Aging Rum: What is Aged Rum & Double Aged Rum?
Aging Rum: What is Aged Rum & Double Aged Rum?
Aged rum is simply rum that has been aged in a wooden cask. Many factors can influence the aging process from the type of casks, length of aging and aging temperature. These all have an impact on the type and color of your rum, such as whether it’s white, golden or dark.
Over five generations and 130 years, Brugal’s Maestro Roneros (Master Rum Makers) have pushed the boundaries of our rum making by exploring new flavors and aging techniques. Brugal was among the very first rum producers to age rum in oak casks in the 1920s, and have continued to find new ways to intensify flavors within rum through double aging and exploring new types of casks.
Discover more about aging rum and how at Brugal we double age in high-quality, hand-selected casks to create our rum.
Why do we age rum?
The aging of rum is key for the creation of aromas, flavors and complexity. If mastered, aging can unlock many different tasting notes in rum ranging from caramel, dried fruits, cinnamon, woodiness, coconut or honey.
Depending on the origin of the rum and where it is made, there are different rules on the aging process. Brugal is a Dominican Rum, and similarly to Scotch whisky legislation which requires all spirit to be aged, all Dominican Rum must be aged for a very minimum of one year before it can be sold.
Aging is at the forefront of Brugal, and we believe the complexities of the wood are what make our rums so special. Our dedication to casks is incomparable to other distilleries and around 85% of Brugal’s flavor profile comes from our casks.
Every cask has a life of its own, therefore it is up to the expertise of our Master Rum Makers (Maestro Roneros) to recognize the ones that will make a difference. They continually work to create the best flavours and select only those casks with the right type of wood, age and provenance to be used to age our rum.
10,000 American Oak casks a year…
We take our cask stock seriously and acquire 10,000 American Oak Ex bourbon casks a year, the highest amount in the Caribbean. A strict wood policy helps pick and manage these casks and only those full of the potential to add the right character to our rum in the ageing process are selected.
How aging rum is like making tea
We can think of aging rum like making tea and compare the cask to the tea bag. When brewing tea, the tea bag is what gives the liquid its color and flavor. Similarly with rum during aging, flavor and color get extracted from the casks.
The quality and flavours that you extract from a tea bag depend on many factors including the quality of the tea leaves, brewing time and temperature of the water. For example, you can tell the difference between mass-produced tea from your local supermarket and handpicked tea leaves sourced from the grower by the notes they produce. It’s the very same for casks, so we make sure all our casks at Brugal are of the highest quality because this is where our rich, complex flavor gets created.
Aging in bourbon and sherry casks
The type of cask has a big influence on the flavours of our rum, and we need to ensure we have casks that can deliver our inviting flavor profiles with the right intensities.
At Brugal we age in both Ex American Oak bourbon and Ex European Oak sherry casks. These casks impart different notes on our rum. Ex American Oak bourbon gives flavours of vanilla, cocoa and coffee to whereas Ex European Oak sherry imparts richer fruitier notes of citrus and red fruits to the liquid.
Our European Oak sherry Oloroso casks used in the second aging of Brugal 1888 go through a rigorous production process before being seasoned by Oloroso sherry in Jerez, Spain. It takes approximately six years from harvesting the wood to the point they are ready to be filled. This attention to detail makes them one of the most exclusive casks in the world.
The very best barrels
We have a very close relationship with our cask suppliers to ensure we acquire the very best barrels. Unlike many other rums producers, we ensure that our White American oak casks are not rinsed with water before they are delivered to us, to maximise the flavors we extract from them to flavor our superior sipping rum.
Double aging technique: how long is rum aged?
Harnessing over 130 years of rum-making expertise comes with breakthrough new approaches. Brugal’s Maestro Roneros developed the double-aging technique to intensify the aromas and flavors extracted from the different oak casks. They were the first to master it in the Dominican Republic in 1988.
Double aging is a way of aging spirits where in addition to one aging period, the spirit will be aged a second time in a different cask. The double aging technique has expanded the flavor profiles of our super-premium rums by intensifying flavors or through the combination of new ones.
Using the tea example, double aging is like double-brewing tea. Imagine you are brewing a black tea for a few minutes and then switching the tea bag for a new fruity one for another few minutes. You brewed the tea with two different tea bags one after another, creating a whole new flavour profile to explore.
Double aging Brugal 1888 is comparable. First, we age in white American Oak Ex bourbon casks and when the time is right, we move the liquid into European Oak Ex sherry casks to age for more time. Once our Maestro Roneros determine that the right aging amount has been reached, we blend and bottle the aged spirit – ready to grace your home bar.
Aging rum with Dominican warmth
Aging is a dynamic process at the heart of our production at Brugal, so we consider every detail that influences it. One very important element in the Dominican Republic that influences aging is temperature, as it has a direct impact on how the cask interacts with the spirit inside.
Temperatures in our warehouses rarely go below 26°C and they can even get as high as 39°C during July and August. Aging in such temperatures is called “tropical aging”. Just like the tea brewing example, brewing tea with hot water extracts flavours more intensely than brewing with cold, and tropical aging is similar.
Through decades of experimentation, our master rum makers learned to purposefully use their warehouses to harness the right levels of the Dominican sun to help with the aging process.
By positioning our warehouses in different ways and designing them with different airflows, they bring the most out of the balmy Dominican weather to influence aging. Casks are moved from cooler to warmer warehouses, and vice-versa, to achieve the desired aromas and tasting notes.
What is the angels’ share when aging spirits?
The angels’ share is the percentage of the liquid in a cask that is lost to evaporation per year. The higher the evaporation rate, the more intense the aging process.
Brugal has always recognised the potential of sun-drenched aging for depth and complexity, strategically positioning our warehouses to unlock the potential of the Dominican sun. Our tropical aging increases the angels’ share dramatically, intensifying the aging process and the reaction between the rum and the cask. The angels’ share of rum can be as high as 8-12% yearly. In comparison, the angels’ share in Scotch whisky is only 1-3%.
Does rum get better with age?
Time is an important factor in the aging of rum, however, it is only one element to be considered within the aging process, and it would be unreliable to consider this alone.
Brugal is dedicated to harnessing the very best of the aging process to add complexity, and this involves taking into consideration all the aspects within aging that influence our rum. This includes the aging time, our superior cask quality and types, our tropical aging temperature and the expert blending of our Maestros.
Reflecting back to the example of brewing tea, a low-quality tea bag brewed in water for more time than a superior one will not create a better liquid. Cask aging is exactly the same, and it is the combination of this aging process that gives our rum its rich flavor – bringing out the best in the rum-making process to produce a superior rum to savour sip by sip.
