Recovering the ideal taste of sugarcane
Sugarcane was introduced into Taiwan in the era of Dutch colonial rule (1624–1668), and thanks to the island’s hot, humid climate, it was grown in large amounts. It therefore became one of the options for ordinary people to use to produce alcoholic beverages, making it the third most popular foundation for such drinks after rice and sweet potatoes.
However, after legal restrictions were placed on the making of alcohol by private citizens in the 1920s, lasting until Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization in 2002, and the sugar industry went into decline from the 1960s, the use of sugarcane to make alcoholic drinks also gradually disappeared.
Today, the Taiwan Sugar Corporation’s Huwei Refinery is one of only two remaining working sugar refineries in Taiwan. Each year at harvest time you can see the intriguing sight of narrow-gauge sugarcane trains passing alongside trains of the Taiwan Railway Administration, while fresh-cut cane fills the air with a sweet aroma.
“This is the fragrance I loved as a child,” says Favorland distillery founder Cliff Cheng, and it is the flavor he insists on recreating in the rum that he produces.
Entering Favorland’s Huwei distillery, we follow Cheng as he shows us the well-established process of making rum, from the processing of the raw ingredients to distilling to aging. However, Favorland’s initial attempts to distill rum did not go so smoothly.
After getting a distillery operating license in 2013, Cheng decided to use Huwei’s main crops—paddy rice and sugarcane—as the major ingredients for Favorland’s production of alcoholic beverages. However, while his rice whisky hit the market back in 2016, his rum, made from sugarcane juice, was still nowhere to be seen.
Cheng says that this was because the flavor of the rum he distilled was never the same as the aroma that he had smelled at harvest season.
Most rums are made by diluting sugarcane molasses with water, fermenting it with yeast, and then distilling the resulting liquor multiple times. Although these rums meet the expectations of the market, they don’t have the flavor he was looking for.
Rhum agricole, as made on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, has fresh sugarcane juice as the raw material, and Cheng decided to use this method as his foundation. After he modified the process by adding raw cane sugar to the juice, Favorland rum finally hit the shelves in 2020.
Favorland’s rum sold out within a few months of reaching the market. There was even a French sommelier who told Cheng: “Favorland rum is the most delicious rum I ever tasted in Taiwan.”
However, he adds that there is no right or wrong when it comes to taste. Just as not everyone enjoys stinky tofu, Favorland aims for its own unique style: It wants its rum to convey memories of the long-term relationship between the people of Huwei and its land, so that people who drink Favorland rum can taste a flavor that belongs exclusively to Huwei.
Cliff Cheng carefully opens the only remaining bottle of Favorland rum at the distillery, and as he pours it the delicate fragrance of sugarcane wafts out of the glasses. In our mouths the rum releases a sweet taste, and in our mind’s eye we see the abundant sugarcane harvest of days gone by in Huwei, once known as Taiwan’s sugar capital.
By fermenting and distilling sugarcane juice and raw cane sugar, Favorland imbues its rum with the essence of the sweet fragrance that fills the air at sugarcane harvest time.
Every cask in the barrel storehouse embodies the rice fragrance and
sugarcane sweetness of Cliff Cheng’s memories.
In the rum tasting room, Favorland founder Cliff Cheng (left) pours out glasses of rum and tells visitors the stories behind the drink.
The sight of narrow-gauge trains shuttling freshly harvested sugarcane into the Huwei Sugar Refinery is part of the collective memories of local residents. (photo by Kent Chuang)