India's pioneering Amrut Distilleries is bringing back its Jaggery rum, which saw its debut on the world stage a year ago when Italian bottler Velier had introduced the global rum community to its first taste of a rum made with India's local cane sugar.

The new Amrut Bella Rum is a single Jaggery rum, distilled from handmade Jaggery sourced from Mandya, said to be renowned as India's "Sugar City", located near Amrut's Bengaluru, Karnataka, distillation site. This expression was produced by simmering sugarcane juice (without additives) and then put through distilling in pot stills, before maturation in ex-Bourbon barrels.

"Bella" is said to highlight the essence of tradition and innovation, and is an effort by the distillery to continue to pioneer the art of distilling Jaggery.

The expression is bottled at 46% ABV, while currently its exact age remains unknown.

Image Credit: @weixiang_liu (Review here)

Going back to Velier's bottling of Amrut's Jaggery Rum, which caught much attention from the rum community, it brought to attention the use of a not yet seen form of sugarcane, one that nevertheless is a local staple in India, made of solidified and unrefined sugar that is made from boiling sugarcane juice, and is often used in Indian cooking and as a sweetener for local drinks.

While jaggery has been used in the likes of Amrut's Two Indies Rum, it remains blended with rums from Barbados, Jamaica and Guyana in the expression, and had only seen its singular use with the Velier bottled expression.

Thus a wider effort by Amrut to showcase its Jaggery rum will most definitely be something to keep an eye out for!

Kanpai!

88 Bamboo Editorial Team