Among the three rum styles, the French style is the most homogenous in terms of production methods. It’s also heavily regulated, under the protection of various Protected Geographical Indications (PGIs) and the AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) which guarantee the product’s provenance. As you may well know, the one stand out fact about French style rum – or rhum agricole, as it is often referred to – is that, much like cachaça, it is distilled from fermented sugarcane juice, instead of the more widely used and refined molasses. Another difference to British and Spanish style rum is that most of the Caribbean islands where rhum agricole is produced are still French territories today – islands like Martinique and Guadeloupe.
Because the French are using sugarcane juice (which they call vesou), the cane will have a more direct impact on the final distillate, which is most commonly produced from a single column still. The result? A vegetal heavy distillate with green leaf & floral notes. For this reason, rhum producers experiment with different sugarcane varieties, which might be less relevant when making rum with refined molasses. This allows the French to use a word they love: terroir. Here, it means that the characteristics of the cane and the soil where it was grown are essential to the rhum’s final flavour profile. In essence, it’s pretty much like cognac, where the ‘crus’ (such as fine champagne, borderies, etc) are defined according to the nature of the soil and the climate. And much like cognac, armagnac or other noble French spirits, many rhum agricoles are slowly matured in French oak casks (instead of the more widely used American oak casks) until they reach their finest expression. French oak gives more structure and a hint of spice to the rhum, whereas American oak casks give hints of vanilla and generally deliver a final blend that is softer and rounder.
This being said, it would be wrong to assume that sugarcane juice is the traditional base for all French rhums. Indeed, molasses-based rums remained popular in the French Caribbean islands until as late as the 1970’s and some producers still use some molasses in their process today. It was not until the 19th century that the French actually started to distil with fermented sugarcane juice. What happened then was that French planters were caught off guard by plummeting prices when other islands (including Cuba) finally became big players on the world’s sugar market. At the same time, the cheaper sugar beet, an alternative to cane sugar that could be grown in Europe, became increasingly available and that didn’t help matters either. With much sugarcane on their hands (it represented 57% of total agricultural crops in 1870 Martinique, for example) and a decreasing desire to turn the stuff into sugar and molasses, the French producers chose increasingly to juice their cane and turn it directly into delicious booze.
Although aged rhum agricole is very appreciated in France, the best-selling agricoles are ‘whites’, meaning an unaged sugarcane spirit. Very few classic cocktails call for French style rums – the cocktail was an Anglo-Saxon invention after all. But the French have their own mixed drinks. Most unaged whites are infused with fruits and spices to produce what they call “rhum arrangé ”. This is an offshoot of the punch tradition, where fruits such as pineapple or spices and other ingredients such as vanilla are left to rest in and infuse a bottle of unaged rhum agricole with added sweetness, flavour and complexity.
The best quality whites are often used in Ti Punch, a simplified, single serve version of the classic punches. Ti Punch’s lime juice and sugarcane syrup soften the edges of the potent spirit (French style rhum is often released to a much higher proof than other white rums). Agricoles are now carving themselves a niche on the craft cocktail scene, with their heavy and grassy flavour profile also working very well in Tiki drinks.
