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Okay, I'm starting to get a hang of making rum, but I'd like to try Pugi's rum next. The problem is that I'm not sure about capturing the rum oils. I could go by ABV but I'd prefer to go by taste or smell, as that is what really matters. Can anyone describe what the rum oils should taste like or smell like? Anything to compare it to? I know that it is somewhere in the tails, the wet cardboard smell, but is there a good known method to catch the oils?

The last component of the tails. Usually about 40 ABV down to about 20 ABV

Thanks, but what I'm really after is the taste smell component. Are the rum oils "hidden" in the tails, or, is there a noticeable change in the tails when the oils are present? I'm sorry if it's a dumb question, but I've done about 6 rum runs now and I've paid particular attention to the tails, looking for the oils (as i read about them a while back), but I all that I could taste is the wet cardboard smell and nothing special. I was just wondering if it's a subtle thing or something quite noticeable?

My experience is that once it gets to the rum oils it becomes visibly oily and much less transparent.

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Okay, I've seen that in my tails jars. Next time I'll have to sample taste those jars. Thanks!

do your cuts in jars. I run a 20 L still with my rum tails i do 200-400 ml end cuts a jar or two after the strongest 'wet-cardboard smell' and continuing for several jar you a likely to smell something strong and rummy-nice - but that taste kinds funky - may be cloudy. I take these to be 'rum oils'.
This said i store up ALL of my Feints (heads and tails) that are not my heart cut and once i have enough i re run them with some funky aged dunder to make a super heavy complex rum. I like it; it's simpler than Pugi's way. YMMV

its what we used to call "backins'' the tales can be bitter and bite these was saved to rerun but if you kept running after awhile it looses almost all flavor , then your into the "backins" witch some used in the next ferment or even cutting.this sort of taste like "sweet water"
i dont thank many do this today as most pay for fuel and when you was stoking with wood you had to wait for the coals to die anyway.

So it sounds to me that rum oils smell nice but the taste is either funky or sweet, but combined with another wash it adds flavor complexity to the rum. I now see what I never came across the oils: because I would stop before the wet cardboard smell disappeared. I've seen the cloudiness but I just thought that because I had the heat to high (I get the same cloudiness on the tails for some fruit washes). I will have to try and collect some rum oils to see if it's worth the extra effort.