Just 3 hours and half from Sydney, Australia, lies the island archipelago of Vanuatu - 83 islands in fact. The country is known for its pristine coral reefs, exciting volcanic hikes, and cultural diversity, being quite the holiday hotspot for no small number of Australians. It also has more recently gotten itself its first rum distillery - aptly named 83 Islands.

Leave it to Australia's most daring independent bottler Dead Reckoning to showcase this world's first of Vanuatu's debut rum! After having tasted several expressions of 83 Islands' cane juice and molasses rum, Dead Reckoning has decided to bottle a 3 Year Old molasses based rum, which has been aged tropically in Virgin American oak. In support of this release, Dead Reckoning is working with the UK Rum Club and the Florida Rum Society to distribute the expression to the UK and US markets respectively.

But first - more on Vanuatu's first rum!

The country's first (and currently only) rum distillery, 83 Islands, was established in just 2019 by one Pierre-Luc Chabot. Given his French lineage, he had sought to produce an Agricole-style rum made with freshly pressed cane juice, except he faced one problem - the island, unlike in the Caribbeans, has no sugarcane industry.

And so what ensued is a testament to Chabot's sheer will - he worked with the Vanuatu Department of Agriculture to help the fragmented many small parcels of farmers clear their land so that they could produce local sugarcane. He even offered them 8-times the local price for their cane to convince them to test out producing this new crop. This was no small feat as at the time in 2019, the local demand for sugarcane was low and thus prices were just as low, and further to that, the Efate farmers had operated their pastures solely by hand and had no machinery to clear the land.

Yet after several seasons, it became clear that this was indeed viable and a distillery could provide adequate demand for locally grown sugarcane, and would even require more farming in order to meet the distillery's needs. As is rare for a sugarcane field to be completely developed in support of a distillery, this allowed 83 Islands to ensure that all harvesting of the cane is done by hand and that the fields are farmed as organically and sustainably as possible. What makes 83 Islands' rum all the more exciting is that all sugarcane cultivated by the Efate farmers are heirloom Vanuatuan cane varieties which will convey a true sense of the islands' terroir. The distillery is currently also in the process of finalising an upgrade for a pair of distillation stills with more to come.

Kanpai!

88 Bamboo Editorial Team