On a particularly hot day, we make our way to one of Singapore's more stylish hotels, the Capitol Kempinski, and quickly shuffle into an intimate niche of the beautiful colonial-styled The Bar at 15 Stamford, which is the hotel's house bar.

The bar might serve all but most definitely has a taste for rum - lining its opulent shelves are some incredibly sought after rum expressions. It's almost like someone saying "I like all sports" but whose house is plastered with Manchester United merch.

Could just be a hunch but the wall of rum expressions seems to tell me that the bar has a certain affinity for the cane spirit.

Today we're treated to a masterclass organised by spirits retailer La Maison du Whisky, and hosted by a guest who is probably the only one of us probably most used to the weather of our sunny shores but comes from one whose scenery is certainly far more enviable - Bernard D'Offay of Takamaka Rum.

"Everyone can pronounce "Takamaka"! says Bernard as everyone in the room goes into a clacking frenzy with every syllable iteration of "-ah" known to Man.

The d'Offay brothers, Bernard and Richard.

Takamaka might be a 20 year old rum brand but its only just now breaking shores and hitting bars, "well, if we had toyed with aging our rums 30 years ago, we'd be alot further along" confesses Bernard. 

He explains that the brand founded by him and his brother Richard when they had returned to Seychelles where their family was based, had tinkered their way into rums in a rather piecemeal fashion given that the cane spirit was not native to the archipelago of islands.

The Trois Frères Distillery in Seychelles.

Officially, the distillery's name was Trois Frères and the d'Offay family had been one of the earliest families to call Seychelles home. The distillery itself is located on the east coast of the largest of Seychelles’ islands, Mahè, in a site named La Plaine St Andre.

For the past two decades the brothers have basically learnt to make rum from scratch, largely through trial and error, having started out with a fairly conservative set-up, eventually obtaining from the local government an eighteenth-century national heritage designated building which was then restored as the distillery’s site. That’s quite a feat considering that they've gained international recognition quite recently having been bottled under the Habitation Velier brand - belonging to arguably the biggest force in rums, Velier, the Italian importer and bottler.

In the world of rums, a stamp of approval by Velier is worth more than gold.

It is after all how Takamaka came to the attention of many rum afficionados, with two Velier-bottled expressions - an unaged white rum and a 3 Year Old French Oak barrel-aged 2018 expression.

"We're hoping to provide a barrel or two every so often to Velier," says Bernard as he emphasises that the brothers would like to nonetheless expand awareness of their flagship expressions catered to both bartenders and rum drinkers.

With some of the pressing questions out of the way, Bernard gives us a quick idea of what sort of rum the brothers are making.

The distillery uses fresh local cane juice to produce Takamaka’s rums – much of which goes into blends of both pot and column still distillate, and some are even blended with the renown Foursquare Bajan rum. 

Currently, Takamaka has three core series - the Seychelles Series, the St. Andre Series and the premium high end Le Clos Series.

The Bar at 15 Stamford is incredibly stylish.

We'll get to try six of the eight core expressions from the distillery today, in particular from the Seychelles Series, which is focused more for bar and cocktail use, as well as the St. Andre Series which is targeted more towards rum consumers.

The distillery primarily ferments for 3 - 5 days, sufficient to produce an aromatic rum, initially using copper Hoga Portuguese pot stills which has now been replaced with a Hybrid Spirit still. French Oak barrels from Radoux are Takamaka's go to choice of barrels used for aging.

First up, the Takamaka Blanc - really aromatic on the nose with notes of vanilla and sweet cane with just little bit of diesel, surprisingly mellow on the palate with a light green vegetal funk, yet very creamy with a smooth, silky finish of light spiciness and more of that raw cane note.

Bernard goes on to tell us that reality is that Takamaka's output is really low given that the island doesn't offer much in the way of sugarcane plantations - while expansive, the group of islands yields about 85-95 tons of sugarcane annually, with not more than 30 growers in total, which the distillery buys from as a collective. The local terrain features a granite type of soil (versus volcanic that you’d find in other rum producing nations in the area) that is also mixed with beach sand.

The Overproof - basically the Blanc but amped up features lots of vegetal cane funk. It's really punchy and strong with classic agricole notes on steroids - vanilla, sugarcane syrup and almost tinned lychees with a nice crisp, refreshing finish. This was quite a hit amongst the small crowd.

He goes on to tell us alittle bit more about the dynamics of rum making in Seychelles. More broadly, the islands are fairly low altitude, humid and with gentle sea breezes. Without an active sugar industry, most of the cane is turned into baka, translated as “unruly” in Creole, a fermented cane juice beer. Hence, production remains constricted and the distillery started out with cane juice based rum, but has since moved towards importing molasses from around the area. 

As a result of the limitations in their production capacity and having only seriously focused on barrel aging only years ago, the distillery is still in the process of shoring up inventory needed for them to fully realise their potential.

One of the more recent experiments the distillery has been toying with is a process called Hydrodynamic Cavitation - a mechanical process borrowed from winemakers where here pressure is exerted on the unaged rum thereby increasing its interaction with wood and allowing it to take on woody depth of flavours whilst still basically unaged.

This process is applied for three of the expressions, starting with the Zenn expression. 

The Zenn showcases very gentle sugar cane syrup on the nose and yet remains vibrant and bright on the palate with a nice creamy texture. It's quite distinctively spicier here as well.

This process is also applied to the Extra Noir as well.

Here a combination of French Oak and ex-Bourbon casks are used, so there's more of oak influence here. This is like a lighter version of the Demerara - baking spice and brown sugar profile - notes of caramel and light cane juice with a smooth, light spiciness, almost like apple pie stuffing and baked confectionaries.

There's clearly more woody tannins here, with mulled wine notes as well as nutmeg and anise. This has a really nice finish. This too boded well with the guests.

Bernard shares that every experiment the brothers do with their rums sees weeks of tinkering and can mean hundreds of litres expended during the process, setting back their inventories quite a fair bit. As such they've had to call in help from Richard Seale, the famed Barbados rum maker, who supplies them with his own stock that is currently the base for some of Takamaka's expressions.

Here we have the Zepis Kreol, which is yet another experiment from Takamaka in creating a spiced rum using Kreol spices, which Bernard shares that especially the use of cinnamon can very easily overpower the rum's flavor.

He tells us that the creative process is like a pyramid where they start at the bottom with many iterations, which is then cut down layer by layer until they get down to the exact profile they want. They also use some Foursquare rum here as a base.

The Zepis Kreol is more on sarsaparilla, as well as cinnamon, clove and nutmeg, it's definitely more root-y and bitter, although not overpowering. There's more on cola syrup on the palate with a more medicinal, angelica root sort of herbal finish reminiscent of cough syrup or Pei Pa Koa.

Bernard sheds some light on the eventual goal being to have bottles fully containing juice solely from Takamaka's pot stills nonetheless. He also shares that in for the cane-based rums, 3 years in the French Oak casks is peak, while the molasses-based rums can take alittle more, going up to 6 years.

With that we move on to the final expression of the night - the Grankaz, a cask aged blend of cane and molasses rum.

This one is more punchy on the nose with notes of aniseed and allspice. Quite bright on the palate as well with herbal jelly, lemongrass and pandan but also more burnt brown sugar. Lots of cane vegetal notes but sweeter, delicate and aromatic. It's alittle more drying on the palate with more spices and woody tannins.

The breathtaking Capitol Kempinski Hotel right smack in town.

And with that we're through with all six expressions, making our tour with Bernard around the Seychelles and St. Andre ranges.

It's always wonderful to hear from the folks who produce the spirit themselves, after all who would know better the intricacies than the founders.

With that it's a wrap!

Kanpai!

@111hotpot