NEW YEAR’S MUST HAVE DECISIONS [1/4]

SAVANNA LE MUST

Every new year we make new decisions,we give ourselves promises that we usually don’t keep.

“I’m gonna lose weight & travel to Mauritius.”

“I will review a rhum instead of rum.”

Etc.

And every year we fail. Every year except this one.

This year I didn’t fly to Mauritius, or actually I did, depends on the way you look at it. And I also didn’t lose weight no matter how hard or from what angle you tried to look at me, but I finally opened a bottle of rhum and decided to review it. During March. Better now than never. And at least I came near Mauritius, to the distillery Savanna and one of their marvelous rhums.

Le Must Rhum. The rhum that comes 200 km southwest from Mauritius, from Réunion Island. 

Réunion Island is a French region in the Indian Ocean, and it is one one of the most remote parts of the European Union. But let’s skip the geography part, we all know there is another reason why we are here- new years decisions.

Even though we are 3 months away from January the first, we haven’t lost our will to keep our New Year’s resolutions. And that is an attitude we need today. In these tricky and risky times, we are exposed to various temptations, and sometimes it is quite hard to resist them.

Rum industry is also exposed to the temptations of tricky times. Considering that the most countries that produce rum are very often poor countries, and that the production of rum and sugar are very often the only branches of the economy besides tourism, these countries are often forced to sell their rum to large companies that buy their rum, blend it and sell it under their own name. And this is often the way how individual distilleries slowly lose their name and recognition. 

Savanna distillery is not one of them. Savanna is a smart and independent player,a distillery that knows how to keep and maintain its business success. Grounded in 1870. In 1970 relocated from Saint-Paul to Bois Rouge next to the sugar plantation and factory, Savanna, like most agricole rhums, uses the sugar cane juice together with molasses, the “leftovers” from sugarcane production and through the column still distillation process creates  fascinating rhums. 

Today we are fascinated with Le Must, a very old traditional made rhum. Rumor is that the oldest rum in this blend is nine years old, which, according to the agricole rhum laws, belongs to the très vieux category, i.e. very old rums, as we mentioned a little while ago.

The dark blue box, with golden letters, with its “sexy” curved bottle and price about 60€ presents itself like a must have for every occasion / professional rum lover. The bottle in hand looks solid, and the every sight of pouring the golden brown liquid into the glass is so attractive that it is simply hard to resist it. Next Sunday we’ll see whether Le Must is actually a “le must have” in the bar of every serious rum drinker…