Bottled at a cask strength of 111.2 proof

Only 179 bottles produced

Year Bottled: 2024

Nose: Baked apple, caramel, tobacco, orange peel, buttered rum, maple syrup, candied pineapple

Palate: honeyed complex character, dry sherry, clove & nutmeg, caramel, roasted banana, toffee

Finish: Round buttery mouthfeel, with a spiced & smokey dry finish

This exciting collaboration came about when the team from Elixir Saloon, the second oldest bar in San Francisco, stopped by for a visit while we were making rum in 2019. The Elixir team had purchased a private cask of Maker’s Mark 46 the year before and they had the emptied barrel and toasted staves shipped out to San Francisco. The innovative Maker’s 46 program allowed the team to select a set of toasted staves to create their own unique flavor profile to finish their barrel of bourbon. 

Fast forward to that week in early 2019 when the Elixir team stopped by for a visit at our distillery in Oakland; we just so happened to be making a batch of our Hogo rum. 

What is “Hogo” you ask?

Long before the Bacardi family redefined Caribbean rum with large industrial column stills and clean, light flavored, heavily filtered rum, small village distilleries spread throughout the Caribbean Islands  produced a rich, heavy, fruity and densely flavored rum that was far from consistent from one producer to the next, but was big on character and individuality.

The best of these rums came to be known as haut goût—high taste, or the slang word “Hogo.” The term came from the French phrase that was used to describe the character in that forms in dry aged meat or cheese. This funky, dense and extremely flavorful rum style was highly prized… when done right.

What gives our rum its “Hogo”?

We start with the same 100% Grade-A Georgia Black Strap Molasses that we use in our standard rum, but  we pushed the fermentation to a full 2 weeks (and sometimes 3 weeks) as opposed to 9-10 days. This long slow fermentation allows natural conversion of sugars to alcohol without added yeast nutrients. It also allows for microbial activity that produces acids in the later stages of fermentation, which through distillation and years of barrel aging and interaction with the air, time and wood, become flavorful esters that give the rum its Hogo or funk. Furthermore, we distilled this barrel in one long slow pass on our pot still, rather than our more typical double distillation method, meaning it is distilled directly off the molasses and lees contributing even more flavorful acid production.

H. Joseph Ehrmann and the rest of the Elixir team tasted the Hogo fresh off the still and had an epiphany: fill the recently dumped Maker’s 46 cask, toasted staves and all, with some of our funky, fruity Hogo and come back to taste it in a few years. Thus the Elixir Hogo was born. Well, after 2.5 years, and quite a few tastes, we decided to transfer it to a neutral rum barrel for a little more mellowing. Another couple of years in the neutral cask allowed a rum that is both densely layered and fruity but also subtly mellowed to emerge.

Get some of this good funk in your life!