The heart of Cane Land Distilling Co. is right there in its name: sugar cane.
On a tour of the upcoming distillery’s surprisingly expansive space off St. Philip Street, you can literally follow the journey of the same locally grown sugar cane from beginning to end.
“We are 100% cane-to-glass,” production manager John Landry says. “All of our raw materials come from one sugar mill, one sugar farm across the river.”
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These raw materials start out in 4,000- to 5,000-gallon tanks of molasses that are diluted with water and heated, then moved to stills units where the sugars in the molasses are fermented into alcohol. When up and running, the distillery can produce around 150 gallons of spirits in a day.
Perhaps the most unique step of Cane Land’s creation of spirits, though, happens in a large room full of barrels and vats just off the tasting floor, where the spirits are aged. Most of the barrels used to age Cane Land’s rum are cognac barrels dating back to the 1980s and imported from Cognac, France, to allow for different flavor variations in the rums. Nearby, two massive blending vats tower over the warehouse—these 150-year-old vats traveled by boat from France and were reassembled board-by-board on the distillery floor by French workers.
All this comes together to create five different varieties of Cane Land rum, from Red Stick Cinnamon Rum to Parade Argente Silver Rum, plus a whiskey and a vodka.
Cane Land is aiming for a mid- to late-spring launch, which will mean “saturated” distribution of their spirits across the Baton Rouge market before expanding into New Orleans and Lafayette, then eventually elsewhere in the state and region.
The distillery will also join downtown’s food and drink renaissance by opening its doors for distillery tours, events and a large tasting room with craft cocktails and daiquiris showcasing their spirits. To bring it all back to the cane, the tasting room and courtyard are outfitted with furniture made from farming and milling machinery, with a massive sugar tank that will be transformed into an outdoor seating area.
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Keep up with Cane Land Distilling Co.’s progress at its Facebook page.
