Last Night's Tipple

Last night, I returned to Pusser's Rum. You will recall that it is distilled in wooden pot stills in Guyana that at one time produced the rum that was given to sailors in the Royal Navy. Yes, that's what I wrote: wooden pot stills. I guess that it shouldn't surprise me that the ingenuity of man would arrive at a pot still made from wood. It certainly is cheaper than copper and is probably easier to fashion into a pot-still-looking thing. And it's not just rum where wooden stills were used: some of the small-scale Bourbon distillers in the early days of Kentucky would distill by "running the log," which was a pot-still-like contraption made by hollowing out a log, filling the cavity with distiller's beer, and heating that beer by running steam though copper pipe in the cavity.

One of the great arguments in whisky production is about the value of using wooden fermentation tanks (as opposed to stainless steel). Proponents of wood say that the wood imparts more flavor to the distiller's beer, which in turn imparts more flavor to the new-make whiskey. Proponents of stainless steel say that that is hogwash and that stainless steel is better because it's a heck of a lot easier to clean and maintain than wood. I don't know who's right. I do know that any influence of wood in the fermentation tank has to pale in comparison to the influence of wood in the still. Remember that the more copper contact alcohol vapor has in the still, the lighter and purer the resultant new-make spirit will be. This is because copper will react with impurities and congeners in the vapor, which has the effect of filtering out impurities. Well, wooden pot stills will have very little copper in them. That means that spirit coming out of them is likely to be heavy, full-bodied, and congener-rich, to say nothing of whatever flavor the wood directly imparts.

As logic would suggest, Pusser's Rum is heavy, full-bodied, and congener-rich. As I mentioned when I first wrote about it, it has an overwhelming musty aroma that doesn't blow off with time in the glass. I would never guess that this was rum from nosing it. Tasting it makes it more obvious what it is: it's very sweet, with some of the flavor overtones that I associate with rum. But there is no vanilla that I can detect, despite the oak aging. I still can't decide whether I like this stuff. Maybe it will grow on me.

Last Night's Tipple

Sailors have a reputation for drinking a lot. Nowadays, this is done ashore. Before 1970 in the Royal Navy (1862 in the US Navy) a lot of it was done on the ship. Royal Navy regulations entitled every sailor to a gallon of beer or wine per day. That's a lot of beer, and it took up a great deal of room aboard the ship. Not only that, but it would spoil or otherwise become unpalatable on long voyages. Captains began to substitute brandy, which had the dual virtues of taking up less space and of being immune to spoilage. After the English captured Jamaica in 1655, they had easy access to another spirit, rum, and rum gradually replaced brandy as the spirit of choice aboard Royal Navy ships. Because it was stronger than beer or wine, Royal Navy officials figured that a pint of rum was roughly equivalent of the required gallon of beer. Half a pint was issued in the morning, and half a pint in the evening; and the sailors were required to drink it all at once. Not surprisingly, this caused a non-trivial amount of drunkenness aboard the ship (can you imagine climbing up into the rigging in your bare feet on a rolling ship in heavy seas after having consumed a half pint of spirits?), and Admiral Vernon introduced grog in 1740. This was a mixture of rum, water, and lime juice. The quantity of rum issued did not decrease, but Admiral Vernon believed that watered rum was less intoxicating than full-strength rum. This mixture had the added benefit of introducing Vitamin C into the diets of Royal Navy sailors, which made them less susceptible to such common sea-going diseases as scurvy. By 1970, the rum ration was down to only an eighth of a pint per day. Parliament, believing the practice archaic, abolished it entirely in that year.

Pusser's Rum claims to be authentic Royal Navy rum. It has no added color or flavorings, a rarity in the world of modern rum; but what makes it truly unique is the way that it's distilled. Pusser's uses pot stills, but they're not like the copper pot stills of Scotland or Cognac. They're wooden. That's right: while the necks are copper, the body of the pots is wood. And it's not new wood, either. Some of it is up to 200 years old. Pusser's claims that using seasoned wood like this gives the rum a unique, full-bodied aroma and flavor. They're right about that. It's unlike any rum that I've ever had. Pusser's also claims to be the single-malt of the rum world. That's an accurate description, although perhaps for reasons other than what Pusser's intended: it smells and tastes more like a malt Scotch than it does a rum. It's perfectly dry, without the vanilla and molasses flavors that aged rums usually have. The nose is austere and musty. The flavor is, if anything, grainly and malt-like. I can't decide whether I like it or not, but it certainly is unique.

Last Night's Tipple

I read an article once that claimed that rum was unique in the world of spirits in that it was made from industrial waste that otherwise would have been completely unused. This is a little bit of an overstatement. While it is true that rum can be made from fermenting a mash of spent sugar cane, which is waste from sugar production, it can also be made from fermenting sugar (but only sugar made from sugar cane), sugar cane juice, and molasses, none of which are waste products. Most of the rum produced today is pretty close to neutral spirits: it's distilled off to a proof high enough to strip the spirit of most of its character, diluted down to 80 proof, and sold unaged. It might as well be vodka. Even most of the products labeled "añejo" really just have caramel coloring added to make it look like they have been aged in oak for a while. Fortunately, it is possible to make a quality product that has some character, and the trend toward luxury spirits has ensured that some of the good products that have always been out there can be easily found on liquor store shelves.

Ron Zacapa Centenario 23 year old rum is made in Guatemala. Yes, Guatemala. Just about every country bordering the Caribbean Sea has rum distilleries, and Guatemala borders the Caribbean Sea. Like most rum produced these days, Zacapa is distilled in a column still. Given the heat of the Caribbean region, one might suspect that a 23 year old rum would be dried out and unbearably woody, but it is not. I suspect that there are two principal reasons for that. First, it's aged in used Bourbon barrels, so there's less woody goodness for the spirit to leach out. Second, it's aged in the mountains, where it's a lot cooler. Even though it's only 80 proof, the rum is very dark. On the nose, there's a lot of molasses that gives way to vanilla and butterscotch. The palate is sweet and very spicy, with loads of cinnamon and nutmeg. There's a good deal of fruitiness there, along with a little bit of an estery candy aftertaste. This is an outstanding product. Try it next to a Baccardi Silver rum and see if you can tell that the US government considers them to be equivalent.