Interview with Antoine Poirecuitte, Master Distiller and founder of Sampan Rums

9 March 2023 | Interviews & Meetings
Interview with Antoine Poirecuitte, Master Distiller and founder of Sampan Rums

Hello, thank you for granting us this interview. How would you present your distillery, the Distillerie d'Indochine, in a few words?

First of all, my desire to create a distillery goes back a long way. As the grandson of a distiller, I was introduced to distillation at the age of 6. The magic of the process and the atmosphere of the distillation days gave birth to a real vocation… The idea grew with my experiences and my encounters in Asia.

In 2016, once the idea was more precise and part of the funds collected, I was able to launch myself concretely into the adventure... It was around a few bottles of good wine that two passionate friends who found the idea a bit crazy joined this epic project. After more than two years, from "business dinners to business dinners" the project was refined, Sampan was finalized and the distillery followed in 2018...

I would say that the Indochina distillery is the expression of each of us three wanting to create a lasting, pleasant adventure where work, good nature and love of good and true are mixed... A lively place of production, hospitality and sharing where we show our manufacturing processes in complete transparency and where we can taste all of our rums. With some surprises for visitors who can discover exclusive rums for the distillery... For me the distillery is a life project, a way of life also where I live to the rhythm of sugar cane and distillations. Doing business in a country that is not your own is not easy, but the desire to build this life adventure has always been stronger. The Indochine Distillery is still young on the distillery life scale, and we still have lots of ideas and energy for the years to come!!

Antoine Poirecuitte, co-founder of Rhums Sampan
Antoine Poirecuitte, co-fondateur des Rhums Sampan

How does the Indochina distillery, which produces Sampan rums, get its sugar cane supplies? Does it have its own fields?

No, we do not own our crop fields. We work on rent with local producers and try to set up a cooperative. Sugar cane has been cultivated for millennia in Vietnam and the know-how is great. We selected the production site based on the surrounding cane fields. The culture is natural, without chemicals, without pesticides, a high quality of soil and irrigation is done by rainwater and spring water in the neighboring mountains. The production framework is extremely qualitative and natural. We are also working with the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and the French consulate to set up AOC production there.

The sugar cane is selected beforehand on the vine by plot (soil, maturity, irrigation) and is monitored during the growth phase over about forty hectares. There are about 60 varieties of sugarcane in Vietnam, we have selected one, after many tests, endemic to the country. Sampan rum is the expression of a real Vietnamese terroir even if it is made by a young Frenchman... The canes are received at the distillery after a manual cut and are used within 24 hours after the cut, guaranteeing great freshness of the fermented juice…

We carry out long fermentations in temperature-controlled vats of about 5 days, in order to develop a maximum of aromas. The goal is to find the ideal temperature in order to make our yeasts live as long as possible. In fact, yeast is partly at the origin of the aromatic DNA of our rum. With a longer life, the yeast will have more time to develop more aromas…

Once the fermentation is complete, our vesou (cane wine) goes into the distillation column (11 extraction trays and 2 concentration trays) and we take out a Rum between 70% and 72%. It is then put to rest, what my Grandfather called "cooling the alcohol". After 3 weeks of rest, the rum is slowly reduced by a drop-by-drop system over a minimum period of 6 to 8 months with very pure and tasteless reverse osmosis water (without minerals) in order to clearly highlight the aromatics of the Vietnamese sugarcane. I would like to point out that for all of our white and old rums, no additives are used in the production. For our white rums, between the reception of the sugarcane and the bottling of these "sugarcanes", a pregnancy happened... A long enough time to properly soften and round off our alcohols.

Always according to my Grandfather, the secret of distillation and of a good brandy is patience...

What does rum represent in Vietnam and more generally sugarcane?

Vietnam is the 4th largest sugar producing country in Southeast Asia with approximately 300,000 hectares of cultivated land. Due to trade agreements in the Asia zone, customs barriers are relatively low on imported sugar, particularly from Thailand (4th largest sugarcane producing country in the world). The industry is disrupted by this. Our approach to establish the first AOC on the production of sugarcane in Vietnam is part of the will of the authorities to promote this production, at our small level!

Rum begins to democratize in Vietnam. The cocktail, bar and mixology trend is quite recent and rum is part of this development. In general, old rum is more popular than white rum in cocktails. However, Vietnam has many seaside resorts where our white rums are very successful, especially with tourists looking for local discoveries.

Sampan distillery

You recently released a very nice old Sampan Rhum, in ex-Cognac barrels. What can you tell us about this rum, the resting time before barreling, the degree of barreling, the reduction?

Thank you for your comment ! Indeed, we released our first 3-year-old rums in 2022. A 3-year-old rum aged in ex-cognac barrels. We have selected Cognac barrels because in my opinion, the finesse of Cognac is close to that of agricole type rums and there is therefore an obvious relationship for the use of this type of barrel. Bourbon barrels are, in my opinion, better suited for richer molasses rums…

We do our reductions in barrels during the last year of aging. The topping up is no longer done with rum of the same age but with pure water. This allows us to get more sweetness and more roundness. We carry out a "small" reduction before casking over 3 months in vats and go from 70% to +/- 60% alcohol (depending on the vintage). Regarding the 2018, we lowered it to 63% before barreling and took it out to 47.1% followed by an assembly and rest time of 3 months in vats before bottling.

Our Cellar Series 2018 is the result of a selection and blending of 7 barrels from around twenty, the rest of the 2018 barrels are intended for 6 and 10 years old…

In general, how do you choose your barrels for ageing?

We work with a partner based in Cognac who has accompanied us since the beginning of the adventure. We benefit from his expertise and advice. During our visits we taste samples of "fresh rum" and try to project ourselves on the contributions of the woods according to the aromas/structures of our rums and the barrels available. We work almost exclusively on second-hand barrels in order to have less tannin marking. However, we have one or two new oak barrels per vintage to adjust the structures of our blends if necessary.

Aging barrels from the Distillerie d’Indochine
Aging barrels from the Distillerie D’Indochine
potstill at distillery d'indochine

How is the resumption of production at the distillery going? What are the interviews to be done or the preparation steps before the recovery which took place in February?

Production restarted at the beginning of February, the start is always stressful! the reception of the cane, analysis, first fermentation… This year the stress is all the more important as we have invested in a new mill and new fermentation tanks. Using this new equipment, adapting to their uses and becoming familiar with new processes is not easy!

The start does not begin on the day of reception of the canes but well upstream during the growth of the sugarcanes in order to follow the evolution of these and to begin the selection of plots. Three months before the start of production, 800 tons of sugar cane were ordered on selected plots. Production is continuous work throughout the year with very different stages. Relationship with our grower partners with whom we work in farming and in the process of establishing a cooperative, growth monitoring, soil analysis in order to provide the necessary natural nutrients, irrigation, selection of canes and finally reception of our canes after 11 months of growth before reaching maturity…

This year we have 5 months of production, a fairly intense period... and I hope to come and meet you to taste our 2023 vintage together.

By the way, what releases are you planning for 2023?

The 2019 vintage will be significantly different from the 2018, a little drier and very aromatic. We will also release a 3-year-old rum in bourbon casks with a finish in cherry liqueur barrels as well as another surprise for the French market... We have special and unpublished rums in barrels that are aging but we will tell you more about them when the time comes ;-)

In order to continue reading, we suggest you...

Discover all Sampan rums

Interview by

Matthieu Lange
Matthieu Lange
Spirits Advisor