Jamaica’s Long Pond Rum Distillery Damaged by Fire

According to the Jamaica Observer, Jamaica’s Long Pond rum distillery has been severely hobbled by a fire. The historic distillery, known for its classic pot stilled Jamaican rums adjoins a sugar cane factory and cane fields. Reports are that a fire in the cane field spread to bagasse (dried cane plant mass) and eventually to buildings holding tanks of rum and the fermentation area. Luckily, no one was hurt.

UPDATE: 7/25/2018 – See end of story for updated information from Ferrand. What immediately follows here is the original story.

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Independent Rum Bottlers: The Real Story

Early on my path to rum wonkdom, after exhausting the rum selections at my pitiful state liquor stores, a certain set of elegant looking and pricey bottles caught my eye while scouring the shelves at an out-of-state liquor store. The labels read Berry Bros. & Rudd, and each bottle held rum from a different country. I quickly realized that these were somehow different from the big rum brands. I was fascinated and realized I had much to learn. However, the $120 price tags were prohibitive, especially so for someone not yet well informed on the nuances of different countries, much less different distilleries.

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Four Questions For Your Rum Categorization: A Spirits Educator Weighs In

One of the joys of my jumping headlong into the world of distilled spirits is meeting highly educated and passionate people who change your perspective and point out rabbit holes you didn’t know existed. One such example was this past October, when I had the pleasure of meeting Nicholas King of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET). Nicholas and I were on the same ACSA judging panel for American whiskies. Fancy me, a rum-fixated writer judging whiskey!

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Inside Cognac’s Tonnellerie Taransaud

Visitors to Maison Ferrand in France’s Cognac region are usually astonished to come face-to-face with a polished wooden egg, easily big enough to hold a full-sized adult. Now, if you’re old enough to recall the 1970s sitcom staple Mork & Mindy, you know that Mork (Robin Williams) arrived on earth nestled within a giant white egg. However, Ferrand’s wooden egg holds something very different, and it’s not alone. A few kilometers up the road, another egg greets visitor in the lobby of Tonnellerie Taransaud, one of the many cooperages – tonnelleries –operating in the region.

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Passion Grove Swizzle – A Summer Tiki Cooler

Early in my Tiki education, which at that point was primarily Beachbum Berry’s Sippin’ Safari and a scattering of blog posts, I learned a mantra: Always fresh squeeze your juice! It’s not so hard with lemons, limes, and oranges, but pineapples are always a challenge. They’re cumbersome and not easily juiced with normal kitchen gadgets. Even after a budget centripetal juicer appeared, juicing pineapples was still something I sought to avoid – the juice was too frothy and the yield too low. It always felt like I was forsaking too much product in the wet, pulpy remains.

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Going Brazilian – Cachaça’s Regulations Demystified & Translated

Here at Casa Cocktail Wonk, we prefer to go off the beaten path, demystifying complex topics and bringing daylight to the shadowy areas of spirits knowledge. A particular favorite is disabusing people of the “rum has no rules” misperception. Just like Bourbon, Scotch whisky, and Cognac have well-defined regulations protecting them from imposters masquerading as the real deal, the cane spirits world has similar protections.

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