CigarsLover Magazine Awards Issue

SPIRITS
With or Without Sugar?
The Thorny Problem
of Rum Composition
by Vincenzo Salvatore
In 2014, after years of underground discussions, an
unexpectedly vitriolic polemics burst online about
the real amount of sugar added to most of the mainstream
rums (even above 50 g/l) when the results
of homemade analyses performed by aficionados were
spread on Reddit and on other thematic forums. Soon
after, the web sites of Alko, the Finnish alcoholic beverage
monopoly, and of Systembolaget, the equivalent Swedish
monopoly, recorded a sudden spike of international
views on the pages listing the results of the mandatory
chemical analyses performed on the bottles sold on the
local markets. Internet users realized that these professional
analyses clearly reported the real compositions of
rums (and other alcoholic beverages), including the sugar
content, among which were the most mainstream producers
such as El Dorado, Zacapa, Don Papa, Angostura,
Plantation, Matusalem, Bacardi, and many others. This
discovery fueled enormously the polemic, and the quarrel
among the supporters of sugared and non-sugared rums
deflagrated into a proper technical dispute. Many accused
producers of fraud and sophistication for bottles showing
such a level of ‘additives’ (between sugar, caramel, colorants,
and other stuff) that made it difficult to distinctively
mark the difference between ‘real rums’ and the deplored
‘spiced rums’ (that is, the rum-based beverages that involve
by label the addition of artificial aromas, honey, and
sugar).
Initially, producers claimed that those were utterly false
allegations and defended their products followed by a variety
of tailored communicative strategies, ranging from
the respect of old recipes up to imaginative justifications
about the peculiar kind of sugar cane they use, or the style
of cask aging implemented that would raise the sugar
content. Eventually, they agreed to collectively defend a
position based on the personal taste of drinkers: if consumers
liked the smooth, sugared, taste of their products,
why should they to change it?
36 #5-2022 CigarsLover Magazine