ONCE UPON a time, rum was the most popular spirit in America.
Thanks to a number of factors — most notably the detrimental effects of prohibition — interest in the Noble Spirit declined, and for some time, when Americans reach for a spirit — it’s typically vodka or whiskey.
That’s starting to change, however. The Mojito has become one of the country’s most popular cocktails; rum has a prominent place in the mixological quivers of bartenders across the country and more and more consumers are looking for refined, aged spirits that don’t necessarily cost them a house.
In Martinique, as in the rest of the Caribbean region, rum’s popularity has never waned. Martinique’s rhum is largely unique in the region: and not just due to the “h.” The difference is that, unlike the vast majority of its Caribbean brethren, rhum, or rhum agricole, is made from fermented sugar cane juice — not from molasses, a byproduct of sugarcane.
