Cocktails with Agricole
Agricole is a style of rum from the French-speaking Caribbean, distilled from freshly squeezed cane juice and not from molasses.
ABV40%
Substitutes for Agricole
The bottles nearest to it come off the still weaker or start from a different raw material, and either way the green, almost olive-brine note it is bought for goes. In a Ti' Punch there is no substitute at all: the drink is three ingredients and this is one of them.
Often confused with
Cachaça
Fresh cane again, but cachaça comes off the still at a lower proof: sweeter, without the sharp green edge. A Ti Punch made on it is rounder and less bracing. In a Ti Punch the drink lands softer and rounder, and the grassy grip of agricole is gone — take a little less lime.
Molasses rum
Distilled from the by-product of sugar refining instead of the juice, so it is rounder, sweeter and without the grass. It stands in for the strength and never for the character.
Rhum agricole blanc
This is the unaged white — what is usually meant. Aged agricole is another thing: oak sits over the grass, the drink darkens and sweetens, and it belongs closer to an Old Fashioned than to a Ti Punch.
Description
EU law reserves the word agricole for cane-juice spirit with a geographical indication. The Martinique version carries an AOC on top of that, setting the cane varieties, the ferment and the still.
