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Each botanical brings its own aroma compounds
A spiced rum tastes of the compounds its botanicals carry. Most spices owe their character to one or two of them, and several spices share the same ones, which is why clove and allspice taste related and why cassia reads as cinnamon.
Expedition Spiced Rum is a Caribbean rum base with seven real spices, two natural sweeteners and bourbon oak, macerated by our British partner distillery. It contains no artificial flavourings, colours or sweeteners, and every ingredient is listed with its origin on the ingredients page.
The ingredients of Expedition Spiced Rum, and what each adds in general
Vanilla
- Origin
- Madagascar
- Main compounds
- Vanillin, about 2% of a cured pod, with more than a hundred minor compounds
- What it adds
- Creamy sweetness on the nose
Ceylon cinnamon
- Origin
- Sri Lanka
- Main compounds
- Cinnamaldehyde, with some eugenol
- What it adds
- Soft, sweet, floral warmth
Cassia bark
- Origin
- Indonesia
- Main compounds
- Cinnamaldehyde, with no eugenol
- What it adds
- Hotter, redder cinnamon heat
Ginger
- Origin
- Peru
- Main compounds
- Zingiberene for aroma; gingerols and shogaols for heat
- What it adds
- Bite through the middle of the palate
Orange peel
- Origin
- Spain
- Main compounds
- Limonene in the peel oil; bitter flavonoids in the peel
- What it adds
- Freshness, and a bitter edge against sweetness
Cloves
- Origin
- Sri Lanka
- Main compounds
- Eugenol, 70% to 85% of the oil
- What it adds
- Deep, slightly numbing warmth
Allspice
- Origin
- Guatemala
- Main compounds
- Eugenol and methyl eugenol
- What it adds
- Clove, cinnamon and nutmeg in one berry
Agave syrup
- Origin
- Mexico
- Main compounds
- Mostly fructose
- What it adds
- Sweetness
Glucose syrup
- Origin
- Sussex, England
- Main compounds
- Glucose and longer sugars from starch
- What it adds
- Body more than sweetness
Bourbon oak
- Origin
- United States
- Main compounds
- Vanillin, oak lactones and tannins
- What it adds
- Vanilla, a coconut-like sweetness and structure
| Ingredient | Origin | Main compounds | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanilla | Madagascar | Vanillin, about 2% of a cured pod, with more than a hundred minor compounds | Creamy sweetness on the nose |
| Ceylon cinnamon | Sri Lanka | Cinnamaldehyde, with some eugenol | Soft, sweet, floral warmth |
| Cassia bark | Indonesia | Cinnamaldehyde, with no eugenol | Hotter, redder cinnamon heat |
| Ginger | Peru | Zingiberene for aroma; gingerols and shogaols for heat | Bite through the middle of the palate |
| Orange peel | Spain | Limonene in the peel oil; bitter flavonoids in the peel | Freshness, and a bitter edge against sweetness |
| Cloves | Sri Lanka | Eugenol, 70% to 85% of the oil | Deep, slightly numbing warmth |
| Allspice | Guatemala | Eugenol and methyl eugenol | Clove, cinnamon and nutmeg in one berry |
| Agave syrup | Mexico | Mostly fructose | Sweetness |
| Glucose syrup | Sussex, England | Glucose and longer sugars from starch | Body more than sweetness |
| Bourbon oak | United States | Vanillin, oak lactones and tannins | Vanilla, a coconut-like sweetness and structure |
A spice blend works in layers
Vanilla usually leads. The warming spices fill the middle, orange peel lifts them, and sweetness and oak give body and length. No one botanical should stand out: a balanced blend tastes of the whole.
Vanilla leads, and its flavour is vanillin
Vanilla is the most recognisable flavour in spiced rum and the first most people taste. It comes from the cured pod of an orchid, Vanilla planifolia.
Bourbon vanilla is named for Réunion, not the whiskey
Madagascar is the largest exporter of vanilla. Its vanilla, with that of Réunion, is sold as Bourbon vanilla, after Réunion’s old name, Île Bourbon. The name has nothing to do with bourbon whiskey.
Outside Mexico, where the orchid is native, each flower is pollinated by hand. A fresh green pod has almost no smell: its flavour is held as vanillin glucoside, and only the months of curing after harvest release free vanillin. A cured pod holds about 2% vanillin, and more than a hundred other aroma compounds have been identified alongside it.
Pods, extract and vanillin are different things
Whole pods carry vanillin and the minor compounds together, which give woody, fruity and faintly smoky notes. Vanilla extract is pods steeped in alcohol. Vanillin on its own tastes clearly of vanilla and of little else.
Forms of vanilla, and how a label may describe them
Vanilla pods
- What it is
- Cured pods, split and steeped
- What it carries
- Vanillin and the minor compounds
- Labelled as
- Vanilla
Vanilla extract
- What it is
- Pods steeped in alcohol
- What it carries
- Most of the pod’s compounds, concentrated
- Labelled as
- Vanilla extract, or natural vanilla flavouring
Vanillin by fermentation
- What it is
- Made by microbes from a natural source such as ferulic acid
- What it carries
- Vanillin alone
- Labelled as
- Natural flavouring
Synthetic vanillin
- What it is
- Made chemically, from petrochemicals or wood lignin
- What it carries
- Vanillin alone
- Labelled as
- Flavouring
| Form | What it is | What it carries | Labelled as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanilla pods | Cured pods, split and steeped | Vanillin and the minor compounds | Vanilla |
| Vanilla extract | Pods steeped in alcohol | Most of the pod’s compounds, concentrated | Vanilla extract, or natural vanilla flavouring |
| Vanillin by fermentation | Made by microbes from a natural source such as ferulic acid | Vanillin alone | Natural flavouring |
| Synthetic vanillin | Made chemically, from petrochemicals or wood lignin | Vanillin alone | Flavouring |
Made by fermentation from a natural source, vanillin counts as a natural flavouring in law. A label that says natural vanilla flavouring tells you at least 95% of that flavouring came from vanilla.
Cinnamon, cassia, ginger, allspice and clove bring the warmth
The warming spices fill the middle of a spiced rum. Two of them share cinnamaldehyde and two share eugenol, which is why they blend so readily.
Ceylon cinnamon and cassia come from different trees
Ceylon cinnamon, Cinnamomum verum, comes from Sri Lanka. Its quills are pale and rolled in many thin layers. The bark oil is mostly cinnamaldehyde, with some eugenol, so it tastes sweet, soft and slightly clove-like, and it carries almost no coumarin.
Cassia is the thicker, darker bark. Indonesian cassia, Cinnamomum burmannii, has an oil dominated by cinnamaldehyde with no eugenol, so it tastes hotter and redder. It also carries more coumarin, the compound that smells of new-mown hay.
Ginger brings bite
Ginger, Zingiber officinale, is a rhizome. Its aroma comes mostly from zingiberene. Its heat comes from gingerols, which turn into shogaols as ginger dries and is stored, so fresh and dried ginger taste different.
In a spiced rum, ginger gives bite through the middle of the palate and lifts the heavier spices. It also meets the ginger in a ginger beer, which is one reason the two are paired so often.
Allspice and clove share eugenol
Cloves, Syzygium aromaticum, are the dried flower buds of an evergreen tree native to the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. Their oil is 70% to 85% eugenol, the compound behind clove’s deep, slightly numbing warmth. A little goes a long way.
Allspice, Pimenta dioica, is a dried berry native to the Caribbean and Central America. English speakers named it for tasting of clove, cinnamon and nutmeg at once. Jamaican berries are mostly eugenol, while Mexican berries can be mostly methyl eugenol, so allspice reads as a softer, rounder clove.
Orange peel lifts it, the sweeteners give body, and oak gives structure
Orange peel, agave syrup, glucose syrup and bourbon oak are not spices, but each changes how the spices read.
Orange peel adds freshness and a bitter edge
The oil in orange peel is mostly limonene, which smells fresh and bright. Its bitterness is put down to flavonoids such as naringin. Together they keep a blend of sweet spices from sitting heavy.
Citrus and rum go back a long way. Punch, which joined spirit, citrus, sugar, spice and water, was drunk in the 1600s, long before the word cocktail.
Agave and glucose syrup do different jobs
Agave syrup is made from the sap of the agave plant and is mostly fructose. Fructose tastes sweeter than table sugar weight for weight, with a light, slightly honeyed flavour.
Glucose syrup is made by breaking down starch. It is less sweet than table sugar and thicker, so it adds body and weight on the palate more than sweetness.
How sweet a spiced rum ends up depends on how much of either goes in, and no British rule requires that figure on the label.
Bourbon oak adds vanilla and structure
United States rules require bourbon to be aged in new charred oak containers, so used bourbon barrels are plentiful.
The wood gives vanillin from the breakdown of lignin, oak lactones with a coconut-like sweetness, caramel notes from the toasted and charred layer, and tannins that add grip and structure.
Other spiced rums use other botanicals
The ingredients above are one answer to the spiced rum question, not the only one. Several other botanicals appear regularly across the category, and recognising them helps you read a label or a tasting note. None of the following is used in Expedition Spiced Rum.
Star anise brings a sweet, liquorice-like note from anethole. Cardamom contributes a resinous, eucalyptus-edged lift familiar from chai, and a little travels a long way. Nutmeg offers warm, woody sweetness close to allspice, which is why many blends choose one or the other. Coffee and cacao push a spiced rum towards darker, dessert-leaning flavours. Coconut, toasted or as an extract, signals a sweeter style. Black pepper and grains of paradise add heat at the finish. Tonka bean, with its almond and vanilla character, appears in some European bottlings, though its coumarin keeps it out of food in the United States.
Any of these can work in a well-judged blend. The test is whether the finished rum tastes coherent or crowded.
The facts come from spice references and the regulations
The compounds and origins of each spice are from Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages: vanilla, Ceylon cinnamon, Indonesian cassia, Chinese cassia, ginger, cloves, allspice and orange.
The meaning of natural flavouring, including the 95% rule, is Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008, as retained, and natural flavouring substances are defined in its Article 3. The new charred oak rule for bourbon is 27 CFR 5.143. Coumarin is barred as a food additive in the United States under 21 CFR 189.130.