Badmotivator Tribute Rum

[nzbourbonguy]

I recently finished a very special batch of rum, specifically as a tribute to Ben. I used 10Lbs Turbinado sugar & 4Lbs Panela to make 7 gallons of wash. After fermenting with a grape harvested yeast, I ended up with 2.75L of rum at 72% ABV.

My first ever French oak Ten30 barrel (Oloroso Sherry seasoned & Irish White Dog aged) was finally dumped/bottled after 6 years.

I've determined to age the rum in this barrel. The flavors are going to marry quite well and it has significant sentimental value, so it will be perfect.

Does anyone have a suggestion of what barrel entry proof the rum should be at when it's barrelled?

[Steve Broady]

I just finish the spirit run on my tribute rum, and put it in BadMo #188. Seems fitting, since that was one of the first order I got from Ben, and it’s contained rum for as long as I’ve had it.

For anyone interested, I’m happy to share in some sort of solara process blending of the tributes. I intend to bring this to the Southeast meetup in April, if possible.

Christopher, thank you for starting this. I’m excited to have what is already (in my opinion) a really good rum that has a great story behind it.

[higgins]

I suggest a community solera. Ship one or two bottles to the next HD'er, take half, then top up with your batch, ship to next HD'er. Rinse and repeat for a few iterations through the group to get a good blend...
...

jonnys suggestion initially sounds like a good idea, but I played with the numbers a bit (using 10 people) in a spreadsheet and it would be a nightmare to send a bottle around the loop several times. It would take 10+ iterations to get a blend that was fairly even. That is 120 individual bottle mailings.

And there isn't really an advantage to doing it this way because it isn't really a solera - just a blended rum.

Two other possibilities:
all of us send a 750 to one person, who blends them all, refills, and sends them back.
all of us send a sample bottle (60-70 ml) to each person and let them make up their own bottle. This would allow each of us to make a custom blend.

I found a place to get 12 2.4 oz bottles (70 ml) for $14.99 + $7.79 shipping (to E TN). (12 sample bottles = 1 750 ml bottle) That should work for us in the US, but I don't know about the GWN or overseas.
https://www.liquidministry.com/products ... black-lids

[Sugarshane]

So I’ve had about 8 gallons of Barbados style molasses( fancy or 1st boil ) in hand for months with no time to do anything with it til now. So I’m doing about 8 gallon batch increments. Approx 1 3/4 gallon molasses enough water to make it 8 gallons some fermax yeast nutrients and fleischmans dry active bakers yeast. I’m trying to do a generational back set. So first batch started with only water , second batch gets half the back-set from previous run and so on and so on down the line. I’m running an 8 gallon Digiboil kettle with a 2” plated column with 4 plates. Then a 2’ long 2” diameter copper pipe (packed with copper mesh) then a Liebig condenser. I’m doing one and done runs. I keep down to about 40% mixed altogether after heads cuts. which I will start in a 1.75 gallon white oak toast 3 char 3 BadMo made by Ben then about after a month I’ll transfer to an ex bourbon BadMo made by Chris to finish off.
Cheers to Ben’s memory !
Edit : I am also keeping tails down to about 20% to throw into the next run as well.

Edit : photos turned.

[Beerswimmer]

Finally stripping mine today. I used a bag of panela bought from Christopher, Fleishman's yeast, dead yeast from a prior rum ferment, and some seashells for buffering. The only difference with mine is that I'm stripping with a thumper that has a gallon of what was left in the thumper after a high ester rum distillation to try and get some more flavor. Smelling good!

[Beerswimmer]

Filled the L1 with 65%

[Sugarshane]

So I’ve gone through 6, 8 gallons washes using SBB recipe and method essentially. And the only deviation I’ve takin is on the 4th wash I added some overripe bananas that I boiled down in just water before I added to rest of wash. Was able to fill both of these BadMo barrels with a rum that would be worthy Ben’s approval I believe.

[ckdistills]

Filled my barrel over the weekend. Been working on this a long time. Eight generations of 5 gallon ferments using hot dunder on top of the lees for each subsequent ferment. Combination of bread yeast in the first 6 & Hornindal Kveik in the last two. Struggled with PH starting in the 5th generation and subsequently used less and less hot dunder. Also started an infected dunder pit from the dunder of the first ferment, smelled like pineapple and added a gallon or so into each spirit run. Three spirit runs with narrow cuts, recycling the heads into the next stripping run and the tails into the next spirit run. Filled the barrel with spirit runs 2 & 3 with a nice amount leftover from 3 that I'm keeping white along with the first spirit run.

The white rum I'm keeping is delicately sweet and fruity - my wife thinks it's the best white spirit I've made. Can't say I disagree with her, though I do like my AG whiskey white more than she does. There's something special about this though. I think more rum is in my future.

[higgins]

All the ideas for sharing seem to be going nowhere at this point.

Steve Broady and I will be swapping a pint from the Badmos when we gather at the SE Meetup next month.

If anyone else is planning to attend and has a badmo tribute rum, we can do swaps with you, too - but we need to know if anyone else wants to participate so we can bring extra.

edit: Dougmatt is also going to swap a pint with Steve B and I.

[The Nothing]

I'm excited to be getting back into distilling season, and making more panela rum. At the end of the season last year I made several panela rums, some with molasses, some with roasted pumpkins. I've found I've really enjoyed fermenting these with brett yeasts, specifically Omega Brett Blend #3.

I have one badmo filled with one of the batches, and went and "forced aged" another batch following ideas from the "Thea One reactor" patent application. In that I used some great, well-seasoned staves from BadMo and some of the pumpkin rum. I even delivered a sample

First up is going to be a pretty standard run for me

1 bag of BadMo Panela (25kg/55lbs)
2gal Blackstrap Molasses
100l/25gal (or more) water (as needed for around ~1.100 SG)
last year's dunder to taste (5.2pH that is)
Brettanomyces
insulated and heated to 90f/32c

after that I'll have one last bag of panela... not sure what i'm going to do to change things up...

[MichiganCornhusker]

Cheers Ben, gone but not forgotten.

[Bushman]

Been a while, glad to see your back MC.

[Soft batch]

14 months in, best rum I've made! Also, the only rum I've barreled.