Belize’s Award-winning Copalli Rum – the Spirit of the Rainforest
In this week’s episode of Belize on Reel, we take you into the pristine rainforest of southern Belize where, nestled on approximately sixteen thousand acres of protected land is the Copal Tree Group, inclusive of a lodge, distillery and farm. It was established decades ago, initially as a lodge for those engaged in sport fishing, but has since evolved to include a sustainable way of life in all its subsidiaries. Farm to table, sustainable harvesting and minimizing carbon footprint are its mission. Tonight, it is about Copalli Rum, a product of the distillery that has gotten global recognition at the International Wines and Spirits Competition in the U.S. News Five’s Duane Moody and camerama George Tillett capture the spirit of the rainforest.
Ed Tiedge
Ed Tiedge, President/Master Distiller, Copal Tree Distillery
“Most molasses rums are perceived as sweeter. You have to think more brandies and cognacs for ours versus a sweet rum, but there are definitely more floral notes to it.”
Duane Moody, Reporting
It’s the perfect base for most cocktails and the country’s very own Copalli Rum, produced in southern Belize, has a unique taste that is quickly becoming the go-to spirit for Belizeans and tourists alike. It is one of the many products under the Copal Tree brand.
Waluco Maheia
Waluco Maheia, Global Brand Ambassador, Copalli Rum
“It grew from Machaka Hill Lodge, the Fly Fishing Lodge here in southern Belize to Copal Tree Lodge and Copal Tree Farm and Copal Tree Distillery – an ecotourism destination and a farm to table experience. Copal tree, you can tap into it and get a sap. That sap is then dried and burned as an incense and it is very popular in the Mayan community dates back all the way to the ancient Mayas. We did a little world play and that influenced the name for the property, but it also influenced the name for Copalli Rum. Copalli Rum, rum is a spirit and Copalli Rum is the spirit of the Rainforest.”
Three distinctive rums are currently produced and sold in almost all stores locally. On the international scene, Copalli rums are found at bars and stores across the United States, as well as in fifteen countries in the United Kingdom. In fact, the Copalli Organic White Rum and the Copalli Barrel Rested Organic Rum have recently won two prestigious awards at the 2023 International Wines and Spirits Competition in the U.S.
Waluco Maheia
“It is a great feeling and it is a representation of Belize and even more so, southern Belize here in Toledo – to know that we can make such a prestigious product that is represented globally.”
Ed Tiedge
“It took us a little bit to decide on what the varietals would be cause every cane – cane varietals are like grape varietals – they can be different in flavour so we kind of did some trials on that and then eventually we settled on the balance between different distillation styles that would make the product the way it is.”
The birth of Copal Tree Distillery began eight years ago, and president and master distiller Ed Tiedge was there from the beginning. He began as a consultant, having ran his own successful distillery in Westchester County, New York for ten years. The vision to date is creating a rum that is sustainably produced. The complexity of its taste profiles is in its production, where cane juice, and not molasses, is at its core. That process begins in the fields, where red sugar cane varietals are organically produced and sustainably harvested.
Waluco Maheia
“All certified organic. We don’t add any additional sugar, no colouring, none of that to them, so our white rum, our barrel rested and our cacao. They are all made from a local cane variety – you got to try some today – the red cane varietal which is very native to southern Belize.”
Ed Tiedge
“For us, our rum making is an agricultural process. So when the harvest is ready, we have to be ready to make rum because that period is limited. So basically the middle of February to the end of June before the rains come back; that’s the dry season for us here. We have to get that all done during that period. So we will start harvesting. We harvest about fifty tons a day, five days a week. We press the juice, we ferment the juice; that takes about four days for fermentation and then it will be ready for distillation. We distil it one of two ways. One is through our very tall column stills which produces a light rum and then through our pot stills which produces a much more flavourful, heavier rum. And depending on the product that we want to make will depend on the balance between those two things. So like our white rum is seventy-five percent column and twenty-five percent pot still. We want something that has a lot of flavour of the cane juice, but a little bit more approachable. Our rested rum is all pot still so all that gets put into a barrel and rested for about a year or so before it is taken out and put in bottles. And then our cacao rum, which is different from that too; that basically takes the light rum and we infuse it with the cacao nibs that we grow on the property and we put that back into one of the smaller stills and we re-distil that and that captures all the flavour for that.”
The cacao pods are also harvested and processed organically. The beans then go through a natural process of being dried on the compound before it is used in the distillation process. The distillery, lodge and farm sit on sixteen thousand acres of land – ninety-eight percent is protected by law. This has a direct impact on the water quality of the largest watershed in southern Belize, the Rio Grande River. Global Brand Ambassador Waluco Maheia is a resident of the area.
Waluco Maheia
“It’s truly a product and a spirit that is blazing the trail for sustainable products. A lot of things considered waste in the process is not seen as waste by us. For example, our distillery, especially during the production season is powered by bagasse which is a by-product from pressing the sugar cane. All that dehydrated cane fibers becomes a bio-fuel for the distillery. A lot of sugar cane plantation and harvesting, they usually burn the field. For us, we do not burn the field as it has a lot of negative effects to the environment.”
The international acknowledgement of the products validates the work of everyone across the production chain, making the Copal Tree Distillery successful in its mission.
Ed Tiedge
“It’s one thing to feel that you’re making a great product and that people will buy that and then it is also rewarding when other people recognize that. They are basically telling you you’re doing a pretty damn good job. And that’s a tribute to everybody that works on the farm because that’s what we work with as an ingredient, everybody that works at the distillery, their attention to detail and try to make the best product that we can make. We are working on some different infusion things. We are also going to release an aged rum, a properly aged rum – five years this year – so that should be out probably either November/December. And then we are going to see what the world thinks of a white rum that is all pot still.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
