502-320-6419 - The American Distilling Institute

— C O N T I N U E D
aged, some distillers have been able to experiment
aging their products with new, charred
oak barrels. Others have experimented widely
with wash recipes. They tend to agree that it
is great to have the freedom to release their
products when they see fit, and to have room
for creative expression.
Consumer Education: “not All Rum is bad”
Another significant challenge for American
craft rum producers is that many consumers
have preconceived notions of what rum
“should be like.” These notions are usually
based on negative experiences with poor quality
distillates, or on the belief that all rum
should fit the flavor profiles already established
by the various styles of Caribbean, Central and
South American products. This issue is partly a
product of the historical experience of Prohibition,
as noted before, since cheap rums were
ubiquitous on the black market and the public
perception of rum as a cheap mixer became
ingrained in the American drinkers’ collective
consciousness. It is equally due to the fact that
there is a plethora of inexpensive, mass-produced,
big-name brands of rum on the market
today. And finally, from the time of Prohibition
until the mid to late 1990’s, there were no
American distillers producing rum. The general
public has only had the Islands and South
American rums to use as reference guides, and
the cultural associations that attend them.
However, rum producers have differing
views as to just how big of a challenge consumer
education is for them. For Kelly Railean,
proprietor of and distiller at Railean Distillers,
at the Eagle Point Distillery in San Leon,
tX, consumer education is crucial for sales,
and in order to teach people that rum can be
16 w w w . d i s t i l l i n g . c o m
Kelly Railean, proprietor and distiller at Railean Distillers, in San Leon, TX
a great product in its own right. This is not a
big issue on the gulf Coast where she distills,
since the area boasts a large sailing community
with many rum connoisseurs. Rather, getting
the word out past the seaside community is
the real challenge. Railean accomplishes this
through hosting distillery tours, tastings,
speaking at symposiums, and giving lectures.
She explains that when you tell people how
it is made differently from mass-produced
products, first by using quality molasses and
then doing every aspect of production herself
by hand, “People don’t mind paying a couple
dollars more for it. They realize that you can
actually sip a fine aged rum the way you would
a bourbon, whiskey, or a Scotch.”
Andrew Cabot, president of Privateer
International in Ipswich, MA, views consumer
education as “less of a challenge because of
the general ‘Food movement’ in this country.
People are a little more predisposed to listening
these days.” Cabot observes that “there is a
willing and able audience out there.”
More of a challenge for Cabot is the
misinformation about rum that comes from
marketing campaigns, as well as a bias by many
rum experts towards Caribbean and South
American rums. “Even experts promote biases,
and they aren’t necessarily aware of them.
Preferences are different from biases.”
Phil Prichard offers some insight as to how
to address the Caribbean and South American
Ambiguities in the Legal Definition and Interpretation of Rum
ALtHOugH the united States
government Standards of Identity
appear to give a broad interpretation
as to what kind of sugar cane or sugar
cane derivative spirits can be called “rum,”
in practice there has been much ambiguity
and confusion among both distillers and
the Alcohol and tobacco tax and trade
Bureau (ttB) regarding this issue.
For example, a few distillers have sought
to produce a rum-like product whose raw
ingredient is sorghum. Like sugar cane,
sorghum is a species of grass whose juice
can be processed into sweet, fermentable
syrup. So far, the ttB has stated that
spirits made from sorghum cannot be
classified as rum. Because of this, such
products have often fallen under the “spirit
specialty” catch-all designation. However,
Colglazier and Hobson Distillery in Indiana
has recently produced a sweet sorghum
spirit they call “Sorgrhum” and refer to it
as “America’s First Sweet Sorghum Rum”
as well as “Sweet Sorghum Spirit” on their
website. They are currently awaiting label
approval, so it will remain to be seen as to
what class within the Standards of Identity
this spirit will fall.
Another point of ambiguity concerns
rum-like distillates produced from fresh
cane juice. This category ordinarily consists
of cachacas from Brazil and rhum agricoles
from Martinique and the French West
Indies. Cachaca, for instance, has not
been separated into a class of its own in
u.S. Standards of Identity nomenclature.
bill owenS
However, in recognition of the fact that
cachaca is intimately intertwined with
Brazilian culture, the Brazilian government
has taken strong measures to secure use of
the name “cachaca” as a spirit that is internationally
recognized as being exclusively
produced in Brazil. Clearly, Brazil and the
French West Indies are not the only places
that make distillates from fresh fermented
cane juice, but American distillers are dissuaded
from using the terms “cachaca” or
“rhum agricole” to describe their similarly
produced spirits.
These are but a few of the legal issues
and questions of nomenclature interpretation
confronting rum distillers in the
united States.
— Nancy Fraley