- Welcome back to the Rum Cave.
I'm Steve the Barman,
and I wanna help you with rum cocktails.
So let's start our beginners journey.
What is rum?
Rum is produced all around the world
and all of those countries and islands
will have their own particular rules
and regulations about production,
but essentially to break it down to the bare basics,
rum is made from sugar, whether that's molasses,
sugar cane, or sugar cane juice,
molasses being a byproduct of refining sugar cane.
There are a few different ways to classify rum
each with their own different styles,
which basically comes down to the way they are produced,
distilling methods and ageing process.
Now, if we relate this to the Caribbean and the West Indies,
we will traditionally have three styles of rum.
You've got your English rums,
which will be Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Saint Lucia.
We've got our Spanish style of rums,
which would be Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela,
and the Dominican Republic.
And then we've got our French styles of rum,
rhum agricole, which will be islands
like Martinique and Guadalupe.
Now as more and more countries and islands get involved
in distilling rums, those guidelines,
those classifications get a bit blurred.
But traditionally speaking,
if we go back to those Caribbean islands,
the West Indian islands,
then essentially speaking Spanish and English styles of rums
will be distilled from sugar cane or molasses
whereas the French rhum agricoles will be distilled
from sugar cane juice.
Now the famous rums that don't really sit too well
in any of those categories would be rums
from Central America.
They can be a bit sweeter
with a bit more sugar added to them,
but inherently, some of them are really, really tasty.
I really do love Central American rums.
We're talking Ron Zacapa from Guatemala.
We've got Colombia and Dictador.
Then we've got Diplomatico from Venezuela,
but Venezuela is traditionally a Spanish style of rum
and Pampero, I think, is very different to Diplomatico.
To get too bogged down in that at the moment
is gonna be way too technical.
So instead, we're gonna explore a much easier way
to classify rum.
Something that you can relate to very easily.
While throughout these series of videos,
I'm still gonna refer to English,
Spanish and French style of rums,
traditionally speaking you will be more at home
with these classifications.
We're talking light rum, we're talking gold rum,
we're talking aged rum, we're talking dark rum,
we're talking navy and overproof rum,
we're talking spiced rum and flavoured rum.
Then actually we should still be talking
about demerara-based rum and rhum agricole.
So as you can perhaps start to appreciate now,
rum is a very big beast.
You can disappear down so many different rabbit holes.
The thing you have to remember
is that all rum tastes different.
Just because it says rum in the bottle
it is gonna taste completely different
island to island, style to style.
And the best way to describe this,
this is an analogy that I use a lot,
because people can relate to this.
For some reason, they comprehend wine a lot more easily
than they do rum.
And the big way I described this:
Wine, people can relate grapes being very different.
For instance, in New Zealand, a Sauvignon blanc grape
is gonna taste very different to a chardonnay,
which in turn is gonna taste very different
to a pino grigio.
But to get even more in depth,
a Sauvignon blanc wine produced in New Zealand
is gonna taste very different to a Sauvignon blanc
produced in South America, Chile, for example.
And that all comes down to the climate, the soil,
the humidity, the way their grapes, the vines have grown,
the production methods.
So even though you might have two identical grape varieties
country to country,
they are gonna taste completely different.
And rum is no different to that.
An English style rum produced in Barbados
is gonna taste very different
to an English style rum produced in Jamaica,
which in turn is gonna taste very different
to a Spanish style rum
produced in the Dominican Republic or Cuba.
Just because it will say rum on the front of the bottle
and it may be aged for three or five years,
it doesn't matter.
They are gonna taste very, very different.
So here's some things to remember.
When we're talking about our light rums,
not all light rums are unaged.
In fact, quite a lot of them will be aged for three years,
which will kind of give those guys a golden hues
because of the oak barrels.
However, a lot of the light rums have been charcoal filtered
to take the colour away, but the taste remains.
However, some of the cheaper brands, light rums,
they won't have been aged at all,
or some of them may have been aged for about three months
in steel tanks.
And then we're talking about golden rums.
You have to remember not all golden rums
are aged longer than white rums.
The simple fact is,
and this especially rings true with some of the big brands,
they are allowed to use a tiny bit of colouring,
maybe a tiny bit of caramel,
to promote consistency and colour their rums up,
so just because you see a golden rum
don't automatically assume
that it's aged longer than a light run.
The chances are they will be the same.
And then going back to light rums,
some light rums might have a lot smoother mouthfeel
as they go down because the charcoal filtering
would have taken away the kind of edginess
to the actual rum.
And that's when you kind of get the tropical fruits
that come out.
You may get hints of pineapple,
you might get hints of coconut in some of these light rums.
Now golden rums will have a certain amount
of complexity to them,
especially the rums that are kind of three, five year old
because they would have taken on characteristics
from traditionally bourbon barrels.
You'll start to get notes of vanilla, of oak, of toffee
coming from those barrels into the rum.
But the other thing to wrap your head around as well,
not all dark rums are aged longer
than gold rum or light rums.
The simple fact is a lot of brands will add molasses
or caramel colorings to darker rum
to promote that dark colour.
In fact, some of the bigger brands,
darker rums would have been aged a lot, lot less
than some of your golden rums.
You just have to know what to look out for,
but characteristics from a proper kind of dark rum,
you're going to get dried fruit notes,
you're going to get coffee notes,
you're gonna get chocolate notes
as well as the kind of vanilla and oak and toffee
that comes off the barrels.
When we're talking about aged rums,
there is a bit of a crossover
between aged rums and golden rums.
Some golden rums will have aged statements on the bottles,
some won't, but traditionally speaking with aged rums,
we're talking anything from three years old and over,
potentially 5, 8, 10, 12.
The lower aged rums, your three, five, eight year olds,
will be great for cocktails.
However, some of them will be equally as good sipping neat,
but when you go up to the 8, 10, 12, 15 year old rums,
you wouldn't necessarily use them in cocktails.
They will be great sipping rums.
And then this is where you start
to get different characteristics
from different islands, from different climates,
from different methods of production
because you'll get some kind of aged rums
that will be leathery and tobacco,
coffee notes coming through.
You'll get other aged rums that will be more vanilla-y,
more toffee-fied, more oak-ified, coming from the barrels.
And then in other aged rums,
you'll be getting notes of pineapple and banana.
Jamaica, I'm looking at you.
They are very famous
for their kind of bananary style rums.
Now I don't want you to get that confused
with a flavoured banana rum.
I'm talking nothing like that.
I'm talking proper out and out rums
where you get subtle hints of banana
and those tropical fruits coming through.
Let's talk about the other styles of rum.
Let's go to navy strength, and overproof.
Typically speaking, navy strength is anything
kind of over 54% because that's the kind of ABV
that gunpowder would still ignite in rum.
I think it's 54.5, don't hold me to that.
But essentially they are rums
that haven't been diluted as much.
There hasn't been as much water added to them
to bring them down.
So they are a higher ABV.
And the big overproof ABV is obviously 151,
which relates or translates in English to 75.5% ABV.
151 being proof, 151 proof, which is 75.5% APV.
Now to most people, navy strength and overproof rums,
they will be great for cocktails
and kind of imparting short bursts of flavour,
bumping up the proof.
But do you know what?
Some of the overproof rums are absolutely delicious
to drink neat.
You just got to be very brave to do so.
And then because of the higher ABV,
you'll get, again, different characteristics
coming out in a rum.
You'll get kind of rich, dried fruits.
You'll get chocolate notes,
you'll get banana notes coming through.
And in some cases in the darker sort of overproof rums
you'll even get hints of coffee.
Now let's quickly turn our attention to rhum agricole,
the French style of rums.
Also very, very similar to Brazilian cachaca.
Now unless you're a native
to a French kind of Caribbean island,
traditionally speaking rhum agricole
is not gonna be one for you to drink neat.
They are very different in taste.
Because of the way they are produced,
they're distilled from sugar cane juice,
which is gonna bring home those vegetal notes,
the grassy notes coming from the sugar cane.
This is where the terroir really comes out to play,
the climate, the soil, the humidity,
everything really comes out to play in agricole rhums.
But the one big use, except for those people
that really love French agricole rhums
to kind of drink neat,
but the big use for these is in cocktails.
They will add a certain funkiness to cocktails.
Now I'll talk about funkiness in a future video,
but it will give you that extra dimension to rum cocktails,
which is phenomenal.
Now let's talk about demerara rum.
Demerara rums will traditionally be English style of rums.
The big kind of, well, I was gonna say island,
but mainland is Guyana, El Dorado behind me.
The typically produced demerara based rums.
They can be slightly sweet
and I'm not talking spiced rum sweet,
but they can be slightly sweeter in taste
simply because they are distilled from molasses.
Again, that byproduct, treacle essentially,
that byproduct of refining sugar,
give you a totally different mouthfeel.
Again, slightly thicker, slightly more syrupy,
not thick, but just slightly more syrupy as it goes down.
Rich fruit notes.
You kind of get chocolate coming through as well.
Just love demerara style rums.
Now let's talk about one
of my favourite categories, spiced rums.
Long-term followers of me will know I love my spiced rums,
but I kind of wanna start to make this clear to people now
because not all spiced rums are created equal.
In fact, spiced rums get a lot of hate
from the rum community.
Rightly or wrongly that's for you to decide,
but essentially just to break it down into spiced rums.
For me, make it easy for you,
there are two different styles of spiced rums.
There are rums, proper out and out rums,
that have been spiced,
and then there are basically what we kind of know in the UK,
the big ones that do the rounds.
They are essentially liquors, rum-based spirit drinks.
There'll be not great rum,
terrible rum, in fact, in some cases,
but you'll never know because they are sweetened up,
plenty of sugars added, plenty of flavours added.
To kind of break this down very, very loosely,
we've got stuff like Chairman's Reserve,
we've got Duppy Share, and a couple of others.
They will be the base rums, the proper rum.
So take Chairman's Reserve Spice.
They will be that rum just simply spiced up.
Whereas we've got other brands behind me down there,
which will simply be a cheap unaged rum
that is just simply been sweetened and flavoured up.
Nothing wrong with them, I'm not slagging them.
That's just something I want you to comprehend.
Between spiced rums, they'll be very, very different.
Some of them will be sweet.
Some of them will be out and out proper rum,
which is the little extra hint of spice.
Now, back in the day,
traditionally spiced rums were kind of vanilla, lime,
ginger, maybe a hint of cinnamon and clove.
However, these days, everything goes.
Behind my bum, I've even got one with raspberries.
So not a raspberry flavoured rum,
but I've got one with raspberry and raspberry powder
and star anise in there.
So spiced rums can literally be anything these days.
And then, of course, we get into flavoured rums,
again, which traditionally speaking
will be the worst of the worst rums
just simply flavoured up to kind of mask the taste.
They're cheap, they're mass produced.
I'm not saying they're bad.
I'm not saying they're terrible.
They do get a lot of hate from the rum community,
but you can have a lot of fun with them.
But don't get it into your head
that something like DMF is the same quality of rum
as some of these guys.
They won't be.
They'll just be cheaper.
The cheapest of the cheap rum and just simply flavoured up,
but they do make really fun drinks.
So to answer the question,
which is the best rum for cocktails,
the answer is literally down to you.
First of all, for me personally,
you've really got to nail your style
Do you prefer English style of rums?
Do you prefer Spanish style of rums?
Do you prefer French style of rums?
And then you've got to narrow down your category.
Do you like light rums?
Do you like dark rums?
Do you like aged rums?
Do you like light or golden rums
that haven't been aged so much?
Do you like demerara rums?
That is the only way
you can find your best rum for cocktails.
But I do also love the fun side.
I do also love my spiced rums.
And you can create so many traditional rum cocktails
with spiced rums to give them a whole different,
new sort of element and direction.
But hopefully as you'll now start to appreciate,
even though I do love my spiced rums,
essentially spiced rums and flavoured rums are no more
than liqueurs, rum-based spirit drinks.
They are not rum.
I'm not saying discount them.
I'm not saying that at all,
but they are not rum.
But for me personally,
I do really see spiced rum as the gateway.
It's the entry level to normal rum.
Because if you start off with the sweetest style of rum
and then maybe progress on so kind of
a more traditional spiced rum, like your Chairman's Reserve,
like your Duppy Shares,
once your palate goes from sweet to them,
then from them, you can really start to appreciate
all the weird and wonderful world of rum.
Would I start you off in a Jamaican
or a Spanish age style of rum?
Potentially not.
If that was your first encounter with rum,
I probably wouldn't go there.
I would definitely work up to it.
But starting off, there is so many different places
you could start off with.
We'll cover that in a future video.
And, in fact, check out that video,
'cause that's really gonna help you on your rum journey.