Did you ever dream of having your own rum? – A Spirited News Special
Well, why my friends and me did not grow sugarcane or even distilled it, we got in the business of blending. – Not on a commercial level, but just for our sake. So, we decided to mix three different rums, two of which were already blends, and finish them in a small oak barrel. While it could have turned out as a disaster, the result is rather good!
The initial idea was to buy a barrel for cocktail ageing. However, since we wanted to get the most out of this barrel, we thought it would be a good idea to start off with finishing a rum-blend in it. The reason for the first fill being a rum, is that in my opinion it is quite hard to get a great all-purpose rum. Of course, there are excellent rums for sipping, and great rums for mixing cocktails. To be even more specific, there are rums which shine in a Mai Tai and ones that complement the flavours of a Rum Manhattan. However, to find a rum that does everything exceptionally well, is hard, or even impossible. Yes, sure, you could just buy three individual rums for the specific tasks. Of course, I also call a fair share of different bottles of rum my own, but I fell in love with the idea of one go-to-bottle of rum.
To keep the costs for 5 litres of rum down and to have some potential in the flavour department, too, we came up with a mix of Plantation Original Dark, Plantation Belize & Guatemala as well as Coruba Overproof rum. Since, the Plantation Original Dark rum itself also is a mix of rum from Jamaica and Trinidad, the blend is quite Jamaica heavy. In retrospect we probably would have used another, smoother overproof rum from Jamaica and increased its portion in the blend. Nevertheless, the blend, which spent 90 days in the five litre ex-Oloroso sherry barrel turned out quite good. Below you will find the exact amounts of rum we used and how it tastes!
Südstadtboys R1.90 Rum Blend:
1,4 l Plantation Guatemala & Belize
2,8 l Plantation Original Dark
0,8 l Ron Coruba Jamaica Overproof
5 litre Ex-Oloroso Sherry Barrel
Mix – let rest for 90 days – strain – bottle;
Sure, it does not really make sense to blend your own rum from a financial standpoint. Yet, we really are happy with our resulting rum blend. It does exactly what we intended it to: It is good on its own, makes excellent Manhattans and dangerously delicious Mai Tais!
