11 AUGUST 1967, Page 22

Rum go

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN

There's no snobbery about the rum business. The rum distillers admit quite cheerfully that they colour the spirit, which like brandy and whisky starts life as colourless as water. They do have the advantage over the cognac and whisky blenders that caramel is their product's natural camouflage. But the dark traditional rums, pungent and 'English-speaking' as the Ameri- cans like to say, with their close associations with winter and colds in the head, are being pushed aside by the light, almost white 'Spanish- speaking' liquors that have only the faintest of rummy smells and savours.

Pick up any book on drink and you will find that rum has tended to be considered a low class' tipple, connected with sailors, dockside taverns and doxies. Well, Tate and Lyle, who make a lot of sugar and therefore a lot of molasses, rum's mum, have launched their new rum, Caroni, recently at Trader Vic's (a touch of the rich man's Joseph C,onrads), and declare it whiter than whitish. It is what the trade calls 'light' as well, which means it has a faint scent of the rum esters and a dry taste. It joins the growing family of continuously distilled light rums which are alleged to be trendy and there- fore appealing to the swinging set. The Aber- deen fish-gutters may cleave to their Black Heart, which the boys from Booker Brothers (alias United Rum Merchants) admit is not only the traditional blend of demerara pot-still rums but darkened to the colour of treacle with burnt sugar. It reeks like liquid toffee, and no doubt holds its own among the smell of fresh herring. Our forebears adored the pungent Jamaicas for their ability to cut across the smell of gas, horse manure, bad plumbing and the general indoor atmosphere of Victoria's England. Now there is only diesel and petrol fumes out in the street, and the aggressiveness of a rum drinker's breath wonld seem ill-mannered in a neo-Eliza- bethan salon.

My big bleat is the expensiveness of it all. Myer's Navy is about 50s, and the res. around 52s a bottle, wherever they come from. Now that the Bacardi family have left Cuba for the Bahamas their product will be enjoying the advantage of Commonwealth preference—a princely 2s 6d per proof gallon out of a duty of 321s 2d. The newcomer Caroni will cost 57s 3d. a bottle, precisely the same as Hedges and Butler's Bacardi and 2s 9d dearer than Daiquiri rum. The flavour of the rum may differ from Martinique to Guyana, Puerto Rico to Trinidad (C,aroni's home island), but the prices are much the same. Indeed, now that the continuous still is being used the rum flavours are matching each other more and more closely. The Cubans have in the past filtered rum through charcoal to rid it of the pungent 'con- generics' that are so characteristic of the old and coarser or 'heavier' versions. Now the patent still can purify the spirit to its desirable modern characterlessness, leaving only the faintest con- trasts between one Caribbean product and another.

The commercial advantage is that light bodied, white rum matures in two or three years, while the heavier kinds take three to five. And there is enough of the rumminess left to sharpen up a Cuba Libre, the rum and coke mix that was born before Fidel Castro (aficionados de- clare that die true Libre is made with lime juice, too). The 'single mark' rums, from one estate, equivalent to the single malts of Scotland, are often too fullbodied for the conventional British palate (Bookers have a thirty year old blend that is a connoisseur's dream, but is no longer marketed). Bacardi persist with their Afiejo, a ten year old with the silkiness of a fine cognac. Yet the market resists all but the light whites. - The social impact of rum must once have been explosive. Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang has two and a half pages of rum phrases, from an impecunious Irish clergyman to an un- saleable book. Lowlife the drink may have been, but once upon a time it meant the brave and the beautiful : a rum doxy was a handsome whore, rum drawers were real silk, a rum fam was a diamond ring and rum kicks were breeches laced with gold and silver. The context may have changed, the flavour may have been toned down, but the kicks are there still.

Classic Daiquiri.—One part sugar syrup, two parts lime or lemon juice, eight parts white rum. Shake with plenty of cold ice and strain into cold glasses.

Pernod Daiquiri.—A bizarre but satisfactory variation. Half tablespoon sugar syrup, one tablespoon lime or lemon juice, one and a half ounces white rum, two or three drops of per- nod, crushed ice. Mix and strain as before.

Caroni' Cocktail.—As served at Trader Vic's in London. For each serving an ice cube in a glass, the juice of half a lime, a dash each of sugar syrup, white curacao and angostura bitters. Pour in one fluid ounce Caroni white (or other white rum). Stir before serving.