Making an exceptional Arranged Rum requires perfect mastery of balance, a great knowledge fruits, spices, as well as the environment in which Arranged Rum will evolve. How to make your Arranged Rum well ? Discover through this article the secrets and advice for preparing a Perfect Arranged Rum.

1. The choice of ingredients

It is the excellence of the ingredients who make an exceptional Arranged Rum! The rum, fruits and spices, the main ingredients of Rhum Arrangé, must be selected with great precision. 
 

The rum

Which rum to choose for an Arranged Rum? What degree of rum for an Arranged Rum? The real traditional Arranged Rum is made from a white rum at over 40°.
You can opt for a traditional rum or one agricultural rum. Traditional rum is made from sugar cane molasses, while agricultural rum is made from pure fresh cane juice.   
Traditional white rum is powerful, pure, and fresh, agricultural rum is more intense, fruity and complex to master.
You can select your rum based on the fruits you are going to use. All the white rums have some unique flavors. You will find white rums with notes of coffee, coconut, banana for example. It's up to you to choose according to your desires!
On the nose, a good white rum should express aromas of sugars And spices, all structured by sugar cane.
In the mouth, it must be oriented towards sugar cane supplemented by spicy flavors.
To summarize, choose an elegant and balanced white rum depending on the fruits you are going to work with.

The fruits
For the choice of your fruits, here is 4 essential rules to respect :

• Respect for the seasons

At Arrangé Blard we only work with seasonal fruits from Reunion. Forced ripe fruits or fruits from other countries are seriously lacking in freshness. 
For fruits from Reunion Island, you can follow this table to check their season: https://www.cartedelareunion.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Fruits-de-saison-calendrier-Ile-de-La-Reunion.jpg

•  Quality

Always choose fruit from your neighboring merchant/producer, this guarantees their freshness. At Arrangé Blard, we set out to conquer the best producers on the island for each fruit. The vast majority of our fruits are certified organic.

Fruits that have matured in the holds of boats, fruits that have been forced to ripen or even fruits that have undergone long transportation should be avoided for a successful Arranged Rum.

You can recognize them by their almost perfect skin and their larger than normal size. Prefer to buy a fruit that is not perfect on the outside, it will be more healthy with a more intense taste.

The more your fruit will be fresh and natural, the more they will be tasty and will come out in your Arranged Rum.

• Ideal maturity

The maturity of the fruit for an Arranged Rum is very important, when you buy your fruit, make sure it is ripe but not too ripe.

Each fruit has its own rules! Some examples :

Passion fruit: the more purple/brown and wrinkled it is, the sweeter it is.

The lychee: it must be bright red with a solid shell

The José mango: when touched, it should be able to sink in (slightly)

The Victoria pineapple: its more or less pronounced yellow color but above all its powerful scent

• Taste

The best way to know if a fruit is 100% natural, ripe and in season is sure to taste it! You must feel a sweet taste and one juicy appearance (for certain fruits).

At Arrangé Blard, all the fruits are tasted when we buy them from the hands of our producer partners!

Spices

Also prefer spices 100% natural and preferably whole and not in powder form. Cinnamon, cloves, and of course vanilla!
To recognize a good vanilla here are a few points:  

– Its color: The vanilla pods must black Or dark brown

– Its length: a good vanilla measures approximately 10 to 27 cm long and 8 to 15 mm in diameter

– Its appearance: the pods must be plump And thick

– Its maturity: A good quality pod must be worked between 6 and 12 months then matured for at least 90 days.

The sweet touch
A sweet touch in its Arranged Rum is essential to provide softness! Brown sugar, syrup, honey, make according to your tastes.
At Arrangé Blard the sweet touch is honey from Reunion Island, carefully selected original, delicious... we won't say more 😀

2. Preparing the ingredientsTo prepare a perfect Arranged Rum, you absolutely must know the ingredients with whom you work.
Knowledge of fruits and spices, the flavors of each of their components: the skin, the flesh, the heart, the seeds; is necessary for the creation blends that are both original and tasty.
This knowledge will also allow you to carry out a intelligent cutting which will serve to preserve all the flavors of the ingredients. At Arrangé Blard, the fruits do not undergo any handling that could damage them during cutting.
When preparing your Arranged Rum, you must start by washing the fruits carefully without damaging them, cutting them (intelligent cutting) and immediately bottling them. The fruits must retain all their flavors in order to deploy in the rum. 
This will require meticulous work because you must keep each piece intact in order to rediscover the fruit both tastefully and visually.

 3. Dosing and assemblyAgain to get a Perfectly balanced Arranged Rum, you must master the flavors of each ingredient in order to be able to dose them correctly. To do this you have to taste them, do tests, experiment, and adjust if necessary and according to your desires!
We do not recommend combining several fruits, The real Arranged Rum is made from a single fruit. Mixing several fruits often gives the same result: there is always one fruit that takes the upper hand, taste-wise. 
On the other hand, you can associate the fruit with one or more spices. If this assembly is more complex to put in place, it is because it offers exceptional grades ! It's up to you to choose your spices and their dosage according to your tastes, and what you want to find in your Arranged Rum.

4. Maceration

This is the longest step in the preparation of your Arranged Rum, the work is not finished! There is no question of leaving your Arranged Rum at the bottom of a cupboard and opening it in 3 months 😄
The duration of maceration depends on your place of residence, as well as the fruit being processed.
At Arrangé Blard the Arranged Rums macerate for at least 3 months, at room temperature in our workshop located in the heights of Reunion. They benefit from an ideal temperature as well as a perfect humidity level for beautiful maceration. 
For 3 months the Arranged Rums will be gently stirred by us in order to allow the fruit to reveal all its flavor, to go through different stages of maturation and create symbiosis 🤩

Please note that in direct sunlight the maceration can be accelerated but the fruit and the liquid risk turning black, which gives a not very aesthetic appearance.
Finally, the longer you leave your Arranged Rum to macerate, the better it will be !

5. Tasting

How do you know if your Arranged Rum is successful?
At Arrangé Blard, during our internal tastings, Arrangé Rums are judged according to the aromatic power of the fruit, the distinct notes and the length in the mouth.

It’s up to you to create your criteria based on your personal tastes 😃

You now have all the secrets for a successful Arranged Rum! Let us know in the comments if you’ve already tried it?