If you've ever tasted Koloa Rum, which is produced locally here on Kauai, you can taste it's subtle sweetness from the sugar used to produce it. Now that sweetness will come from locally grown sugar cane, revitalizing a crop that has a rich history on Kauai.
The 7 acres of cane grow on Gay & Robinson land within site of the silenced Olokele Mill. The mill closed 6 years ago after a total of 120 years of cane cultivation on the land. The company processes the cane right there in the field.
“We have a crusher mounted on a trailer. We hand-harvest and crush the cane in the field, store the juice in a tank and bring it to the distillery,” Bob Gunter, president and CEO of Koloa Rum told The Garden Island.
When the rum company received its federal, state and county permits, it bought raw sugar from Gay & Robinson as the feedstock for the distilling process. When Gay & Robinson cane was no longer available, Koloa Rum began purchasing sugar from Alexander & Baldwin’s HC&S factory on Maui — the last full-scale sugar plantation in Hawaii. They plan to supplement HC&S sugar with local Kauai cane as they ramp up operations.
The company produces a white, a gold and a dark rum, a spiced rum and a coconut rum, and a line of ready-to-drink cocktails. It recently launched a new product - Kauai Coffee rum, using coffee beans from the Kauai Coffee fields of West Kauai. It's a great thing to see local businesses support the local agricultural community. And the rum is sure to taste a little bit sweeter.