The World’s First Chocolate Barrel Smoked Rum Is Here, But If You Want a Bottle You Better Act Fast
It smells and tastes like cinnamon-dusted hot chocolate.
Rum makers are quite fond of using oak barrels to age their sugar-derived spirit. It typically imparts a mellow, caramel-laden complexity upon the finished liquid. There's nothing novel about the methodology. In fact, it's been a popular approach since at least the late 1700s.
And yet now Brugal has found a way to do it like it's never been done before. This month, the revered Dominican distillery introduced its Colección Visionaria, an ongoing series dedicated to innovation. The first release relies on casks toasted with Caribbean cacao to craft something unique. Here's how it came to be — and how you can get your hands on a bottle.
The journey began with high-quality cooperage, which was shipped to the Dominican Republic straight from the dense, misty forests of Western Europe. Upon arrival, these barrels were toasted using locally-sourced organic cacao beans. The proprietary technique imbued the wooden staves with notes of bittersweet chocolate and a robust blanket of roastiness. Next, the 'cacao-ified' containers were filled with the brand's signature sugarcane distillate and left to slumber in the steamy climes of the tropics.
Related: Hot Chocolate with Rum
What pours out after maturation is an exceptionally robust rum, which smells something like a cinnamon-dusted hot chocolate. On the palate, the threads of caramel and molasses familiar to the category are elongated and emboldened by the presence of citrus spice, bergamot, and a touch of toasted walnut.
In other words: this is one smooth-sipping rum. And it might never have been brought to bottle if it weren’t for the nostalgic proclivities of its master distiller, Jassil Villanueva Quintana.
“One of my most cherished childhood memories is walking amongst the cacao trees surrounding my family home,” recalls Brugal’s fifth-generation maestra ronera. “I remember the lush and green cacao fields, the bittersweet scent of the cacao pods, and the rich aromas of roasted beans. It’s this memory I wanted to recreate with the first edition of Colección Visionaria.”
Mission accomplished. Although at 45% ABV, the product is a decidedly more adult reconstruction of those remembrances. The limited release is now available for $100 a bottle in the U.S. Only four batches worth of the expression were distilled and brought to barrel. Once it’s gone, it’ll be nothing but a memory once more.
For more Food & Wine news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on Food & Wine.
