Rum Agricole gots its name because it is made from freshly juiced sugarcane also known as “vesou”, instead of molasses. Unlike the thick, treacle-like molasses, sugar cane juice rums retain all of the fresh, green, earthy and vegetal-like features of the sugarcane, hence the name Agricole. Around 5% of the rum produced worldwide is made exclusively with fresh sugarcane juice. To make Rum Agricole, it’s important to have the fields and facilities in close proximity to each other, freshly cut cane is very unstable due to microorganisms and natural yeast that begin to affect the cane the moment it is cut.
If you first want to learn more about rum as a category, the process of distillation or fermentation, we have several earlier blogs and videos dedicated to this so please feel free to watch those as well.
As with many great products, rum agricole was born out of necessity. France had less need for sugar from the Caribbean after sugar beet sugar production became widespread, cheaper and easier to produce than sugarcane sugar. The sugarcane plantations and sugar factories on the overseas territories had no choice but to use their sugarcane for other means: when life gives you sugarcane juice.. make rum!
Agricole is French for Agricultural or agrarian. Agricultural production includes production of livestock such as cattle, fish farms and crops, such as lettuce, grains, fruits, vegetables but also grass, including sugarcane.
Rum Agricole, is often spelled as Rhum Agricole, with an extra H in between. This is because Rum Agricole is mostly made in the former French Caribbean colonies. Some of those, such as Martinique and Guadeloupe have their own AOC - Appellation d’Origine Controlee, or in English ,a Protected Designation of Origin – PDO. This means that they can set certain standards for their rum, it is not allowed to use their name (Rhum de la Guadeloupe, Rhum de la Martinique) if first of all the product is not made there, but also if the products does not meet the requirements such as being a 100% cane juice fermented rum and not adding any molasses rum in the blend. The EU has also acknowledged these AOCs, meaning that in Europe only rums made in French Oversea Departments and Madeira can be sold as Rum Agricole. The US does not acknowledge these however, so outside Europe, The French Oversea Departments and Madeira, all rums made from fresh sugarcane juice can be called agricole.
Ripe sugarcane is harvested, crushed and defibrated as quickly as possible to leave only the juice. In fermentation vats, the sugar and yeast convert into alcohol, and the result is a so-called sugarcane wine of around 4-6 ABV% This sugarcane wine is then distilled. Some rules for distillation, such as if the plates in the still need to be copper, and how big they need to be differ between the countries that produce rum agricole. We will dive deeper into this in later videos. Often continuous distillation is used to make sure that the unstable sugarcane wine goes through the process quickly to prevent it from spoiling, but depending on the country it is also possible to create pot still rum agricole.
After distillation and resting, the spirit can also be aged to alter the flavour further.
In recent years, rum agricole has slowly been gaining more attention.
The consumer is more and more interested in premium and luxurious rum, and looking for unique flavour profiles rather than neutral rum.The spirit can also appeal to the eco minded consumer. However strong growth is most likely limited, as it is hard to scale up production without compromising the quality.
In other blogs and videos we will dive further into the different styles of Agricole rums, and explain the exact rules for the different AOC. However we hope this already gave you some insight in the world of fresh sugarcane rum!
