Luis Ayala, Editor of "Got Rum?" magazine, Rum Consultant and Founder of The Rum University.
Luis Ayala with Snifter of Rum
Luis Ayala, Editor and Publisher of "Got Rum?" magazine, rum consultant and Founder of The Rum University. One of the leading experts in the rum industry, a Rum Master.
On Choosing Quality Over Fantasy
A culinary expert once told me that most cooks in the world can put together a masterpiece when they have access to the best ingredients of the land, but only a true chef can amaze using inferior ingredients.
Most storied rum companies brag about how the sugarcane they use is the best variety on earth, how it is grown on the most fertile soil and how their water is the purest anywhere. Then they boast about the perfect humidity of their air and the ideal temperature conditions of their aging warehouses. If you believe all this rum propaganda, then you’ll agree with me that in those ideal settings it would be harder to screw up than to end up with an amazing rum. For this reason, when it comes to the quality of the rum in my glass, I tend to be less forgiving of the large, paradisiac producers, and more forgiving of the smaller producer who doesn’t own the cane fields, who has to age his rum in less-than-ideal conditions, yet manages to achieve standard, sometimes superior results.
There are few organoleptic experiences as rewarding as a well-fermented, properly distilled, patiently-aged rum. Those fortunate to find and interact with these elusive elixirs often describe the encounters as multisensory parables capable of evoking sublime thoughts and memories that are hard to dismiss. But where does this beatific sensuousness come from? If you think it comes from sugarcane grown on perfect soil that never needs fertilization, watering or the application of herbicides, then don’t read any further. If you believe that it comes from natural water so pure that it doesn’t have to be treated for hardness, pH and microorganisms, then please turn the page now.
The truth is that rums exist on two parallel worlds. The first world is where production takes place: here one must compare the cost of cultivating sugarcane versus that of purchasing molasses, one must also treat water used for fermentation and bottling and, more importantly, one must keep an eye on the cost of dry good (glass, labels, corks, etc.) to make sure the rum can be retailed within the price range consumers expect. In the second world, we see marketers embellishing reality with tales of ideal weather, water and warehouses (the three Ws). Here we also run into mythical “family recipes” handed down from one generation to the next and into mysterious yeast strains with unnaturally-sublime powers.
As long as bloggers, journalists and consumers are happy to remain within the confines of the
second world, rum companies will continue to spend a large amount of time and money perpetuating it, rather than devoting those resources to education about what really happens in the first world.
As Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “we are our choices,” so please choose wisely!
Cheers,
Luis Ayala, Editor and Publisher