Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SUMMER SPIRITS: Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Nothing beats a drink with cold rum in the summertime

The Tangerine Mojito -- a featured drink at Tangerine at Treasure Island -- is a new twist on a cocktail that has enjoyed enormous popularity in recent years. Photo by Ralph Fountain. Fruit flavors are enlivening rum drinks much as they have vodka, as in the Bing cherry daiquiri, right, shown with a daiquiri at Teatro at MGM Grand. Photo by John Locher.

It's summertime, and the living is rummy.

There's something about rum-based cocktails that links them inexorably to the hot, sunny months. Maybe it's because so many are umbrella drinks, whether in fact or spirit -- sweet, complex formulas that perfectly complement a lazy day at the beach. Maybe it's because so many of them contain tropical ingredients such as coconut, pineapple or lime. Or because, by virtue of its easy sweetness, rum was, for most of us, the perfect coming-of-age (or coming-of-fake-ID) liquor, therefore evoking fond memories of the summer of '42 -- or '72 or '92.

Avi Haksar, director of beverage for MGM Grand, thinks it's because rum originated in the islands where sugar cane is plentiful, and when we think of tropical islands, we think of summer.

Whatever the reason, rum is becoming more popular at any time of the year.

"People are enjoying rum a little better," Haksar said. "I don't think rum will overtake vodka, by any chance. Vodka is very easy to play with. But rum has become extremely popular with the advent of the mojito."

The mojito, with its lime and mint, was mainly a Latin favorite until it washed into American bars like a tidal wave a few years ago. But classic rum-based cocktails have had a wide following for a long time.

"The original daiquiri -- rum, lime, fresh powdered sugar -- there's nothing better than that," Haksar said. "Fresh sours, with maraschino liqueurs, it's coming back a little bit."

Still, when it came to rum, "I don't think people knew what to make of it. It was connoted in the old days with pirates and stuff. In the old days, rum was just so harsh. Today, people are using rums and they're getting more educated about the drink, like vodka a few years ago."

And, as has been the case with vodka, "there's so many flavors out there," he said. "That's where the trend is going. We have everything from peach to pomegranate. I've seen pineapple, I've seen vanilla. They're basically trying to get rum to where vodka is, and I think one of the ways to do it is all these different flavors."

Haksar said most rum is aged before it's bottled, with the aging done immediately after distillation, usually in oak barrels. Many countries and regions produce rum. So which is best?

"There's so many places -- from Guadalupe to Martinique, Cuba, Barbados, it's very difficult to say," Haksar said. "Puerto Rico, Jamaica. It depends on your taste. Do you like light? Do you like dark? There's a lot of countries that make it, and a lot of good rum out there."

Haksar said light rum tends to be most popular because its more neutral flavor makes it easy to mix with other ingredients.

"The dark rums are basically aged in barrels that held whiskey or bourbon previously," he said. "Once you put that in there, you get that smoky flavor. Aging can last from one year to 30 years. The rum acquires a golden color."

Which is the case with Las Vegas-based Montecristo Rum. No, sugar cane doesn't grow in the desert, so company president Tim Haughinberry uses Guatemala as a source.

Haughinberry said he chose the product, which launched in March 2002, because rum was a category that wasn't oversaturated. He saw the growing popularity of flavored rums and, as a sommelier, knew that there was a market for a rum that instead obtained subtle flavor notes through blending and aging, in the nature of a fine scotch.

"I wanted to launch something of quality," Haughinberry said.

He went to Guatemala with a spirits chemist and tried 60 to 80 rums "with different ages on them. I blended the products that I liked a lot and we brought those back and I held a blind tasting with five sommeliers." The other products involved in the tasting, he said, were in the category of premium aged rum.

Haughinberry said his fledgling product was preferred. "We went back to Guatemala, played with it again -- very little. Brought it back to America and launched it." The final product is a blend of 12- and 23-year-old aged rums.

The response has been gratifying for Haughinberry. He said the second or third month after Montecristo Rum was launched, Wine & Spirits magazine named it rum of the year. Then Wine Enthusiast gave it a 95 rating, and it won a double-gold award in the aged category in the San Francisco Spirits Competition.

"Details this month named us best rum," he said. "I just got a call that the Robb Report is doing a thing on it in September. The quality really does work. It's just getting the word out, because you don't have the mass advertising dollars."

But just because Montecristo isn't touted as a "flavored" rum doesn't mean it doesn't have the spice of those that are.

"What takes (another rum company) a week to blend takes me 12 years to age," Haughinberry said. "You can almost create a naturally spiced rum."

Its very nature presents a challenge for Montecristo. Those subtle flavor notes mean it's primarily a sipping rum, and only 2 percent of rum consumers are sippers. The other 98 percent mix. Haughinberry noted that rum and cola is the most popular cocktail in the world.

"The flavored segment is booming in every category," he said. "My philosophy is that the baby boomer generation has had their kids. The Generation X segment is on fire. The first thing that's going to appeal to that younger consumer is sweet. The trend is to offer sweeter drinks in every category to the new consumer who is entering the drinking demographic."

At the same time, "the baby boomers are retiring, which gives you higher demographics of sippers. You see all the older brands. They're just not as popular as these young, fresh, fruity drinks."

Which is precisely why Allied Domecq, maker of Kahlua, introduced Kuya Fusion Rum, a blended rum with added spices and citrus flavors. It's specifically designed to blend with cola.

Virginia Morris, director of Kahlua and Kuya for Allied Domecq, said the former is rum-based as well. And the company also makes Malibu rums, known for flavors such as mango and pineapple ("Malibu mango and 7UP is great," Morris said.)

For Kuya, she said, "we started with the base rum of Kahlua and then added imported rums and citrus and spice." The result, she said, has vanilla, spice, and lemon and lime overtones and appeals to the 21- to 29-year-old male demographic.

"In that age group, they're very into going out clubbing," she said. "They drink a lot of products with Coke. We made sure we had a product that was well-suited to mix with Coke -- or Pepsi."

To try to capture some of the other 98 percent of the rum market, Haughinberry is encouraging Montecristo's use as a mixer.

There's a precedent, he said. After Haughinberry graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and went to work at Southern Wine and Spirits, he said, the premium tequila Patron hit the U.S. market, and he and his friends and co-workers would sip it. Then they started mixing it into margaritas.

When the premium Grey Goose, Belvedere and Chopin vodkas hit, "the martini phase came back," he said. "It grew into Cosmopolitans, and grew into people buying Grey Goose and tonics for $12.

"When you do have a product and it is quality, first come the connoisseurs, and then hopefully the brand sticks where the product's so good that they don't mind selling it as a mixed cocktail."

For his part, Haksar hopes rum continues to grow in popularity.

"I hope it takes over vodka," he said. "I personally like rum."