I had the great privilege to join The Rum Collective, visiting from Seattle, as they gave three tastings around the extended Metro Detroit area. They hosted two tastings at Sugar House (Sunday and Monday) and one at Raven’s Club (Sunday). These were Agricole Rhum tastings. It’s a French-style of rhum (noticed the h) that uses fresh pressed sugar cane as opposed to most mass market rum that uses molasses. About 1% of the rum sold is rhum. It is much more vintage specific since a lot more of the agricultural input of the soil, weather, etc comes through in the final product. The French call molasses rums, rum industrial.

When you visit Martinique (and other some other Caribbean locations) you are often offered a Ti Punch. These are drank morning, noon and night. They either have a blanco (un or low aged) or a Eleve Sous Bois (slightly aged) rhum. This is mixed with cane syrup a chunk of lime (peel, pith and flesh). You mix it up with an actual swizzle stick from the Quararibea Turbinata tree. You froth it up by rolling it between two hands. We had a Ti Punch as a welcome to each event. They were pre-mixed. When you are on the islands, it is more of a DIY set-up. You make it the strength you want and they say; “Chacun prépare sa propre mort” which translates to “Each prepares his own death”.

Our host was Nicholas Feris. He started the Rum Collective and was an amazing wealth of information. We travels around the world hosting these events. They guy really is as suave as he seems in this picture and I encourage you to hunt out his events, if you see them. Should we get him back to Detroit, I’ll let everyone know.

The Raven’s Club was the first tasting I had this weekend. It was Sunday afternoon at 2p. The event was hosted as a private event so we had the whole bar to ourselves. This made it a much more relaxed event. We could ask tons of questions and everyone got a lot of time with Nick. There were four rhums for tasting that were all supposed to be from Rhum J.M.. Unfortunately, there was some confusion and we only got two Rhum J.M. rhums and poor Nick had to substitute with two Clement Rhums. At this time none of the Rhum J.M. products are available in Michigan but they should be added by Jan 2015.

We tested four products and I have some notes below.

Rhum J.M. Blanc: This was clear with a very sharp, vegetal aroma. The taste had a lot of heat from the alcohol, was sharp but much more flavorful than a molasses based rum. This is meant to be a mixer but wasn’t bad on it’s own once you got past the new taste.

Rhum J.M. VSOP: This was quite a bit smoother with almost all of the heat removed. It definitely had rum tastes with rich caramels and brown sugar tones.

Clement 6 yr: Compared to the VSOP this had less of the caramel tons and was much more mellow and nuanced. Spices were there but it was subtle. This would be a tricky mixer but delicious on it’s own.

Clement 10 yr: Similar to the 6 yr but even more mellow and nuanced. The table I was with (Jon Foley of The Laundry and David Martinez of The Last Word) was loving this and sipped it both gingerly and greedily.

While the content was similar and some of the booze was too, the atmosphere was totally different at Sugar House. The bar was available for the tasting (20 or so seats) and the tables (for the most part) were for regular patrons who did not take part in the tasting. This addition of people added a level of rabble that was not present at Raven’s Club. Another challenge was the tastings were poured a la minute (Raven’s was prepoured). This lead to some short delays. Finally, because of the rabble and the size/acoustics of the bar, sound reinforcement was necessary as well. That lead to a delicate balance of loud enough for the tasters to hear but not loud enough for the regular patrons to be annoyed. I didn’t like this set-up as much but I loved the time (2p on a Monday wouldn’t happen for me). I also can’t expect Sugar House to close to it’s regular patrons especially for a free tasting. So I rolled with the punches.

For this one, we tested seven products. I didn’t bring my note book (bad reporter), so my tasting notes are limited.

Clement Canne Bleue: A similar hot spirit to the Rhum Blanco but much more flavorful than it’s mass market relatives. You get the herbs, the heat and a little bit of funk. This is a mixer and would work well in cocktails.

Clement Select Barrel: Also a mixer but with a little bit of age. This could be used for a more after dinner version of the Ti Punch. It had less heat than the blanco but still some pop.

Clement VSOP: Here you got to see a difference starting to emerge from the “mixing” line to the premium line. It was a refined taste with flavors that didn’t scream but instead whispered.

Clement 6 yr: Here was a repeat from Raven’s Club.

Clement 10 yr: Ditto

Cuvee Homere: As the master distiller’s find a good batch each year, they save them for future projects. This is a blend of the best of the last 15 years; 1991, 1996 and 1999. They haven’t been aged that full time but just blended to make a special and unique rhum. It was very subtle and tasty.

X.O. Rhum: If the Cuvee was special, this was damn near outstanding. Similar blend but with the top rhums from the last 100 years; 1952, 1970 and 1976. You had to focus and discover the new flavors as they were minute but it was a lot of fun.

Yani was in-charge for the tasting and was entrusted to port the $150+ bottle of Rhum XO. He was an excellent host that not only balanced Nick’s presentation and the hoards of people at tables that were not part of the tasting. Great showing.

Budmo!