La Mauny Rhum VSOP Martinique

La Mauny Rhum VSOP Martinique

La Mauny Rhum VSOP Martinique has, with the different casks used and the regular adaptation of the rum, which has been tasted and evaluated during maturation of 4 to 5 years. This has made this La Mauny VSOP a delicious rum with woody notes, vanilla and notes of dried flowers for a balanced rum.

Scent: Full and round aromatic scent emerges from the glass.
Taste: Lovely notes of warm sugar, spices and oranges enhanced by fruit and Mirabelle plums.

On the French island of Martinique, they have created a set of rules for their rum in the same tradition as is known for Cognac and Champagne. They call their style Rhum Agricole.

La Mauny:

Here, the sugar cane is pressed right after they have been harvested and the sugar cane juice is fermented without extracting the sugar first. The method originated at the end of the 18th century in Martinique. Here they could not sell the sugar because of very low sugar prices on the world market. It was decided, at the suggestion of Homère Clement, to make rum from the fresh sugarcane juice, without extracting the sugar first. It was thus not a decision based on quality, but more based on reality. However, the French have ever since claimed that it was to get as much flavor as possible in the finished rum.

However, there is a downside to using the fresh sugarcane juice. It must be pressed out of the sugarcane very few hours after they are harvested and shortly after pressing, the juice must be used in a fermentation process. If not, changes occur in the juice's PH value (acidity), which significantly changes the taste. The producers of Rhum Agricole must therefore be in possession of relatively large facilities to quickly complete the process. They can only make rum in the first half of the year, when they harvest sugarcane.

Martinique:

Rum in Martinique is made according to their AOC rules and is perhaps the most "honest rum" in the world. The AOC rule prohibits the addition of sugar and colored caramel (e150) to the distilled rum. Age must not be 'fudged' either. It is the youngest rum in the mix that sets the age on the bottle.
Due to the production method and the use of a lot of French oak barrels, of the same kind as those used in Cognac production, Rhum Agricole bears a certain resemblance to Cognac in both aroma and taste.

Rhum Agricol Martinique also uses the same age designations as we know them from Cognac:

VO – at least 3 years old
VSOP – at least 4 years old
XO – at least 6 years old
The French gendarmerie also checks that age is not cheated. So this rum is at least 3 years old.

Distillery:

The rum comes from the La Mauny Distillery in the southern part of Martinique

La Mauny Estate was founded by Count de Mauny in 1749, he came from Normandy in France, and they were one of the first to start making Rhum Agricole in the 19th century. They use different barrels to mature their rum. These are:

New French barrels (400 l)
Ex-Cognac cask (France)
Ex-bourbon barrel (USA)
They do not cold filter their rum, so that all the good tasting components are included in the finished rum. Nothing is removed. Each year they produce 80,000 bottles.