Unaged Rums – Give us more of that!
After years and years of tasting spirits, every once in a while I get a bit bored. A bit bored by the sheer abundance of spirits aged in casks. Please do not mistake me here! I love aged spirits, but I also love to be able to taste the actual raw material in spirits. This raw material, the core, the heart of each spirit is a precious thing. In rum not a lot of producers seem to pay much attention to it. But should it not, in fact, be the center of attention? Sure, there are other spirits where the base ingredient defines the final liquid to a much broader extent than in rum production, but I do appreciate a rum that at least tastes like rum not like bourbon.
Recently I have become quite fond of unaged rums. A well made new make, be it from molasses, sugar syrup or cane juice, immediately takes me to those sugarcane fields. You can taste the rawness of the plant, the freshness of the juice and the highly aromatic, charismatic and distinct flavour of sugarcane that is present throughout the whole distilling process. It simply is the essence of a truly unique and precious plant that should never be masked in a way that makes it undistinguishable from other distillates. But so far there are not many unaged rums out there. Certainly aged rum is much smoother and can be sold at a higher price to more consumers, but I am sure there is a place for unaged rums.
And while I am at it, I would love to compare raw distillates of the 20+ different types of sugarcane that are out there to see how they differ in taste. Could I actually taste a difference between distillates from a 2nd grade molasses or a 3rd grade molasses? Is there a difference in taste between a rum distilled the exact same way from sugarcane juice and from sugar syrup? All these questions can only be answered in full extent by using pure, clean, crisp and unaged white rum.
Dear producers, I pledge to thee, please produce more unaged rums so us nerds can be happy too!