What is Rum?

So, because I have been isolated at home, I decided to take this time to educate myself on the history of rum and how it's made. I've been working on Saltwater Woody for the last year, but I truly wanted to do a deep dive and help educate others on what makes rum so special. So if you have some time today and want to learn about rum, here you go. Also, don't forget to have our facebook page a follow to stay in tuned with launch dates, swag updates, and more!

What is rum made from?

Super simple. Rum starts out with sugar. Straight up sugar. Or, more specifically, sugar cane and all its fun derivatives such as molasses and sugarcane juice. And sugarcane is a tropical grass that grows in all the fun, warm, tropical spots in the world (Caribbean, Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean, and for our purposes, the American Coastal South).

We use molasses to make our Saltwater Woody Rum. Molasses is the byproduct after all the sugar crystallizes from the sugarcane. This is why it was so popular in the Caribbean and in the South. Molasses was so easy to come by because of the world’s demand for sugarcane. If anyone could find a way to make extra money and get drunk off a byproduct, then it truly was our ancestors.

What do you do with molasses?

Well since molasses is still sugar and sugar is the building block for alcohol, we’re already home free. Once you add water and yeast to the molasses, that’s where the fun begins. The yeast begins to eat the sugar, and then gives off two byproducts: CO2 and alcohol. We let the CO2 go, as we’re only interested in the alcohol that’s left behind.

Once there is fermented liquid all in a vat, it’s distilling time. Distilling may get a bit confusing, as there’s some more advanced chemistry involved, but luckily, people have been doing it for years, so it can’t be that complicated, right? Alcohol has a lower boiling point than water, so they just heat up the fermented liquid and capture the alcohol that evaporates, all the while making sure they cool it to get it back in the liquid state. Some distillers also prefer to distill their product more and more in order to get a more pure liquor. In rum’s case, however, the more you distill it, you sometimes lose some of the complex flavors.

What else?

After all that, different distilleries can choose to get extra fancy. Some distillers choose to age their product in barrels, some bottle it straight from the still, and some distillers even spice it up a bit.

We at Saltwater Woody, take it one extra step to bring you the best rum you’ll ever have. We first cut our distillate to proof with some saltwater. The salt helps to cut the harshness of the liquor and bring out sweeter profiles on a palate. Our original is made to be paired in any of your favorite rum cocktails, or some purists choose to have it straight. We also have our Real Grapefruit offering that is made with REAL grapefruit juice. It’s perfect on the rocks, in a punch, or with a splash of tonic.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what rum is. And obviously, Saltwater Woody is the best rum around.