Spice your rum yourself - Havana Club "Essences of Cuba

[schlimmerdurst]

The producer of fantastic cocktail bitters, "The Bitter Truth", created in cooperation with Havana Club a small series of so-called "Essences of Cuba", which are small bottles of non-bitter aromatic infusions, to be used as additive to rum, especially for Havana Club's 7 years old anejo, one of the favorites of the distiller here in Germany.

I tried them out - results can be found here (https://schlimmerdurst.wordpress.com/20 ... s-of-cuba/ sorry, only German) - and found them rather interesting. One thing, though, must be noted.

I used as an example for one of the essences the Dominican rum Ron Relicario, which in my earlier review I found somewhat thin and lacking body, while I admired the wonderful nose (this is also a candidate for sugar tests, by the way). After the addition of 3 dashes of "Essence of Cuba - Honey", this changed dramatically: all the edges were suddenly gone, there now was a deep, satisfying body, and a seductive, not-too-strong sweetness. And that just with 3 small dashes of a fluid that surely doesn't consist of pure sugar, on 1 1/2 oz of rum. It is probably a very similar effect to what Che described in his sugar experiment on this very forum.

Is this a trend for the future? Spicing up your rum yourself with additives, to make it more convenient to your personal taste? Or is it just some freaky experiment?

I think it could really be marketed as a tool to convince those who otherwise don't care about additives to rum "because so small amounts can't really change anything"...

[Capn Jimbo]

Interesting post...


...better that rum "essences" are promoted openly for addition to a rum. I'd note that for some reason there doesn't appear to be a similar product for single malt whisky, blended whisky or bourbon. Perhaps the reason is that the latter are pure and distilled for flavor, honestly enhanced by aging in good wood.

You're right about Che, who said about just 1 gram of added sugar "...Whoa. It. Changes. I am totally surprised!". For his comments on 5, 10, 20, 30 and 50 grams:
http://rumproject.com/rumforum//viewtopic.php?t=1134

You will be both amazed and intrigued by what he experienced and reported in one of the great posts here at the Project (of course, they're all great, lol...).