On the Road to Corsican Rum

Rhum Corse en affinage dans un fût d'Acacia au cœur du maquis

L'histoire du Rhum

Rum was born in the seventeenth century on the sugar plantations of the Caribbean.

That is where enslaved people discovered that the molasses discarded by refiners would ferment. Their first distillates were called kill-devil — the water that kills the devil. A raw, fierce spirit, charged with the heat of the soil and burnt cane.

Gradually, the colonists took it over, oak barrels carried it across the seas, and time softened the alcohol. The molasses revealed its depth — vanilla, caramel, candied fruit, warm spice. Rum became generous, sun-drenched, and told the stories of the plantations. Jamaica. Barbados. Cuba. Each territory speaking to the world in its own voice.

The Green Revolution

With the nineteenth century came a sugar crisis that devastated prices in Martinique. Ruined planters looked for an alternative. Instead of turning their cane into sugar and molasses, some began distilling freshly pressed cane juice.

Vegetal. Bright. Herbaceous. The chlorophyll of fresh green cane brings a mineral, almost iodine quality that molasses rum simply doesn't have. The Martiniquais called it rhum agricole — agricultural rum, as opposed to industrial rum. In 1996, it received an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée. The first spirit of the Americas to do so.

Molasses rum is warm, round, generous. It carries the depth of concentrated sugar, the spice of the barrel, the long caramel finish of the Greater Antilles. It is the rum of punch, of slow sipping, of quiet evenings.

Agricole rum is fresh, vegetal, mineral. It carries the liveliness of cane at the moment of cutting, volcanic earth, green grass in the rain. It is the rum of the tight ti-punch, of immediate complexity, of landscape memory.

One evokes a late afternoon sun. The other, early morning in the fields.

Both are true — and we were looking for a third way that could bring them together, in the maquis.

The Corsican Rum

Our first edition of Corsican rum begins with a Cuban molasses — warm and generous — which we ferment in our cellar before distilling it over a wood fire. From the very first batch, the vanilla notes are there, and something else we need to understand is beginning to happen.

We leave our rum to rest in acacia and chestnut barrels while we think.

Then we attempt our first maquis botanical macerations. We wanted to bring the vegetal freshness and green breath of the maquis. Wild nepita, fig leaves, lentisk, immortelle. The botanicals harvested from the maquis would bring a particular liveliness and a singular signature to our rum.

After eighteen months of ageing, our rum offered both the generous notes of the Caribbean and the vivacity of an agricole-style spirit. Without quite realising it, we had created a unique insular profile — at once warm and vegetal.

The acacia barrel brought floral softness, notes of honey and wild vanilla, a roundness that wraps around the botanicals without erasing them. The chestnut barrel gave structure, noble tannin, a woody depth that echoes the forests of the island's interior.

From the Barrel

Our From the Barrel editions are bottled on demand, directly at the barrel's final strength and without filtration. What you pour into your glass is exactly what the wood has produced after more than nine months of quiet work.

For those who prefer a more open expression, our 37.5° edition offers more generous maquis aromas in a rounder profile — ideal for sipping or in a long cocktail.

Best served over a single ice cube, to let the two terroirs reveal themselves one after the other. Or as a long cocktail with an artisanal ginger beer and a twist of Corsican lemon — a way of carrying both islands in the same glass.

Our Corsican Rums are produced in limited editions. Four quarter casks of chestnut and four quarter casks of acacia. Not one more. When the barrels are empty, the cuvée is closed.

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