When was rum first distilled

Another alternative is to boil molasses to remove the water content and turn it into cane syrup which could also be fermented to make rum. Fermentation is when yeast converts sugars into alcohol. Boil around 20 liters of clean water in a boiler. Then, dissolve both the sugar and molasses in the water with just the right amount of heat. You can turn the burner off as soon as bubbles start to form. When the mixture begins to foam up, put in the rest of the wort.

There must be the presence of heat for the yeast to keep converting sugar to alcohol. Make sure to store the wash in a warm place. Better yet, keep the room artificially heated. The airlock on the pot should let the carbon dioxide escape without letting oxygen in. The fermentation process can be as short as 24 hours or as long as 3 weeks, depending on the strain of yeast used and the style of rum being produced.

Each strain of yeast works at different rates and may also result in varying flavors. Generally, when the fermentation is quick, it produces a lighter wash that tends to be favored in producing white rum. On the other hand, darker rum necessitates a slow and orderly fermentation where yeast is progressively added in intervals. The speed at which yeast gobbles up the sugar is also affected by certain minerals.

Slowing the process allows for congeners to develop. Congeners are flavorful substances that consist of esters and aldehydes. This results in a thicker, more acidic wash which in turn makes the rum richer in taste.

Once the airlock has finished bubbling, allow the mash to sit for days. You can test if the mash is ready using a hydrometer. Hydrometers are used to measure the ratio of a density of a liquid to the density of water. Starting on the day when you expect the mash to be finished, measure it once a day. When you get the same reading for 3 consecutive days, that means your wash is ready to distill.

Pot stills produce a more flavored distillate, hence they are most commonly used for producing rum Agricole. Column stills, on the other hand, are the choice for producing neutral spirits like white rum. The copper pot is the original type of still. The vapor will then rise through a long tube in the ambix which cools and condenses it back into a liquid. The use of a copper pot is in theory one of the easiest methods of distillation, but in reality, it requires a certain skill level to perform, especially if you want to produce good rum.

The process gives the master distiller more control, but only a small portion of the distillate is safe for consumption. A column still consists of two towering columns. The first column called the analyzer has steam rising and wash descending through several levels. Put simply the yeast eats sugar and in doing so produces alcohol, heat and carbon dioxide. In addition, yeast also initiates chemical reactions in the wash to create compounds such as aldehydes, esters and acids which are collectively known as congeners.

The compounds are flavoursome and depending on the type of rum to be produced, their formation will be encouraged or discouraged by the type of yeast used and the temperature of the fermentation. It's worth remembering that distillation can only separate and remove flavours while fermentation generates flavour in the first place. Molasses are so rich in nutriment that the yeast needs to be propagated and slowly introduced to progressively higher concentrations of molasses as its cell numbers increase.

It is typical for rum distillers to talk about three or four-step fermentation in reference to the number of ever larger vessels used between propagation and the fermenters. The type of yeast used varies tremendously from country to country and distiller to distiller.

This can be commercially cultured yeast or natural ambient yeast found on the leaves of the sugar cane. The rate of fermentation and the alcohol level produced is partly governed by the levels of non-sugar dissolved solids, being mainly minerals and Potassium Chloride, high concentrations of which inhibit yeast growth. A longer, slower fermentation will result in a heavier, more acidic wash due to other contaminating bacteria also given time to reproduce during the process.

Fermentation can be a quick as 24 hours or as long as a fortnight. The pH of the molasses will also affect fermentation and ideally will be in a range between 4.

Rum is termed 'light' or 'heavy' depending the level of flavour components or 'congeners' - products of fermentation that are not ethyl alcohol. The level of these esters, aldyhydes and lower alcohols is dependent on the length of the fermentation and the purity to which it was distilled. When alcohol is concentrated during distillation, the levels of congeners are reduced. The fewer congeners, the lighter the rum, the more congeners the heavier it will be. Rum produced from a pot still or single distillation column is usually described as heavy.

Multiple-column stills can produce both heavy and light rums depending on where the spirit is removed from the still. Light rums tend to have a short fermentation while heavy pot still rums are usually distilled from a wash formed by a long fermentation. The odour, texture and taste of light rums are more subtle and refined than those of heavy rums, which have a heavy, syrupy flavour to match their dark colour.

The level of impurities in light rum is less than a third of those found in heavy rums. Distilleries producing light and heavy rums often blend the two to produce a rum having characteristics of both. Light rums tend to originate from countries originally colonised by the Spanish, such as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. Distillation works on the principle that alcohol boils at a lower temperature So if you take a mixture of alcohol and water, boil it, collect the vapours given off in batches throughout the boil, cool and so condense turn vapour back into liquid these vapours back to liquid, the liquids collected at the start of boil will be alcoholic and those towards the end will be water.

In practice distillation is a lot more complex with numerous variables affecting the final distillate produced - mainly the different boiling points of the various different kinds of alcohol and their particular flavour compounds. The skill of the distiller is to use the distillation process to separate and collect the alcohols and flavour compounds congeners wanted in the finished rum.

The lightest of these, the 'low wines' those with a low boiling point will be given off first and many of these most volatile compounds are harmful. Ethanol alcohol and other desirable compounds are less volatile slightly heavier and so follow the low wines. Often described as the 'cut', it this proportion of the run which will be used to make the finished rum. The heaviest compounds, the 'high wines' those with a high boiling point come off the still last. Some of these heavier congeners are oily and are referred to as fusel oils.

As touched upon earlier, particularly when discussing the difference between light and heavy rums, there are basically two types of still used in rum production: pot alembic stills and column Coffey stills. The way the distiller can influence the type of distillate produced varies according to which of these two types of still are used.

In general, heavily-bodied rums are those with more congeners and they tend to be made in pot alembic stills. Pot stills are the simplest and the original type of still. Extensively they are glorified copper kettles - indeed in some countries such as the Netherlands even call them 'kettles' rather than stills. These are the kind of stills used in Scotland to make malt whisky and France to make cognac. The still is charged with the wash and then heat is applied to bring to the boil.

Brandy was one of the early spirits to step up and fill the need for lower volume with a higher punch, but as the trade routes allowed for increased supply of sugar a new spirit became a fast-favorite of slave traders, slaves and explorers alike. Given the perfect climate of Barbados, explorer Richard Ligon brought in sugar cane expertise from Brazil including equipment, slaves and, most importantly, distillation know-how.

In less than 10 years the sugar barons of Barbados became some of the richest in the world, with a prospering sugar and rum export industry. While the poor drank it straight, others began mixing it with sugar, lime and other ingredients to make early rum punches and cocktails. As time went on, there are indications of the spirit also being referred to as Rumbullion or Rumbustion.

Both of these terms meant upheaval or violent commotion — likely for the effect that this spirit had on those who drank it. Eventually shortened to Rum we have our modern name for this spirited drink.

Around this same time in the mids there were roughly 3, colonists living in New England. When they first settled, roughly 20 years earlier, there were dreams of a mediterranean bounty coming from this new world. It was a tough revelation and to make matters worse there was also a beer shortage in England. They started to try to make alcohol from anything that grew there…pumpkins, apples, twigs, you name it. Some of it was somewhat successful but nothing scratched their itch for drink the way the introduction of rum from Barbados and the other Caribbean islands did.

Yay rum! You see, rum was much cheaper than the little bit of brandy they were importing due to the shorter trade routes and cheaper ingredient base of molasses given, outside of wartime, it had relatively low demand compared to the supply available. Plus, rum was quite a bit stronger. Cheaper and stronger?! Rum quickly became the drink of choice in New England, warming the colonists from the inside during the cold winters and lessening their reliance on European imports.

Soon enough those clever New Englanders got the idea to import molasses, a by-product of the sugar making process, from the islands instead of rum and start distilling themselves. This is now the late s and towns like Salem, Newport, Boston and Medford became rum distillation epicenters with over distilleries by the mid s. Distillers can choose to put out an unaged product or they can pump it into barrels for a length of time sometimes as little as a few weeks and sometimes as much as twenty or thirty years.

That leads us to the next section: the different kinds of rum. You know this one from a mojito, swizzles , or most drinks that are served with an umbrella.

White — also known as light or silver — rums are the lightest in flavor and are typically aged three to six months in tropical climates, or up to one year in colder climates. Unlike other rums, white varieties are distilled in stainless steel casks, thus they tend to offer the most straightforward rum experience.

Check out our pick for the best white rum made in America. An aged rum will have a golden or amber hue naturally cultivated from the casks it was made in. There are also a few aged dark rums available. A gold rum can also be aged, but it often gleans its color from additives. In terms of taste, an aged rum will have more depth while a gold rum offers a smoother experience with a little more to talk about than a white rum. Here is our pick for the best aged rum made in America.