BEST IN CLASS St. Barths Caribbean Rum Competition

BEST IN CLASS

ST. BARTHS’ ANNUAL CARIBBEAN RUM AWARDS, NOW IN ITS FIFTH YEAR, SAW RECORD ATTENDANCE WITH ITS BIGGEST AND BEST EVENT TO DATE. GOODSPEED WAS ON HAND, SIPPING, SAVORING AND MARVELING AT THE LINEUP AND DIVERSITY AS WELL AS THE PASSION FOR THIS DISTINCTLY CARIBBEAN SPIRIT.

“To me, rum is the most interesting spirit in the world,” says Alexander Britell, editor and publisher of Caribbean Journal and co-founder of the Caribbean Rum Awards St. Barth.

“JAMES BEARD USED TO SAY it’s the most romantic spirit. Once you figure out the diversity of rums in the Caribbean, it’s a pretty exciting rabbit hole to go down.” Featuring roughly 100 different rums, pitting the best against the best, all in the rarefied setting of St. Barths, the annual awards show is now an official event on the St. Barths calendar—not an easy feat, according to Britell, who remarks that they even ran the event in 2020 to ensure continuity.

Spanning five days, Tuesday through Saturday, and occurring just before the annual Gourmet Festival in early November, the Caribbean Rum Awards is intent on demonstrating its desire to be an island-wide affair. With events taking place in a multitude of destinations, including a new-this-year pop-up expo tent on the quai in Gustavia, Le Barthélemy Hotel and the illustrious Rhum Room at Quarter Bar, owned by co-founder of the Rum Awards Christopher Davis, the idea is to encourage as many as desire to get involved. Foodies will enjoy the rum pairing dinners while connoisseurs will appreciate the cigar-and-rum evenings. The expo tent, sponsored by Tradewind Aviation, showcases 12 different distillers, allowing the public to sample some of their best rums, while the evening party with local rum makers and the cocktail competition featuring some of the island’s best bartenders are the highlights. This year the cocktail spirit highlighted was a special Jamaican Rumfire. It did not disappoint.

In addition to Ti’ Punch parties, there is serious learning to be had. There are three days of master classes, where top distillers come to showcase their product and explain their signature process to ticket holders who RSVP in advance. These classes present an intimate opportunity for tasters to learn the intricacies of rum and particularly Rhum Agricole, a favorite of co-founders Britell and Davis. Rhum Agricole is distilled directly from press sugar cane juice and makes up just 2% of the world’s rum, with the majority distilled from molasses. Rhum Agricole is mainly made in the Caribbean and is especially appealing to Britell because the sugar cane juice can give distinct terroir notes, allowing for notable differences between, say, Rhum Agricole from the northern end of the island of Martinique versus the southern. As a result, he finds it more pure and ultimately more interesting.

“Once you figure out the diversity of rums in the Caribbean, it’s a pretty exciting rabbit hole to go down.”

“. . . our competition is one of the few in the world, if not the only, that features

Uber Premium rum due to cost.”

“When we taste the white rums from Martinique, it’s remarkable to compare them side by side as they are all so different, yet made on the same small Caribbean island,” says Britell.

Of course, the competition itself is the core event of the awards show. Ten judges from the Caribbean and the US come together to blind taste eight categories of rum. Given the variance in rules with rum production—there is no set standard with molasses-based rum— the better way to compare and judge the rums against one another, according to Britell, is to use price as the setting. “We have both a Premium and Uber Premium category, and our competition is one of the few in the world, if not the only, that features Uber Premium rum due to cost. So at our event we actually taste all the top-tier rums and set out to define what is the best rum and why.” The event features such notable rums as Rum Maison, which goes for $3,000 to $4,000 a bottle, and reputed house Flor de Caña presenting their top rum. Last year the awards show pitted the Uber Premium molasses rum against the Uber Premium Rhum Agricole, and the Rhum Agricole won.

With each year the event has grown and matured until it has become an established brand with a digital medal system for the winners. The goal, as Britell explains it, is to be what “San Francisco is to wine with the International Wine Competition, but in the Caribbean— the destination to taste and learn about rum.” With St. Barths as their host setting, Britell is confident of reaching this goal, as he sees the island as already drawing people who appreciate luxury artisanal products. “So why not encourage them to discover one of the finest exports of the Caribbean?”

FOR MORE INFORMATION www.caribbeanrumawards.com

Q&A

INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS DAVIS OF RHUM ROOM ST. BARTH AND QUARTER BAR, CO-FOUNDER OF CARIBBEAN RUM AWARDS ST. BARTH

How is this year’s awards show different than previous years?

This year the Collective is allowing us to use the public space at the Capitainerie for both the Friday night Rum Exposition and Saturday’s Rum Cocktail Competition. It is going to be amazing to be there with all the town around us and perhaps some yachts as well. Additionally, we have a VIP tasting of rum from the 19th century that I am not sure has been done previously.

What’s your favorite thing about the awards show?

Each year the Rum/Rhum/Ron category is getting better and thus more competitive of a field. I love the Uber Premium rum category to see all the best expressions from the Caribbean distilleries up against each other in a blind format. Even if they do not want to compete, we put them in anyway. It’s quite an investment for us, but how else are you going to really see how these rums stack up?

What’s the rum that made you the passionate connoisseur that you are today?

Oh, that is a great question, and the best way to show the evolution of my palate is by answering. I started with Angostura 1919 many years ago, and now my favorites are Agricole Vieux from Marie Galante (Distillerie Bielle) and Martinique (Neisson).

What’s a good starter rum for a beginner?

There are many ways to answer this as it all depends on the starting point. For example, bourbon has been so popular of late, so finding something that has some familiar notes is advantageous. The vast majority of rum has been aged in former bourbon casks, which makes this a good way to go, so I would recommend starting with something a little higher than the industry standard 40% (or 80 proof). Alternatively, start with something smooth and appealing to sip that is both not too expensive and available in the US—such as the molasses-based Flor de Caña 18. At the other end of the spectrum would be something more like a cognac, with some dryness and complexity, like an XO Agricole (a blended rum with a minimum age of six years) from Martinique, whichever one you can find in the US, like Neisson or Rhum JM.

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