Rumfest 2024 in sight!
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Book for punchs & rhums arrangés
All the recipes for sparkling, fruity, and surprising punches and arranged rums, not forgetting the great classics.
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Caroni 10th Anniversary
We are pleased to present one of the centerpieces of our 10th years anniversary collection...
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Flat Peach Brandy (Pesche Saturno)
made by one of the best distillers in the world: Capovilla
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We offer 4 rum workshops from €50, discover our many dates. Possibility of privatizing a workshop. Our workshops are mainly in French.
Come to the store to discover the terroirs of rum, new references - Our tastings are 100% free
Compose your sample box (60ml sample) with our box of 2, 3 and 5 samples. Your personalized gift!
It's the return of the great rum mass which will be held from May 4 to 6, at the Parc Floral in Paris! The opportunity to meet again, to meet the producers, the bottlers, the creators, the amateurs, in other words all those who contribute to the development of our passion! We start here with a nice interview with Cyrille Hugon who has a lot to tell us, we will reveal the details of Excellence Rhum's presence at Rhumfest (yes!) and we will zoom in on the return of the Rhumfest Awards!
Cyrille Hugon, co-founder of Rhumfest Paris, the interview!
Excellence Rhum: Hello Cyrille, what are the new features for the 10th anniversary of Rhumfest?
Cyrille Hugon: hello Matthieu. The great novelty, beyond the feeling of jubilation which grips us as we approach these 10 years, is our desire to move upmarket which we are undertaking without denying our principles and in particular that of remaining a great popular festival. This move upmarket is being done in small steps with, for example, more reception staff, more food trucks and more comfort (chill area, outside tables, etc.) in order to make it more pleasant still the day.
In terms of offering, we are expanding our masterclass offering with a second room which will open on Monday instead of the big attraction of the Weekend, the VIF room, VIF for Very Important Friends.
This is the very select venue of the show, a room with a maximum of 50 seats run by the extremely famous Cyril Mald and his acolytes including Nicolas Bourdais.
We are also planning surprise activities, particularly outdoors, which are still under discussion.
ER: Can you tell us more about the Very Important Friends space?
CH: to put it simply, we gave full permission of Cyril Mald to use his formidable relationships with distilleries and other rum bottlers and find the best he could negotiate. We don't ask for anything other than juice from exhibitors, and this principle has allowed Cyril to prepare a program for us that he himself describes as exceptional every time we speak with him. I'm not going to reveal anything, especially since the tickets are sold out (75 tickets per day and not one more) and that risks making too many people frustrated.
ER: Will there be Master Classes this year?
CH: Yes, of course. As mentioned above, we have a host of them with 5 conferences on Saturday, the same on Sunday and more than ten on Monday, a pro day for which we had to open a new room. The list is long alongside the “ tauliers ” that are Cyrille Lawson (HSE), Alexandre Gabriel (Planteray ex Plantation ) and Daniel Baudin (Trois Rivières), we are lucky to have, for example this year, the first interventions of François-Xavier Sobczak the young virtuoso from Bologna , Teddy Boyer cellar master of Rivière du Mât and Aurélien Laye responsible for the development of Habitation Clément.
The program is being put together at the moment, and even if we don't have the details of the presentations, we will also have Botran , Isautier, Millonario , Diplomatico in conference rooms and two or three guests including Laurent Cuvier, the famous man with the stroller , Sandrine Pivaty from the University of Rhum in Guadeloupe and Larissa Arjuna who is the president of the Women leading Rum association! A very very busy schedule therefore.
ER: What can you tell us about the Rhum Fest vintages, released for the 10th anniversary?
CH: We wanted to mark the 10th anniversary a bit like you at Excellence and chose to address young companies (like us) for these vintages. Our basic idea was to only release 10-year-olds but after some discussions internally and with these partners, we preferred to give free rein to a search for beautiful, affordable eaux-de-vie . There will therefore be three vintages (originally we were aiming for a fourth which could not be done for logistical reasons).
The first is a delicious 20 year old Panama bottled by the Famille Ricci. The second is a balancing blend made by Swell de Spirits, a unique blend of “High Ester” white rums including the legendary marks from the Hampden distillery (HLCF, LROK, C<>H, <>H, DOK and HGML) + the MMW mark of the Clarendon distillery and finally Low Ester with the WPL mark of the Worthy Park distillery. A UFO !
And finally the third vintage is provided to us by Malorhum which plays on the register of roasted pineapple . A masterful classic that corresponds well to the know-how of our Saint-Malo friends.
Each of these bottles has a label beautifully created for the occasion.
Do you have your place for Rhum Fest? Get 10% off with code EXCELLENCERHUM
ER: How many brands are expected at the show?
CH: As every year, we can count on around 150 brands of rum from nearly 40 countries . We are on our usual standards. Despite a crisis that is still being felt on the market, it's still a party for us! Come !!
With this interview you understood that these 10 will be exceptional! But this show will also be an opportunity for Excellence Rhum to present its own vintages!
Excellence Rhum at Rhumfest !
Excellence Rhum will be present this year in a double capacity!
For the first time in 10 years, Excellence Rhum will have its own stand in addition to the traditional new releases bar that it hosts. With this stand, the largest rum fair in Europe will be an extraordinary opportunity to meet enthusiasts and introduce our collection to a new audience.
Since 2017, we have been selecting rums , sometimes directly in the cellars, and bottling them in the Excellence Rum Collection. The selected rums come from Martinique , Guyana , Jamaica , Belize , Trinidad and even Fiji . Some are still available. We will be pleased to present to you our vintages prepared for our ten years, namely our Bielle vintages, 18 months tank strength, 5 years and 10 years , as well as our Espérance vintage. And to finish our partner batch with Saint-James, a 15 year old cask strength .
It will definitely be a great moment!
The other event of this show is also the return of the Rhumfest Awards!
The great return of the Rhumfest Awards
The big event of this show is of course the return of the Rhumfest Awards, after six years of absence. We will reach almost 200 participants for this edition "After 6 years of absence, reaching this level is not bad" says Marc Battais, organizer of the competition. The Rhumfest awards returned following requests from certain brands, but many others had never heard of them. We almost had to start from scratch and rethink the idea.
Brand visibility is the key argument. Producers receiving medals will benefit from a collar to place on the neck of their bottles at each stand. These will thus be easily identifiable by amateurs. Furthermore, the best rums in each category will also have their place on the New Arrivals Bar, co-hosted by Excellence Rhum!
How to participate ? It is very simple. The brands were able to offer the bottle(s) of their choice. Depending on the number of bottles offered, the brand paid between 150 and 220 euros per reference. The tastings will be carried out blind by an international jury made up of 30 people organized into different panels.
Gold Medal: rums with a rating between 16 and 20
Silver Medal: rums with a rating between 15 and 16
Bronze Medal: rums with a rating between 14 and 15
The panels are balanced between amateurs, bloggers and professional experts. The jury will be chaired by the indescribable Cyril Mald and the Honorary President will be Jean-Marie Cornec who has been working on the Rhumfest Awards since the beginning. The results will be presented on Saturday, May 4 in the morning, and published on this page .
The tasting reports will accompany the entire prize list. We will therefore be on a very transparent edition which will act as a tasting guide for amateurs!
With this interview you understood that these 10 will be exceptional! But this show will also be an opportunity for Excellence Rhum to present its own vintages!
Do you have your place for Rhum Fest? Get 10% off with code “EXCELLENCERHUM”
Interview by
Matthieu Lange
Spirits Advisor