St. Lucia Distillers recently launched their Chairman's Reserve Limited Edition 1931 in the United States. This rare single-blended aged rum carries aromas of sweet raisins with definite toasted oak notes, leather, spice and tobacco on the nose. On the palate, rich sultana fruit with hints of crème caramel and buttery oak continue into a long complex finish. "The ...
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The Agric’Old Fashioned
The Old Fashioned might just be the perfect cocktail. It’s deceptively simple, with only five straight forward ingredients: spirit, sugar, bitters, citrus peel, ice cubes. But the Old Fashioned’s thin line of success or failure rests on two factors: the choice of those ingredients and technique. If you ever want to test the chops of ...
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The Old Fashioned, Classic and Modern – A Sugarcane Press Q&A
Since New Orleans is the northernmost city of the Caribbean, who better to speak with about Rum Old Fashioneds than Abigail Gullo of Compère Lapin? Even in The Big Easy, a town known for great bartenders, Abigail stands at the top, having been awarded Eater NOLA’s “Bartender of the Year” award a few years ago. ...
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Anatomy of an Old Fashioned
The Old Fashioned is “old fashioned” for a reason. It’s generally not a medium for radical innovation. “The Old-Fashioned is the Doric column of the cocktail world,” writes Wayne Curtis, author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails (released in a revised and updated version this past ...
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An Orgy of Orgeat
Orgeat is a cocktail ingredient that perplexes. For starters, it’s mispronounced more often than many of us care to admit: or-GEE-at, rather than the correct, French-inflected or-ZHAT. In the cocktail world, orgeat is considered to be in the pantheon of “classic” mixers. Yet how many cocktails actually call for the syrup? So is orgeat a classic, an ...
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Mai Tai Wisdom with Jeff “Beachbum” Berry – A Sugarcane Press Q&A
To rum fans, Jeff “Beachbum” Berry needs no introduction. One of Imbibe magazine’s “25 Most Influential Cocktail Personalities of the Past Century,” Jeff is the author of six books on vintage Tiki drinks and cuisine, which Los Angeles magazine dubbed “the keys to the tropical kingdom.” Esquire calls him “one of the instigators of the ...
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Chairman’s Reserve Mai Tai by Jeff “Beachbum” Berry
Happy International Mai Tai Day! To kick off the Chairman's Reserve Mai Tai Competition, we looked to tiki expert Jeff "Beachbum" Berry for his take on the timeless recipe. In this recipe, Berry calls for a blend of English-style rum (Chairman's Reserve) and Martinique rhum agricole for a trans-Caribbean classic. Chairman's Reserve Mai Tai by Jeff "Beachbum" ...
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Calling all Bartenders: Take the Mai Tai Challenge!
Allow us to be the first to wish you a Happy International Mai Tai Day, August 30th. This, of course, is different than National Mai Tai Day, which is June 30th. Why are there two Mai Tai Days? Well, one might ask: Why wouldn’t there be two days for such an iconic cocktail, which tiki ...
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Martinique’s Rummy Holiday Destinations
Martinique is the home to two of our most famous rum distilleries, Habitation Clement and Rhum JM Distillery. Habitation Clement is located in Le Francois, and is the birthplace of Rhum Agricole. It carries the culture of an ancient Créole sugarcane plantation rich with French West Indian history, which has been completely refurbished by the Hayot ...
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Martinique’s Top-Shelf Rum Scene
Rum's longstanding history has brought it to become the world's third-most consumed liquor after vodka and whisky. Over the years, rum has been successfully building a reputation as a premium complex sipping beverage. Every day the segment is being more appreciated for diversity and craftsmanship - especially in Martinique, home to French styled rum. Today rum can be sorted ...
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What the H was I Thinking about Rhum
Many trends within the spirits industry have contributed to the rapid growth of the rum segment. As the segment becomes more renowned and options more refined, rum is stripping away it's long-held stigma of being a cheap spirit and has been successfully begun building a new premium persona. Spirit enthusiasts and common consumers alike are delving in to the ...
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The Rhum Diaries
The tiki bar movement has been gaining momentum and steering drinkers towards a rather overlooked spirits category: rum. More particularly, drinkers are gaining interest with rhum agricole, a french sub-category within the world of rum. Rhum agricole is made by crushing and fermenting raw cane juice and is found to have a vegetal and grassy profile ...
