presents
Augustin
AAugustin’s got a magnificent silence to listen to.
He’s twenty five, with dark hair, lively eyes and a very friendly face.
He learned very soon that in life there are people to grow up with and people to have memories of.
in particular the vast landscapes of his land, a trueflower set in the light blue sea of the Caribbean: the shining sun of the morning, the glittering water of the twilight.
He loves to observe the intense green of the sugarcane fields that surround him, a paradisiacal vegetation without parallels in the world. And at the end of it all, he grabs the colours of his Martinique and transfers them to canvas with ingenuity and imagination. He’s got a collection of one thousand canvases: apparently, they all look identical, but each of them captures a different moment.
However, he’s got a favourite subject among them all: the boundless sugarcane fields that have always represented a unique resource in a territory with a fresh, mineral & fruity aromatic profile.
In Sainte Luce, at the southern extreme of Martinique, the sunniest part of the island, sugarcane fields lushly unfold under his watchful gaze, caressed by trade winds in the shade of a majestic windmill, directly overlooking the turquoise Caribbean sea. They are the largest and oldest fields in Martinique founded in 1660 and lie on a clay soil that allows the sugarcane roots to directly sink in the waters of the sea. The rum that stems from that natural heritage is named after the three rivers that run alongside the land: Bois d'Inde, Oman and Saint-Pierre.
Augustin knows everything about those lands and rivers. The road meekly stretches under his feet: at every step his gaze rests on the panorama. His eyes sometimes struggle to contain it all.
There is no steel sky or frosty land that can interest him. He just loves his sun, the spicy perfumes of the stalks caressed by the breeze, the windmills, the secrets guarded in the heat, protected by the shade of the sugarcanes ready to pour their sweet, sugary fragrance into the air.
Every day, Augustin reaches a finely carved wooden bench positioned right in front of that special landscape.
his mentor
and a reference for him.
It seems to Augustin that he has an invisible rope in his heart that becomes taut when his master arrives, drawing tighter with his firm and quiet steps, slender body, peaceful smile.
Both sit down on a bench that overlooks those sugarcanes of sweet flavour.
Before them, there is the Atlantic Ocean and the three rivers, turquoise like the colour that’s a symbol of that rum.
They don’t look at each other, but they listen to each other.
Together, they paint the same landscape, while Aimé, thanks to his long experience, tells the story of those magical places and a story that begins in the 17th century, when the sugar producers started to use molasses, a by-product of sugar refining that was left to ferment into a type of spirit called “tafia,” which is a forerunner of traditional rum.
process. It is a rhum agricole,
obtained by one single and
continuous distillation of fermented
sugarcane juice.
A noble process that gives the nectar freshness, finesse, fullness and a fruity aroma. Only this way can such delicate and rounded consistency and lively strong taste be obtained.
It’s not by chance that it received the French government’s well-deserved AOC recognition, Appellation d’Origine Controlée Rhum de la Martinique.
After so much talking, the night comes.
Under that starry sky that revolves around the pivot of their conversation,
pour a level finger of
need more to appreciate it.
The proverbial silence of Augustin adds to the silence of Aimé. Two silences that let themselves be heard.
And together, in that sip and in that silence, they finally realise the priceless wealth of those lands.