The different brands of rum
Bally rum is produced in the Lajus district of Le Carbet. Grands crus, hors d'âge 12 ans and 7 ans are sold in pyramid-shaped bottles designed by Jacques Bally.
Clément rum. Made in Le François. One of its flagship products is the cuvée Canne bleue.
Depaz rum is found at the foot of Mount Pelée, in Saint-Pierre, where the distillery is said to have been founded by the island's first governor, Jacques Duparquet. The building was destroyed by the volcano in 1902, and has since been completely rebuilt.
Dillon rum is located on the grounds of the city of Fort-de-France, in Dillon as its name suggests.
HSE rum: the name HSE comes from the initials of Habitation Saint-Etienne, which is located on Gros-Morne land, in a place called La Maugée near Saint-Joseph. HSE offers old, very old and out-of-age rums.
HM rum from Héritiers Madkaud. The origins of this rum date back to 1895. Along with Neisson rum, it is one of the few rums made by descendants of slaves. From Félicien Madkaud, the designer, to Stéphane Madkaud, the distillery was first located in Fond Capot, then in Le Carbet. "Today, this rum is distilled in Sainte-Marie through various multi-brand partnerships. "The Madkaud rum has won awards at various events, including Hong Kong (2013), Paris (2014), Madrid (2014, 2015, 2016) and Berlin (2015), and has made it through the last few decades, right up to the present day", according to the Montray Kréyol website in its article on Les Héritiers Madkaud.
JM rum. The distillery is located in Fonds Préville, near Macouba, in the north of Martinique. The name JM refers to the initials of a former owner. Its world-renowned aged rum is reputed to be exceptional, and is much appreciated by the local population.
La Favorite rum owes its name to a cry from the heart of Napoleon, a rum-lover, after tasting a punch. The distillery is located in the commune of Le Lamentin. It was founded in 1842 by Henri Dormoy.
La Mauny rum. Its white rum is nicknamed tet-maré in reference to the effigy of a woman with a headdress on the bottle. It is one of the most popular. It is made in Rivière-Pilote. The dwelling has a historic past in relation to the 1870 Insurrection du Sud (former property of the béké Codé, Godé in Creole).
Neisson rum. Its Zépol karé (square-shouldered) bottle is highly reputed! This distillery is located in Le Carbet.
Saint-James rum. The distillery was transferred to Sainte-Marie after the eruption of Mount Pelée. It had been located in Saint-Pierre since the 18th century. The rum museum is located here.
Trois Rivières rum. Known as the former estate of Superintendent Fouquet, the distillery is located on the land of Sainte-Luce, on the heights facing the sea. A windmill - which also adorns the label - marks the site.
A1710 is an artisanal rum. Like Clément rum, it is made at the Simon plant in Le François. Highly appreciated by connoisseurs, it is available in several categories: A1710 Renaissance 52° (2019), A1710 La Perle Fine 67.5° (2021)...
The different rums
White rum is by far the most popular, it is consumed in the form of punch commonly called dry, which means without anything else with to alter its taste or modify its strength. This alcohol is equally appreciated with a lemon peel sometimes without sugar or with sugar or syrup. It is then called punch, ti-punch, fire, tafia, peta (firecracker) tifé, décollage, partante, déchirante and all the other picturesque variants well known of the "practitioners".
The straw rum. Its color gives it its name, it remains in barrel from 12 to 18 months, it has a taste a little more pronounced than the white rum.
The spicedamber rum is sometimes used in cooking, it is a mixture of straw rum and old rum.
The old rum, it is the rum of quality par excellence, that of the connoisseurs. It is made with white rum put in specific barrels for more than 3 years. The different characteristics of the preparation remain the great secret of each brand.
Note that the planteur is not a rum, it is a cocktail based on orange juice, pineapple, and white rum, poured over crushed ice. If you want to keep your sanity, you have to be much more careful when tasting this mixture offered in a larger glass and in larger quantities.
Molasses rum, sugar mill rum, or industrial rum
Industrial rum, also known as "rhum de sucrerie", "rhum traditionnel" or "rhum de mélasse", is made from cane sugar alcohol and sugar residue. It is most commonly produced in English- and Spanish-influenced regions.
The production process is much the same as for rhum agricole, except that the vesou is heated to obtain cane sugar and molasses, the residue from cane sugar production. This is a dark-brown liquid with a very high sugar content. Water and yeast are added to the molasses, which is then distilled to obtain an alcohol that is also called rum, but which does not always taste the same.
Genesis
In 1635, French colonists began growing sugar cane for the sole purpose of producing sugar. The crop was not very profitable, as only part of the juice was used. It was then discovered that the juice, fermented by heat and natural yeasts, produced an alcoholic beverage.
Made as early as the 17th century, this cane alcohol went by many names. It is claimed that it was Father Labat (botanist, colonizer, explorer, ethnographer, military man, landowner, technician, writer of numerous travel accounts, Dominican, slave-owning missionary), the perfect factotum, who in 1694 created a brandy that evolved into rum. Even today, malicious tongues claim that the resulting alcohol was simply designed to heal the wounds of animals injured by beating. Immediately, the sugar factories added a distillery to their facilities to make rum as well. They called it tue-diable or guildive(kill-devil in English); tafia is also known as such in Creole. It's also known in Creole as alòloy or pété pié (literally to fart foot: which will make you stub your toes, lose your balance) or pétwol (petroleum), perhaps because some consider it to be an efficient fuel, and it's given a whole host of other names such as Dékolaj, Partant, Déchirant, Tisek, Tet-maré, Zépol-karé, an overabundance of vocabulary that clearly demonstrates the real social proximity of this product. It was at the end of this century that the wordrum became widespread among the French.
By 1767, Martinique had 450 sugar distilleries, and with free slave labor, sugarcane occupied 57% of the territory's agricultural land.
Competing with beet sugar imposed on the continent by Napoleon I's decree, the collapse in sugar prices prompted planters to find other outlets, and the agricultural rum industry was born. The eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902 curtailed Martinique's production, which was later revived when rum was sent to the front lines to supply the armies. During the First World War, this beverage was used to boost morale and bolster the courage of the Poilus, as well as to manufacture explosives.
In the 1960s, agricultural rum production almost equalled that of industrial rum, but with competition from bananas, the death knell began to sound for the cane industry and many sugar factories. By the early 1970s, production of agricultural rum, although in decline, had surpassed that of industrial rum. In order to survive, the large landowners were forced to invest their money in shopping malls, which were beginning to spring up everywhere, and in the various jam factories in which they were the main shareholders.
