How Is Rum Made And What Is Jolly Roger Rum?

Jolly Roger Rum | Image Resource: pricelist.co.in

Rum is a distilled beverage and is available in clear, brown, black, red or golden colour. It is a liquor that is made by fermenting and distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. It has a sweet and dry flavour and can be produced in grades like light, flavoured, gold, premium, spiced, overproof and dark.

Rum production is based on traditional styles that vary depending on the region. There is no perfect production process followed for producing rum. The main processes are harvesting, extraction, fermentation, distillation and ageing and blending.

One of the types is Jolly Roger rum, which is made from a blend of maturated special spirits that offer an unparalleled flavour. It is an aged Caribbean rum with a vanilla and spice flavour and a caramel finish.

Production process

Harvesting

Mechanised harvesting can be used to cut the sugarcane near the ground, where the sugar is concentrated largely. The green tips are cut off. Mechanised harvesting can help to achieve more work than the sugarcane cutters. Mechanised harvesting is mainly favoured.

Extraction

The sugarcane harvested is cleaned, cut into small pieces and milled. Sugarcane contains water, soluble sugar, non-sugars and fibre. The quality of rum produced depends on the variety of sugarcane used to produce it.

Fermentation

In this process, yeast is used to ferment the base ingredients. Some use wild yeast for the fermentation process while some use a specific strain of yeast to keep the taste of rum and fermentation time consistent. The most popular yeast used is Dunder, which is the yeast-rich foam of the previous fermentation. The yeast used determined the final taste and aroma of rum.

Producers use fast-working yeast to make lighter rums and slow-working yeast to produce fuller-tasting rum. Additional products can be added to give a sweet flavour and fruitiness to rum.

Distillation

In this process, the liquid is heated and vapourised then condensed to collect the rum. Some use pot stills in batches to produce rum, while some use column stills. There are more congeners in the output from the pot stills than the columns stills. So column stills are used to produce fuller-tasting rums.

Ageing

Rum can be aged in different ways and most countries require that it be aged for 1 year. Rum aged using oak casks takes a dark colour and the rum aged in stainless steel tanks remains colourless. The type of ageing container used decides the colour of the rum. Most commonly the rum is aged in Bourbon casks.

Blending

This is the final process where the rum is blended to get the required flavour. Lighter rums can be filtered to remove the colour developed due to ageing. For dark rums, caramel is added to get the required colour.