🥃 Sugar cane and molasses

Sugar cane is the raw material for a whole family of spirit drinks. Under Regulation (EU) 2019/787, rum is obtained only by distilling fermented cane products: molasses or syrup left over from making cane sugar, or the juice of the cane itself. What ferments, juice or molasses, determines the name and the rules for the drink.

Molasses is the thick by-product of sugar making. In the EU, rum from molasses or juice may not be flavoured or topped up with added alcohol, and sweetening is allowed only up to 20 g/l. Fresh cane juice is the raw material for agricole rum: the mark "agricultural" is allowed only for GIs of the French overseas departments and Madeira, with distillation below 90% vol. Brazilian cachaça comes only from cane juice, at 38-48% vol.

For the raw material to yield alcohol, the juice or molasses solution is fermented with yeast and then distilled: rum in the EU below 96% vol., "traditionnel" below 90%, in the US below 95% vol. Juice is pressed from crushed stalks in roller mills, as at the old Estate Clifton Hill sugar mill and rum distillery on St Croix.

In the US the rules are wider: rum may be made from juice, syrup, molasses or other cane by-products and bottled at 40% vol. or more. The site collects cane drinks in the section "Rum and cane spirits".

Why it matters to you. Look for the raw material in the labelling: "agricole" or "agricultural" means cane juice, and without such a mark the law also permits molasses. Cachaça is always from juice. The sweetness of the raw material does not carry into the drink: sugar turns into alcohol during fermentation. WHO: there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.