Rum Regions: French Caribbean
The French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe are famous for their cane juice-based rhum agricole. They constitute half of France’s rum-making regions (departments); the others are Reunion Island in the Indian ocean and French Guiana in South America. Note: island of Marie Galante is technically part of the Guadeloupe archipelago of six inhabited islands.
Early History
While Barbados is typically noted as ground zero of Caribbean rum, historian Marco Pierini cites evidence that Martinique inhabitants may have made rum there a few years before Barbados. Regardless of which was first, these early rums were undoubtedly rough. Jean-Baptiste (Père) Labat, a French missionary, explorer, and engineer, wrote of the spirit, “It is very strong and has an unpleasant smell and pungency, more or less like grain freshness, which it is difficult to remove from it.”
Because of French restrictions placed on its colonies during the 1700s, Martinique and Guadeloupe sugar estates sold most of their molasses rather than making rum from it. Unshackled from these restrictions in the 1800s, French Caribbean sugar estates adopted the latest and most efficient continuous distillation technologies from French inventors like Cellier-Blumenthal, Derosne, and Savalle.
As the 1900s dawned, Martinique was distilling prodigious amounts of rum, far outpacing powerhouses like Jamaica and Guyana on a yearly basis. Martinique’s factories were so productive that island distilleries imported molasses to keep the stills running.
Wait — molasses?
Transition to Cane Juice
While cane juice was often part of rum recipes since its origin, juice was rarely the only fermentable material in a rum mash recipe. Making sugar from cane juice was almost always more profitable than making rum. However, in the late 1800s, worldwide sugar prices crashed, making most sugar estates unprofitable. French estate owners turned lemons into lemonade (as they say) by using most or all of their sugar cane to make rum. By using all of the juice for rum, the yield of rum per acre of sugar cane was dramatically higher.
However, cane juice rum was not immediately popular with mainland France consumers. For many decades, Martinique and Guadeloupe producers continued to make and export molasses-based rum (rhum industriel) while the locals consumed cane-juice rhum agricole. Rhum agricole did not overtake rhum industriel production on Martinique until the 1960s. The two styles are still made in roughly equal proportions today on Guadeloupe.
AOC and GIs
Martinique rum is particularly famous for its Appellation d'origine contrôlée, France’s most restrictive type of geographical indication, aka GI. The AOC, as it’s better known, prescribes exact production requirements that must be met to use the AOC designation on rum labels. The criteria include cane harvested from designated regions, maximum fermentation duration, column distillation, and an allowed range of distillation strength.
Lesser known is Guadeloupe’s Rhum de Guadeloupe geographical indication. It is somewhat similar to Martinique’s AOC but allows for molasses-based rums and batch distillation. France also has GIs for its rums made in French Guiana and Reunion Island.
French Caribbean Rum Today
Both Martinique and Guadeloupe have many large, old guard distilleries and several newer micro-distilleries. Several large spirit groups own many of these distilleries; COFEPP is by far the largest name in French rum. Under its umbrella are the Saint-James and Depaz distilleries on Martinique. On Guadeloupe, it owns Bellevue Marie-Galante and two molasses-based distilleries, SIS Bonne Mère and Sucrerie Rhumerie de Marie-Galante. The latter two make rum for brands like Negrita.
Via its Spiribam division, Groupe Bernard Hayot owns the Fonds Préville distillery on Martinique which makes rums for the Rhum J.M and Rhum Clément brands. Italy’s Gruppo Campari recently purchased the La Mauny distillery and brand, along with the Trois Rivieres and Duquesne brands, also made at La Mauny. Local conglomerates or families primarily own the remaining distilleries and associated brands.
While French Caribbean rum doesn’t have anywhere near the global footprint of molasses-based rum, its rigorous regulations and strict adherence to high-quality production make it hard to find anything less than stellar rums coming from Martinique and Guadeloupe producers.