Chapter 28 Appendix I

Rum is one of the most famous distilled spirits and a very important base alcohol for cocktails.It is well known to the world as the "soul of a sailor" in the age of great navigation and the love of it by the famous writer Ernest Miller Hemingway (Ernest Miller Hemingway).At that time, some pirate fleets in the Caribbean Sea, and even some official fleets with insufficient funds, even used rum directly as wages for hiring sailors (some sailors who were addicted to alcohol and had no family were also willing to accept this special salary). Rum is often made from molasses (Melasse in German), a by-product of the sugar industry, but a small amount is also made directly from sugarcane or sugarcane juice (for example, Czech rum is made directly from sugarcane, The taste is completely different from the standard version of rum - of course, due to the relevant constraints of the EU wine industry, Czech rum has now been renamed).Common places of origin include the Caribbean, Central and South American countries, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion Island, India, the Philippines, Australia and the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, which are rich in sugarcane.It is said that rum has been mass-produced as early as 1650.

Similar to whiskey and Cognac (which of course refers to brandy made from the Cognac grape in France), good rum means longer barrel aging.The longer the distillate is stored in oak barrels, the less fusel alcohols remain and the more mellow the wine will taste.However, the longer the wine is stored, the darker the color of the wine - from colorless to pale gold, or even brown.But fortunately, this is not a bad thing: influenced by the prejudice of "the darker the color, the higher the quality" of high-end brandy, many manufacturers also like to use caramel to dye the originally colorless light brewed rum to raise its price (this is exactly the same as some Tequila manufacturers do exactly the same).

Some well-known rum brands, except for the "Havana Club" mentioned in the article and the cheap factory products Bacardi (Bacardi, the brand registered in Puerto Rico, the world's largest spirits brand-we are quite In addition to the familiar Martini, which is now also under this family), there are also "Captain Morgan (registered in Puerto Rico, the second largest rum brand in the world)", Santa Teresa (Santa Teresa) Teresa), Old Oak (Old Oak, we can easily associate this brand with Hemingway who was born in Oak Park (Oak Park, the usual translation in China is "Oak Park") and dozens of others.

The "Havara Club" from Cuba, the most commonly sold in Germany is "aged for three years" (that is, "HC3" as it is often called)-although the color of this wine is slightly pale golden, it is marked as white rum.Another one that is completely colorless is "" (that is, "aged for two years").These two wines are mainly used as the base wine for bartending. Unlike other rums, "Hawala Club" uses oak barrels used by the famous whiskey brand Jack Daniel (Jack Daniel), so this brand of rum is also mixed with whiskey. The "Añejo Gran Reserva" mentioned in the article is actually brown rum, which is not suitable for mojitos-but John did, and it seems to work well: at least, our Mr. Detective is very I like it (laughs).

Personally, I really like the "Havara Club" bottles (specifically the "three years old" and above versions, which are completely colorless and transparent, but I don't use these high-quality bottles: because they are reserved for bartenders ), it uses a delicate and special frosting process, which gives people a very special touch, which is much better than the inferior glossy wine bottles that are often encountered.A bottle of "three-year aging" costs about 12 euros per bottle in the small town where I live.