An amazing thing about the Cocktail Renaissance: so many things that were long gone have since returned. But not everything. My white whale is what I have come to call light, Cuban-style rum, by which I mean the complex, nuanced, delicious, yet filtered rum that Bacardí more or less commercialized, and produced vast quantities of up until around the Cuban revolution of 1959. Basically, the stuff behind the Daiquiri and a zillion lesser drinks. I’ve had the privilege of sampling product from the 1950s both alone and in cocktails, so I have some frame of reference; others have far more vintage rum experience to draw upon.
In recent years, we’ve experimented with Bacardi 1909 Superior Limited Edition, Havana Club 3 Year, Caña Brava, Denizen, Plantation 3 Stars, Banks 5 Island, Flor de Caña 4 Year Extra Seco, El Dorado 3 Year, and more. We’ve had some bad drinks and some good drinks, but none of the good ones have quite rung the bell, in my opinion.
Any history, news and insights are greatly appreciated. (By me, at any rate.)
Meanwhile, we have something new to experiment with:
Hamilton White ’Stache is a blend of aged Trinidadian rum with a little unaged Guyanese and unaged Dominican rums, bottled at 43.5º. Here are some notes from the producer. I just got a bottle today, and just finished my first Daiquiri made with it. All I will say, for now, is that it’s clearly worth checking out.
All the best things about the cocktail renaissance have been reclamations. The return of lost drinks, lost spirits, lost bartending skills, lost books. That’s the whole ball of wax. And the main reason why it was worth the effort.
Chatting with Ed Hamilton the other day, he hypothesized one reason none of our light, filtered rums today resemble the old Bacardi is changes in fermentation practice. This quickly gets above my pay grade, but the idea is that fermentation has been sped up drastically over the last sixty years. The efficiency is good for profits, but the rum may lose some attributes. I believe this is @Bostonapothecary territory.
I’ve never actually had an older Bacardi, but I did just translate a fascinating chapter of Kervegant’s text (1946) where he describes the rums of the world. Cuban rums of the 1930’s were known for distillation parameters, and then filtration, that would make them fairly neutral no matter the potential of the ferment. The rums were also known to be adulterated and probably very skillfully.
When I recently corresponded with one of the top Cuban rum researchers, he was not aware of Arroyo’s works, and one of their recent published papers was on a new method for artificial aging.
A problem with part of the chapter is that pretty much all knowledge of quite a few of the rums comes only from a large 1937 IRS survey. Kervegant certainly knew the rums of Martinique and Guadeloupe, but likely never tasted any of the others.
Elsewhere, Kervegant mentions a trend at the time (since the beginning of the 20th century) to dramatically speed up fermentations. There are no real fermentation additives we have now that they didn’t have them. They even had antiseptics. We seem to have lost a lot of information since then and gained very little.
The big thing that used to be more common that the industry seems to have lost all knowledge of is Schizosaccharomyces Pombe ferments and the use of symbiotic bacteria. We are nearly 80 years after the work of Arroyo and no one can do it outside of Jamaica.
I’m not sure sped up fermentation is something that happened only post 1959, and I’m inclined to follow our Boston friend regarding the 30’s. This being said, Cuban aguardiente today is far from neutral.
It’s also important to note that the whole Cuban rum industry has been basically rebuilt from scratch in the early 70’s so obviously today’s Cuban rum is going to be very different from 50’s Cuban rum. I have more info on this, and I’m hoping to share it after Tales.
I will be interested to hear more. Meanwhile, today I shouldered the terrible burden of an A:B test of the Latitude 29 Daiquiri with both the 44.5º Bacardi and Hamilton White ’Stache. That’s 2 oz rum, 1 oz lime juice (shared blend of two Persian limes) and two level teaspoons of a 4:1 blend of standard Domino granulated sugar and “organic” Domino cane sugar.
Verdict: the results were quite similar. The Bacardi drink had a slightly sharper citrus edge, which I suppose some folks might prefer. Meanwhile, the Hamilton drink actually tasted like it had a little rum in it. Slightly rounder, slightly richer, slightly rummier. I’ll take the Hamilton, thank you, by a smidge.
I’ve been doing a lot of daiquiri experimentation over the past year and have been inspired by others to use white sugar, though I am still frustrated by the time it takes to dissolve the sugar, so sometimes I use Petite Canne Sugar Cane Syrup (disclosure - I also import that syrup) which adds some viscosity to the drink.
In regards to White 'Stache, there is a fine line between filtering an aged rum too much and getting a clear rum. Carbon filtration by its very nature takes not only the color out of the rum but also some of the character. It has been suggested to add some fresh Jamaican rum to add more character but I’ve resisted to date. All in all I’m very happy with this product as are almost all of the bartenders that have tasted it.
Welcome to the forum, Ed. I’m also pretty happy with White ‘Stache—certainly happier than with any other option I know of—except for the fact I can’t find more of it. Never seen it on the shelves in NYC. Is it here?
Was poking around this thread today looking for answers on how to fill an empty spot on my bar! I ended up going home with this lovely product we just started carrying at my shop in Minneapolis. It is (technically) an aguardiente from Michoacan, Mexico, but sells itself as a blanco (light) rum and serves the purpose more than adequately in the daiquiri I just made this evening.
Obviously, this is distilled from fresh sugar cane and a Cuban-style rum would (I assume) be distilled from molasses, but I am curious–Martin and those who have tried pre-1970 Cuban rum–if those products had some rhum agricole-style funk (even a bit). This is not as grassy as you would expect, and actually shows more fresh-sugarcane richness than vegetal funkiness. It has none of the caramel or “cooked” notes that you might be looking for in a molasses-based rum, but–to my question–I wonder if that is necessary for re-creating the flavors in these older recipes?
If anyone has gotten a chance to try it, I’d love your thoughts.
In regard to pre-1970 Cuban rums, there were aged and freshly bottled white rums. All were distilled from molasses, but the aged white rums were smoother due to aging.
I wouldn’t describe agricole rum as funky, certainly nothing like some Jamaican rums, unless the fermentation has been pushed for the cane was as fresh as it should be.
It is interesting the extent to which the 1950s-era Bacardi had qualities that appear to be extremely elusive for modern distillers. There was the smoothness, restrained richness and lightness one would hope to expect, but there was also a certain creaminess I’ve not tasted elsewhere. This could have been some strange artifact of in-bottle aging of a little over a half-century, but these distinctive characteristics were present in all the old Bacardi bottlings we sampled at @martin’s place.
None of these rums offer a lot on the nose, but the vintage Bacardis once did. The second sample (label fell off) was actually the best sample of the three unopened samples that I began with many years ago. That one had an lovely nose, and a bunch of folks got to experience that before it faded away (over a period of many months). The other two samples (one not shown) had mostly lost their aromatics before I got them.
It’s quite possible that the vintage bottles have declined a little in proof from the 86 they began at. In any case, they remain richer, rounder, and have more rum flavor than the Hamilton and contemporary 87-proof Mexican Bacardi. I would say that the contemporary Bacardi is identifiably closer in flavor to the vintage Bacardis than the Hamilton (makes sense), but the contemporary Bacardi is so thin. By contrast, the Hamilton and the vintage Bacardis taste like actual rum. The vintage Bacardis are even basically sippable (but let’s not get carried away—this is mixing rum). So much of the difference here is in the (alas, unrecoverable) aromatics. Without the aromatics, the distance between these liquors is not that great.
Also, these samples are Puerto Rican, and they are probably inferior, or at least a little different, from what Bacardi was distilling in Santiago at that time.
Hmmm… I will see when a bottle of 3-year arrives from France next monday. But I do notice that they had aready listed 3 different ABVs (37.5, 40 and 43) in the nutritional information on their site since, at least, Nov 2020. For different territories? Perhaps they are consolidating their production.
If you’re lucky, it was shipped before the change. The last batch of 40° HC3 was sold in France a few weeks ago. A friend of mine actually bought the remaining stock as soon as he heard. In Spain, 37,5° hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m sure it will soon.
43° must be an error, as Cuban law doesn’t allow for rums to be sold above 40° (Havana Club was granted an exception for Seleccion de Maestros and a couple of limited edition but it’s highly doubtful they’d receive one for a regular 3 yo).
Yes, what now? Unfortunately the Diageo Santiago de Cuba carta blanca is 38°, so that’s not an option either. Havana Club have Profundo, a 40° 3 yo in the ‘historical’ Cuban style --it was originally made for Floridita’s 200th-- but it’s only available on the island, so it doesn’t help.
