CigarsLover Magazine Awards Issue

SPIRITS
In May 2014, Alexander Gabriel, master blender of Plantation
rum (as well as of cognac and gin), presented a strong
defense of the use of sugar in rum, claiming that sugar is an
essential element for personalizing the style of these spirits
in a similar vein to the fundamental dosage technique of various
Champagnes. Simply put, Gabriel maintained that premium
rum was a type of spirit fundamentally characterized
by the vast differences in distilling and bottling styles, and
that the only mandate for producers had to be the personal
choice of drinkers. A few weeks later, Richard Seale, pot still
rum’s legend and Foursquare’s owner (the most important
distillery in Barbados), published an extensive article openly
denunciating the sugar affair. He pointed out that sugar addition
was the most embarrassing problem in the rum industry,
so massive that it de facto was hampering rum to be
technically considered a quality spirit like whisky and cognac
(which had already faced, and sorted out, their issues
with added sugar long time ago). In Seale’s opinion, adding
sugar was not a matter of personal tastes, but a technical
one: it was necessary to impose a clear regulations and limits
to this practice to safeguard the identity of rum. Seale
stated that the absence of rules was delegitimizing rum’s
critical appraisal, as there was no clarity about the essential
nature of the rums submitted for critical reviews. According
to Seale, to rely on the websites of external agencies was
nonsensical: a whole novel approach based on clarity and
strictness was necessary to give a solid and faultless productive
statute to quality rum. In fact, Seale was referring
to a much thornier issue: if it is true that the world of rums
is fascinating for the many possible styles, can we seriously
consider within the same category a pot still rum and a
column still rum, or a pure cane juice rum and a molasses
rum? By stressing this distinction, Seale identified a much
more important problem than the simple addition of sugar,
a problem so massive that no one in the industry wanted to
face in the fear of opening a can of worms, amidst endless
legislative discussions and a dangerous mediatic uproar
that would simply confuse the market.
The sugar polemics kept growing over the years. It split the
rum aficionados between the lovers of smooth taste and
the supporters of rum authenticity, but in doing so it clouded
the much more important distinction between pot still and
column still rum. True, just like whisky, the rum market has
been drastically evolving over the past few years following
the booming trend of craft breweries and distilleries, which
of course ended up advantaging those producers who had
been more attentive and interested in preserving artisanal
and traditional techniques. Yet, the mainstream producers
did not waste any time and immediately jumped across the
38 #5-2022 CigarsLover Magazine