10 Cane

The auto industry in Europe is hurting.  Since the scrappage schemes barely holding volume producers up have expired, manufacturing plants on the continent have been operating at under 80% capacity with the possibility of falling even further.  GM is weighing its options for getting out of Opel-Vauxhall even though restrictive labour laws mean closing it could cost roughly €8 billion.  But some car makers are doing well.  The premium brands are making a killing off of the newly minted wealthy in developing countries.  What we're left with is a market in which the modern decedents of the Yugo can barely turn a profit while Mercedes Benz is sitting pretty.  It looks weird but we've seen it many times before (think growing craft beer sales in a contracting beer industry), albeit for diffuse causes.  Rob Bryans, VP of the 10 Cane brand hopes this industry makeup will prevail for liquor through the recession.  10 Cane has put a lot of effort into developing a production process that will differentiate itself from other rums for the better.  Bryans claims this has provided some insulation from market forces.  Always interested in the purported "finer things" in life, I pulled out a snifter and put it to use on a drink closer to what it was originally made for.

When a rum producer wants to go for the top shelf, he will usually fiddle with the aging process.  This spirit goes the other way, focusing instead on the up front inputs.  Instead of using molasses like most companies, 10 Cane uses (can you guess it?) first pressed sugar cane.  The fermentation takes about five days, which means it's a lighter bodied rum.  The brand touts a double distillation but it seems like distilling twice is just as special as adding hops three times.  To claim that as a mark of quality is pure marketing.  After the distillation, it goes into oak barrels for a year, which is where it gains its yellowish tinge and supposedly picks up vanilla notes.  If the tasty crystalized bean made an appearance in what I drank, it definitely wasn't like what you'd find in a vanilla porter or other such beer.  It mostly acted as a softening element, yielding a smoothness I had not before experienced with rum.

10 Cane has received good reviews from liquor professionals but also meh reviews from forum posters.  One blogger probably fingered the culprit when he gave 10 Cane 3 out of 10 as a rum but 7 out of 10 as a cachaça.  To that I say "Are you kidding me?"  You have to be able to enjoy something on its own merits, not what you expect.  If Greg Koch hadn't given that very advice to Steve Wagner when he messed up a batch of pale ale, we'd have no Arrogant Bastard today.  Overall, this Trinidadian liquor was quite pleasing and I would highly recommend it.  But what do I know?  I'm a beer guy.