Batch 002 - Flavour you can see

It's weird to think that booze contains oil. Alcohol is also a solvent, and often we use high-strength alcohol to clean things (hand sanitser, anyone?). But with rum, it's oils that give our spirits flavour. And Batch 002 has buckets of it.

These natural oils are created in the process of fermentation. Some impart desirable flavours that we aim for with tasting notes of pineapple and banana; and others are undesirable and we avoid these. Some flavours can be controlled in fermentation and others are managed during distillation.

At Cabarita Spirits we allow our molasses to ferment naturally without adding heat or chilling as our subtropical climate is ideal for the proprietary yeast strains that we use. When we distill, we take extreme care to separate and bottle only the choicest cut of the spirit - known as the hearts - full of lovely flavours, aromas and textures. Also, the way in which we lightly spice our spirit during the distillation process is also unique, and we only use whole, natural spices.

When you pick up a bottle of Blanco, give it a little shake. If you're lucky, you'll see some cinnamon-coloured fluffy bits. These are naturally occurring oils and proteins that give massive amounts of flavour, armoa and texture. It's called flocculation.

In an overproof spirit, say, above 46% alc/vol, these 'essences' are dissolved in the liquid. But when proofed down to 40% these oils and proteins come out of solution and create cloudiness or haze, and after some time these oils bind with proteins to produce a fluffy material (flocculation).

Big, international distilleries use different and elaborate filtration methods to remove these oils, also removing flavour. We keep things as natural as possible and do not follow these processes, though we do filter our spirits.

Our filtration does not remove all these oils though, and so we keep more of those delicious flavours. Batch 002 is exemplary of this.

So if you find cinnamon-coloured flavour fluff in your bottle, consider yourself lucky. It's perfectly natural and is meant to be there - it's flavour you can see! Give it a shake and pour away (responsibly!).