The Restaurant Guys

Ed Hamilton on Rum *V*

• The Restaurant Guys • Episode 124

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This is a Vintage Selection from 2006

The Banter

The Guys assert that in addition to the arts, one of the keys to revitalizing cities is al fresco dining…but close the doors if it’s sultry.

The Conversation 

The Restaurant Guys gather intel from expert Ed Hamilton who spent time studying the spirit. Ed discusses the different processes, labeling and deceit in the rum market. Most importantly, Ed shares some of the best ways to enjoy rum. Cheers!

The Inside Track

The Guys have learned a great deal from Ed’s research; they are appreciative of his obsession…or should they say passion.

Francis:  You have a kind of an obsession with rum. Why rum? 

Ed: Well, I would call it a passion, not an obsession.

Mark: That's 'cause you haven't met you, Ed.

Francis: All obsessed people called their obsessions passions.

Ed: Yeah. And all my friends are characters except me. 


Bio

Ed Hamilton is a leading authority on rum and the founder of the Ministry of Rum, a trusted resource for enthusiasts and professionals alike. A former merchant mariner turned rum advocate, Ed has spent decades traveling the Caribbean to document distilleries, traditions, and styles of rum. He is the author of several definitive books on the spirit.

Ed has been instrumental in introducing authentic Caribbean rums to broader markets through his Hamilton Rum portfolio.  His Ministry of Rum Lost Voyage Rum was named Rum of the Year at the Bartenders Spirits Awards 2024. 

Info

Ed’s site (a work in progress so check back!)

http://www.ministryofrum.com/

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TheGuys@restaurantguyspodcast.com

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Speaker 2:

Good morning, mark. Morning Francis. How are you this morning? Jesus.

Fran:

I was in New York City last evening. You go to

Speaker 2:

New York City?

Fran:

Yeah, I was wandering around. How'd you

Speaker 2:

get there?

Fran:

Drove. Oddly, I You never drive to Park City? Never. Oh, no. No. Wait, I didn't drive. That's right. We, um, went with a friend, drove to Jersey City, and then we took the pass train. Mm-hmm. Um, and we were walking around, went to, went to see a film, and we went to dinner and I was struck by something I'm struck by every summer. Everyone loves Alfresco dining. Mm-hmm. Um, and we have a few tables on the sidewalk ourselves in New Brunswick and Alfresco dining, believe it or not. In, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And for, for, we know, we have a lot of restaurant listeners and people listening across the country. New Brunswick, New Jersey is a city, is a, is a great urban success story in the, in the late sixties and early seventies and the middle seventies and the late seventies. New Brunswick was a very distressed city.

Speaker 2:

I came to, to Rutgers in 1983. If you told me in 1983 that I was opening a restaurant in, on the block we're on and, and the theater, the state theater, which is one of the largest, theaters in the state now, and does all kinds of things from Bill Cosby to, to Bruce Springsteen Springs, Bruce Yoyo, ma, you name it, every type of, program. Was a porn theater two doors down from our, from where our restaurant is right now. If you told me I was opening a restaurant on that block, I would've say, ah, get outta here. No way. I didn't even walk down that block.

Fran:

Right. And he's a big guy. Yeah. But one of the ways that the enlightened leadership in New Brunswick used to turn the city around was they invested heavily in the arts, and Johnson and Johnson invested heavily in the city as well. They partnered with the private sector. Then they took it to the next step and they made the jump from, from public to public sector driving private businesses. And New Brunswick became known as a restaurant town. And one of the things the city did to maximize the impact on the street life of New Brunswick, which was at that time very challenging. And now two bedroom apartments across the street from our restaurant go for$900,000. Unbelievable.

Speaker 2:

The penthouse is$1.6 million,

Fran:

900,000 for the not. Penthouse is just, is, is is two

Speaker 2:

bedrooms. Unbelievable.

Fran:

Um, anyway, One of the things the city wisely did back then when you could live there for 200 bucks a month, you know mm-hmm. In above an old store, um, was they made it very easy for restaurants to have a street presence. If you were a full service restaurant with at least 50 seats, you got to put tables out on the street for free. Well,

Speaker 2:

part of the reason is'cause it was a very old town with very wide sidewalks. Yes. That was one of the, one of the things that, one of the characteristics of new bra,

Fran:

and you had to leave a certain amount of footage. Why so, so wouldn't impede traffic and handicapped people could get by easily, but if you were, as so many restaurants were able to do this, you could put tables on the sidewalk, which, what does that do? That keeps good people on the street, that keeps people watching on the street. That gives people a vested interest. You're not running a gauntlet to the restaurant door. Mm-hmm. There are people outside all night long, and that really, I think, was part of the sea change of street life in New Brunswick that made people feel confident investing. Well, what

Speaker 2:

happened is, and the theater turned around, uh, before most of the restaurants in town showed up, but the theater came, came back and kind of was making itself a presence. And then two other theaters opened next to it, uh, George Street, Playhouse and Crossroads Theater. And so that area kind of became a, a little bit of a theater row, but what happened? People would come, either valet, park their car or park their car in one of the lots and they would go from immediately come to town, go to the theater and leave town. Right. And, you know, that was, that was the whole thing. They, it's, there was no,

Fran:

before theater, there was no after theater. And, and the city recognized that restaurants were gonna turn that around and some places in, in, uh, New Jersey. Um. Use, and I think unwisely, they have restaurants within the theaters. Mm-hmm. Um, now, I mean, I think that the performing arts center in Newark is a special case and they needed to do that. Um, but you know, the paper mill playoffs, I mean, I'll, I'll lodge a criticism there. They have w within the theater they have a restaurant. So what does that do for the town? Exactly. You know, I mean, and the, the restaurant is part of the theater, and so it's, you know, tax exempt, I think. I'm not sure about that, but I think it's, well,

Speaker 2:

they can only operate on theater nights there, but it doesn't create the same kind of presence that a regular restaurant does.

Fran:

But what New Brunswick did, which was much wiser, was they said, okay, the theaters are there. And we have these theaters and they'll work with the local restaurants to build actual businesses.

Speaker 2:

And they have, there's no doubt about it. The theaters and the restaurants work very well together

Fran:

anyway, so walking around the streets of New Brunswick, you see a lot, a lot of places have windows that open French doors, that open tables on the street. And I was in Manhattan, which of course you have very similar thing as you have in Paris, as you have in Vienna, as you have in all these great cities around the world. Um, but last night it was Oppressively hot. It was 80 degrees and humid, and. The, there were restaurants that had the doors open. Mm-hmm. And I just, I, I think, my god, close the damn doors. What about, what about

Speaker 2:

the people inside who were just begging for some air conditioning?

Fran:

Well, it's, you know, it's, well, that's the thing. I mean, I think people certainly want a street presence, but close the damn doors and turn on the air conditioning. And I thought, I'm not, I'm sweating out here like you wouldn't believe. Mm-hmm. And I'm not gonna go and sit in, in, in air and inside. Right. Inside, inside,

Speaker 2:

there's no breeze. There's no air movement.

Fran:

I'm not Spanish, I'm not French, I'm American. Gimme the air conditioning. You know, and you know what we do?

Speaker 2:

I want, I'm, I'm American. I want air conditioning, ice cubes and shower curtain and shower curtains. Okay? Those are the three things that I demand.

Fran:

So, but when you, when you look at what we do now, our second floor restaurant, Catherine Lombardi. Now it's obviously a second floor, so the sidewalk presence could be a real drop off. You got the window and you fall down a floor. But what we, we installed, we ripped out all the old windows. We have, uh, windows on two streets, and it's, you know, the windows are the centerpiece and it's like windows on New Brunswick. We ripped out the old windows and we put in windows that open and that was very important to us. Mm-hmm. A lot of people counseled us against that and'cause they're harder to maintain, they're more expensive, they can break. But when we open the windows on a beautiful night. It's, it's, it connects you with the street, you hear the sounds of the city. Mm-hmm. And what's it, what I like is on nights very, very often you have a day when it's just too hot and we have the air conditioning on and the windows closed, but it's seven o'clock. Things will change. Once the sun goes down, you'll get a little summer breeze and then the maitre dee will walk around to the restaurant and open all 27 windows and it just changes everything. It's like an event. And, but you know, if it's oppressively hot, close the windows, close the doors. Gimme my, gimme my air conditioner.

Speaker 2:

Right? But what's happened from that? Okay, now you see, see the, the. The city turning around because it has a street presence and the, just this past weekend, star Ledger named New Brunswick, the best restaurant town in New Jersey. Right, right. I mean that's, that's a big deal.

Fran:

The Star ledger, for those of you listening outta state, the North Star, formerly the North Star Ledger is the largest circulation daily paper in the state of New Jersey, and it's a very respected and respectable paper, and they named New Brunswick, New Jersey. You know, there are other restaurants besides ours in this little town. Mm-hmm. And you not really worth going to though. You'd probably wanna just go to ours, to our colleagues. Mark is just kidding. There are plenty of great restaurants in New Brunswick. Um, but if you look at just the exact opposite, if you look at how Newark tried to redevelop initially, they used the Gateway Center. Mm-hmm. Well, what was the Gateway Center? It was the hotel. Restaurants and shopping connected to the train station, even though there were separate buildings, right. Connected by walkway tunnels. Two stories above the street.

Speaker 2:

Right. So you could look down over Newark, but you never had to actually enter into Newark.

Fran:

Right? Right. You, you could, you could take the train to Newark, get off the train, go to one office building visit. Our attorneys, McCarter and English are, are our attorneys that are there in Gateway Center. One, go visit a restaurant in a different building, go stay at the hotel, get back on the train, go back home, and never once have set foot on the streets of the city of Newark. And New Brunswick took just exactly the opposite. And they said, listen, if you're gonna come in our city, you wanna develop our property, you're gonna put people on our streets and we're gonna support the businesses that do, which is, you know, I think a great way to turn a city around, see how great restaurants are. We'll be back in just a moment. You're, you're listening to the restaurant guys, Hello everybody and welcome back. You're listening to the Restaurant guys, mark and Francis of Stage left in Catherine Lombardi restaurants in downtown New Brunswick. Our guest today is an expert on rum. His name is Ed Hamilton, and he's probably the premier expert on RUM that we've ever come across. He's authored four books on the topic. Uh. Rums of the Eastern Caribbean is one of them. The complete guide to rum is another. Uh, he spent the last 15 years cruising on his sloop, continuously gathering data on rum history and manufacturers. He's authored four books. We met him in New York recently at the Museum of the American Cocktail Party to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the American cocktail. And he really gave us quite an education. We thought we knew what we were talking about, but. Well, we don't.

Speaker 2:

Ed, welcome to the show.

Ed:

Nice to be here.

Francis:

Now, um, you, have a kind of an obsession with rum. Why rum?

Ed:

Well, I would call it a passion from not an obsession.

Speaker 2:

All that's'cause you haven't met you, ed, all obsess,

Fran:

all obsessed people call our obsession, uh, passion. But I agree.

Ed:

Yeah. And all my friends are characters except me.

Francis:

So, so why, why rum? What, what do you, what so appeals to you about rum, particularly among the spirits. Well,

Ed:

I was, I was on my sailboat in the Caribbean, and I'm sure you've heard when you're surrounded by lemonade, lemons,

Fran:

right. Like

Ed:

lemonade.

Fran:

Right, right.

Ed:

I was surrounded by rum.

Fran:

Mm-hmm.

Ed:

Everywhere I went there was rum. And living on a sailboat without a job, uh, rum was a lot cheaper than beer Uhhuh. And, uh, so it was the natural thing to do.

Fran:

Now. Now, why don't we tell people what RUM really is? And I mean, that's not as simple an answer as, I mean, and the very simplest level rum is, fermented from, sugar, sugar king. It's, it's for, it's fermented from sugar and then distilled into a spirit. That's the basic definition of rum. But, but there are a lot of distinctions that are really important within that. Why don't we talk about some of them?

Ed:

Okay. All rum is made from sugar cane. That's the definition according to our, uh, definition. People in Washington DC that decide all these things. And every distiller wants to talk to you about the quality of the sugar cane that goes into the rum. But most rums are made from molasses. Rum can also be made from sugar cane juice, or sugar cane syrup. So given that broad definition, it will include things like. K from Brazil or molasses based spirits. But it's also worth noting that some of the big dis uh, most of the big dis distilleries, in addition to making rum from their molasses, they also make neutral spirits that they call vodka or they flavor'em and call gin, or they flavor'em and call whiskey or. All number of other things.

Fran:

What makes a, so I'm, I'm distilling from sugar cane. What, when does it become a vodka rather than a rum?

Ed:

Vodka is distilled to 95% rum, by the definition is a spirit distilled from sugar cane, either molasses, sugarcane, juice, or syrup distilled to less than 95% alcohol.

Fran:

Well now. We talk about different rums. Um, what is the difference in quality that makes, I mean, you talked specifically about rum agrico, which is, which is the top, a top level of rum? What makes a great rum? A great rum? Uh.

Ed:

Distillation, fermentation and raw ingredients. Mm-hmm. Uh, but you have to have all three of those, like in your restaurant, you can have the fresh caught fish right off the boat from the day boats, and you can throw it to a guy that just walked in that calls himself a chef, and he can make that into a terrible meal. Mm-hmm. Or you can take that same piece of fish and properly prepare it. Cook it, don't overcook it, and you end up with something that you want to come back to your restaurant for. So to say that rum agrico is best, or one rum is better than another, you really have to look at the whole process.

Speaker 2:

So is the sugar are, are there different grades of sugarcane or is it all about who's making it?

Ed:

Uh, there's. All kinds of variables. Uh, the sugar going into it is one of the ingredients, but it has to be fermented and then distilled by someone that knows what's going on. And then you've got the aging and sometimes the flavoring process that goes into it as well. So it's really hard to. Make a generalization and say, well, you know, the best one uh, comes from sugar cane juice, for example. I've tasted some rums that were made from sugar cane juice that I never wanna put in my mouth again.

Fran:

Well, now, but, so that brings us to a, a, a major distinction You make, some rums are made from sugar cane. Sugar cane juice or sugarcane syrup and other rums are made from molasses is now, what's the difference between a rum made from molasses and a rum made from sugarcane juice or sugarcane syrup?

Ed:

Okay. Think of rum as a brandy, as a sugarcane brandy. Mm-hmm. It's made from good grapes. Brandy, the best brandies are made from good grapes. The best, if you talk to the cognac people are made from only grapes grown in the cognac region and then distilled to a certain process. Imagine that. Rum is another kind of brandy, another kind of distilled spirit, and it's made from either sugar cane juice or molasses to make brandy. You make a wine and then you distill it. So imagine the difference between a sugar cane, juice wine, and a molasses wine, which is gonna make the better distilled spirit.

Fran:

I think sugar cane juice one will probably make the better distilled spirit, but it will probably be more expensive. No,

Ed:

yes, it will, but it also depends on. The expertise of the person that's distilling it.

Fran:

Mm-hmm. Now what molasses is a byproduct basically of the sugar making process, right?

Ed:

Right. When you extract sugar out of sugarcane juice, you crush the hard stalk. It's a tall grass, goes' about 10 feet in the air. Uh, you crush that, you collect the juice, and then through a process of vacuum pans and uh, centrifuge and things, you extract the crystal and sugar. In that extraction process, you concentrate everything else that was in the juice. Mm-hmm. Which includes sulfur, potassium, iron, other minerals.

Speaker 2:

Good, good and bad. You, you, you, uh,

Fran:

concentrate

Speaker 2:

everything

Fran:

and is more bad in molasses. Hey, you know, ed, we're gonna have to take a short break. We'll be back in just a moment, uh, and talk more about. This rather fascinating process of how rums really aren't all equal. And as rum becomes one of the trendiest spirits among drinkers of quality spirits, this is stuff that you should probably know. Our guest today. Is Ed Hamilton, who is probably the premier, uh, rum expert that I know of anywhere. Uh, he's written several books on rum and, uh, we were talking before about how some rum is made from molasses and some rum is made from sugarcane juice. And, uh, why don't we, can we just continue on with that, with that narrative of, of how the rum comes to be rum?

Ed:

Sure. Once you. Start out with a wine. You take the raw ingredient that has some sugar in it and you ferment it, turn it into a wine, and then you distill it. But one of the things that I found very fascinating, uh, was that the reason that rum is rum is it's made from sugar. Sucrose. Sucrose is, sugarcane is the most available source of sucrose that we have. When we make distilled spirits from grains, for example, we have to add enzymes and cook them and do all kinds of things to convert the glucose to sucrose before we can ferment. When you take out those steps and you ferment the sucrose directly, you crush the cane juice, it'll start fermenting in the field.

Speaker 2:

So you have sucrose fermenting right away,

Ed:

right away,

Fran:

and that's a good thing or a bad thing?

Ed:

Well, it's a good thing if you have it in a controlled condition right away. If you cut the cane and just lay it, lay out in the field for a couple of days, it's not real good. But you can solve that problem by making sugar out of it first, extract the sugar, end up with molasses, and then you distill. Everything out of it to like better than 90% alcohol, typically 94, 95, 90 4% alcohol. You've distilled everything out of it. You've then you start out with essentially a neutral spirit. And then you,

Speaker 2:

I mean, we don't drink rum at 90, 90% alcohol, right?

Ed:

No. But then we just dilute it to 40% alcohol and put in a bottle and call it rum.

Fran:

Well, and you know, it's very similar to the, the same problems faced by grape growers. When we talk about an estate bottled wine that's, that's bottled on the estate, um, what they do is. When if they pick those grapes and they don't go crush them right away, fermentation begins in the field in an uncontrolled way. And so that harvesting and then getting it into where you can make it into wine, same for rum as it is for making wine. You've gotta be very careful that doesn't happen in an uncontrolled way. We'll be back after the news talking with Ed Hamilton about rum. Rum. The rums that are available in America today are better than have been available in many, many years. And if you don't know much about them, you should. ed Hamilton. Is one of our favorite experts on spirits of any sort, and he's an expert on rum. He's written several books on the topic He's written, the Rums of the Eastern Caribbean and the Complete Guide to Rum. You can find out more about those books by logging onto our website, restaurant guys radio.com. But you can find it even more by just listening to the radio, so don't touch that dial

Speaker 2:

Ed, we were talking before about rums made from sugar cane versus rums made from molasses. As a consumer, how do we know which is which? How do we know by sitting out looking at the bottle on the shelf, which rum we should choose?

Ed:

The only way that you can be guaranteed that it's rum made from sugar cane juice as opposed to sugar cane, which generally implies it's a molasses based rum, is you have to find a bottle from the French Islands and it'll say Rum, agri coal, but that's not enough. Also, look for the rums Appalachian, the origin control. My French is horrible.

Speaker 2:

You did fine.

Ed:

Look for a OC. Mm-hmm. Uh, like the wines, you know, the better wines. I'll have an a OC mark on them. There are other rums that are coming to the market, uh, that have all kinds of other designations that some of them don't even exist beyond the, uh, bottlers imagin.

Fran:

You know, actually, I, I, you, you disabused me of some misinformation and I was mad because I'm, I'm pretty good about choosing labeling and I'm pretty savvy when it comes to most spirits. Uh, but I, I really admittedly don't, didn't know much about Roman and I still don't, except that I'm reading your books now. let's talk about how labels can be misleading. What They can say one thing and mean another.

Ed:

Well, the, the alcohol. Now that's called the TTV. It used to be the A TF, but they got a makeover. Uh, they have certain regulations to be called sugarcane rum, for example. Uh, isn't misleading at all. It's made from sugarcane. That product from Mount Gay is one of their better products, and although I. Like the sugarcane juice rums, uh, there are many good molasses based rums out there, and I drink a number of'em and, uh, they're on my list of favorite rums. The Malka sugarcane rum is actually a molasses based rum. In Barbados, they call it sugarcane brandy, but in the US they can't call it brandy because it's rum. So it, even though it is a molasses based rum, it's called sugarcane rum, and it is made from sugarcane. It's just not made from sugarcane juice.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm. And now, so the mount gay rum is a rum. I happen to like, okay. And it's made from molasses as opposed to, to sugarcane juice. But there are, there are some other troubling things on labels as far as rum goes. And actually, again, ed, you, you brought this to my attention, uh, the Bacardi eight. Ans now it says Bacardi eights eight ans translated means eight year aged, Bacardi. Can, can you tell me exactly what that

Ed:

means? Well, it almost translate to that ocho ans translates to eight years. Mm-hmm. It doesn't say aged eight years. It just says eight. Ans

Fran:

Yeah.

Ed:

So that in order to be an age statement, according to the TTB and the label Nazis in Washington DC it has to say aged so many years and the format is aged X years where X is the number of years. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So Bacardi eight ans is not actually eight years old.

Ed:

No. And they don't even claim it to be. Oh,

Speaker 2:

I think it's a little misleading. So what is it made by an 8-year-old? I mean, come, come on.

Ed:

It's a trade name.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, right. Well, I, I have a little, it's a trade name. My trade name is Greatest radio Personality in the world.

Fran:

And stick to it. I'll, alright, let's talk to us about, about another, um, another, uh, big difference in rums between the clear rums and, and the medium color rums and dark rums. What does that tell us about rum?

Ed:

Uh, the color really doesn't tell you much unless you read the label and know a little bit more about the rum. Uh, for example, most white rums are aged at at least some period of time if they're made from molasses, because when you distill molasses, which is high in sulfur, you have to distill it to a very high proof. And even though you distill it to a high proof, if you just bottle it right outta the still, you end up with a bite and the finish. And that's undesirable. Mm-hmm. So most distillers will age it a certain period of time, and then they'll carbon filter it to remove the color and end up with a white rum. However, if the rum comes from the French islands and says rum, agri pole, and has a OC uh, mark on it, then it is not aged at all. But it's made from sugarcane, juice, wine. Mm-hmm. As opposed to molasses, so it doesn't have that sulfur bite.

Fran:

And, and what about the dark rums, like the, like the myers dark rum? Where does that color come from?

Ed:

Uh, from copious amounts of caramel coloring.

Speaker 2:

You know, I always And the coloring, that would be the same stuff they put in Coca-Cola, right?

Ed:

Yes. Very

Fran:

similar. Is there a way to make a rum that dark naturally?

Ed:

Uh, not really. It can be aged. And one of the other problems when you age, uh, spirits, typically the molasses based rums come out of the, still at more than 90% alcohol. They're aged at about 80% alcohol and used, uh, bourbon and whiskey barrels. Mm-hmm. When it comes out of the barrel, it's somewhere 75, 70 8% alcohol. When those rums are bottled, they're bottled at 40% alcohol. So you're diluting the alcohol, you're also diluting the color.

Fran:

Well, let me throw out, because this is, this is a process. The diluting of the alcohol is a process called rectification, and I will always remember that in France, whenever I went to visit a place where they were distilling brandy or armc or cognac, um, they were very concerned about rectifying the spirit very slowly, a little bit every day to. Bring that spirit down. And then I went, uh, to, to visit my friend, Colonel Elmer t Lee in, in Kentucky, in Frankfurt, Kentucky. And we, we, we toured some bourbon distilleries and they do their rectification like all in one. They just, if it's, if it's 80 proof and they want it to be 40 proof, they half water throw in half water that day is, and what, what struck me. But the French say is that you shouldn't rectify very quickly because then you make the distillery smell good, but you're taking a lot of the smell out of the, out of the spirit. Whereas the, the Kentuckians are like, oh, just put the water in there. Doesn't matter. There's some smell in there already. What do you think?

Ed:

I think it needs to be done slowly, but it also depends on the water, which is one of the reasons that I feel it's very important to buy a distilled spirit that's made, that's bottled at the distillery. Mm-hmm. Where the people care there, you're gonna get. Something that's been diluted or rectified with the real water, with the best water that they can find. Mm-hmm. In Kentucky, they're known for their water, and that's one of the reasons to make Kentucky bourbons and whiskeys so good. Uh, if that spirit is being shipped in bulk to a third party, his whole goal in life is to get that high proof spirit in one door. Get it in bottles and out the other door.

Speaker 2:

And you guy, any, any of our listeners have heard us say this a thousand times. Water is an ingredient. Okay. It's a very, very important ingredient. And, and again, I'll say it's an important ingredient in those, in those New York City bagels. It's an important ingredient in the Kentucky bourbon. It's an important ingredient in the Italian pasta. It is a very, very important ingredient.

Fran:

But, but I will tell you that I was at, I was at the distillery, I was at ancient age and when they were rectifying and, and throughout Kentucky, the way they. As far as I know, they don't rectify slowly in Kentucky. And one of the, one of the things they say in, in that people who rectify slowly say is when you put water into a spirit very quickly, you release a lot of the aromas. And one of the things that I've always been taught, and I really, that I always practice is no matter how great the spirit to drop in a little bit of ice or a little bit of water in your glass, if you're drinking it straight, really releases the nose. Does that happen with rum? How, how should we drink rum?

Ed:

Absolutely. Well, good rums you drink on the rocks. Uh, the old aged rums. Mm-hmm. Uh, the younger rums I mix in with the French rums. I mix in a drink called a tea punch, a petite punch with a little bit of sugarcane syrup and a little slice of lime could compliment the rum not to cover it up. Mm-hmm. Uh, there are other sugarcane juice spirits like TOAs, which, uh, tasted some very good ones. Uh, I've tasted others that I really don't care to drink, but when you make a kaiper universally, you add a lot of sugar and a lot of lime, we, there's a reason for that.

Fran:

We're gonna give you the recipe for Nia when we come back. We'll be back in just a moment. Uh, Kini is a drink. It's from Brazil, and it's made with a very particular kind of rum called Kasa. We know a lot of people that make it with. Uh, regular rum with other kinds of rum. Uh, but we'll give you the recipe for that on the air and, and we'll put it up on our website in just a moment. Our, our, our, later on today, our guest is Ed Hamilton. He's an, he's an expert on rum. He's written several books on rum and, and we'll be talking more with him about the topic in just a moment. Hey everybody. Welcome back. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, mark and Francis. Our guest today is Ed Hamilton. He is, uh, an expert in rum. He's the founder of the Ministry of Rum and he spent the last 15 years cruising on his sloop, continuously gathering data on rum history and manufacturers. It's a hell of a job, but somebody's gotta do it.

Speaker 2:

And a moment ago, we, we were talking about kisa versus rum and, a nice gentleman brought me a, uh, a kisa from Rio de Janeiro. It almost had a, a green hue to it. Very, very interesting kisa. But maybe you could tell us a little bit of the difference between these two products, rum and Kisa.

Ed:

Well, in the US. Uh, KSA is called RUM in Brazil. KSA is called ksa. And in order to be called rum, it has to have some, uh, component of a molasses based spirit blended with it. KSA differs from the rums that we know most of the other rums that we know. In that it is distilled to about 40, 45% alcohol by volume. Mm-hmm. Which means that it has, uh, quite a bit of residual FU oils and other things that, uh, weren't distilled out of it. Mm-hmm. There are somewhere over around 30,000, uh, different people making K in Brazil. So there's a lot of variation in the quality and. And how it's done.

Speaker 2:

We have seen a lot of variation. Some, some of the KSAs that are available in the American market gasoline are gasoline. No. I'd rather actually gasoline's much better. Yeah,

Fran:

well you were talking about a drink before called the Caina. And a caina is uh uh, the traditional drink of Brazil and the, what you do with that is you basically take some sugar. Uh, some limes, about half a lime in the bottom of a Collins glass, and you just muddle with sugar in the limes all together. And it's important to use the whole limes because when you do that, you get the juice of the lime, but you also get a little bit of oil from the outside of the skin. And you get a little bitterness from the pith of the, of the lime

Speaker 2:

and cut your limes into wedges like you, like You would hang'em on the edge of a

Fran:

drink and you muddle that all together. And then you pour, traditionally you pour kasa on top of that. There's the drink everybody, and you just, well, you gotta shake it and you shake it like the dickens. And so you get a lot of melt in there. And it's related to a daiquiri, actually similar to a daiquiri. Um, but we, if KSA is a little rough for you, you can make that same drink with rum. I'll tell you, it's a very powerful drink and it doesn't taste like it. So be very careful. So Ed, what's your feeling on cocktail rum cocktails overall,

Ed:

I love rum cocktails.

Fran:

What's not

Ed:

to love about Rum cocktail?

Fran:

Nothing. But can people ruin, I mean, do people, do you see people sometimes taking a rum that's really too good to make into a cocktail and making it into a cocktail?

Ed:

Uh, absolutely. I see people making, taking good rum and mixing it with a lot of really bad ingredients. Mm-hmm. And I meet people all the time, I'm sure you do too, that say, oh, we only use fresh ingredients and fresh juices and all this, and then they pour in some horrible rum in on top of it. Mm-hmm. Or worship, some flavored molasses based rum that shouldn't even be called rum. Yeah.

Fran:

You know, one of the things that we, when we talk about cocktails all the time, I mean, and sort of the pretender to the throne. Cocktail bars are all about vodka based drinks. Vodka doesn't taste like anything. Okay? And so when you make a cocktail out of vodka, it's for somebody who doesn't want to taste any liquor. And that's sort of a cocktail. It's sort of not. It's, it's a cocktail for someone who doesn't really like to drink liquor. Um, and I guess that's one school of thought, but the real cocktails, the Dale Degra of the world, the Audrey Saunders of the world, the Gary Regans of the world. Um. You make a drink with rum or gin or whiskey, and that becomes opponent a component of the final flavor of the cocktail because you, it's part of the character of the cocktail

Speaker 2:

you

Fran:

want. It's not just for the alcohol, it

Speaker 2:

is for the flavor that's in that and, and

Fran:

in the summertime especially, you're looking for the flavor of the rum to be part of the flavor of that final cocktail. I mean, do you, don't you find that to be the case, ed?

Ed:

Absolutely. And I feel very fortunate to have been able to be served by, uh, some great people all over the country. You know, in, in the islands. I typically drank a couple of different cocktails. One is a tea punch and uh, I don't really remember what the other one was.

Fran:

Well now you, um, in the tea punch, you, you talk about sugar cane syrup, and you really gave us a revelation when we met at the, at the Museum of the American Cocktail event. You said, oh, you've never had the, the true cane syrup.'cause we use simple syrup in the restaurant all the time, which is simple. Syrup is just sugar water. That, that, if you really wanna make great cocktails, you have to have behind your bar. But then you sent us some, some cane syrup. Tell us the difference about those two ingredients and, and how they might be used differently and what makes a cane syrup special.

Ed:

Well, real cane syrup. Uh, when I started bringing, uh, rum, agrico to the US and drinking it here in the US I was looking for a good cane syrup and so I had everybody that I could find send me a bottle of their syrup because I really didn't wanna import cane syrup. Nothing tasted like sugar cane. Everything that I found. Either tasted like nothing, uh, like sugar, water, or molasses. Uh, the cane syrup that I sent you is made in Martinique by a traditional method. That's the way they do it. They start out with raw sugar cane sugar. And it in the sugar making process, there are many different, uh, grades of sugar. This is the first sugar that comes off and basically it's the first stable sugar. When they reconstitute that with water and make it into a syrup, it's 68% sugar. Sugar is a preservative. Mm-hmm. And years ago they called it preserved. She took any kind of fruit or anything and made it put lot of sugar with it. It was a preserved so. What you have is 68% sugar. You can put it on the counter, leave the top off it. The fruit flies will come in, but it isn't gonna ferment because it's got so much sugar in it.

Fran:

And then you'll have preserved fruit flies if they get stuck in there. Yeah,

Ed:

and they're good. Taste the protein and all that.

Fran:

We'll not do that here, but thanks for the advice on that one. We'll put the top the cap on. Put the tap on the bottle. But it's good to know,

Ed:

but it gives you, it adds a lot of flavor to the drink besides. Being sweetener, but it also doesn't dilute the drink. Mm-hmm. Because you only use a little bit. Well, I started doing, uh, tea punches in New York. Bartenders said, we've gotta know how much.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm.

Ed:

And so I poured some of the glass and I said that much. And then they couldn't pour it outta the glass to measure it.

Fran:

Oh. Because it was

Speaker 2:

so thick. Because it has a density. And like, uh,

Fran:

we have to take a, we have to take a short break. We'll be back in just a moment with, uh, rum expert Ed Hamilton. We were talking at the break about cocktails and, and, uh, ed has a great, good fortune of being able to live his life, uh, on a sloop in the Caribbean. But you, you, we were talking about the state of the cocktail in the United States and, and what's your perspective on rum and cocktails at.

Ed:

They're getting much better

Fran:

in America.

Ed:

Right. Uh, now when you ask for rum, the bartender doesn't automatically hand you rum and coke. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which is a good thing. And then I found

Speaker 2:

anything, anything, not giving you anything mixed with Coke is a good thing. Right.

Ed:

Well, then traveling around the country, uh, I was introduced to all kinds of wonderful cocktails by people that took this all very seriously. And of course, I've been to Audrey's place and you know, the things that come out across Audrey Saunders

Speaker 2:

is the Peggy Club.

Ed:

Right. Everything that comes across that bar is phenomenal.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Ed:

But then I found other people in other bars like the brand new library. I was just blown away by the quality of the rum cocktails, and now wherever I go, people say, well, ed, you know, try this.

Fran:

We only have, we only have about a minute left, but can you tell us what, at the, at the Brandy Library, what, what's the cocktail that blew you away? Be

Ed:

kiss

Fran:

what's in a bees kiss.

Ed:

Beas kiss is cream, a little bit of honey, and it used to be made with white rum and dark rum. Now they're using an aged rum from Martinique, and then they dust it to whip it all up, shake it with ice, pour a champagne glass and then dust it with freshly grated cinnamon.

Speaker 2:

Nice.

Fran:

Wow. What's the age rum for Martinique that they're using?

Ed:

My favorite Eat Rum view.

Fran:

Okay. We're gonna go and have one of those for lunch. Uh, ed, thanks for being on the show. It was great to have you talking about rum. Will you come back and talk with us about rum again? Sure. Super. Thanks so much Ed. Ed Hamilton. You can find out more about him. You can find out the recipes for Bees Kiss. You can find out a couple of other RUM cocktail recipes on our website, restaurant guys radio.com. Or you can come into Catherine Lombardi at our cocktail bar where we make a bunch of these. And, uh, just fascinating, fascinating topic. I hope that you've enjoyed listening to us this hour. I love Rome. I do too. You know, I do too. And, and this, this organization, the Ministry of Rome. I feel like we should have done two shows with, I wish we had a two hour show, because this is actually pretty interesting stuff and it's, and it's new to me because I, I know about a lot of kinds of spirits and learning about Rome is, is, is fairly new, but I'll have to leave that for another day. I hope you've enjoyed the hour listening to the restaurant. Guys. I'm Francis Sean. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys. Central Jersey 1450 to time is 12 noon.