Questions about a YouTube rum video

[Steve Broady]

My rice and I were watching a cooking video tonight, and the subject was making a pizza rum.
[utube][/utube]

I’m not going to ask about pizza rum, specifically. But more generally, I have questions. As I understand it, the rum distillery in London is taking an imported rum at 55% (they show a copper pot still with a double thumper, but I don’t know if that’s just generic footage or their actual supplier) and adding various botanicals to make a spiced rum.

I don’t know how spiced rum is normally made, so maybe that’s the usual, maybe that’s a variation on gin technique. I can’t say, though I’d be happy to learn. Spiced rum isn’t high on my priority list, either for making or drinking. Yet..

My question is, they show the small batch distillation of the spiced rum, and very specifically discuss taking a heads and tails cut. That seems odd to me. You don’t normally have a heads and tails cut on gin, because you’re starting with a pretty clean neutral to begin with. Why would they make cuts on rum? Is the rum they’re starting with cut wide for aging, and they’re cleaning it up for drinking white?

I don’t expect anyone to know this specific distillery, obviously, but I’m hoping someone can give me some insight into the logic behind what’s going on. I’m trying to learn.