The textual content comprises 4 sections. The primary is a short (in comparison with the remainder of the ebook) historical past of Caribbean rum and a evaluate of the classification methods that individuals have used to categorize it. None are good: We touched on that matter in one other submit however right here I loved the analogy to describing a automobile — when you have been describing your automobile with a view to determine it in a parking zone you may first point out its shade, however when you have been describing its efficiency talents you may begin by saying it’s a 4 wheel drive. Equally, whether or not a rum is darkish in shade or overproof is perhaps related in several conditions. 

The second part runs 100 pages and covers how rum is made. There are detailed chapters on fermenting, distilling, growing old, and so forth. On the finish of this part is an excellent geeky chapter on taste science that covers how flavors are produced in every step of the method, and included are a number of charts of phenols, esters, and aldehydes and what they scent like. A lot of the data on this chapter is helpful for understanding how different spirits past rum are made as nicely. 

The following hundred pages is the chapter that I didn’t know I wanted: The Enterprise of Rum. This part comprises an inventory of all of the laws on rum for the international locations lined within the ebook, which I’ll certainly confer with sooner or later. Because the authors level out, some international locations’ laws are extra involved with distillation parameters (like what number of plates might be in a column nonetheless) whereas different international locations have extra detailed laws regarding barrel growing old procedures than they do distillation.

This part additionally contains data on bulk/sourced rum that will originate in a single place however be offered as a product from one other, and the way French abroad departments work extra like states than unbiased colonies. It additionally lays out commerce associations, taxes, and tariffs such because the gargantuan tax breaks and paybacks given to rum producers from Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. This isn’t simply detailed data on world commerce for its personal sake – all of it informs how and why rum is made and offered otherwise in several components of the Caribbean. 

The remaining 500 pages of the ebook are devoted to describing every producer of rum within the Caribbean (which for the needs of this ebook contains some international locations in Latin and South America like Guyana and Venezuela). These sections, organized by nation, function an outline of the island and its rum-making historical past, a person historical past of every producer, and a walk-through of every distillery’s manufacturing tools and course of. This contains every thing from the whole variety of liters of alcohol produced at a facility to the title of the producer of every of the stills and what number of plates are in them to the variety of barrels within the warehouse and which varieties of wooden they’re constituted of. Typically it’s like following alongside on a distillery tour.

How Historical past Influences Rum Manufacturing

Trendy Caribbean Rum focuses on manufacturing above all else, and that speaks to my nerd coronary heart: I’m at all times making an attempt to categorize issues and perceive why issues style the way in which they do based mostly on the uncooked supplies and tools used to make them. However what I discovered much more gratifying about this ebook is seeing how the historical past, enterprise, and laws of rum have led to the present manufacturing tools selections in several components of the Caribbean. It’s not that individuals with Spanish heritage favor one type of rum so rum is made to swimsuit that style, however moderately that historic occasions led many Spanish colonies to provide rum utilizing related tools and methodology. 

For instance, throughout the early a part of the colonial period, British-controlled territories produced loads of rum along with sugar that was offered to the house nation, whereas Spanish and French-controlled territories have been typically forbidden from exporting any rum made as to not compete with wine and brandy from the house nation. (To resolve this drawback, French international locations offered their molasses to distillers in New England.) British-controlled territories like Jamaica to today are recognized for his or her pot nonetheless rum (or mix of pot and column distilled rum) resulting from their lengthy custom of it, whereas French/Spanish heritage international locations that ramped up distilling later into the 1800s are extra recognized for his or her purely column distilled rum. Within the mid- to late-1800s the brand new French sugar beet trade competed with Caribbean cane sugar, motivating a change to rum distilled straight from sugarcane juice moderately than molasses.

Past house market protectionism, elements like socialist uprisings, revolutions and independence actions, the top of slavery, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes, world wars, Prohibition, and different elements affect why totally different international locations have totally different tools and produce totally different tasting rum. 

After studying the ebook, now I discover it simpler to grasp not simply, for instance, why Martinique agricole rum tastes grassy resulting from its distillation from fermented contemporary sugar cane juice in column stills to a comparatively low proof, but in addition the varied forces of historical past and world economics that influenced the choice to make rum in that method. I wouldn’t say that that is the first goal of the ebook, however it’s the factor that has caught with me essentially the most general; a brand new potential to see the massive image of rum manufacturing from 1000’s of tiny particulars.

It's Additionally Very Fairly

Trendy Caribbean Rum shouldn’t be a story, romantic information to rum within the Caribbean by any means. I’d describe it as a cross between a textbook and a reference ebook. I believe you’ll actually wish to learn it so as, no less than the primary 300 pages earlier than the distillery profiles, to provide you a stable basis for the remainder. (I learn all 850 pages starting to finish and don’t have any regrets.) That basis permits you to shortly learn every subsequent distillery’s part with out getting confused about its tools (described in earlier sections) and the way it works and the way it will influence the ultimate taste of the top product. A brief fermentation then multi-column distillation and growing old in impartial casks? I understand how that’s going to style, even when it’s not restated in each occasion.

For all its dimension and weight, the ebook is way from a slog to learn. Sections are quick; most lower than a web page, and there are tons of charts and different graphics to assist make clear. The pictures of distilleries and cane fields and tools, collected from many alternative sources, deserves particular point out as it’s each pleasing and illustrative – hardly ever if ever is a bit of kit described however not pictured. I discovered the pictures compelling sufficient to maintain me studying the following part and the following after I’d deliberate to learn only one distillery profile at a time.  

Trendy Caribbean Rum combines the depth and element of a textbook with the design and pictures of a distillery guidebook. It’s rewarding each to learn and to flip by means of and it’ll in all probability additionally look nice in your espresso desk. It doesn’t simply match wherever else! 

Observe: This ebook shouldn’t be obtainable on Amazon however straight from the authors at WonkPress. The web site additionally lists a number of worldwide retailers the place books can be found.