Marketing - marketing - marketing...
This is what I have in mind, if I am reading the websites of some brands. This time I landed on the website of Vizcaya, which claims to make rum out of "the freshest sugarcane" which is pressed and the juice is directly fermented.
Usually rum is not made this way. Usually (and this is probably the original method), sugarcane is pressed, the juice then is cooked until it becomes molasses and until the sugar crystallizes. The solid sugar is taken out until the mixture becomes too thick, to extract more sugar.
This is then the molasses you would use for cooking, or to ferment to create a rum.
While I definitely admit, that making rum out of fresh sugarcane is slightly more expensive, than using a byproduct of the sugar production (sugarcane is anyway not very expensive), I am arguing about the claim of this producer, that it (necessarily) leads to a better rum.
The issue here is the concept: sugarcane juice is a whole different thing than molasses. It taste completely different, it smells totally different. And while theoretically a product like Ron Zacapa, which is a "middle thing" between a molasses rum and a rhum agricole, could be better - in practice is just "different". The real problem is, that most rums (and this almost becomes "the rule") is an oak aged distillate made out of the fermented molasses (or sugarcane honey).
If you would use fresh grapes instead of using pomace in grappa, most (sane) people would argue, that you would have an Italian brandy and not a grappa (fortunately the Italians are more thorough than the "Islanders" and have strict regulations what their product supposed to be).
Hence you have a product, which is called rum, but isn't really rum entirely. You could call it a rhum agricole styled rum, if you are bold...
Are this not only semantics? Maybe. But in a world, where more and more information is not reliable - you could call it "alternative facts" I am sticking to the tradition.
I don't want to say here, that a rhum agricole is a worse product. I just say, that it is wrong to say, that one (very controversial) method might not make a product better. It is the care, what people invest into the product. However if a product is solely premium'izing their product with the type of method, they might also be "full of sh!t". But this is just my humble opinion here...
This is what I have in mind, if I am reading the websites of some brands. This time I landed on the website of Vizcaya, which claims to make rum out of "the freshest sugarcane" which is pressed and the juice is directly fermented.
Usually rum is not made this way. Usually (and this is probably the original method), sugarcane is pressed, the juice then is cooked until it becomes molasses and until the sugar crystallizes. The solid sugar is taken out until the mixture becomes too thick, to extract more sugar.
This is then the molasses you would use for cooking, or to ferment to create a rum.
While I definitely admit, that making rum out of fresh sugarcane is slightly more expensive, than using a byproduct of the sugar production (sugarcane is anyway not very expensive), I am arguing about the claim of this producer, that it (necessarily) leads to a better rum.
The issue here is the concept: sugarcane juice is a whole different thing than molasses. It taste completely different, it smells totally different. And while theoretically a product like Ron Zacapa, which is a "middle thing" between a molasses rum and a rhum agricole, could be better - in practice is just "different". The real problem is, that most rums (and this almost becomes "the rule") is an oak aged distillate made out of the fermented molasses (or sugarcane honey).
If you would use fresh grapes instead of using pomace in grappa, most (sane) people would argue, that you would have an Italian brandy and not a grappa (fortunately the Italians are more thorough than the "Islanders" and have strict regulations what their product supposed to be).
Hence you have a product, which is called rum, but isn't really rum entirely. You could call it a rhum agricole styled rum, if you are bold...
Are this not only semantics? Maybe. But in a world, where more and more information is not reliable - you could call it "alternative facts" I am sticking to the tradition.
I don't want to say here, that a rhum agricole is a worse product. I just say, that it is wrong to say, that one (very controversial) method might not make a product better. It is the care, what people invest into the product. However if a product is solely premium'izing their product with the type of method, they might also be "full of sh!t". But this is just my humble opinion here...
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