Published: March 08, 2008 01:05 pm      

Scoping out both birds and rum

Birding with Jerry Hall

In a couple of weeks I’ll be off on a trip to Nicaragua. I’m hoping to learn a lot about the history and culture of the country. I look forward to seeing some marvelous birds — white-fronted parrot, collared trogan, cinnamon hummingbird, keel-billed motmot and three-wattled bellbird, to name just a few.

And let’s be honest, I’m also looking forward to visiting a rum factory. That will come on day six of the trip when our group tours the Flor de Cana distillery in Chichigalpa.

According to the provided travel notes, this factory creates some of the world’s best aged rums. I plan some extensive taste-testing if free samples are provided, knowing it is my bounden duty to report back to you just how good the rum really is.

Not that I am a serious lover of rum. I’ve had a small bottle of Castillo gold Puerto Rican rum in my liquor cabinet for at least 17 years and have yet to finish it off. But perhaps a finer brand will make a difference. Flor de Cana must be doing something right, they’ve been in business since 1890 and have won 42 international awards in the past three years.

I visited the rum maker’s website and learned they harvest sugar cane in November and make raw molasses which is eventually placed in fermenting tanks where yeast converts sugar in the molasses to two products – alcohol and carbon dioxide. Rum comes from the distillery in a clear and colorless form. Barrel aging and the use of added caramel (burnt sugar) determines the final color – white, gold or dark.

The factory is Kosher-certified and their rum is aged in small, white oak barrels under natural climactic conditions. They use the barrels only once. Which raises an important question – what happens to all those used oak barrels? I intend to find out.

In Martinique, by the way, they often age rum in used French brandy casks, a neat bit of recycling. Maybe the used barrels from Nicaragua go to France to be used as brandy casks.

I also want to find out what happens to all the crystallized sugar that is extracted from the molasses. Does Flor de Cana perhaps sell sugar as a sideline?

Rum has been around since the 1650s, when it was first discovered the waste liquid left from making sugar would ferment into a potent drink – originally called Kill Devil by the English. The British navy adopted a daily ration of a half-pint of 160 proof rum in the 1730’s. This drink was later modified by mixing it with an equal amount of water and called grog. The grog ration was a staple of British naval life until 1969.

One of Flor de Cana’s super-premium rums is Centenario, which is aged 15 years, is 80 proof and colored dark mahogany. I’m told it is best enjoyed neat or on the rocks and sipped delicately. You know it must cost a pretty penny because it comes boxed with a velvet pouch. Maybe I could offer my 17-year old rum as a trade-in.

If you are not a big rum drinker, you still may enjoy another product made possible by Flor de Cana. They provide the rum used in making the Pepper Patch Rum Raisin Cake, a big seller on the website www.pepperpatch.com.

And if rum, birds, culture and history are of no interest to you, don’t despair. In Esteli, a cool and pleasant mountain town near the Honduran border, we’ll visit a tobacco processing plant and see how cigars are made. I’ll provide a full report.

Stay tuned.