are a number of official regional classifications for rum, these are often not given the global recognition they need.
“There are a lot of rums out there that have rules and regulations where they are made. It’s where they are sold into, that’s where the problem is; it’s the interpretation or the enforcement of those rules,” he says. Burrell adds that the US is a prime example of a market that does not adequately recognise regional rum classifications. To help combat this, he says, brands need to work together to promote their own regions, and the nuances within them. “It’s up to the brands to, together, elevate their own region, their own status, their own style of rum, and then promote that equally.”
For Peter Holland, the key to rum’s future success lies in the open distinction flavoured, heavily sweetened rum and “authentic” rum. As such, he would like to see the creation of a “universal way of indicating that sugar has been added” to rum. “We really can get back to the levels of recognition we had centuries ago if we stick to our guns,” says Holland. “[If we] make sure the sugared, flavoured stuff is classified as such, and allow the real, authentic rum to stand separate, then yes, absolutely, rum will regain the widespread recognition it deserves.”
