Sans Souci Palace

How Clairin, the Sugarcane Rum of Haiti, is Made - AFAR

"A third-generation family distillery run by Michel Sajous that blends slightly more organized equipment with traditional village-scale methods: a gasoline-powered cane press, indoor fermentation tanks, and small-batch distillation. The operation uses a rare, nonhybrid cane called Cristalline and allows natural yeasts to ferment fresh juice for about five to six days, producing a strong, clear rhum agricole (clairin) whose nose recalls small-production cachaça—fresh-cut cane, grassy and fruity. Sajous returned from working in New York to take over the family still after his father's death, maintaining an emphasis on terroir and the distinctiveness of cane from specific plots." - Tom Downey