Tequila Joe's Collection
Porfidio Rum
NOM: n/a

Distillery: Distileria Porfidio

Area: Lowlands

Aged: Unaged

Barrel Type: n/a

Bottle Size: 750ml

Bottle Number: n/a

Number of Distillations: 3

Alcohol Percentage: 45%/90 Proof

Price: $30

Current Website: http://www.porfidio.eu/
My Tasting Notes: n/a



Info on the Back of the Bottle: n/a



Other Info: "Destileria Porfidio, founded in the early 90s by Martin Grassl, was
renowned the world over until recently as the producer of the number one brand of
pure agave tequila, a range of spirits of exceptional quality. However, in April 2003
Porfidio released his 1998 vintage Porfidio Rum, a top quality pure cane rum, onto the
world market.

This exciting addition to its traditional portfolio of spirits, which is already acclaimed
internationally by liquor connoisseurs, is the result of years of research into production
and distillation processes of high quality rum.

Destileria Porfidio will never compromise on the quality of the ingredients it demands
for its pure cane Porfidio Rum. The vast majority of ordinary rum available is made from
molasses, a cheap by-product of sugar refining. Molasses consists of indirect cane
sugars which can not be converted into granulated sugar for the market, but can be
used for industrial alcohol production. Premium single cane rum, by stark contrast, is
made from freshly pressed sugar cane juice, undiluted and 100% pure. 30 to 40 kilos
of fresh sugar cane are required to produce just one litre of this high quality cane spirit.

For top quality rum, the sugar cane must be cut and processed within two days to
ensure the best flavour. Fortunately for them, sugar cane flourishes in the
sun-drenched soils of the coastal state of Nayarit, just one hour's drive from their
facility at Puerto Vallarta. The cane is cut and loaded immediately onto trucks bound for
Destileria Porfidio, leaving no time for the cane to degrade in the hot sunshine.

Harvesting is done entirely by hand using the traditional machete, a long curved knife
whose blade is honed to lethal sharpness. By avoiding the use of mechanical
harvesters the expert pickers are able to select only the healthy and mature sugar
cane plants for harvest. Mechanised harvesting results in a mixture of mature and
immature, healthy and infected, good and bad sugar cane that produces, ultimately, a
rum of very average quality. Sugar cane can only be harvested from December to June
and there is only one harvest per year. (By contrast, molasses-based rum can be
produced throughout the year, since the raw molasses can be stored in tanks or sacks,
like potatoes, for several months)

Once the three-metre high sugar cane plants have been hand-cut, again using a
machete, into 50cm sections, these small pieces are ground down into a cane fibre
mash which is pressed hydraulically to extract the cane juices. Pressing is a
time-consuming process. Of each kilo of freshly harvested sugar cane, 70% is fibre and
just 30% is juice!

As with ultra-premium olive oil, only the first pressing of the cane fibre is used for the
production of Porfidio single cane rum. In addition, unlike many of their competitors,
they do not dilute their freshly squeezed juice during the pressing, as this would
greatly reduce the quality of the sugar cane juice. The juice derived from mature sugar
cane plants contains natural sugar cane sugar, otherwise used for the production of
granulated sugar, which is the basis for the subsequent fermentation process.

The cane juice is creamy in colour, similar in appearance to pressed white wine grapes.
During fermentation the natural cane sugar contained within the juices is transformed
into alcohol by tiny micro-organisms.These 'good' bacteria convert the sugar into wine.
If 'bad' bacteria are allowed to get into the fermentation tanks they will turn the cane
juices into vinegar. Destileria Porfidio uses a temperature and humidity controlled,
impeccably clean environment in which case the fermentation process requires four
days, as opposed to the one day, open air solution used by many producers. The
fermented sugar cane wine has an alcoholic content of only 8% alcohol by volume.

The fermented cane juice is distilled three times, in traditional alambic pots, separating
the heads and the tails at each distillation and only keeping the heart of each
distillate." -
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