What's your latest rum purchase? - Tiki Drinks and Food

P PalmtreePat Tiki Socialite Los Angeles, CA Joined: Oct 07, 2014 Posts: 360	P PalmtreePat Posted posted on Sat, Jul 15, 2017 2:38 PM On 2017-07-14 15:49, Early Landed Larry wrote: How do you mean, Palm Tree Pat? The rums above are all agricole except the Bacardi. I don't know France that well and only went to the north-west region this year - but rhums from the old French colonial islands are certainly strongly represented in most regular shops! A good majority are agricoles from Martinique, Gabon, Haiti etc - brands like Clement and St James represented strongly in the sipping categories. Neisson, Trois Rivieres, HST and a bunch of other brands I've never heard of but that are all from Haiti seem to dominate the more affordable categories and most are blanc or unaged. I expect that is largely down to both the historical colonial / trade connection and the way preferences have developed over time. I don't know if that's the case all over France or just the NW. (If you don't know the story about why only the former French islands make rum directly from sugarcane I recommend looking it up!) You do see the bigger non-agricole brands like EL12 and Don Papa etc, but that are not as common and there aren't as many on the shelves of the bottles that there are. Almost the reverse of the U.K. (I have never seen a rhum agricole in a regular liquor store, only in very specialist shops in London). If you're saying you've never tried a rhum agricole I highly recommend it, it's great stuff - my go to is JM Gold for almost any purpose. I'm looking forward to trying this St James as the second rum in a Mai Tai as recommended by Jeff Berry, although I didn't stretch to the XO which was more than double the price. E I was wondering if molasses-based rhum traditionelle/industriel from Martinique or other French Caribbean isles was widely available in France. Berry and Cate did a study recently in which they determined that when recipes from tiki's heyday call for "Martinique rum", they were usually referring to rhum traditionelle, not agricole, as almost no agricoles were being imported at the time. http://www.amountainofcrushedice.com/?p=19258 I've been keeping my eye out for some ever since, but agricoles appear to have completely eclipsed molasses-based French rums as far as exports to the US go, so any experimentation I might do with them will have to wait. I've only had a few agricoles myself, the favorite definitely being JM XO, but if Saint James ever starts exporting to the US again I'll be all over it.

On 2017-07-14 15:49, Early Landed Larry wrote:
How do you mean, Palm Tree Pat? The rums above are all agricole except the Bacardi.

I don't know France that well and only went to the north-west region this year - but rhums from the old French colonial islands are certainly strongly represented in most regular shops! A good majority are agricoles from Martinique, Gabon, Haiti etc - brands like Clement and St James represented strongly in the sipping categories. Neisson, Trois Rivieres, HST and a bunch of other brands I've never heard of but that are all from Haiti seem to dominate the more affordable categories and most are blanc or unaged. I expect that is largely down to both the historical colonial / trade connection and the way preferences have developed over time. I don't know if that's the case all over France or just the NW. (If you don't know the story about why only the former French islands make rum directly from sugarcane I recommend looking it up!)

You do see the bigger non-agricole brands like EL12 and Don Papa etc, but that are not as common and there aren't as many on the shelves of the bottles that there are. Almost the reverse of the U.K. (I have never seen a rhum agricole in a regular liquor store, only in very specialist shops in London).

If you're saying you've never tried a rhum agricole I highly recommend it, it's great stuff - my go to is JM Gold for almost any purpose. I'm looking forward to trying this St James as the second rum in a Mai Tai as recommended by Jeff Berry, although I didn't stretch to the XO which was more than double the price. E

I was wondering if molasses-based rhum traditionelle/industriel from Martinique or other French Caribbean isles was widely available in France. Berry and Cate did a study recently in which they determined that when recipes from tiki's heyday call for "Martinique rum", they were usually referring to rhum traditionelle, not agricole, as almost no agricoles were being imported at the time.

http://www.amountainofcrushedice.com/?p=19258

I've been keeping my eye out for some ever since, but agricoles appear to have completely eclipsed molasses-based French rums as far as exports to the US go, so any experimentation I might do with them will have to wait.

I've only had a few agricoles myself, the favorite definitely being JM XO, but if Saint James ever starts exporting to the US again I'll be all over it.

Post #777868 by PalmtreePat on Sat, Jul 15, 2017 2:38 PM