Rum Running: Full Speed Ahead

reprinted courtesy of Santé Magazine

What is Rum anyway? One, Bacardi, is the single most successful spirits brand in the U.S. Yet, the vast majority of brands, including some of the best, are unknown, unavailable and completely at odds with the flavor, use and image of the number-one brand.

For Rum's apparent identity crisis, we can blame the spirit's history, which is probably longer and foggier than any other spirit. The sugar cane plant that provides its raw material originates in the Far East, perhaps Indonesia . Batavia arak, arrack, cana and other local distillates based upon the leftovers from sugar refining date back centuries, perhaps millennia. The earliest Rums were not aged, at least not intentionally. They were sold as clear spirits and bore more resemblance to rustic Vodka than to the chocolate-colored Rums that we now describe as rustic. Bacardi's success, too, is based upon its Vodka-like softness, clear color and neutrality.

Creating Styles

Usually, Rum is not meant to be neutral. Its unique virtue among non-fruit-based spirits is that it can bypass a step in the usual distillation process. Corn, wheat, barley, potatoes and other sugar sources require that the distiller convert the inherent starches into sugars before fermentation can occur. In Rum, the sugar is already available. As a result, Rum usually carries intense flavors derived from its raw product. In the last several hundred years of Rum commerce, distillers have responded to that intensity by aging their products in barrels for five, seven, even ten years, in warm, humid climes, such as those found on islands in the Caribbean.

Jamaica is identified with this richer style and darker look. The darkest of Rums achieve that color through liberal use of caramel coloring, but the intensity of flavor is often due to longer and wilder fermentations, rather than the longer barrel aging suggested by the color.

There is nothing intrinsic in Jamaican Rum that determines this rich, dark style. Rum is not made in the fields; style is determined by production choices. A Rum distiller decides on the type of still (pot or column), the raw material (cane juice, syrup or molasses), the length and origin of fermentation (long or short, yeast or dunder-induced (see box, "Rum Types and Terms"), alcoholic proof (the proof from the still, in barrel or in bottle), and the duration in barrels, as well as the origin, size and age of those barrels.

While much is made of the choice between molasses and cane syrup and the barrel aging, the prime factor is the distillation itself. Distilling at a higher proof, which is almost always done with column stills, results in a lighter style. Bacardi created this lighter weight Rum by distilling to higher proofs and, from the building of the Panama Canal at the turn of the twentieth century onward, the company has dominated this style. Pre- and post-Prohibition bar manuals list the traditional cocktails as based upon Caribbean, Barbados or Jamaican Rum, but the newer cocktails of that era call for Bacardi by name, a privilege accorded few other spirits.

Modern Marketing

Most of the Rum consumed in America has been light Rum until recently. "The flavored Rums are getting a share of the light Rum business," explains Tom Valdes, President of Todhunter Imports, which distributes Cruzan. "Heretofore, people were consuming light Rums with a mixer--50 percent of the time with Coke--but now they're replacing the light Rums with flavored Rums.”

While Rum may be the oldest spirit, there is little agreement upon which styles offer the most prosperous path for marketers. “In general, the Rum category is the one spirits category that has not come to maturity in terms of trading up,” according to Silvio Leal of Ron Matusalem. “Just like the Vodka category, however, consumers are trading up to premium Rums.”

Sometimes, those premium Rums are flavored. Most recent new labels have been citrus-flavored white Rums. Valdes notes, “Most Rum consumers think that because Rum comes from sugar cane, the alcohol must be sweet. Therefore, the drink must be sweet, and you consume Rum only with sweet drinks.”

Rum-based fruity drinks are by no means the only way forward. For the last two years, Captain Morgan Spiced Rum has been the top growth brand among the top 50 spirit brands, and it is in a decidedly different style. Not citrus-based, but intensely flavored with vanilla, among other ingredients, Captain Morgan is all about flavor. So, too, are its stable mates, Myers's Dark and Parrot Bay (another growth leader), and Parrot Bay 's predecessor, Malibu.

A Rum for All Seasons

White Rums are most often seasonal or regional beverages. Who orders a Daiquiri in the dead of winter, and what cocktail drinker wouldn't enjoy a Mai Tai on a Hawaiian beach? Spiced Rums, however, have shown growth in every region and season. A spiced Rum can function as a warm winter warmer, a delicious dessert accompaniment, an ideal base for Planter's Punch or a great blend with a cola on ice.

It is as though Rum producers have been watching Vodka producers for their next cue. As flavored Vodkas have protected Vodka's status as the number-one spirit category, spiced Rums are fueling Rum's growth. The category's success, however, has not been shared equally; while the established flavored or spiced Rum brands are positioned in the middle and top ranks of beverage sales, the me-too brands have been less successful.

On-Premise Promotion

Unflavored, unspiced dark Rums are laden with flavor as well. If bartenders have not embraced them as they have such brands as Malibu and Captain Morgan, it is only from a lack of imagination or a perception that aged Rums are too intense or rarefied to be sullied by mixing. As long as mixologists remember that Rum, however sweet the attack, is almost always intensely dry, they can be good blenders. When's the last time you served someone a Hat Trick?

At Kansas City 's La Bodega, a seasonal “Rumtini” menu promotes Rum drinks from soft and sweet, such as the Piñatini, a straightforward Piña Colada in a martini glass, to face-suckingly dry. This mix of standard and new Rum drinks take advantage of the customers' pleasure in drinking from the martini glass. The program has been “very successful,” according to Proprietor James Taylor, but sales of the top aged Rums are admittedly “just okay.”

Aged Rums

The marketing frontier for those most passionate about Rum's place in history is convincing customers to drink aged Rum. While many brands, including Pusser's, Pampero, Cockspur and Barbancourt, have long and venerable histories, none of the aged Rum brands have cracked the top-150 spirit brands list since such records have been kept.

The easiest explanation for the low rankings is size. Many of these producers are very small, and though they may not be limited in sugar cane (many source it from places other than their own fields), they have always been limited in production by the capacity of their stills, manpower and barrels. Rhums from the French colonies of Martinique and Guadalupe, as well as other brands, such as Barbancourt, utilize cane syrup, not molasses. The producers often are restricted to seasonal distilling due to cane syrup's instability.

Moreover, for the last hundred years, white Rums have bullied all styles in the marketplace. Other Rum types have seen days darker than thirty-year-old spirit. Several years ago, the great Venezuelan distillery that produces Pampero suspended operations, and until recently, it was cheaper to buy Venezuelan Rum on the spot market than it was to make it. While new brands are popping up like steel bands at a fair in Trinidad , they could easily fail and disappear.

Those who love these Rum styles now have an opportunity to buy many of them, but only in major markets. “In 1995, at Sam's [a large and renowned wine and spirits shop in Chicago ], there were twelve bottles of Rum in a corner of the store,” describes Rum writer Ed Hamilton. “Today there's a whole aisle. Hamilton has been one of those in the forefront educating Americans about the variety of Rums. His website, ministryofrum.com, is a great source of information about Rum and even provides a locater service for people wanting to buy some of the more obscure brands. Unfortunately, many are destined to remain little known. As Hamilton explains, “unless you bring in a container, nobody thinks there's any money in it.”

Clearly, importers are still trying to predict when and how consumers will discover aged Rums and which styles will prevail. Doorly, a brand owned and now made by the Seales family, has begun offering XO, a Cognac-barrel-aged Rum. Several new brands use new American or French oak barrels, crafting a distinctly different nose and palate than traditional aged versions.

Rum's chameleon nature has allowed it to survive as the Western hemisphere 's most important alcoholic beverage for centuries. We are not yet done discovering its permutations. Invisible three years ago, the Caiprinha is a virtual must-have for any hot bar today. Its base is Cachaca, a lighter styled Brazilian Rum. What's next? In Korea , Soju is a term that can be applied to any Vodka-like beverage, but its usual base? Molasses.