Rhum J.M Terroir Volcanique is a three-year-old rhum agricole that highlights the distillery's terroir and cooperage program. While tasty and interesting, it's particularly notable for representing Rhum J.M's innovative approach to rum-making, focusing on terroir and cask charring, and delivering quality at an accessible price point.

Rhum J.M is having a bit of a moment, and that moment probably began with Terroir Volcanique. Announced just before Earth Day in 2023, this three year old rhum agricole showcases the microclimate of the Rhum J.M cane fields, shaded by the looming profile of volcanic Mount Pelée, as well as their on-site cooperage program. The core idea is that they’ve used the level of control they have over their barrels to dial in the toasting and charring to capture something about the place this rum is made.

We measured a density of 0.941g/cc and a refractive index of 1.3554, indicating no additives, and in line with the requirements for the Martinique Rhum Agricole AOC.

On the nose Terroir Volcanique is quite warm: toasted sugars, baked apple, and oaky vanilla stick out. There’s a bit of development on the palate with leather, oak, pepper and smoke leading at the beginning, followed by gentler notes of caramel, cinnamon, and apple pie. The finish is pretty light compared to the palate, and leaves an impression of dried apple peel.

In our blind taste test we thought it was good both as a neat sipper (7.3/10) and as a mixer (7.9/10). All together the rum itself is a tasty, interesting expression, but more than that it’s a great example of why Rhum J.M is scoring a lot of points with rum lovers. At the highest level it’s just cool to see a distillery trying stuff—a trend they’ve kept up by releasing the cocktail focused Épices Créoles, Fumée Volcanique, and Jardin Fruité a short time later. They deserve bonus points that all these new releases can be had for uner $50. But what’s more is what they’re choosing to base their experimentation around. In a market where a lot of head turning releases are either unattainable museum pieces or outright gimmicks (maybe you thought of the phrase “hot sauce cask” before I said it?), J.M is focusing on playing with and highlighting the things that make their juice what it is: sugar cane terroir, and oak cask char.

 

The Superficial: The cherry on top of all of this is that Terroir Volcanique comes in a really compelling bottle; it’s everything I love about the standard J.M bottle treatment (nice glass shape, neat embossing, endearing typography and illustration) with a few additional touches that really make it stand out. The label has a more textured finish and irregular edges, the glass has a rustic matte finish. The illustration is frankly a work of art, and if J.M released a run of Terroir Volcanique art prints I would definitely order one.