Harvester Bar Bible - Update 04/2023

What is Rum? Rum is a sweet-tasting spirit made from the sweetest plant of all: sugarcane. Native to the Caribbean, rum is great for mixing in various classic and tropical style rum cocktails. It also tastes delicious enjoyed neat or on ice, especially with dark chocolate. How is rum made? Unlike most other spirits, rum has no clearly defined production method and instead, is based on traditional styles that vary between locations and distillers. Fermentation- Most rum is made from molasses or sugarcane juice. Yeast and water are added to the basic ingredient to start the fermentation process. The fermentation process varies by distillery, and there's a great deal of variation involved. At one extreme is "natural fermentation," where yeasts inherent in the environment are used while, at the other extreme, fermentation is tightly controlled under laboratory-like conditions. Simply, most commercial rum fermentation processes fall between these two extremes. Distillation- As with all other aspects of rum production, no standard method is used for distillation. A fermented liquid is heated in a sealed vessel evaporating the alcohols from the liquid. The alcohols are then re-condensed and collected, yielding the raw spirit. The raw spirit from the still will be between 70% and 95% alcohol by volume. Maturation- Some rums, particularly for local Caribbean markets, are simply bottled and sold, fresh from the still. Most rum is aged, which radically alters the character of the spirit. Almost all rum is blended, often marrying rums of different ages. Some rum gets infused with herbs, fruits, and spices or deliberately blended with juices or extracts to produce a flavored rum product. Most rum is diluted with water prior to bottling to 40%-50% alcohol by volume. 179