#9 February 2014

The Far East Rum Diary - Le Journal du Rhum d'Extrême-Orient

February 2014 Web Edition

The Far East Rum Diary (TFERD) is a collection of "rum worthy" news and events taking in place and beyond Asia written by Philippe K.A. Buchle, French Rum Ambassador based in Hong Kong.

This week
Rum Tasting Event

New Rums
From Mauritius
and Reunion

COCKTAIL
CHALLENGE

Rum Tasting + Live Band

When: Friday February 21st, 2014, 7 pm - Where: Les Boules Cafe Petanque, HK

We have decided to start Spring early this year with our first tasting event of the year.

We are going back to Les Boules - Cafe Petanque (18 Woo Hop Street, Shek Tong Tsui, Hong Kong), located between the Traders Hotel and The Westwood shopping arcade from 7 pm till late.

Join us and enjoy sipping one of the best spirit available only in selected venues in town while listening to live music in the presence of Philippe Buchle, the French Rum Ambassador.

New Rums from Mauritius and Reunion

Last August we were in Mauritius attending the first Mauritian rum festival. Our schedule was quite tight and we were unable to visit the nearby island of Reunion which was just 200 km away.

This time we decided to spend more time in Reunion to catch up with the three main distillers. We planned to spend some time in Mauritius too but the weather decided otherwise. Our plane got grounded in Hong Kong due to a cyclone in Mauritius.

A glimpse of Mauritius Rums

Tasting Counter at Mauritius Airport. Photo by Rhum De France.

All was not lost however. During our transit in Mauritus we discovered the new modern airport and the duty free area featuring a tasting counter located just after the control point.

On the photos left we can see a couple of bottles of
La Bourdonnais, Pink Pigeon by MEDINE, a few rums and liqueurs by CHAMAREL as well as a bottle of St AUBIN.

Mauricia Tamarind Liqueur by GRAYS. Photo by Rhum De France.

Mauricia and New Grove. Photo by Rhum De France.

We also spend time checking the extensive offer of duty free rums from several rums, liqueurs and punch makers. We discovered something really exotic while browsing the shelves. Most of you may not know what tamarind is, I grew up eating and sometimes drinking this brown fruit (or sometimes jam) mixed with sugar and water. The tamarind wood is also appreciated for its quality. It was a bit of a surprise to find a tamarind liqueur called Mauricia produced by GRAYS. I wish it was available for tasting.

Old and New Rums from Reunion Island

The lunar landscape inside "Piton De La Fournaise", Reunion's famous active volcano. Photo by Rhum De France.

A view of the island interior. Photo by Rhum De France.

A view of Reunion's coastline. Photo by Rhum De France.

In contrast with the relative monotonous yet outstanding landscape of Mauritius, Reunion island offers a drastically different experience as seen in the pictures above. Despite the fact that Reunion was the birthplace of the rum industry in the Mascarene archipalego (c.f. A Brief History of French Rhum) the "intense island" is now behind Mauritius in terms of number of distillers but not necessary in terms of products. The four pillars of Reunion rum are CHATEL, ISAUTIER, RIVIERE DU MAT and SAVANNA. Only Isautier produces a full line of rhum agricole (up to 20 years old), Chatel does not and the two others have a less than five rhum agricoles together. They are all producing molasses rum called "rhum traditionnel". Chatel is now the biggest rum producer in France following the acquisition of the "Rhum Charette" Brand (with about 5 million litres per year). Chatel and Isautier have been competing fiercely in the punch and liqueurs market, together they must have over a hundred products for the consumers to select.