Timber Creek rums

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Beukeboom
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Timber Creek rums

Post by Beukeboom »

Would someone mind testing the line of Timber Creek rums for sugaring?

Timber Creek light rum
Timber Creek dark rum
Timber Creek coffee rum
Timber Creek apple pie rum

I'd be curious as to the amount of sugar in the apple pie rum. It does remind me of apple pie and as far as I know the only apple pie rum available.

Thanks in advance.
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Capn Jimbo
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

Love to see someone test this one, but it's a safe bet that any rum labelled "Apple Pie" is sugared, keeping mind that about half of all the 800 rums tested - most allegedly unflavored - are sugared.

To the good, although they share little information, this smaller distiller does use pot stills and local raw materials for their vodka, bourbon, rye and rum.

They use classic/traditional equipment - simple pot stills, worm condenser, batched products, hand bottled, etc. This is commendable..



*******
http://timbercreekdistillery.com/our-spirits/
http://timbercreekdistillery.com/about-us/
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Capn Jimbo
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

The following was - no surprise - sent to the distillery...
Dear Sirs:

I'm sure you are aware of The Rum Project, with over 500,000 monthly hits from rum and whiskey afficianados. We have long been fans of honestly made, honestly labelled and honestly aged rums. We oppose the tricking up of so many allegedly unflavored rums with sugar, glycerol, artificial flavors, prune/vanilla extract and the like - even a bit of wine. True E150 caramel coloring - in moderation - is fine and legal.

On the other hand we especially support the alternative distillers who use traditional, pot-still, batch methods and who offer a real alternative to the Big 3 and others with quality products representing the best intentions and results therefrom and using quality ingredients and classic methods.

To the point - a couple of our readers have asked specifically if your Apple Pie rum contains sugar. I would extend that question and would love to know - no secrets - the recipe and method. I wonder too if you can address:

1. Do your unflavored dark and light rums contain anything other than legal coloring?

2. Can you describe your stills, condensers, fermentation, etc. especially of your rum?

Thanks much...

Best regards,
Capn Jimbo

Stay tuned...
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Capn Jimbo
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

Kudo's to the distiller, who promptly and thoroughly answered our questions...
Hi Capn Jimbo, I addressed most of the 2nd question in a previous post....but can give you the high level again.

As to our apple pie....the answer is no, we do not ADD any sugar to our recipe. We use apple juice concentrate and I stead of reconstituting it with water....we reconstitute it with rum. Apple juice concentrate, of course, is loaded with natural sugars found in the apples, but we do not add anything extra to sweeten it. I will just say that we borrowed my mother in law's blue ribbon award winning french apple pie recipe....minus the crust and brown sugar. We use all natural ingredient including Madagascar vanilla and Saigon cinnamon. As for our process, we add the apple juice concentrate and rum, then dump in the cinnamon chunks and vanilla and steep.....we do have a couple more non obvious ingredients....but they are our secret sauce....let me just say that they are all natural.

As far as making our rum, we use A grade molasses from Louisiana. We dilute it with Florida limestone spring water. We heat the water to disolve the molasses and mix it well. We then pitch the yeast for a starter batch. Subsequent batches reuse the yeast from the previous batch and so on. We pot distillery 2 times just like our whiskey. The clear rum is parked in a stainless tank to mature before bottling. The rest goes into barrels. We use both new barrels and used whiskey barrels. We use both 15 and 53 gallon Missouri oak barrels with a #3 char.

Our early batch of dark rum was made in the Meyers style.....we hit it with wood chips and added some caramelized molasses and it tasted darn good....much better than Meyers. We did put it in barrels for several months to msture. We sold this untill our barreled rum was ready. Our first batch carried a statement of caramel color added....in so much as the ttb said adding caramelized molasses constitutes a coloring not a flavoring....although the only reason we used it was for flavor....the wood chips provided plenty of coloring.

Our current batch and everything moving forward has a new label staying barrel aged rum and an age statement staying age of a minimum of 9 months....although most was over a year old in the batch. In the current batch, we did not add anything....but we did reuse the barrels that held our first batch of rum, so there is a hint of the molasses from that....but there is mostly the whiskey flavors from those barrels. We use rum from a corn whiskey barrel and a wheat whiskey barrel and combined it definitely has that bourbon flavor....it's really nice.

The last rum we have is a coffee rum that taste like a shot of black coffee...
Again, we use locally roasted Brazilian coffee, and all natural ingredients including some of our Madagascar vanilla....but we did not add any sugar to this rum either.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Would be happy to clarify anything you like.
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Beukeboom
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Post by Beukeboom »

Thank you, sir.
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Capn Jimbo
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

There's more. I have never had any distiller be so forthright and responsive. I just received another unsolicited response...
"Hey Capn Jimbo,

I just did a quick check of our Vanilla. We use Nielsen-Massey Royal Brand Pure Vanilla....it is fantastic Madagascar Vanilla.....but it does say they use a bit of Cane Sugar in the Vanilla itself....therefore, there is some cane sugar in both our Apple Pie and our Coffee Rum that use this, but I think if you taste it you will see we do not go for sweet products. The apple pie is certainly sweet as it uses apple juice concentrate....but the coffee is not really sweet....its pretty much black coffee.

Just a quick clarification.
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Nomad
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Post by Nomad »

Honesty in rum? Rookies :wink:
'We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they’re elected. Don’t you?’
‘Why?’
‘It saves time.’ -Terry Pratchett via The Last Continent
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Capn Jimbo
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

The distiller also sent this impressive...

Timber Creek Guide to Blending
(with permission of the distiller)

Although focused on bourbon, this guide is a real education on the many important steps taken by a high quality, batch process artisan blender. In it you'll learn about the better choice of roller mills for milling grain (vs hammer mills); sprouting and peating (drying); mashing/fermentation; lautering (straining); et al. The entire process is described, not to mention the difference between the methods used for beer, Scotch whiskey and bourbon.

This kind of transparency is almost uniquely rare and commendable. A must read - and a sincere thanks to the distiller for this unsolicited material.
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