When you watch the warm glow of the sun setting on the southern most point of Florida, it’s hard to imagine a time when the town was filled with speakeasies, Rumrunners and the mobs ruled. Fast forward to 2020 and the Chef Distiller of Key West is keeping that spirit alive with his high quality rum.
It’s January 25th and the sun is out in Key West, the last island on the coast of Florida. Duval Street is full of tourists enjoying the 4th annual Coconut Crawl but the island is most renowned for fishing, sailing and the late Ernest Hemingway’s house tour (filled with cats). This picturesque scene with its variety of street animals gives little away to its seedy rum history.
Cuba is a mere 90 miles away, making Key West the perfect location for Rumrunners importing illegal alcohol during the 1920s prohibition era. 13 years of prohibition has left its mark on the island with several bars being decedents of speakeasies littering Duval Street.
This history sparked the imagination of Paul Menta, a pro kite surfer turned chef who had done the rumrun to Cuba (in modern time), which inspired him to open up the first legal rum distillery in Key West. So when an ex coke bottling plant became available I guess it seemed logical to buy it, set up a distillery and get the Mayor himself to distil the first legal barrel of rum to mark the overturn in law back in 2012.
Having taken the distillery tour you could argue there is little difference vs any other, aside from the very cool retro coke memorability proudly displayed on the walls. But Paul’s background as a Chef has given birth to several techniques that I have never heard of and are quite staggering. I guess that is why they have coined the phrase “Chef Distiller”.
Let’s start with the custom built charcoal filled pipes; the rum trickles down after it has passed through both the stripping and then the spirit stills. It comes out at 147 proof, then spring water is added to bring it down to 80 proof. This process produces Key West First Legal Rum which is 6 x distilled and doesn’t contain any moonshine to which the underbelly of the island is so famous for. This rum forms the base liquid for most of the others rums produced.
The barrels are soaked in the ocean to leave salt in the wood, adding flavour and opening up the pores. They are cross and honeycomb cut to help facilitate rum absorption into the wood. Both techniques increase the osmosis within the barrel, ultimately delivering more flavour. The see-through barrel on display serves as a great live demonstration.
Side Note - his new age experiment, which sadly wasn’t ready to be tasted when I was there, but I can’t wait for it to be available. Rum and yeast left to ferment in corked bottles submerged under cold water is surely a future hit. Think rum-meets-champagne.
Ingredients are also a primary consideration (as you would expect from any top chef). They use demerara sugar over molasses as it delivers a better quality rum. They also take fresh pineapple chunks, rolled them in sugar and char them before soaking them in their First Legal Rum for 8-10 days to make Chef’s Glazed Pineapple Rum.
If you find yourself in Key West then check out the distillery. Tours run 7 days a week and are free. My tour was led by Emily, a very knowledgeable and energetic distiller who gave real insight into the mad-hatter mind of a Chef who loves rum. They also run Mojito master classes inspired from their rumrunner journey to Cuba on board the Schooner Wolf.
But if you don’t fancy a tipple then you can purchase homemade Rum Cake instead.
Check out my reviews of some of Key West Distillery Rums I tried.
Comments