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Could i use Panela in place of the Molasses? I have a package of yeast Ipurchased designed for rum. The recipe calls for 7lbs of white sugar and 9lbs of fancy molasses. Looking at the pricing it's going to be over $60 for the ingredients.

Disregard. I'm an idiot. A gallon of molasses weighs approximately 12lbs. So buying 1gallon is really not that big of a deal.

I know you said disregard, but I'm not very good at disregarding

Rum can be dividd into "industrial" rum made from molasses (a product of the sugar refining industry) and "agricultural" rum made from unrefined cane juice (a product of agriculture). Unless you're buying specialty rums or Brazilian cachaça, I'd guess you've probably only ever had industrial rums, as that's something like 90% of rum production - I've never seen an agricultural rum for sale where I live. The only agricultural rum I've had is cachaça - the ones I've had were a lot lighter-flavoured, less (surprise) molasses-y than other rums.

So, molasses will make you an industrial rum. Assuming you're not in a sugar-cane growing region, panela is probably your best bet to make something like an agricultural rum.

Panela make for a nice rum.