Which rum goes with chocolate?

The cocoa percentage says how much roasted cocoa is in the chocolate, and thus how many roasted and bitter aromas stand opposite the rum.

The percentage on the wrapper is the sum of cocoa mass and cocoa butter. When the beans are roasted, amino acids react with the sugars in the bean. This Maillard reaction produces pyrazines and other aroma compounds that are characteristic of roasted cocoa. The higher the cocoa percentage, the more of these compounds per piece of chocolate.

On the rum side, cask maturation does comparable work. During maturation the rum takes up substances from the oak, including vanillin and lactones from the charred inside of the cask. A rum with more years in the cask therefore brings more aroma. That is why the choice follows the cocoa percentage: high percentage, more cask maturation and more body; milk chocolate, somewhat lighter.

Pot still rum and other heavy styles retain more congeners from fermentation and therefore go with dark chocolate with a high cocoa percentage.

Pot still rum is distilled per pot charge. Because that distillation proceeds in steps, a larger share of the volatile compounds from fermentation remains in the distillate. Column distillation runs continuously and separates more sharply, making the distillate more neutral in composition.

For the combination that means: dark chocolate calls for a rum from the heavier corner, milk chocolate a lighter column style. Jamaica and Guyana are known for heavy pot still rum, the Dominican Republic for lighter column rum, and Barbados for blends of both.

White rum has little or no cask ageing, so there is little aroma to set against the fat and cocoa of chocolate.

White rum usually goes into the bottle shortly after distillation, or spends a short time in cask after which the colour is filtered out. The substances that come from the oak during longer cask maturation are therefore largely absent.

Chocolate melts at body temperature and leaves a thin layer of fat on the tongue. That fat dampens what comes next. A cask-aged rum has more aroma to set against it. White rum comes into its own better in a mixed drink, in which the chocolate joins in a different form.

Dark chocolate contains at least 35 percent dry cocoa solids, milk chocolate 25 percent plus 14 percent dry milk solids, and white chocolate no cocoa mass but 20 percent cocoa butter.

Those minimum contents are in the Warenwetbesluit Cacao en chocolade, which transposes Directive 2000/36/EC into Dutch rules. Chocolate must in addition contain at least 18 percent cocoa butter and 14 percent fat-free cocoa dry matter. Milk chocolate comes to at least 2.5 percent fat-free cocoa dry matter and 3.5 percent milk fat, with cocoa butter and milk fat together at least 25 percent. White chocolate likewise has at least 3.5 percent milk fat.

In practice the difference lies in the ratio between cocoa and fat. Milk chocolate and white chocolate bring more milk fat and more sugar, dark chocolate more cocoa solids. More milk fat and more sugar means less bitterness, and so room for a rum with less cask influence.

Under European rules, rum may contain at most 20 grams of sweeteners per litre, calculated as invert sugar; with sweet chocolate, such an addition makes the combination heavy.

Regulation (EU) 2019/787 allows sweeteners to be added to rum to round off the flavour, up to that limit of 20 grams per litre. Adding alcohol is not allowed, and rum must contain at least 37.5 percent alcohol.

The label does not have to state the sugar content and almost never does. If you want to know whether sugar has been added, asking the seller or the producer is the only sure way. With milk chocolate and white chocolate, which already contain a lot of sugar themselves, a sweetened rum adds up the fastest.

Start with the lightest chocolate and the lightest rum, pour about 2 cl per combination and let the rum come to room temperature before you taste.

The order does most of the work: move from milk chocolate to dark chocolate with an ever higher cocoa percentage, and let the rum follow that line from lighter to heavier. The reverse does not work: after a heavy rum and dark chocolate there is little left to enjoy in milk chocolate.

Keep the quantities small. About 2 cl of rum per pairing is enough; with four pairings you end up at 8 cl per person. First take a sip of rum, then the chocolate, let it melt on the tongue and then take a second sip. Put water on the table to cleanse the mouth in between.

In de winkel aan de Brink in Bathmen staan 431 rums, waarvan 52 van acht jaar en ouder uit acht landen. Wij verkopen geen alcohol aan personen onder de 18 jaar. NIX18.