How do you retain or add sweetness to rum?

[welly]

I've made two rums now, one of them quite tasty after ageing for 6 months with oak staves. The other is in a barrel ageing. Also quite tasty but will be much better once it's had some time. One of the commercial rums I have in my booze cabinet and particularly like is a bottle of Pampero Aniversario.

It is fairly sweet to the taste, much more so than my rums. I wondered how you get that sweetness in a rum? Do they back sweeten it with some kind of sugar or is the sugar somehow retained during the distillation process? Or perhaps the ageing in whatever barrels they age it in adds to the sweetness?

Is there something us small scale rum producers can do to add back a bit of sweetness to balance and perhaps enhance the molasses and dark sugar flavours in the rum?

[Yummyrum]

The longer my Rum stays in the barrel , the sweeter it gets .
However , it is a well known fact that lot if not most Commercial Rums are back sweetened with Distillers Caramel . Not only does it add sweetness but also colour .

[Yummyrum]

Check this out

viewtopic.php?p=7641152&sid=f2135a99824 ... 1#p7641152

[jonnys_spirit]

I’ve got some Rat Bastard Rumski that’s been in a badmo for maybe over a year and the sweetness comes out over time. I apparently liked it early and drank a bunch but it’s way different after a good while. The sweetness certainly smooths it out. I didn’t add anything other than a used BadMo and 12-18 months.

Cheers!
-j

[LWTCS]

You'll out grow the sweetness on your tongue vibe of some of those back sweetened rums.
They are on par with fireball and doughball type of kiddie likker.
Should be sweet on your pallet aromatically speaking. Not sweet on your tongue.

On the otherhand, Drink it how you like it.

[NZChris]

Most commercial rums you can buy are blends. I suspect that single barrel rums are pretty rare except for in home distiller's sheds.

On bottling day, I choose a blend from several old and young jars, and have to decide whether or not to add caramel and/or glycerol and how much. The older your rum is, the less need there is for additions.

I make my own caramel.

[JAMAWG]

Its not just rum. Many brandies, calvados, mead, ciders and even some beers are back sweetened. Not to mention cold filtering. Most adult beverages have some sort of extras to them. Pure off the still, or brewing, untouched as is, is very rare with store bought products. So just have fun and mess around until you like it! Me personally I add fresh citrus and home made caramel to my rum. Then let it sit for a while.

[welly]

Thanks all! That's a bit of food (or rum) for thought! I've still enjoyed drinking my first rum after 6 months on wood but just looking for other ways of adding flavour. Seems like age is one of the best ways although I'll have a good read of the post shared by Yummyrum, looks like it might have some ideas worth trying out.

Cheers!

[goose eye]

Best way of friggin it out is doin it.
Get you a wee bit of dark brown sugar and then light brown sugar then table sugar and then beadin oil.
Now figure how to clear it gone.

So I'm tole

[Windy City]

I make several rums. And besides my spiced rum I do not back sweeten any of them.
I have a nice collection of higher end commercial rums and to be honest the back sweetening kind of pisses me off because it is covering up the true flavors.
I make a black label rum that is aged bourbon style in a new American white oak charred barrel for three to four years in a 12 gallon barrel. It is a very bourbonesque rum but is naturally sweeter than bourbon. I know there are many on this forum that would disagree on aging this way but the finished product is great.
My blue label rum is also aged for three to four years but in my used bourbon barrels. A product aged in a used barrel will end up sweeter with more carmels and toffee and much less oak tannins.
This is my premium rum and is a great sipper.

[Bolverk]

I dont back sweeten. If you're not adding any bitter/ nastiness from your cut jars it's really not needed.

[Saltbush Bill]

I'm going to agree with the No Sugar folk.
Good aged Rum doesn't need back sweetening or caramel added.
I see both of the above as a short cut used in the commercial world to compensate for minimum ageing times in barrels that have been used many times over.
What Rum does need is patience, you wont get good colour and flavour in Rum without time and a decent barrel or Oak sticks.

20230620_160938~2.jpg (23.18 KiB) Viewed 1818 times

[LWTCS]

I'm going to agree with the No Sugar folk.
Good aged Rum doesn't need back sweetening or caramel added.
I see both of the above as a short cut used in the commercial world to compensate for minimum ageing times in barrels that have been used many times over.
What Rum does need is patience, you wont get good colour and flavour in Rum without time and a decent barrel or Oak sticks.
20230620_160938~2.jpg

I feel most well known rum eficionados generally poopoo back sweetening. That's not to say that there isn't a place for Pampero or Zaya.
The famed Don Pancho took all kinds of criticism from the rum snob community several years ago because he denied that he was back sweetening some of his marks.
Why would he deny that when clearly some of those rums were far too sweet to be that sweet with no additives? Because himself may have been embarassed in retrospect?
Dunno? But was a big uproar from the purists.
Back sweetening is evidently more common in Latin rum producing regions.

I'd say to the commercial guys to just be honest about what's in the bottle. Who really gives a shit at the end of the day. Drink what you like.

[Bolverk]

I haven't actually done this myself, but I recently saw something where people will add a tablespoon of stevia per gallon of mash. My understanding is that the sweetness will carry over from the mash/wash into the distillate. It may be something to explore if you're wanting to add sweetness.