Richard Seale: about "astringency"

[Capn Jimbo]

Astringency was discussed in Up Spirits...


...and led to Moi asking Richard:

"Hello Richard and hope you are well. As always, I respect your busy life, but as you know occasionally a subject arises that would benefit greatly from your views.

This time the subject is the descriptor "astrigency", aka "tannic", which is widely defined as a mouthfeel (to be distinguished from the basic tastes). Janis Robinson, the well regarded wine expert, describes "tannic" as a dry, puckery sensation that is felt mostly on the gums, sides and even the roof of the mouth (but not particularly the tongue).

The source are the tannins (esp in red wine), and in our case especially the first fill oak barrels which do impart tannins to rum. It was my opinion that young rums are more likely to express astringency (often
covered up by adding sugar or vanilla). The questions:

1. How do you experience or describe "astringency"?

2. Can you briefly discuss the idea of astringency, youth, and the ways to deal with it, from cheating with sugar to additional good aging, etc.

Thanks...

The thread in question:
http://rumproject.com/rumforum//viewtopic.php?t=1620

And Richard's belated answer...

"Hi Capn Jimbo,

Sorry I missed your email.

Light rums are more vulnerable to tannins from the wood. Sugar is used often where basically near neutral spirit is aged and the resulting aged spirt is quite bitter. Young but complex rum e.g. pot still can take first fill barrels no problem.

I will be at Miami Rum Renaissance and doing a seminar if you would like to say hello.

Richard

[The Fat Rum Pirate]

Richard contributes quite often in the online discussion groups on Facebook.

Some really interesting stuff recently about pot still rum.

For anyone interested the groups he contributes to are Ministry of Rum (Ed Hamilton is never online) and The Global Rum Club.

[Capn Jimbo]

Thanks Pirate, worth checking out, but back on the instant topic...


I think most of us recognize the widespread use with many thin column-stilled rums, many of which approach near vodka status. Add a dribble of older rum, but more commonly sugar, vanilla and other hidden flavors, create a marketing story, affix an unconfirmable age statement, avoid production details and bingo! Another quasi-premium is born.

What I found most interesting is that complex pot stilled distillate can stand up to newish wood (the source of most astrigency and harshness and doesn't need tweaking. The only problem - pot stilling is a relatively expensive, labor intensive batch product.