Distilling

Two kinds of alcohol meet in a Flensburg Rum-Verschnitt. One is rum from the Caribbean, distilled in copper pot stills or in column stills. The other is neutral spirit, driven by a column almost to purity.

Pot stills work batch by batch and leave much of the fermentation's aroma in the distillate. Columns run continuously and deliver a lighter, purer result. Under EU law, rum may only be distilled to below 96 percent alcohol, so that its rum character is preserved.

Neutral spirit lies above that threshold. The law calls it ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin, and in terms of flavor, almost nothing of it remains. In the blend, it stretches the rum: it supplies alcohol but barely any aroma, making the drink milder.

This is why no distillery stands in Flensburg. The houses work with casks and blending vessels, not with fire. At the Rum Manufactory Museum at Braasch, visitors can see old machines once used to process sugar cane and distil mash, along with historic bottles from the collection of distiller Walter Braasch.

Strength determines the name. A Rum-Verschnitt must have at least 37.5 percent alcohol, with 40 to 42 percent being typical. The rum was brought to drinking strength with water in the city, and it is precisely this step that turns the imported goods into a genuine Flensburg product. How much rum goes into the blend, and from which distillery it comes, is decided by each house itself. The law only prescribes the minimum proportion.