Made with Love & Not Much Else
When you pick up a bottle of Montanya Rum, you can be assured there are only two to three ingredients inside: rum proofed to 40% abv (alcohol by volume) using naturally mineralized water from a snowmelt fed aquifer, and in some cases, a tiny touch of caramelized honey (less than .04%).
Montanya Platino on the bottling line. Photo by Renee Newton.
We tend to get two reactions to this: surprise that we don’t use any added sugar or artificial colorings/flavors, or confusion as to why that matters. Many distillers actually use artificial additives to create the final flavor profiles and/or colors of their rums. If those additives account for less than 2% of what’s in the bottle, there’s no requirement to list them on the label. We’ve always believed that puts the consumer at a disadvantage, and that artificial additives aren’t necessary to create a great product.
Why We Don’t Use Artificial Additives
We prefer our spirits to be like our favorite meals—made with real, whole ingredients whose names we can pronounce and taste in the final flavor profile. We also know that additives might control one characteristic—like color—but just as easily affect another, like adding sweetness or gluten.
We also trust the sugarcane we use to distill and the barrels that age our rums to provide the flavor profiles we’re looking for. (We also love the acidic property of honey for its ability to bring out the natural flavors of Platino, Oro, and Exclusiva, something you can read more about here.)
This means that when you enjoy Montanya Rum, there is no added sugar, no artificial coloring, and no artificial flavor. The color and the flavor profile both come from the characteristics of the rum as it comes off the still as well as the process of aging that rum in American White Oak barrels (and sometimes finishing barrels).
The rack house, where all of our rums start aging in American White oak barrels that come to us from Laws Whiskey House.
Why Color Might Vary from Barrel to Barrel
One reason distillers use artificial colorings is to create consistency and uniformity between batches of rum. By contrast, the color you see in a bottle of Montanya rum comes primarily from the oak barrel it aged in, which can vary quite a bit. We also choose to focus on consistency of flavor.
That means it’s possible that one barrel of Valentia might be darker or lighter than the next, but it will still have the dry, tannic finish so rare in aged rums. The same goes for the Oro—the color might vary but there will still be notes of red chili, coffee, caramel, vanilla, pineapple and chocolate. (On a side note, the Platino is always clear because we use a coconut husk carbon filter to remove the color without stripping the rum of its flavor).
So as the saying goes, we really do believe that Montanya rums are made with love—love of whole, natural ingredients and the people who grow them; love for the Colorado whiskey barrels that age our rums; and love of great flavors that are naturally derived. (You can learn more about how we distill (and what ingredients go into the fermentation) here and here.)
More From the Blog:
A guide to the types of rum
Setting the record straight on gluten in spirits