Angel's Share Title
Oxbow Rum Distillery is in Pointe Coupée, on the banks of the Mississippi River, where they grow their sugarcane on fertile oxbow (hence the company’s name). For their Rhum Louisiane product, every fall the distillery harvests their cane and, within hours of harvest, presses the cane and uses the cane juice to create this product. After fermentation, they distill the liquid in small batches using a pot still. The rum is then blended to 45% ABV and bottled without using any additives or sweeteners.
Appearance
All the bottles in the Oxbow line are a standard tall-neck 750-ml design. They provide a good bit of information about their products on the front and back labels. The bottle is sealed with a wooden cap and a plastic cork with a logoed security wrap. The liquid in the bottle and glass is crystal clear. Swirling the liquid creates a medium band that slowly expands, releasing a wave of slow-moving legs before evaporating, leaving a ring of pebbles around the glass.
Nose
When I poured the rum into the glass, there was an immediate aroma of freshly cut grass. As the liquid settled, I noticed notes of lemon zest, green grapes, and tangerines.
Palate
The first sip of the rum delivers a good balance of vegetal cane, mineral notes, and alcohol. Additional sips revealed notes of papaya and funky herbaceous botanical flavors, rounded out by the lemon zest note I found in the aroma. It is this zest note that dominates and lingers with the mineral notes, creating a long, tart finish.
Review
I first encountered this rum at the 2023 Tales of the Cocktail, along with their barrel-aged product. Over the years, I have watched with curiosity as this company has evolved and gone through some ownership changes and rebranding. When I spotted it on one of the shelves of a store in Atlanta, I thought it was time to give this rum a proper evaluation and review it for “Got Rum?”. The Rhum Louisiane product is a vintage product with the year written on the front label. It will be interesting to see how it changes from year to year, knowing that their goal with this product was to create an agricole-style rum. My impression is that they did an impressively good job of honoring the rum products made in the French Caribbean and capturing that fresh cane flavor you find in the minimally aged rhums from that region. As far as cocktails are concerned, I enjoyed it in a classic Daiquiri and citrus-based punch and can see where some bartenders could have some fun creating something unique for their bar menus. Currently, Oxbow Estate Rums is slowly rolling out in the U.S. and is available in a few states. If you enjoy minimally aged agricole rhums, when you see this rum on the shelves, it is worth picking up and experimenting with.
