Rum’s Free Spirit
Most fine, brown spirits are sticklers for regulations. Single malts flow only from pot stills. Straight whiskeys need to be aged in new casks. Irish, Scotch, and Canadian whiskeys have to come from the countries they are named for. Cognac must be made in a certain part of France. And they all toe the line with other, even stricter rules.
Except rum.
Without a country, rum is the pirate of the sipping world, the free-to-be-you-and-me category. You can make it anywhere on the globe. And no one will tell you how to ferment, distill or age it. Predictably, lack of regulation results in some pretty wide swings in quality.
And yet, that freedom has an upside. The rum world is quite capable of putting out exquisite examples that can rival all comers in the sphere of matured spirits. Made from cane sugar grown in the same environs that choice tobacco is raised, it has inherent sweetness and a shared terroir that can make it a perfect partner for your cigar.
The beauty of the spirit is that it has so many choices. It all starts with sugar cane. (Yes, there are upstarts—sometimes called “brum”—made with sweet beets. But that’s not the real thing.) Even limited to one plant, rum makers find diversity. Some run their own estates with carefully chosen cane species. They can make spirit with sugar cane juice or molasses (the byproduct of making granulated sugar). Most rums are made with molasses, which is the traditional method.
The yeast that ferments the sugar is another choice. Most makers guard their strains closely to ensure consistency. A few make the bold decision to let windblown spores do nature’s work of converting sugar into alcohol.
Distillation presents even more choices. Pot stills create a rawer spirit, but some of its impurities have potential to transform into flavor gems with long aging. Column stills make purer spirits that mature quickly. Rum is often divided into two styles: English and Spanish. Loosely, the terms refer to what kind of still was used; pot still for the former, column for the latter. One is fuller-flavored, the other is cleaner. But they can be used in tandem to create a taste spectrum.
The best rums for a cigar come from wood aging—and that is another decision. From the beaches to volcanic peaks, the tropics present a wide range of environments for maturation. Varying heat and humidity create different flavors. The kind of wood you use does too. While most of the rum world ages in barrels that once held Bourbon, European woods with wine-making pedigree are not uncommon.
One major wrinkle to rum’s lack of regulation is that statements of age claimed on labels are inconsistent. Spirits are typically the result of blending casks from various years into one. Most whiskey regs demand that the age stated on the label reflect the youngest whiskey in the blend. With rum, an age statement might only indicate an average age. Some rums follow the former standard. Others do not. Depending on where the rum came from, it can be a conundrum for buyers, seeking long age. But remember that the age is just a number on a calendar and doesn’t reflect the accelerated maturation that comes with the year-round high temperatures found in the tropics.
Ultimately, the rum makers’ wealth of choices translates into the same thing for cigar pairing. The best way to make that call is by lighting up a fine cigar and stalwartly soldiering through some of the best rums the tropics have to offer. We chose an Arturo Fuente Hemingway Work of Art, a cigar that recently earned 95 points with its notes of licorice, almond, vanilla and chocolate with a woody finish. We smoked it with 12 rums as partners (see sidebar above). All are 80 proof, except where noted.
Yo, Ho, Ho And A Cigar With Rum
Appleton Estate Rare Casks $50
Jamaica’s Appleton differentiates itself right from the start by growing as many as 10 distinctive types of sugar cane on its 1,000-acre estate. Crops are made into molasses and fermented and then distilled, using either pot or column stills. Once blended, Appleton is one of the longest-aged rums, once making a 50-year-old. This minimum 12-year-old shows off the brand’s signature orange peel note, plus tropical fruits, cocoa, coffee, vanilla and molasses. It became savory and nutty with the cigar, which added sweetness.
Bacardi Reserva Ocho $33
The family-owned Bacardi started with a goal to make a refined spirit that belied the notion that all rum was raw. The solution included a proprietary yeast, the use of two column distillates (low and high proof), and charcoal filtration. The magic not only works with clear rums, but those that are long-matured, such as the Reserva with its minimum eight years in oak. Complex contrasts include spicy cinnamon, sweet vanilla and butterscotch with whiskey notes. The rum drew together the nuttiness of the Fuente Hemingway.
Barceló Imperial $31
A Spanish-style rum from the Dominican Republic, Barceló stands out from its brethren in that it’s made from sugar juice rather than molasses. Nevertheless, it doesn’t show the earthy notes associated with rhum agricole. The company, with its stress on ecological initiatives, also has an organic rum. The Imperial comes off creamy with vanilla and brown sugar, but adds notes of cherry. The cigar gives it girth with its earthiness and shows off its own fruit.
Diplomático Ambassador $250
Based in the Venezuelan Andes, Diplomático employs a trio of still types (column, pot and a variant of the latter called a batch still). For the Ambassador, however, it exclusively uses its pot still from Scotland. After the spirit spends 12 years in Bourbon barrels, it’s finished in PX Sherry casks for two years. It then is bottled at cask strength. High alcohol content (94 proof) accentuates its drier charms with anise, pine and claret, even while the sweetness of cherries, molasses, grapes and vanilla remain. With the Fuente, it gets fruitier and the smoke becomes leathery.
E. León Jimenes 110 Aniversario $125
If you follow our cigar ratings, you doubtless know of the company behind this rum. Ten years ago, La Aurora, the Dominican Republic’s oldest maker of cigars, celebrated its 110th anniversary with a spirit to complement its portfolio of smokes. Five-times-distilled, it is aged in stages with virgin wood, the first in American oak, the second in French. Kind of sweet on the nose, it balances perfectly in the mouth with toffee, fruit and the comfort of a cinnamon-topped graham cracker. The rum is also built for a cigar pairing, preening with all sorts of savory woods.
Flor de Caña Centenario 18 $50
This rum was born atop a volcanic peak in Nicaragua, where it grows its cane on an estate. The rum is distilled five times in columns and typically long-aged. Another leader in environmental awareness, it recycles the cane waste for energy and recycles CO2 to carbonate soda. Another paragon of balance, it has vanilla and honey complemented by cinnamon spice and whiskey notes. The Fuente drew out cola notes and became leathery.
Mount Gay XO $60
Mount Gay claims to be the world’s oldest maker of rum, having been founded in Barbados in 1703. Its column-stilled product uses proprietary yeast. Airborne yeast ferments the liquid distilled in pots. The XO is a triple-cask blend, using Cognac, Bourbon and other American whiskey vessels. Its cooperation of cedar spice, red fruits, raisins and vanilla only needs the Fuente’s meatiness to complete a rich flavor wheel.
Plantation XO $60
The Cognac purveyor Alexandre Gabriel, of Maison Ferrand, became so enamored with the terroir of rum that he not only sourced spirit from throughout the Caribbean, but made his own pineapple-flavored and overproof examples. This Barbados example celebrates the 20th anniversary of the love affair with pot- and column-stilled rums aged in limousine oak in France. The XO opens like a sweet tooth’s delight and then sorts itself out to highlight red fruit, honey, caramel, chocolate and bananas. It becomes quite nuanced with the cigar, which pipes up around the rum’s sweetness.
Ron Zacapa No. 23 $50
Guatemala’s Ron Zacapa does a lot of traveling to get into your bottle. Sugar cane is cut from valleys rich in volcanic soil, trucked to be pressed for its sweet juice, which is fermented and distilled. Then it goes to be in cool mountain air in a solera system at 7,500 feet. The rum is a joy ride of tangerine, caramel, ginger, honey and anise synched with the cigar’s licorice.
Santa Teresa 1796 $50
Santa Teresa builds complexity with its use of pot-still spirit coupled with rum distilled in columns in Venezuela at two different strengths. All of it is blended and put through a solera system, which has been operating since the early 1990s. The effort to get through the bottle’s waxed closure is worth it once you enjoy the rum’s tangerine, butterscotch, baking spice, cherries and dark molasses. Those qualities, especially the spice, are only more evident with the Fuente, becoming sublimely woody.
Zafra 21 $60
A Panamanian, Zafra is the brainchild of Francisco “Don Pancho” Fernandez, the renowned rum master who started his career in Cuba and retired to Panama, only to blend a host of rums. Like most Spanish-style rums, Zafra contains only column still spirit, but it uses the English method of calculating age—all of the blend is at least 21 years old. It’s all about reconciling Christmasy spices with a spectrum of tropical fruits and brown sugar. The spices flirt with the cigar to make a warming pairing on a cold winter’s night.
