How Jamaican rum is like scotch

July 11, 3:18 PMChicago Drinks ExaminerCharles Cowdery

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Some of the rums produced by Appleton Estate.

Give due credit to the Scots. They didn’t invent distillation, or even distillation for beverage-making purposes, but they did develop techniques that have been influential among distillers all over the world, including in some surprising places.

I was struck by this fact when I attended a seminar on rum and rum blending, sponsored by Appleton Estate Jamaica Rum and conducted by Appleton’s Master Blender, Joy Spence.

A product of sugar cane, rum is the world’s most widely made spirit. Different cultures approach it differently but in Jamaica, a former British colony that still nominally belongs to the Empire, scotch whiskey is very much the inspiration.

At Appleton, as in Scotland, both pot stills and column stills are used. The rums that give the final blend most of its flavor come from the pots. They are triple-distilled to a final alcohol content of as low as 80 percent. Then they are entered into barrels that previously held Jack Daniel’s.

Most scotch whiskey is aged in used American whiskey barrels too.

I use the plural, “rums,” because several different sugar cane varieties are used and each gives different taste characteristics to the final spirit.

How spirits age in wood depends on many factors. Jamaica’s tropical climate contributes to generally faster aging, two to three times faster than in, say, Scotland.

After aging, the very flavorful pot-distilled spirit is blended with nearly-neutral column-distilled rum to create a range of final products with different taste profiles, which is exactly the way blended scotches such as Johnnie Walker and Chivas Regal are made.

Also like the Scottish model and unlike, for example, Central and South American rums, age statements on Jamaican rums always refer to the youngest spirit in the blend.

Joy Spence, chemist by training, has worked at Appleton for more than 25 years. She became Master Blender in 1997, the first woman in the industry to hold such a position. Before joining Appleton she was Research and Development Chemist at the other internationally-known spirits company in Jamaica, the one that produces Tia Maria Coffee Liqueur.

Appleton refers to its products as estate rums, which is analogous to mise au château wines. The Appleton Estate, in Nassau Valley’s St. Elizabeth Parish, grows the cane, processes it into granulated sugar and molasses, ferments the molasses, distills it into rum, ages the rum, blends it, and bottles it, all at that one location.

Samuel Bronfman, of Seagram’s fame, once said, “Distilling is a science, blending is an art.” The vast, advantageous influence of Scottish blending practices is remarkable. The Scots are proud of their whiskey and should be equally proud of the other fine spirits they have inspired throughout the world.

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