- [Announcer] "Taste Makers"
was funded in part by.
- [Announcer] It all comes down
to creating something unique.
It's important to take
pride in one's work
and share expertise.
Edward Jones is proud to
support the craftspeople
who define the maker movement.
(upbeat music)
- Here in Hawaii, sugar cane
used to dominate the economy,
but tourism has supplanted
agriculture and the resorts
have been built in a lot of
the old sugar cane fields.
But a little bit of that
sugary history remains.
So come along with me in this
episode of "Tastemakers"
to the Island of O'ahu, where
Ko Hana Distillers is growing
dozens of varieties
of ancient sugar cane
to make Agricole Rum.
(upbeat music)
I'm Cat Neville, and for
the past two decades,
I've been telling the
story of local food.
In that time, American
food culture has exploded
in tiny towns and big
cities from coast to coast.
In "Taste Makers" I
explore the maker movement
and take you along for the
journey to meet the makers
who define the flavor
of American cuisine.
Once known as the reed that
produces honey without bees,
sugar cane is the most widely
cultivated crop on earth.
It is the base of a range of
products, including granulated
sugar and ethanol and also
rum, which is what brought us
here to the beautiful
island of a O'ahu .
(upbeat music)
- Moved here in 2008 and this
became my new home, Hawaii.
Been an entrepreneur
on and off all my life.
And in making this my home,
I started trying to
figure out what to do.
Like, what kind of business
would I want to start in Hawaii?
And so sugar cane came
about because I became very
interested in agriculture.
And so I just started doing
agricultural research.
I came up here to talk to
the experts in agriculture.
And, you know, after a
little while talking,
they said, oh, well, Hawaii's
the best place in the world
to grow sugar cane.
In fact, the best yields, best
conditions, best everything.
And I was like, well,
but there's not really
much sugar cane left here.
So I thought, well, gosh,
maybe there's an opportunity
with that decline.
(upbeat music)
I frankly didn't really
know much about Agricole Rum
when I started.
It was the history of Agricole
Rum that fascinated me.
While I was doing
the research into rum
and plants and like,
well, what's gonna work?
So Agricole style
rum is made only from
fresh pressed cane juice.
That's the core
ingredient of what we do,
or a French style with an
American Hawaiian twist.
(upbeat music)
- The Polynesians brought
sugar cane to Hawaii
about a thousand years ago,
and during the 19th century,
sugar cane production
dominated these islands.
But during the 20th century,
sugar cane production plummeted
as the tourism
industry exploded.
And in fact, the last
sugar cane plantation
shut down in 2016.
So it's left to small farms
like this one here at Ko Hana,
to keep the cultivation
of cane alive.
Hawaiian sugar cane,
which is called, ko, K-O,
was brought here 1000
years ago by the native
Hawaiian seafarers as an importt
part of their culture.
Imagine if you get on a boat
and a canoe and you're gonna go
out to 3,000 miles
of open ocean.
You're only gonna take
with you those things
that are very meaningful.
And as it turns out, ko
sugar cane was one of them.
- When sugar cane got here,
it was gonna be used not
in the more traditional
sort of sense
from the Western ideals, but
instead for just day to day
survival, drought prevention,
religious ceremonies,
medicinal uses, a myriad
of different uses.
(light music)
When you're thinking about
the history of Hawaii,
you've got plans growing
what they need to survive.
Then you've got
contact with the West.
You've got sort of
propagation of these plants
that are now gonna be used
for commodities for money.
And as that timeline
goes forward, you
gain a lot of wealth
and then it becomes better
to do it somewhere else
from the bookkeeping
side of things.
And it goes away.
- I mean, you
know, 100 years ago,
all of these islands were
covered in sugar cane.
And we made a lot of
pineapple here, too.
But all the islands
were sugar cane.
I mean, that was the
biggest part of the economy.
And the Hawaiian canes
all sort of disappeared
into botanical gardens
and private collections
and things like that.
And people start to forget
about what they were.
And to me, that was sad.
I had no idea.
I just figured that
sugar cane was around.
And when I decided
to start a farm,
I would have to get one sample,
like I'd get a one stalk
of cane and cut it and plant it.
And then as soon as it grew,
it cut it and plant it again
and increase the volume of cane.
It took about a year to get
about 17 different varieties
in the ground.
And then it took years and
years and years of propagation
beyond that to grow the farm.
But I couldn't possibly say
this could have even been done
without the help of not only
the Hawaiian Agriculture
Research Center, but
just all the people
involved in agriculture
and Hawaiian history
that were instrumental to
us being able to do it.
And I think we have the most
comprehensive collection
of native Hawaiian sugar
cane in the world,
just in our own farms.
And I've had many people tell
me that they didn't know.
Oh, I had no idea of the
sugar cane was always
a Hawaiian product.
We always thought it
was just brought here
by, you know, the mills.
And I just feel really
happy that I could,
in this place that I'm now
calling home, that I have made
some small impact and
reintroducing something
that I think is very important,
and lost up until now.
(birds chirping)
- Ko Hana is a field
to glass distillery,
but it's a farm first.
They cultivate 34
distinct varieties
of sugar cane and they
preserve each varieties unique
character by making
rum out of hand
harvested freshly pressed juice.
- Sugar cane grows year round
here, and depending on when
you plant seasonally, it
matures at different times.
So we can stagger our plantings
so that we're
harvesting year round.
We only grow and harvest
in single varietals.
We have about eleven
different ones growing
en masse in our
fields with the goal
to have all 34
acres of each one.
They look different,
they smell different
and they taste different.
And that comes through in
the rums we make as well.
(birds chirping)
- Robert and I are standing
here in the fields.
And what variety of
sugar cane is this?
- It's interesting.
So this is actually a
rhino called Pilimai.
And so all this cane, and
we've got acres and acres
of this cane now, literally
came for what looked like
a little dead piece of seed
stock that we put in it into
a pot and just nursed
back to health.
- Amazing.
So how long did it take
you to essentially assemble
this library of heritage
varieties of sugar cane?
- You know, probably
the actual process
started in late 2009.
And really, it's still ongoing.
We're still looking and still
always open to trying to find
out which ones are
authentically Hawaiian,
through genetic testing.
So there's a lot of
work to be done yet,
and we're super
excited about doing it.
- [Catherine] So you
had harvest everything,
your team does here on the farm.
And why hand harvest?
- I mean, honestly, you're
still a very small farm
and we want to be able
to protect the cane
because we regrow it
in the sort of more
traditional Hawaiian style.
We're cutting it like a grass
and allowing it to come back.
So if you look at a piece
of sugar cane up close,
it's got buds on it.
And that's what springs up.
And so what we do is we
cut this and you cut it,
so you had three buds like this.
That's a piece of seed.
That's seed for sugar cane.
It's got a bud here
and a bud here.
You planted in the ground
only inches of dirt over.
I mean, just enough
to kick over it.
Give it water.
It springs back and becomes
essentially a clone of itself.
- [Catherine] Wow.
- So this field behind us was
harvested today and the canes
are gonna be gathered up,
they're gonna be juiced,
they're harvesting four
or five days a week.
So, you're constantly
pulling things out.
But standing here,
we're surrounded
by this ten foot tall cane.
So it must grow so fast.
- It grows very, very fast.
Like the field we
cut right here.
If you come back in a week,
you'll see what they call keiki,
which is the Hawaiian
word for child.
The little sprigs coming up
from where it had been before,
just within a week.
- That's amazing.
- Yeah, it's really.
It looks like mowing
your lawn, honestly.
This is the grass.
- It's grass.
- Good thing my lawn doesn't
look like this. (laughing)
- It's a lot of work.
- Yeah.
(machine thrumming)
(upbeat music)
- As much as 98% of
the rum in the world
is made from molasses.
And molasses is an
industrial byproduct
of the manufacturer of sugar.
But it's incredibly cheap
because the mills make it
and they don't know
what to do with it.
I mean, it's how rum
came to be to begin with.
And some very intrepid
entrepreneurs in Barbados said,
wait a minute, there's still
a lot of sugar in this.
Let's distill it.
Let's make alcohol.
So rum had been made for
hundreds of years with molasses.
And the French were really
the first ones to say,
no, let's not do it that way.
Let's treat sugar
cane as a fruit
and let's make rum the
way we make cognac.
And that's how Agricole
Rum came to be.
- So I'm standing
here with Chandra.
I'm just outside of Ko Hana,
and she's gonna essentially
take us on a journey through
rums, kind of a rum 101 class.
- Yes.
So we have four different
white rums today.
(upbeat music)
So this first one
that we're trying,
I wanted to show
you a molasses base.
This is actually gonna
be Bacardi Superior.
- So it has a more complex
flavor than it does aroma.
- Yes.
The aromatics are
almost nothing,
but really on the palate you
get a hint of that vanilla,
a little creaminess, but
it is essentially age rum
with just the color
taken out of it.
- How interesting.
All right.
- So the next one we
have is Banks 5 Island.
So this is actually
21 different rums,
molasses and kind of Agricole
blended together from six
different distilleries from
five different islands.
- Oh wow.
- So different, isn't it?
- Yes.
It doesn't have that
vanilla sweetness to it.
- No.
- I mean, a little bit.
A hint.
It almost has a medicinal
kind of flavor to it.
It's so different.
- So Rhum JM is
really the most iconic
distillery in Martinique.
Typically, the French speaking
islands, in the Caribbean
are the ones that produce
this style of rum,
which is called Agricole.
So this is the fresh
pressed sugar cane juice
that is then fermented
and distilled.
- That is very hot.
(Chandra chuckles)
- It is 100 proof.
- Okay.
- So you're correct.
But even though it is
very big after you sip it,
it's very mouth filling.
- Absolutely.
And to me, this is much more
complex than the molasses base.
It has a lot more going on,
like layers of flavor
and transports you there.
That's awesome.
Okay.
- So in comparison, we
have another Agricole,
but this one is produced
right here where we are.
This is Ko Hana, and
this is the varietal Kea.
You almost get that feeling
of when you're walking
the cane fields in the glass.
- I love that.
- Isn't it wonderful?
- It really is wonderful
and it's kind of soft.
- Mmhmm, it is.
- It's not like
the other Agricole,
which kind of like
hit your palate,
like with a sharpness.
- Right.
- And then again,
the layers of flavor.
There's so much going
on and it's herbal
and it still has a sweetness.
You can't get a rum
to taste like this
anywhere else in the world.
- Exactly.
- Only right here in Hawaii.
- That's right.
(Catherine laughing)
(upbeat music)
- We're standing in the actual
distillery here at Ko Hana.
And the aroma is so distinct.
How would you describe
what the smells like?
- Heaven, I think is the
best way to describe it.
And there's just something
so beautiful about a fresh
product like this, because
all we're doing here is we got
that sugar cane juice.
We're just throwing
yeast into it.
There is nothing else
that goes into it.
There's no additives.
It's just so beautiful
that we're able to just
take that one product for a
minute and just let it go.
(liquid trickling)
- Sugar just tastes like one
thing, it tastes like sugar.
But sugar cane juice
and having that juice
from these different varieties,
how much variation do you
have in flavor and aroma?
- It's about the same variation
that you have in wine.
So when you think a different
grapes, it's you know,
we had the same kind of thing.
There's a couple
thousand different
varieties of sugar cane,
but we stick to those
Hawaiian canoe crops
that we're brought over.
- [Catherine] Once you have
the fermented sugar cane juice,
then what do you do?
- So once the juice
hits full attenuation,
it'll be pumped over
into the pot still.
And we do 500 gallon washes.
So from that 500 gallons,
we'll get about 50 gallons
of good spirits out of it.
And from there, we can do a
couple of different things.
Any of our wide expressions,
we will resin the stainless
steel for a minimum of 90 days.
But then we also
have a barrel house
that will do all of our
barrel-aged resting.
(upbeat music)
- So I'm standing here in
the barrel room with Kyle,
and we've already
had a chance to taste
the un-aged spirit with Chandra.
But now we're gonna play around
with what age does this rum.
- Indeed, it's time to
talk about maturity.
Let's talk about letting
these spirits go from being
natural, grassy,
funky to not letting
something else
interact with them.
So this wood is gonna take
that beautiful white spirit,
add color, add flavor, tiny
bit of what I really dislike
referring to as
like, smoothness.
(Catherine laughing)
You get that, all
of those things.
- And is this a
spent bourbon barrel?
- These are, yeah.
So we have multiple
spent bourbon barrels.
You've got new American oak.
You've got used bourbon.
Wine casks.
Madeira.
The cool part about rum
being the Wild West,
of the spirits world
and not having a ton
of rules is you can mold it
into what you want it to be.
- [Catherine]
Yeah, that's great.
So what are we gonna try first?
- All right.
So we're gonna try our aged
spirit, which is called Koho,
which means to select,
choose or vote.
This gets bottled
right at 90 proof.
And hopefully you're gonna
pull nodes of vanilla,
maybe a little bit of baking
spice, but still get some
of that grassiness
on the back end.
- Oh wow.
This is a completely
different spirit
from the clear un-aged version.
It does have that kind
of warm baking spices
character that you
get from bourbon,
which I love bourbon.
But it still has that funky
grassy thing happening
that you get from
that Agricole rum.
It's a really
unique combination.
- I agree.
And it's cool to be able
to have something that
is familiar, but it
challenges a little bit.
And I think that's what
aged Agricole Rum can do it.
It gives you nodes that
you already know you like,
but then it takes you to
somewhere a little bit new.
And that's what we like to do.
- So when we arrived a couple
days ago, there was a Japanese
magazine crew in here
taking photos of this barrel
and what you guys are doing
with it, this is really unique
and it's made from koa wood
which is native to Hawaii.
Correct?
- Yeah, so koa is
actually endemic.
So, unlike the ko
which was brought here
with the first Hawaiians,
koa was on the back of birds.
So quite literally,
this endemic acacia wood
has been here ever since.
- That's amazing.
And so how is the flavor of
this wood different from oak
that you're gonna find
in a typical barrel?
- So it's really interesting
about what we're doing,
is we're using oak first
and then finishing in this.
So because it's such
an interesting wood,
you're able to add sort of
those finishing nodes from it.
So the nodes you're
gonna get off of koa
are actually gonna
be more savory.
It's got this like selenic
thing that happens,
which is really neat.
(upbeat music)
- Oh wow.
So still casts strengthens.
It's very hot.
(man laughing)
But the character
really has changed.
The vanilla has
started to recede.
And you do have that like
spiciness that is really
being pushed forward.
Wow.
- Fun, right?
- Yeah.
It's got that like, you
know, not at the beach,
but at the trees near the beach.
- [Catherine] Yes, exactly.
- It's really cool.
And this is the only place
that you can make this.
- This is it.
Hawaii, koa, I mean,
there's nowhere else
in the world with it.
- And that's a perfect thread
of what you guys are really
focused on here, which is
bringing back the culture
of these varieties of sugar
cane and kind of reviving
what was almost lost.
Being able to, you know,
take that one step further
and age it in this endemic wood,
it just kind of
completes that story.
- I completely agree.
And the fun part
about this, too,
is we're actually able to help
reforestation efforts with it
by planting more koa as
we take from those trees.
So we're actually laying
down more what will hopefully
become very significant
forest alongside
a lot of really cool people.
So it's trying to
connect a lot of dots.
- Bringing back the ko
as well as the koa.
- Yep, and hopefully
a lot of other things.
- I love that.
(upbeat music)
And now we're here in
Honolulu to meet up with some
of the city's top bartenders
and hear how they use
Agricole rums unique flavor to
enhance their cocktail list.
- The difference to me
between Agricole and like,
a molasses based rum is flavor.
I Agricole, you're
tasting the earth,
you're tasting the cane,
your taste in the sugar,
which it doesn't even compare,
when it comes in molasses.
And when you're talking about
cocktails and you're trying
to achieve a flavor profile,
why not use something
with more flavor?
(upbeat music)
Being from Hawaii, it's
great pride to share anything
from Hawaii, you know.
So when I found out about
what Ko Hana was doing
with what I call canoe cane,
it was great because I can
share the story over the bar
and it creates an experience
beyond the taste of a cocktail.
- One of my favorite parts
of bartending is actually
having a conversation with
a guest trying to figure
out exactly what
mood they're in.
What they normally like,
how much they want to get
out of their comfort zone.
And they're just trying
to create a cocktail
that just dials
that all in together.
To be able to share something
that's locally produced,
that's actually a
quality product,
it gives me a huge
sense of pride.
So anytime that
conversation starts,
when my eyes light up, I
get really excited about it
to share something that's
really special here.
(upbeat music)
- When Kyle introduced me to
all the different varietals
and the colors and the flavors
of it, it surprised me.
There's varietals with
banana nodes, clove nodes,
with grassy nodes, and
there's some with like,
a smoky node to it,
which is really cool.
As a bartender, I enjoy having
a little bit of fun with it.
- Here at MW Restaurant
in Honolulu, the
focus is on refined
Hawaiian cuisine and the
pastry chef uses local coffee,
chocolate fruit and
also Ko Hana rum
to enhance their desserts.
(upbeat music)
So tell me how this
restaurant is conceived.
I know you use a lot
of local ingredients.
- When we opened
this restaurant,
we wanted to share a
little piece Hawaii,
and what makes us so special,
and to tell a story
to our guests.
- [Catherine] You have
ingredients coming to you
all throughout the year.
- Yes, we're pretty
fortunate in that way.
As I tell people, we have
two seasons in Hawaii.
Mango season and
non-mango season.
(Catherine and
Michelle laughing)
But pretty much, we can
get tomatoes and pineapples
and coffee and mushrooms and
cheese throughout the year.
We have Ko Hana rum,
which I met through Kyle.
It's very unique and you can
kind of taste to sugar cane
in the field and
the different types
of sugar cane that he has.
So it's interesting to hear
this story and then be able
to create a dish with it.
Today we're gonna make
you the Mochi Baba.
using his Koho rum,
which is his age rum.
Usually a baba is
a rum soaked cake.
But what we do is
we do it with mochi,
so you get a little
bit chewiness.
- [Catherine] Oh, fantastic.
- And then we caramelized
some pineapple.
So it's like pineapple
upside down, meets the baba,
meets the twinkie,
because we fill it
with a lili koi custard and
then you get the creaminess
of that and the hot baba with
the butter mochi ice cream
which is like a little
bit coconut flavor.
So you get all the flavors
- That's amazing.
- Of the islands and it all
complements with the rum.
And that's what it's about,
to highlight the rum.
- [Catherine]
That's really cool.
(upbeat music)
- This isn't mine.
I mean, this isn't
even my culture,
and so I feel just
blessed to even be allowed
to take a small part in it.
And we have had the
Kahuna who are keepers
of Hawaiian history,
bless our cane
and really understand
what we do.
(upbeat music)
You know, it all started with
these canoes and Hawaiians
bringing these
beautiful plants here,
and then we trying to now
reintroduce them in a new way
with this luxury rum product,
and then we teach you not only
how we farm and what we
grow, but how we do it.
(upbeat music)
- These are just plants.
They're just growing
how they ought to grow.
And so you're not
getting in their way.
And for us, the most important
thing really is they still
have every bit of flavor
that was originally in them.
So instead of just pushing the
sugar and getting rid of all
of the interesting
things that are alongside
of that sugar, we don't.
we let it just be what it is.
(upbeat music)
- [Robert] Ko, means sugar cane.
Hana, means work.
Everything we do is
the work of the cane.
- From field to glass,
we followed the journey
of these ancient
varieties of sugar cane,
that Ko Hana is cultivating,
preserving a piece of Hawaii's
agricultural past while
connecting with the resurgence
in artisan distilling.
For more information on Ko Hana,
as well as all of the other
incredible makers that we're
featuring in this series,
just head to,
WeAreTasteMakers.com.
Thank you for joining me
here in Hawaii and cheers.
(upbeat music)
Connect with us online
at WeAreTasteMakers.com
or through social
media on these handles.
- [Announcer] "Taste Makers"
was funded in part by.
(upbeat music)
- [Announcer] It all comes down
to creating something unique.
It's important to take
pride in one's work
and share expertise.
Edward Jones is proud to
support the craftspeople
who define the maker movement.
(light music)
(upbeat music)