Alcoholic Beverages

A native of Asia, cane sugar has been spread by the Arabs in the eighth century and brought to the Americas by the Spaniards in 1493 during the second voyage of Christopher Columbus, on the occasion of the first European facility in America on the island of Hispaniola. In France, the “invention” of the distillation process of sugar cane and hence rum, is given to Father Labat, a missionary Dominican French in the West to create a remedy for fevers.

However, the first written mention of the existence of rum was made before the arrival of the Americas and Labat from the English-speaking island of Barbados in 1688. But it seems that “rum” (place of manufacture of rum) have existed on the island since 1627. Thus, the rum is an abbreviation of the word rumbullion which means “great turmoil”. Another explanation suggested the word “rum” derives its origin simply the termination of the Latin word saccharum (sugar). The words taffia or kill-devil were also used.

Its alleged medicinal qualities made it a mandatory component of rations on board ship at the time. He was initially reserved for blacks, the buccaneers skimmers and other seas of the New World, rum was also used on the coast of Africa as a bargaining chip in the slave trade. At the end of the seventeenth century, the French use the word “rum” to refer cane alcohol. As a drink, it is spreading in Europe and North America during the eighteenth century.

The “grog” (rum lying of water) was invented in 1731 to reduce alcohol-related problems on board these ships.

In the nineteenth century, when companies get together sugar factory to produce sugar and rum from molasses, owners continued to distill their own juice their canes, resulting in the production of rum house called rum z’habitants “rum became part of an agricultural or agricultural rum.

A first request for AOC was made to the INAO to the agricultural rum from Martinique, but it in 1972 does not feel responsible. Bowing to pressure groups he recognized competent but unable to consider the request without knowing the specifics of cane sugar (geological and climatic). Studies were made on the composition of soil, climate, the production areas, the varieties of cane sugar production technology and aging, and finally in November 1996, the agricultural rum from Martinique was recognized and became an AOC French.

Only a dozen varieties of cane sugar is entitled to its production. Canes give different results depending on soil and climate, and agricultural rum enjoys a certain “vintage effect” after the variable expression of the soil.

Rum agricultural Martinique available in three categories:

• the “white rum” with aromas of flowers, plants or fruit, is obtained after a preparation of at least three months after distillation, it represents 83% of production;
• the “straw rum or dark rum is a rum high undergrowth in large oak casks in which it ages for at least a year, it accounts for 8% of production;
• the rum old “must have spent at least three years was in an oak with a capacity of 180 to 650 liters. It accounts for 8% of production. Over the barrel is smaller and it gives a taste for alcohol, and notes – including the flavors of vanilla, warm spices (nutmeg, four spices …), toast and oak – are more marked. Within the old rum, is a superior quality, the “age out of rum, obtained after aging of at least six years in barrels.

Consumption

White rum and dark rum are rarely eaten as is. They generally fall into the composition of cocktails, the most famous are the Punchs (Planteur, Punch coco, …), the Ti’punch (rum and lime), Cuba Libre (rum and Coca), the Grog, the Daiquiri, the Mojito (rum and mint), the Piña Colada (rum and coconut-pineapple, etc.).

The old man sipped rum and sip slowly.

Rum is also “fixed”, according to the Creole expression for the maceration of plants and spices mixed or blended with fruit juice.