Guy Venables
Cuba and rum are indivisible, as it seems are rum and cigars. Guy goes there on a visit and learns much about blending 
I was invited to Cuba recently to draw cartoons of a trip for some of the worlds best bar managers and cocktailists organized by Havana Club rum. Here, under the patient eye of master blender Asbel Morales, maestro of Havana Club, I was taken to school.
Cuban rum is fiendishly complicated. Firstly, when you see the words 12 year old on the bottle, this means that the youngest rum in the blend is 12 years old, thus stopping unscrupulous blenders adding tiny amounts of 50 year old and claiming it on the label.
The process of blending is a job earned through years of dedication and one only a few people in the world can do really well. First the bases are blended. There are three bases of the Havana Club rums, namely, Oro, (the soul of the rum) Centenario (the heart) and extra sec (the mind). These are made from the aguardiente, which starts life at 75% and is two year barrel aged and also from destilado de cana (97%) cane sugar distillate. Continuous distilling at low strength makes it light and flavourful. Everything is then aged in different barrels, reblended and put back into barrels, putting some aside for future blending. The blending MUST be done by a Cuban master blender and the only addition is a little caramel for colour. Mixing is what Cubans do best. They’ve done it with their culture, drinks and language.
Afterwards we were taken to a farm in the countryside to eat lunch and drink some Havana Club Union, the only rum blended to be paired with a specific cigar, namely the Cohiba Siglo VI.
We sat and smoked the Cohibas and drank, whilst being talked though it all by Sasha, a Russian cigar expert and new friend. He explained how the rum brings the palate back to life and animates the flavours, while he ruminated on the different surges of a cigar. For a moment we all went rather quiet. There is even a phrase in Cuba for this: “Sobra Mesa.” The time taken to smoke and drink and sit round a table.
Union is a very special rum. Blended by Asbel Morales and Cuba’s most renowned cigar sommelier, Fernando Fernández it has a particular dry soft oak palate with sweet vanillas chocolate and rich dried fruits. It is such an exceptional rum that I asked them to pay me in it. I can see this being a long and fruitful relationship.
“In every marriage there are problems. In this there are none.”
Over the Yardarm – August 2017