Mhoba Rum - Select Release White Rum

Volume: 0.7 litres | Alcohol content: 58% | Chill filtration: Yes | Colouring: No

Special Features:

The Select Release White focuses on the selection of distillates rather than cask maturation. This unaged rum is made from pure sugarcane juice, fermented for seven to ten days and then distilled in pot stills. The sugarcane is grown by Mhoba in South Africa’s Nkomazi region.

Mhoba collects the fresh distillate in small, separate fractions. For the Select Release, batches are chosen for their aroma, flavour and sugarcane character, then blended together. The rum contains no added flavourings, sugar or colouring. It is bottled at 58% in a bottle containing 0.7 litres, without gift packaging.

Tasting Notes:

• Nose: Pronounced solvent notes are apparent at first. Fresh, green herbal impressions from the sugarcane distillate soon emerge, accompanied by resinous hints of conifers and then exotic spices. With aeration, the solvent notes remain present without seeming aggressively alcoholic. Fruity sweets and pastry notes with bitter almonds and fruit stones also appear.
• Palate: The rum feels rounded on the palate for its strength. Its sugarcane flavour spreads quickly, with vegetal and resinous traits. Solvent and fruit notes follow, alongside a pronounced, pastry-like roundness.
• Finish: The finish is sweetish and slightly bitter. Delicate copper and juniper notes add further accents.

Distillery/Bottler:

The Mhoba Sugar Estate lies near Malalane, between the Makhonjwa Mountains and Kruger National Park. The Greaves family has grown sugarcane there since the 1980s. Robert Greaves studied mechanical engineering and returned to the family farm during the economic crisis of 2007–2008. Looking for another use for the estate’s harvest, he developed the idea of a rum distillery. In 2013, he produced his first white rum using stills he had built himself; in 2015, he began the process of obtaining a commercial production licence.

Self-built equipment is central to Mhoba’s approach: Greaves designed and manufactured the equipment required for distillation himself. The distillery uses juice from its own sugarcane rather than molasses. This directly connects the farming operation with rum production, using a sugarcane juice process also known in the French Caribbean.

Facts: