83 Islands Yumi Rum – October 2024
For the very FIRST time in Australia and EXCLUSIVE to the Tribe…we go to VANUATU and are very proud to launch the 83 Islands Yumi Rum to the Tribe!
The very first rum from a country many Aussies are familiar with – Vanuatu! One of Australia’s most popular island holiday destinations now has its own rum – and the story has so many layers it makes Donkey’s onion look like a Fruit Rollup!
This month’s 83 Islands ‘Yumi Rum’ is distilled from a fresh crushed sugarcane juice wash. It was run with three plates of the 500l hybrid pot/column still in operation. The spirit was matured in the Port Vila warehouse in four used bourbon barrels from four of the world’s leading Bourbon producers – Peerless Distilling, Heaven Hill Distillery, Brown Foremen and, of course, the Jim Beam Distillery.
I guess the first thing you should know is that the name ‘Yumi Rum’ means ‘Our Rum’ in the local dialect. As you can see straight away – this rum carries a sense of ownership by the Efate community that grows its main ingredient.
83 Islands is Vanuatu’s first (and currently only) rum brand – period. Named for the 83 individual islands that make up the country of Vanuatu, it has been distilling since 2019 but before that, had to build an entire supply industry to ‘fuel’ it with it’s base product – fresh sugar cane!
So, six years ago there was NO sugar cane industry in Vanuatu. A certain Vanuatuan named Pierre-Luc Chabot, however, wanted to make rum. As you can probably guess by the name, old Pierre-Luc was set on making rum in the Agricole style and so the simple solution of importing some molasses was not an option. So (as one does in this situation) Pierre-Luc set about encouraging and helping the local farmers convert their crops to sugar-cane.
Previously, there was very little demand for locally grown sugarcane, the price for it was very low, and so very few people grew it. Pierre-Luc guaranteed the local farmers he would pay 8-times the local price for their cane and helped the local farmers establish the new crop.
After the initial seasons proved the potential of the combined industries it was apparent that an escalation in production would be needed to sustain the distillery. To do so the Efate farmers (averaging about a ½ acre of pasture per family) would need to clear land. This presented somewhat of a problem as the farms were all hand-run. There were no tractors or machinery to speak of. So Pierre-Luc worked with the Vanuatu Department of Agriculture to assist the farmers in clearing the land.
Which brings us to the sugarcane itself. As mentioned above all work on the farms – including harvesting the cane – is done by hand. And while official organic certification is years away (if ever) due to the means required to acquire such certification, the farms simply couldn’t be anymore organic. And the sugar cane varieties the Efate farmers are cultivating are all heirloom Vanuatuan varieties of cane.
And so how is this ‘experiment’ progressing – well, as I write this, they are in the process of finalising the upgrade from a pair of 500l stills to a 2000l still. So it seems things are going spectacularly well for Pierre-Luc and his team – as well as the local Efate sugar famers of Vanuatu!
Our Tasting Notes:
Nose: Sweet floral and grassy notes. Fresh cut cane billets sitting in the sun, some plump sultana notes and a very feint whiff of sweet polythene glue.
Palate: A lovely delicate spirit, very little pepper, sweet fruit salad notes and very little, if any, funk at all. Some citrus peel is apparent and a nice vanilla twang is present as palate and finish overlap.
Finish: Pleasant vanilla wraps around delicate fruit notes, a sprinkling of demerara sugar, some ginger-y spice and more citrus – but citrus oil in the finish.
I’ve been looking forward to offering this Australian first from Vanuatu ever since I tasted it at Justin Boseley’s (of Dead Reckoning) house early in 2023. It a simply delightful sipper of a rum. Mild enough to share neat with an inexperienced friend, yet complex enough to impress your most geeky of rum buddies. This is an absolutely sublime rum that we are proud to introduce to Australia for the very first time.
FROM 83 ISLANDS
I am excited to introduce the latest release from 83 Islands Distillery, very first aged sugar cane rum, available exclusively through the Rum Tribe. We call it Yumi Rum. It’s a term we reserve for authentic cane rums made from our heirloom sugar cane. It means ‘our rum’ in the local language, Bishama. This rum is rich in notes of vanilla and caramel signature flavours imparted by the American oak barrels. It was aged in four exceptional barrels from some of the best bourbon distilleries, Peerless Distilling, Heaven Hill Distillery, Brown Forman and Jim Beam.
These barrels were aged at our distillery in Port Villa Vanuatu, where the tropical environment and high immunity averaging 80% shaped the character of the rum. Despite being only two years old, the intense tropical aging has given this rum a maturity far beyond its years. These first filled barrels had an average of 11% weight loss and 17% reduction in alcohol content. The result is a smooth, naturally sweet run. The sweetness comes entirely from the fermentation, the distillation, and reinforced by filling the barrel at only 60%abv.
We’re incredibly proud of this batch made from some of the very first sugarcane we grew on the island and distilled using only three plates in a single pass-through 500 litre copper pot still. With only a limited amount of bottles made, we’re thrilled to share this batch treasure with rum enthusiasts. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
Thank you.
ABOUT 83 ISLANDS
83 Islands Distillery is located just outside of Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu.
At the heart we are a craft rum distillery. We have been filling barrels and aging rum since 2019. We also make limited editions flavoured rums and gins and other spirits using local ingredients, most notably kava. We aim to open to the public for tours and tasting in our new tasting space by the end of 2021.
Our goal is to produce the highest quality rum and offer our clients total transparency in the production process and origin of ingredients. We are experimenting with various yeasts and creating multiple flavour profiles to showcase what craft rum is all about. Each bottle comes with a detailed description of our process.
We are currently working with local farmers to improve the sugarcane production on the island of Efate. Our 2020 Rhum Agricole is made with wild sugarcane, as there is no historical sugarcane plantation in the country even if Saccharum officinarum is originating from this part of the world, Melanesia. In the coming years, we will shift most of our production from molasses to sugarcane and create a new industry that will support hundreds of local families.
We age our rum in various types of casks imported from France and the United States. Our barrel inventory includes ex-Chardonnay and ex-Red Wine in French barrique made with American Oak, New and Used bourbon barrels from Kelvin Cooperage in Louisville, KY and a variety of South American Rum barrels, Rye and Brandy barrels from the United States.
Our South Pacific subtropical climate creates an exceptional environment for rum ageing. The high temperature and high humidity we experience means we lose a fair amount of rum every year but that helps us age our rum faster as the oxidative processes operates faster than a more temperate climate. Although Vanuatu sees very little temperature changes of the water that surrounds its islands during the year, hovering around 27 degrees Celsius, we do experience a significant seasonal temperature variation from 35 C during the summer to 18 C during our coolest winter nights.
