In an increasingly crowded spirits market with no shortage of rum brands, it’s beginning to feel like we’re seeing companies innovate primarily for the sake of being able to say they have a product that is easily understood as “new and different.” This kind of product development, with a focus on novelty and marketability, is perfectly capable of producing an interesting new brand, but some of these bottles are simultaneously head scratchers that make you question the viability of trying to establish new niches between defined styles.
Case in point, the intriguing concept that is California-based Callisto Botanical Rum. This is a blend of sourced, lightly aged (possibly charcoal filtered) rums from Trinidad and Nicaragua, which are then infused with new botanical flavors in the U.S., which obviously and immediately makes the consumer think of gin. So, is this a gin-flavored rum? Or more of a rum-inflected quasi gin?
Callisto plays a bit coy when it comes to determining that philosophy, when it comes to the brand’s marketing. It is stressed that Callisto Botanical Rum is indeed “rum” first and foremost, but its label calls it “California Dry,” with the term “dry” on a label primarily being associated with gin. Likewise, the section of suggested cocktails on the brand’s website are almost exclusively riffs on cocktails that classically call for gin, rather than even white rum—there’s not a daiquiri in sight. And yet, the botanicals involved in making Callisto don’t include important additions such as juniper, which is a must in all products labeled as “gin.” Instead, they include botanicals such as rosemary, lavender, burdock root and cherry bark … several of which can contribute some of the same resinous and herbaceous notes you’d expect to get from the juniper. It’s hard to know exactly what to expect.
As it turns out, though, “botanical rum” isn’t a completely new concept. There are a number of distilleries in the U.S. experimenting with drier rum styles that are sometimes compared to unsweetened spiced rums, but others use none of the expected “baking spice” components and instead focus on fresher, grassier, floral or herbaceous/fruity influences.
As for Callisto, they make their Botanical Rum by separating their rum blend into two lots, one of which is steeped in the botanicals and then re-distilled. This creates more of a neutral spirit for the botanical-infused half of the spirit, which is then blended back in with the “untouched” base rum blend. This suggests a product where some of the original rum flavor has been stripped away in the infusing process, but some is retained. The company believes this produces a more flavorful base for the botanical flavors, which to me suggests that the true role of such a product would be as an “improved” quasi-gin, rather than thinking of it as a deeply modified rum. Regardless, I am no doubt getting excessively anal about this definition at this point, so let’s get to tasting it.