The rum industry is as diverse as it is delicious. Over the past few years, there’s been a steady increase in world rums that are demonstrating the unique characteristics of the country they come from. For example, Mexico might not be the first place you think of when it comes to rum but there are interesting rum-blings happening out in the birthplace of tequila and mezcal.
Charles Koutris and Melanie Symonds, the founders of Camaztoz Rum, are on a mission to showcase the beauty of Mexican rum. Both have already made a lasting impact in the world of agave spirits with Quiquiriqui mezcal. Rum was a natural next step for them because of Mexico’s abundance of sugarcane.
Developing Oaxacan rum
Koutris and Symonds were inspired to develop Camazotz while out in Oaxaca, working with mezcal. They noticed a few different bottles of aguardiente de cana (sugarcane spirit) starting to pop up in mezcal bars, and noticed only one brand was being exported. After searching for samples, they tasted a lot of aguardiente made with industrial methods and couldn’t find much in the way of handmade traditional styles.
Then, on a chance encounter at a palenque, Koutris and Symonds found handmade samples from the Sierra Mixe region. This sparked an idea. So, they travelled into the lush Sierra Mixe on a mission to meet the producer Leoncio Gaspar.
Koutris vividly recalls arriving. “We got to the house at 7.30 in the morning. Leoncio’s daughter was there to greet us. She went into the house with a megaphone to the edge of the mountain and screamed her father’s name. An hour later, Leoncio came back up the mountain with a couple of mules and a horse, which turned out were for us.
We trekked with Leoncio back down the mountain that didn’t have any roads or traditional access points. Our legs felt like spaghetti halfway through and after two and a half hours we reached his ranch which was like something out of a storybook. The ranch sat in the middle of a sugarcane field and we saw another mule moving around a 100-year-old sugarcane press. We were blown away.”
This was the beginning of Camazotz, a rum made through natural methods and distilled in a copper pot. After six months of thorough research, Camazotz was ready to go to market, only for lockdown to happen, which slowed progress. Once lockdown ended, the brand started to pick up and has since become one of the most intriguing spirit products to come out of Mexico in the last several years.
The inspiration for the name comes from the Mesoamerican legend about Camazotz, a death bat god associated with decapitation and blood sacrifice. In the Maya legend of The Hero Twins, who descend into the underworld to take on the Lords of Death, Camazotz was said to have decapitated one of the twins during their stay in the Bat House.
Picture credit: coolchile.co.uk
The mechanics of Mexican rum
Camazotz is one of only a few brands leading the charge with Mexican rum, a category split into two types. It’s worth noting that Mexican sugarcane rums are closer to rums found on Caribbean islands like Guadeloupe and Martinique because they are made with fermented sugarcane juice instead of molasses.
This is where the first type comes, which is called aguardiente and has similar flavours to agricole rums. Most of this style comes from the mountains of Oaxaca. The second type is called charanda which refers to the red volcanic soil in which the sugarcane grows. This style can be made with either molasses or fermented sugarcane juice. Charanda has a protected appellation of origin (AO) and it can only be produced in 16 municipalities within Michoacan.
Koutris and Symonds believe that it’s only a matter of time before Oaxacan rum is given its own AO, with the Mexican government wanting to have a certain amount of control in the same way that it does with tequila and mezcal. This could have both positive and negative consequences in the long run, but there’s no doubt that Mexican rum as a category is growing.
Are there any countries you can think of producing unique versions of established spirits? Do you think that a story of a specific brand should be shared and spotlighted?
Write in to infodrinktothat@gmail.com and let me know.
