{"id":97640,"date":"2023-12-27T07:15:17","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T06:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/?p=97640"},"modified":"2023-12-18T10:19:26","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T09:19:26","slug":"hexagonal-rums-nitos-the-organic-catalan-rum-made-from-pure-cane-juice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/hexagonal-rums-nitos-the-organic-catalan-rum-made-from-pure-cane-juice\/","title":{"rendered":"[Hexagonal rums] Nitos, the organic Catalan rum made from pure cane juice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Developed using sugar cane grown by the Arts verts family in Toreilles in the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-Orientales, this 100% Catalan rum will soon be in its second batch. Its creators, Nicolas Paye and Daniel Rouffart, intend to improve with each passing vintage, and in the future might even release single-varietal and aged rums. Watch this space!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Nitos\"
Nicolas Paye and Daniel Rouffart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As is often the case, distillation is a story of friendship. That of Nicolas Paye and Daniel Rouffart began on the benches of the Lyc\u00e9e Clos Banet in Perpignan in the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-Orientales, where they were studying industrial mechanisms and automation.<\/p>\n

At the end of their studies, the two friends had an idea in mind: to set up a brewery, but it never got beyond the project stage. So they each began their own careers as industrial designers. That was until Nicolas had the opportunity to change careers in 2019. But even at that time, there were already a lot of craft beer breweries,” he recalls.<\/p>\n

So Daniel and I opted for spirits, as he was a rum fan and I was a gin fan. Unfortunately, there’s often a time lag between making a decision and actually doing it. In this case, it’s a long time, since their Nitos distillery only started smoking a little over a year and a half ago.<\/p>\n

The business is more complicated than it looks on paper, with a number of administrative and regulatory stages (premises, still…) to go through.<\/p>\n

\"Nitos\"<\/p>\n

Local gins<\/strong><\/p>\n

The distillery nevertheless set up in Claira (66 530), in an old watermill, and acquired a 150-litre Holstein bain-marie still. In 2022, Nicolas and Daniel (who continued to work on the side) brought out their first gin, then several, as well as a liqueur. “I like Dutch-style gins. I wanted something that was easy to understand, and not to enter the race to see who could use the most botanicals,” explains Nicolas.<\/p>\n

So we opted for juniper alcohol with a local ingredient each time: sweet almonds from Roussillon, honey (for the Christmas gin aged in oak barrels), poncire collioure (a citrus fruit endemic to the C\u00f4te Vermeille that looks like a large citron and is somewhere between a lemon and a grapefruit). For the latter, we use the zest for the gin, and the pulp and juice for the liqueur.<\/p>\n

\"Nitos\"
This white rum is made from sugar cane grown in the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-Orientales region.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first pure Catalan cane juice rum<\/strong><\/p>\n

So much for gin, but what about rum? Well, as you can see, it’s one of the rare rums made from pure cane juice in mainland France, since Guillaume Ferroni’s rum is produced in Hy\u00e8res (Var), and the U Massicciu distillery is planning to make a Corsican version. In any case, this is the first 100% Catalan and 100% organic rum.<\/p>\n

To make rum from pure cane juice, you need sugar cane. And that’s just as well, since a hectare of sugar cane grows just a few kilometres from the distillery! In Torreilles, Les Arts Verts has been growing exotic fruits, spices, condiments and sugar cane for over 20 years. “Up until now, they’ve been producing sugar cane juice, but they were looking for distillers nearby, and that came in handy because we were looking to make rum”, says Nicolas.<\/p>\n

So the non-hybrid bourbon cane, big tanas, tamaras and other black cane (other varieties are currently being tested) were pressed, then fermented (between 10 and 20 days depending on the period and the Brix level) before the vesou obtained was distilled.<\/p>\n

The level of alcohol coming out of the still depends on the brix level we manage to obtain, but it can come out at 80%,” explains Nicolas. For the first batch, we’ve reduced it to 41%, but for the second we’re expecting a higher level. We’ve had some feedback from rum lovers, which will help us to improve.<\/p>\n

\"Nitos\"<\/p>\n

UN JOUR DES MONOVARI\u00c9TAUX ET DES VIEUX ?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Car l\u2019ambition de Daniel et Nicolas n\u2019est pas de venir concurrencer les gros producteurs de rhum des DROM, juste de trouver leur style et de proposer un tr\u00e8s bon rhum catalan, bio et pur jus de canne.<\/p>\n

Et peut-\u00eatre un jour de sortir des rhums monovari\u00e9taux, ou des rhums vieux. En attendant, si vous \u00eates dans les environs de Claira en d\u00e9cembre, la prochaine \u00abcampagne\u00bb de coup et de distillation devrait avoir lieu en d\u00e9cembre, selon le temps qu\u2019il fera d\u2019ici l\u00e0.<\/p>\n

Sinon, Nitos \u00e9tant aussi bouilleur de cru, n\u2019h\u00e9sitez pas \u00e0 leur apporter de la mati\u00e8re premi\u00e8re (cerises, abricots, melons, vin…) Daniel et Nicolas auront \u00e0 c\u0153ur de la sublimer en une belle eau- de-vie.<\/p>\n

One day, single-varietal and aged rums?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Daniel and Nicolas’ ambition is not to compete with the big rum producers in the French overseas departments and territories, just to find their own style and offer a very good Catalan rum, organic and made from pure cane juice. And maybe one day to produce single-varietal rums, or aged rums.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, if you’re in the Claira area in December, the next coup and distillation ‘campaign’ should take place in December, depending on the weather between now and then. Alternatively, Nitos was also a distiller, so don’t hesitate to bring them your raw materials (cherries, apricots, melons, wine, etc.) Daniel and Nicolas will do their utmost to sublimate them into a fine eau-de-vie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Developed using sugar cane grown by the Arts verts family in Toreilles in the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-Orientales, this 100% Catalan rum will soon be in its second batch. Its creators, Nicolas Paye and Daniel Rouffart, intend to improve with each passing vintage, and in the future might even release single-varietal and aged rums. Watch this space! As…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":677,"featured_media":97324,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8564,5482],"tags":[1370,6564,8673],"class_list":["post-97640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hexagonal-rums","category-news","tag-france","tag-france-2","tag-nitos-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rumporter.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}