Ian Williams, Rumpundit, commiserates Black Tot Day.

Saturday  31 July is the 40^th Anniversary of Black Tot Day when the Royal Navy abandoned the daily grog ration for its sailors. Do hoist  a dark rum to mark the occasion. The British decision to abandon a centuries-old tradition of high octane fighting spirit and replace it with high megaton Trident submarines has proven to be a financial and naval disaster. When it waived the rum rules, Britannia abandoned all pretension of ruling the waves!

The first reference to Navy rum was by Samuel Pepys, who although best known for confiding his sex life to his diary, was the civil servant in charge of the Navy. He authorized the Navy in the Caribbean to issue rations of rum to the sailors based in Jamaica.

Soon, however, rum was a major constituent of the Navy’s fuel supply. Admiral Vernon, after whom George Washington’s home Mount Vernon was named, decided that it was better for the health and safety of his ships and crew to mix the rum with water before issuing it, and to issue the half pint in two servings. He was known as  “Old Grog” because he wore a waterproof cloak made of “grogram,” a mixed fabric that served before oil-skins and that gave the name to the mixture.

His orders were that the grog was to be mixed in a “scuttled butt.” The idea that scuttlebutt was sailor’s chat around the water cask is a post-Prohibitionist invention. It was the rum barrel that loosened the tongues of the eagerly waiting tars.

Navy regulations insisted that once the grog had been mixed, it had to be served promptly, otherwise it would thrown overboard, because it went “flat.” I’ve experimented with Pussers, still made to the original recipe, and it’s true! While the rum is in a colloidal suspension in the water the droplets of rum hit the tastebuds and taste as strong as normal spirits but once they are dissolved it tastes like watered rum!

The US Navy initially adopted British grog rations but then under influence from the growing whiskey industry, swapped over to what was presented as a more patriotic spirit after 1806. During the Civil War, the US Navy abolished the ration completely, perhaps taking advantage of the connection between abolitionism and prohibitionism, both of them gaining the upper hand with the departure of Confederate personnel. However it was only the ratings who were deprived.  It was not until 1913 that officers were coerced into official abstinence.

In contrast, the British Admiralty was frankly scared of the mutinous consequences  of depriving ratings of their historical entitlement, and it kept issuing Royal Navy rum, until 1970, when they overcame public nostalgia by breathalyzing the pilot of  a nuclear submarine after he had drunk his ration.

In fact, for centuries, the Royal Navy had maintained naval supremacy despite often inferior technology compared with its Spanish and French rivals, because its crews, pressganged or volunteers, outfought their enemies. And looking at it analytically, the major observable difference was the rum ration, which is why wanabee naval powers like Czarist Russia and Japan also served up rum.

British captains and admirals still have the discretion to order “Splice the mainbrace!” for special occasions, however, and naval lore is still steeped in rum, which in Britain was known as “Nelson’s blood,” since allegedly the devoted tars donated their rations to bring the Admiral’s body back from Trafalgar to London.

I checked it out in the Gibraltar library in the contemporary newspapers, and sadly,  the Admiral’s body was carried back to London pickled in Spanish Brandy, aguardiente. Perhaps the tars did not want to waste the good stuff… but I have not been able to prove or disprove the story that the coffin was drained by the time it arrived in Britain. The tars might have preferred rum – but any spirit in a drought was long-standing tradition.

This week Sukhinder Singh of Speciality Drinks in London launched Black Tot – an exclusive bottling of Navy Rum over 40 years old – a find for rum-drinkers equivalent to discovering Tutankhamen’s pickled stiff, except the archaeologists never brought the young pharoah back to life, while the old rum has indeed been revived. It  was in sealed ceramic flagons allowing its unique biochemistry to play out over almost half a century.

In the Admiralty, the most coveted job was to sit on the committee that each year assessed what proportions of Jamaica, Trinidad and Demerara rums was consistent to maintain the formula, and Speciality’s experts have topped up the work of all of those departed palates to ensure that the bottles live up to expectations.

If you can’t get some, then up spirits on Saturday with any dark rum and shed a tear for bygone glory!

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (BGIS) — The rum industry, which has lost some of its preferential trading arrangements, will get a lifeline from Government to help it stay afloat.

This assurance has come from Minister of Economic Affairs, Empowerment, Innovation, Trade, Industry and Commerce, David Estwick, during a tour of the island’s rum producing plants recently.

Chairman of the Four Square Rum Distillery, Sir David Seale (right), giving (from left) Minister of Economic Affairs,Empowerment, Innovation, Trade, Industry and Commerce, David Estwick; Permanent Secretary, Bentley Gibbs; and Trade Research Officer of the Barbados Private Sector Trade Team, Jerson Badal, with a tour of the  distillery.  (A. Miller/BGIS)

Speaking to reporters during the first stop at the Four Square Rum Distillery and Heritage Park, St. Philip, he identified high manufacturing input costs, as well as taxation, as among the challenges facing rum producers.

In light of this, he said Government was prepared to offer the industry some help. “It is going to be important that we find ways to keep down the input costs at the domestic level…,” Dr. Estwick outlined.

Additionally, the Economic Affairs Minister also spoke about the challenges to the industry posed by the excise tax. He stressed: “That pressure would have been brought by the international players who would want us under the [World Trade Organization] regulations and rules to ensure that there is harmony between the excise tax charged on imported alcohol versus domestically produced alcohol.”

He further stated: “We have to comply with WTO rules, but we have to find a way to be able to create an alternative mechanism where you can reduce the tax in compliance, but create another dynamic, worked out over a period of time, that would not harm the industry’s competitive nature, given its importance to the Barbados economy.”

Apart from the Four Square Rum Distillery, Dr. Estwick also toured Mount Gay Rum Distillery, Mount Gay, St Lucy; and the West Indies Rum Distillery, Brighton, St. Michael.

He was accompanied by a 16-member delegation, including officials from his ministry, the Barbados Manufacturers’ Association, the Barbados Private Sector Trade Team and the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation. ]]> http://www.rumpundit.com/2010/04/17/home-of-rum-looks-after-its-own/feed/ 0 http://www.rumpundit.com/2010/04/08/vive-barbancourt/ http://www.rumpundit.com/2010/04/08/vive-barbancourt/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:40:23 +0000 ian http://www.rumpundit.com/?p=474 HAITI AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE

They’ll drink to that: Haitian rum maker endures

Rhum Barbancourt, Haiti’s signature rum, is bouncing back from quake damage and will bottle and ship soon.

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BY TRENTON DANIEL

tdaniel@MiamiHerald.com

Published on Saturday, March 27, 2010

By Pascal Fletcher

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) — At Haiti’s famous Barbancourt rum factory [1], patches of grass and shrubs around the warehouses are burned black from where the aging golden liquor spilled from oak casks split by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Toppled caskets of rum (AFP photo)
Hundreds of liters (gallons) of premier rum, some aged up to 15 years, seeped into the parched soil from the toppled casks, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of potential export revenue for the Caribbean country’s oldest manufacturer evaporated into the humid tropical air.

“We never expected an earthquake,” said Thierry Gardere, Director General of the Societe du Rhum Barbancourt, which produces what it probably Haiti’s best-known export.

“We’d thought about floods, hurricanes, but nothing of this magnitude,” added Gardere, who estimated his total losses from the catastrophic quake, between damaged equipment and lost rum stocks, at $4 million (£2.6 million).

Now Gardere, the fourth generation of Haiti’s rum making family, is painstakingly trying to rebuild his export business back to its previous pre-quake level.

Barbancourt’s rum sales had doubled over the last five years to 3 million liters a year, carving out a niche brand name in the international liquor industry, with sales to the United States, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Gardere expected that with the losses to his aged stocks, sales this year would fall to around 2.5 million liters and it would take four to five years to fully rebuild the reserve.

“Unfortunately, we are not able to bottle at the moment, and we have to put our aging rooms back in order,” said Gardere, standing among factory workers who were hammering and sawing to repair oak casks felled and splintered by the quake.

Other workers piped fresh batches of light-gold sugar cane alcohol into intact casks and the company was repairing pipes connecting the aging rooms and the bottling unit.

Gardere said that the factory, fed by sugar cane fields where this year’s harvest was already underway, was producing rum again, and he hoped that bottling for a fresh round of exports could restart within the month. A few weeks after the quake, which damaged Haiti’s main port, the company was able to fulfill some pending orders with already bottled stocks.

Fortunately, the factory’s sugar cane milling equipment and the distillery suffered little damage.

But at least two Barbancourt workers were killed and around 100, out of a total workforce of 250, were left homeless by the Jan. 12 quake, which Haiti’s government believes may have have killed up to 300,000 people in total.

The homeless employees were living at a temporary camp set up on the company soccer field. “We’re trying to help,” said Gardere, adding they were being supplied with water every day, and had been given tents.

Haiti’s already impoverished economy suffered a hammer blow from the earthquake, and a government report says the private sector absorbed 70 percent of the total damage and losses.

Estimates for the total national economic loss vary from close to $8 billion to $14 billion. Haiti’s government has put its overall recovery and reconstruction needs at $11.5 billion, ahead of a March 31 donors’ conference in New York.

Gardere said that one unforeseen byproduct of the earthquake was that it gave unprecedented publicity to Haiti and also to Haitian products like Barbancourt rum, which, coupled with the reduced stock, had boosted its market value.

“It could be good for the image … like a rare product,” Gardere said. But he was wary of complacency, saying that tight supplies after the quake allowed rums from the neighboring Dominican Republic to encroach on the local Haitian market.

Too long an absence from the international market could threaten the Haitian rum brand’s position there. “We’ll be giving priority to the export sector because if we’re out too long, it could be difficult to get back,” Gardere said.

Founded by French spirits maker Dupre Barbancourt in 1862, the company makes its rum from sugar cane juice through a similar double-distillation method as used for cognac making.

This makes it richer and heavier than many other Caribbean rums, said Gardere. The liquor is aged in special Limousin oak barrels supplied by French company Seguin Moreau. [2]

Gardere, whose own home was destroyed in the Jan. 12 quake, says he is looking at ways to protect his aging rooms, filled with racks of rum-filled oak casks, from future earthquakes.

“I need to look at California and Chile, to see how they are protecting their wines,” he said.

Premium brown spirits, whiskies, malts made from grain, and rums from sugar have been surging in the U.S. despite the economic crisis, but brandies, cognacs, and armagnacs made from grapes have not kept pace. Somehow, the taste was lost during Prohibition and never properly recovered. People an scarcely pay a higher price than the $15,000 for each 750ml bottle that Rémy Martin is asking for its limited edition of Louis XIII “Rare Cask.”

Grey Goose comes from France, but Rémy Martin is French with all the style and finish that that implies. Hence the staging, tastefulness, and munificence of the famous cognac maker’s launch of their latest sacrifice on the altar of conspicuous and exclusive consumption. There will only be 30 bottles for sale in the US.

Of course, the 30 bottles are simply the Archangel’s share of the potential market. The aim is to introduce discerning American sippers to the wider range of fine cognacs, to create a sophisticated customer base to match the other brown spirits. Now is the time, and if people are paying a premium for premium spirits, then they can scarcely pay a higher one than $15,000 a bottle, but Rémy makes many other fine and palatable bottles that will soothe the cares of the economic crisis more economically.

But with the Rare Cask, what a bottle! Before going into the craftsmanship inside, the black crystal Baccarat decanter is a work of art in its own right, and in the coarse eBay phrase “a collectible.” If you bought a bottle and drained it, it would be sacrilegious to throw it out for recycling with the other empties.

A few crashes and 15 or so years ago, MacAllan launched its 53-year-old bottle of Scotch on a thirsty world of malt enthusiasts for a mere $2,500. At the time, that was enough for any self-respecting Scot to cross his legs and not go to the bathroom for a day or so after taking a nip in case the precious fluid was wasted. The canny Caledonians restricted tasting to a splash with a syringe on the tongue.

But the French add joie de vivre to their eau-de-vie. At the Astor Center launch of the Louis XIII, they offered a statistically significant sample—a good half ounce, a $300 pour—of the product, and to make sure that the assembled tasters knew what to look for, Remy’s “cellar master” Pierrette Trichet, (they could hardly call her a cellar mistress one supposes) showed how a cognac grows up with the original unaged eau-de-vie, distilled from fine champagne grapes, on to a 7- to 10-year-old, and then up the value chain through 20 to 25, 40 to 45, and 70-year-olds before exposing the now highly sensitized palates to the Rare Cask.

Mme Trichet discovered a cask that she felt deserved bottling unblended, and the bottles are rationed for different continents. It would be difficult to beat her purple prose, which describes how “First, a formidable bouquet of wild mushrooms presents itself. Then, a hint of lifted underwood notes arise that evoke to the senses a bountiful autumnal forest. These are followed by a sparkling display of full, spicy tones that come from 100 years of aging in Limousin oak barrels. Lastly, gingerbread, wax, nuts, and fresh mint notes reveal themselves.”

Frankly, I would have to have been eating magic mushrooms to pay that much for any bottle, but one can appreciate cognac without reaching such heights. Surprising for other brown-spirits drinkers is how the aging process avoids the oak and tannin flavors that sometimes make overaged spirits almost undrinkable. Spirits writer Jonathan Forester pointed out with delight that the cognacs on offer were almost reincarnated, and that as they get older reveal some of the delicate fruity aromas of their infancy, going back to the beginning again.

It is difficult to think of a business model acceptable to Wall Street whose idea of inventory is stocking up product over a century—but many a bonus-laden banker will find the product acceptable at least.

The raucous, party-hardy image of rum is not for the rum distillers of Puerto Rico. They are taking another tack in a campaign that is now under way.

The campaign, which carries the theme “A reflection of who you are,” has a tone that is intended to be more sophisticated and upscale. The ads are aimed at younger urban professionals who look forward to other parts of the day besides happy hour.

Not that there’s anything wrong with having fun, according to the executives behind the campaign, which includes television, print and outdoor ads. Rather, they say, an overly celebratory approach is at odds with the product they are selling.

“Making rum is more expensive than making vodka,” said Roberto J. Serrallés, vice president for risk management at Destilería in Mercedita, Puerto Rico, which distills rum brands like Don Q.

“But we are considered a cheaper spirit,” he added, because of the good-times image for rum.

The campaign is on behalf of Rums of Puerto Rico, which in addition to Don Q includes brands like Bacardi, Palo Viejo and Ron Llave. Rums of Puerto Rico, created in 1948, is a division of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, a government-owned corporation in the commonwealth.

(It would be as if, say, a corporation owned by Michigan marketed the state’s cherries or a corporation owned by Wisconsin marketed the state’s cheeses.)

The campaign is the first for Rums of Puerto Rico in two years. It is being created by a Puerto Rican agency, Key Integrated Solutions. The budget is estimated at $2 million.

The campaign will also include promotions like a rum bar to be installed at Madison Square Garden and events at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets.

Javier Vázquez-Morales, executive director at Puerto Rico Industrial Development, identified the target audience as “goal-oriented professionals” in markets like Miami, New York and Washington.

The campaign was introduced at an event in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday that was centered on the sponsorship by Rums of Puerto Rico of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

By MICHELLE LOCKE (AP) – 20 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO — If the huge anchor and float lights hanging from the ceiling of Martin Cate’s Smuggler’s Cove bar don’t clue you in, the stacks of barrels and ship’s figurehead mounted on the wall should get you in the spirit of things: You don’t come here for a dry martini, be it ever so shaken or stirred.

Cate has a rum perspective on things — the bar features more than 200 from around the world.

There’s a rum revival going on across the country as devotees spread the word that rum is about a lot more than the cheap stuff you might have got trashed on in college.

“Rum is the most diverse spirit in the world,” says Cate. “There’s rich, smoky rums. There’s drier, medium-bodied rums. Some have longer finishes and some short, drier finishes. There’s a rum for every palate.”

All that and Flaming Volcanoes, too.

The rum 411:

_ Rum is a distilled spirit made from sugar cane byproducts, including juice and molasses.

_ It’s usually aged in used whisky or bourbon barrels, which turns the spirit golden and, if aged long enough, brown.

_ Rum can be white, gold or dark (known as black). The darker colored rums may be either due to the effect of aging or from being darkened with an artificial caramel color.

Perhaps most important is rum’s dual personality. While it is the basis for laugh-out-loud drinks like the zombie, premium rums prefer being sipped straight or over ice, a drink that can compete with fine cognacs and brandies.

You can even get a special rum glass to imbibe from, though Ed Hamilton, who runs the Ministry of Rum Web site, thinks that may be a bit much.

“People ask me, `What kind of glass do you use?’ I say, `A clean one,’” he says with a laugh.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that rum, and its cousin, tiki, are making a comeback now.

After all, the pioneering tiki bar, Don the Beachcomber, opened in Los Angeles during the Depression. San Francisco Bay area resident Victor Bergeron visited and became a convert, going on to start the Trader Vic’s tiki temples.

Somewhere during the ’60s, tiki and rum fell out of fashion. Cate fingers one of the culprits as a “guy in a tuxedo who showed up in a secret agent movie and asked for a vodka martini.”

But now it’s back, beneficiary of the craze for authentic cocktails that is an offshoot of the foodie movement. When your canapes are free-range chicken wings dusted in organic, hand-rubbed spices, a watery glass of lousy liquor and no-name soda just won’t do.

“A rising tide lifts all booze,” says Jeff Berry, who has written about rum and tiki culture and has a new book coming out, “Beachbum Berry Remixed.”

The leaders of the cocktail renaissance have done pre-Prohibition classics. They’ve done tequila and agave. Now, they’re looking at rum, a renewed interest that comes just as tiki has started to wave its flirty palm fronds at a jaded public.

And, conveniently, you can be a complete rum snob for much less than being, say, a single-malt scotch maniac.

“It’s amazing how much cheaper it is,” says Berry. “You can spend $140 for an 18-year single-malt. You can buy a 21-year aged, amazingly layered fantastic sipping rum for half that.”

Figures from the Distilled Spirits Council show that premium rums, which 10 years ago weren’t big enough to really exist as a category, now account for nearly 10 percent of all spirits sold by volume and 12 percent of revenues in the $60 billion retail market.

Smuggler’s Cove, a dark, inviting space strewn with just enough nautical gear to give you the tiki vibe but a few palapas short of tipping into farce, has been drawing a regular crowd, some interested in the more than 70 rum cocktails, others looking to try the many premium sipping rums.

Cate’s got something for everyone. If you smell victory, or are in need of one, there’s the Three Dots and a Dash. (You know that’s Morse code for “V,” right?) Lime, orange, honey, falernum (a sweet spirit), allspice, bitters, aged Martinique rhum, Private Reserve rum.

His zombie recipe calls for “three different rums, lime, grapefruit, fresh brains, island spices and Herbsaint (an anise-flavored liquor).”

He may not be entirely serious about the brains.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Dan Marsteller
Posted: January 25, 2010

Rhum Barbancourt’s Port-au-Prince distillery will not resume production for at least a month following significant damage sustained during the Haitian capital’s recent earthquake. One of the facility’s exterior walls fell, and barrels of aging rum were destroyed along with equipment inside the plant. Two of Rhum Barbancourt’s employees died in the quake, while around one-fifth of its staff of 430 lost their homes, the distiller said.

Immediate supply disruption of Rhum Barbancourt in the U.S. will likely be lessened by the fact that the producer shipped stock the day before the earthquake, but when precisely the distillery will again be up and running is uncertain. The company recently formed a long-term distribution pact with Crillon Importers, making the New Jersey-based importer Barbancourt’s exclusive North American distributor.