68: S.B.S Rum, Advent Calendars, and Emerging Rum Regions with Joshua Singh of 1423 Spirits
In this episode we sat down with Joshua Singh, co-founder of 1423 Spirits and S.B.S Rum, an independent bottler based in Denmark that's doing some very interesting things right now. Since it's the holiday season, we also talked about the making of 1423's annual rum advent calendar and what goes into selecting 24 different rums for it every year. Topics discussed included:
The rum advent calendar selection and feedback processes
Why 1423 adds sugar to some of their rum brands (but not S.B.S)
The problems with the EU's decision to cap the allowable amount of sugar added to rum at 20 g/L
The challenges of introducing rum to new people
S.B.S's new origin series dedicated to interesting unaged rums (and how the first 4 were selected)
Convincing a Dominican Republic distillery to make a grand arome (or aroma grande) rum
Sourcing cane juice rum from Ghana
Emerging rums from India
The type of barrel that Joshua believes works like magic when aging high ester rums
And more
Correction: After the episode, the folks behind Camikara Rum sent us some details to clear up some of the confusion in our discussion:
“Camikara is a marriage of liquid distilled in both column & pot stills and is matured in Oak Barrels in the sub-tropical climate of the northern plains in India. The temperature in the northern plain of India are extreme, the summers can be 122 F and the winters can be 32F, so the barrel undergoes a lot of expansion and contraction, as a result of which the first year we lose 13-15% of our barrels to angels, then it lowers down to 10-12% and so on. For the 12 Year old Camikara Rum, we have lost 94% of the liquid filled inside the barrels over years and only 6% of the originally filled liquid could be retrieved, hence the name Camikara - means liquid gold in Sanskrit. This initial set of liquid is bottled in 3 batches ( Batch 1 of 1200 bottles for India, Batch 2 of 1200 Bottles to the UK, Europe and Rest of the world and the Batch 3 1176 Bottles to the United States). Camikara is sipping rum, which is 100% natural. There is no added sugar, spice, color or flavours added.”
You can learn more about everything Joshua is doing at the 1423 website: https://www.1423.dk/
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