American Rum Report #20 — December 13, 2019
Good morning, and happy Friday!
I've got something a little different for you this week—a deep dive into an intriguing lineup of rums from Three of Strong Spirits, one of the newest rum distilleries in the U.S.
Exploring the Rums of Maine's Newest Rum Distillery: Three of Strong Spirits <<<
When Three of Strong Spirits opened back in June, I immediately took notice for three reasons:
It wasn’t just a new American distillery that happened to be producing a rum—it was a new American distillery specifically focused on rum. While this doesn’t guarantee the rum will be good, the hit rate tends to be better with rum-focused operations than those that throw in a rum to fatten up their portfolio of spirits.
The founders, Sam Pierce and Dave McConnell, hired a head distiller with two decades of experience (Graham Hamblett, who was formerly head distiller at Dogfish Head Distilling after making wine and spirits at Flag Hill Vineyard and Winery).
They were launching with a somewhat unconventional lineup of rums (more on that in the post).
My goal with this piece was to get into the what and the why behind the rums and explore what makes them interesting, rather than offering too much subjective evaluation.
I hope you'll check it out and reply with your thoughts. If you'd like to see more content like this about other distilleries, let me know.
You can check out the post here.
Plus, it wouldn't be a full report without a handful of interesting rum stories to catch up on 🔗
Wayne Curtis's story on Privateer Rum's journey to find the perfect molasses is not to be missed — As stated previously, always read Wayne Curtis is the official policy of American Rum Report. I could tell you more about this story, but it's more fun to go into it cold.
This isn't American rum-specific, but Punch published a lovely Q&A with spirits historian and writer David Wondrich I'm confident you'll enjoy — His response to the question "Are there any areas you're interested in that feel like wide-open fields" has me particularly intrigued: "The early history of rum. There’s a lot of head-in-the-sand thinking about it. A lot of people say rum comes the Caribbean and that’s the beginning of everything, but in fact rum was being made in Asia well before that—at least 400 years before our first mention of rum in the Caribbean, you see sugar cane being distilled. Distilled sugar cane in Asia could be as old as 2,000 years ago; it could be 2,500 years ago."
The Colorado Sun did a great job capturing the significance of Montanya's latest release, Valentia—a rum produced 100% by women — From the story: “Deborah Brenner, founder and CEO of the national Women of the Vine & Spirits organization that includes 165 corporate and around 5,000 individual members, said this all-female rum is much more than a marketing ploy. 'The incredible thing about it is the visibility that comes with it,' Brenner said. 'Most consumers don’t see the female role models in this industry. This ground-to-glass effort really is an inspiration for other women.'”