As a guide, here are some of the basic styles of rum, in rough order of style from lighter to heavy:
Cuban/Latin Style: Light and delicate, with admirable finesse. Bacardi now dominates the world, and is a famous example of this lighter style, made using continuous stills.
Rhum Agricole: Produced on the French Carribbean islands, this type of rum is made using fresh sugar cane juice rather than molasses as its starting point. This produces a more vegetal sweetness, without so much of the heavy treacly sweetness of other rums. It is often matured in spicy French oak casks too, and is often said to have a more cognacy, "grippy" palate. Good examples: Barbancourt and Clement.
Demerara: A "soft, subtle, medium bodied style" says Dave Broom, although this can pretend on the specific still. A lot of the 'dark' rums such as OVD etc called themselves Demerara rums because they had Guyanese spirit as their base. However, the huge amounts of caramel added to these blends masked any true Demerara character. All Demerara rum comes from Guyana, on the North-East tip of South America, and where 200 distilleries used to operate, only one now does: Diamond Distillery. This contains a cornucopia of stills however, with wooden pot stills, Coffey stills, copper pot stills, and the last working wooden Coffey still in world (named Enmore). Crazy!
Barbados: The Bajan style is but gorgeously soft, balanced and easy-drinking, although often with a short in finish. Perfect for someone who likes something "smooth" for easy-slugging. Good examples: Doorly's XO and Mountgay Extra Old.
Jamaica: In the same way at Islay whiskies stick out a peat-lashed tongue at the lighted, rounded style of other malts, Jamaican rums are defiantly individual. Distilled in pot stills with loony levels of esters, their pungency can take a little getting used to, but behind this are lots of ripe bananas and pineapple notes. Also referred to as the Wedderburn style.
With sincere thanks to Dave Broom for writing the excellent book 'Rum' from which these words are taken .
Cuban/Latin Style: Light and delicate, with admirable finesse. Bacardi now dominates the world, and is a famous example of this lighter style, made using continuous stills.
Rhum Agricole: Produced on the French Carribbean islands, this type of rum is made using fresh sugar cane juice rather than molasses as its starting point. This produces a more vegetal sweetness, without so much of the heavy treacly sweetness of other rums. It is often matured in spicy French oak casks too, and is often said to have a more cognacy, "grippy" palate. Good examples: Barbancourt and Clement.
Demerara: A "soft, subtle, medium bodied style" says Dave Broom, although this can pretend on the specific still. A lot of the 'dark' rums such as OVD etc called themselves Demerara rums because they had Guyanese spirit as their base. However, the huge amounts of caramel added to these blends masked any true Demerara character. All Demerara rum comes from Guyana, on the North-East tip of South America, and where 200 distilleries used to operate, only one now does: Diamond Distillery. This contains a cornucopia of stills however, with wooden pot stills, Coffey stills, copper pot stills, and the last working wooden Coffey still in world (named Enmore). Crazy!
Barbados: The Bajan style is but gorgeously soft, balanced and easy-drinking, although often with a short in finish. Perfect for someone who likes something "smooth" for easy-slugging. Good examples: Doorly's XO and Mountgay Extra Old.
Jamaica: In the same way at Islay whiskies stick out a peat-lashed tongue at the lighted, rounded style of other malts, Jamaican rums are defiantly individual. Distilled in pot stills with loony levels of esters, their pungency can take a little getting used to, but behind this are lots of ripe bananas and pineapple notes. Also referred to as the Wedderburn style.
With sincere thanks to Dave Broom for writing the excellent book 'Rum' from which these words are taken .