Sugar cane disappeared from Kohala in 1975, from Kunia in 1995 and from Kaumakani in 2010 as part of the demise of what was once Hawaii’s biggest crop. Today, though, fields of the sweet juice-filled grass are growing again in these areas on Hawaii island, Oahu and Kauai — but not to produce sugar.
The plants are being raised by several companies making a special form of rum from sugar cane juice.
Known as "rhum agricole," a French term, the spirit often enjoyed for sipping is a version of rum traced to the French West Indies that represents 1 percent of rum production. Most of the other 99 percent is made from molasses, a byproduct of turning sugar cane into sugar.
Harvesting the cane for its juice, which then is fermented and distilled, is a budding trend in Hawaii that has created a farm-to-bottle product unique to the state.
"We have something very special," said Jason Brand, co-founder of Manulele Distillers LLC, a company that made its first batch of KoHana rum last year and is growing sugar cane in two parts of Oahu once anchored by sugar plantations: Waialua and Kunia.
Other companies that have planted sugar cane and are making rum include Company Rum on Hawaii island, Hawaii Sea Spirits LLC on Maui and Koloa Rum Co. on Kauai.
Some of the firms — Manulele, Hawaii Sea Spirits and Company Rum — have taken a distinguishing step of making rhum agricole from different varieties of sugar cane that existed in Hawaii prior to Western contact. These "canoe plants" descended from what are believed to be three to eight varieties brought by the Polynesians who settled the islands.
The original Hawaii varieties of sugar cane, or ko in Hawaiian, have evocative colors and names. For instance, Puaole has pink-and-green-striped stalks. Laukona has green-and-yellow-striped stalks.
Noa Lincoln, an assistant professor of indigenous crops and cropping systems at the University of Hawaii, said there are at least 35 and maybe more than 50 surviving varieties of Hawaii cane most likely created by natural mutations of the canoe plants.
Lincoln said Native Hawaiians historically had a wide array of uses for cane, including food, medicine, spiritual ceremonies and decorative materials. Cane also was used to enhance dryland production of other food crops such as taro and sweet potato, as the cane captured mist, blocked wind and produced mulch.
"The Hawaiians were growing a lot of cane, especially in proportion to the staple starches," Lincoln said. "The sugar cane was an essential part of their (dryland agricultural) systems."
Missionaries and other Westerners started sugar plantations in the early 1800s and bred their own commercial cane hybrids to amp up sugar yields and other desired traits preferred over the Hawaii varieties.
Commercial sugar cane planting in Hawaii peaked in 1933 at 254,563 acres, according to the state Department of Agriculture. Raw sugar production peaked in 1966 at 1.2 million tons.
There was some rum production connected with local sugar plantations. The Maui Agricultural Co. built the first distillery in the U.S. in 1917 to make rum from molasses, according to Rick Volner, general manager of Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., which merged with Maui Agricultural in 1948.
Volner also said Joseph E. Seagram & Sons partnered with HC&S to make rum on Maui from 1961 to 1967. The rum plant connected to the HC&S sugar mill in Puunene was bought in 1980 by Maui Distillers Inc., which operated until 1986.
Making rum in Hawaii from molasses or raw sugar continues today and is mainly fed by HC&S, which is the last sugar plantation in the state and farms 36,000 acres.
For example, Haliimaile Distilling Co. buys about 50 tons of partly refined sugar annually from HC&S to make its Sammy’s Beach Bar Rum.
Stephanie Whalen, executive director of the Hawaii Agricultural Research Center, a nonprofit that grew out of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association, said farming sugar cane to make rhum agricole represents a high-value but relatively small niche compared with plantation operations.
"It’s not going to be huge acres," she said.
The plan by Manulele Distillers to start making the spirit resurrected interest in pre-contact Hawaii sugar canes around the same time that Lincoln was helping refine what was known about the plants.
Lincoln said he was working to help straighten out a collection of native canes at the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden on Hawaii island about a decade ago and discovered that the collection, when compared with others, appeared to have some of the same plants with different names and vice versa.
The contradictions, which likely evolved over hundreds of years, were weeded out with the help of old descriptions and modern genetic test results from the Hawaii Agricultural Research Center.
Brand, along with Manulele co-founder Robert Dawson, obtained cuttings of all the Hawaii canes with an initial idea that they could be a biofuel. That plan gave way to rum production, and an initial batch was made in July.
Manulele had planted Hawaii canes on 10 acres in Waialua four years ago, and about six months ago started planting on 15 acres in Kunia, where the company also set up a 700-gallon still and converted a former Del Monte pineapple plantation general store into a tasting room and retail outlet that’s slated to open May 27.
Brand, a former investment banker in Japan, said he and Dawson loved the story of Hawaii canes and came up with a way to share that with visitors and kamaaina using a unique commercial high-value product.
"We hearken to 800 years before the plantations ever got here," Brand said. "We want to tell you the story."
Manulele, which is named after a Hawaii cane variety known for a straight stalk paired with a curved stalk, is making batches of rum using one cane variety at a time while varying the flavor, color and intensity of each rum by aging it in different kinds of wood barrels or not aging it at all.
For example, someone can try rum made from Lahi cane aged in a new oak barrel, aged in a bourbon barrel or not aged.
The price for a 375-milliliter bottle ranges from $30 to $125 for Manulele’s KoHana brand, which it calls Hawaiian Agricole Rum.
Manulele plans to serve fresh juice from the different cane varieties along with its rums in the tasting room, take visitors to see the fields and share stories about the crop, such as how it was used for cleaning teeth or eaten as a summer snack with the juice served over rice and ice.
Company Rum co-founder Steve Jefferson, who was born and raised on Hawaii island, said he hit on the idea to make rhum agricole while sailing a catamaran in the Caribbean from 2006 to 2008 and tasting some on the French island of Martinique.
"I just had it by chance," he said. "I’m kind of a foodie, and I knew there was something fantastic about it."
After moving back to Hawaii island in 2012 after a stint of work on the mainland, Jefferson partnered with high school friend Chris Schlarb to start Company Rum, which began planting 32 native varieties on about 5 acres in Kohala 18 months ago and has been producing test batches in a distillery in Kawaihae. Commercial production is anticipated to start this summer.
One existing major rum producer, Koloa Rum Co. on Kauai, is close to a possible switch from making rum from raw sugar to making rhum agricole.
The company was formed in 2006 and bottled its first rum in 2009 using sugar from what was then Hawaii’s second remaining sugar plantation, Gay & Robinson. Within a year, however, G&R shut down. That forced Koloa Rum to buy sugar from HC&S after it exhausted a G&R stockpile.
About 18 months ago Koloa Rum planted about 9 acres of cane on former G&R fields in Kaumakani. The company also is getting ready to plant 10 to 12 acres near Koloa with the idea to convert exclusively to rum production if large-scale trials are successful, according to Bob Gunter, company president and CEO.
Gunter, a former executive with onetime plantation operator Amfac on Kauai, said rhum agricole is an opportunity to bring some of Hawaii’s agricultural history back to life.
"Sugar cane production is near and dear to me," he said. "We are all very saddened by its demise on Kauai."
On Maui, Hawaii Sea Spirits began planting native and post-contact canes in 2012 and now has 10 acres of mature or nearly mature plants. The company anticipates increasing that to 60 acres or more in the next 18 months.
Hawaii Sea Spirits produced its first commercial rum in September under the Deep Island Hawaiian Rum brand as a certified organic rhum agricole also using desalinated seawater.
Dave Flintstone, owner of Island Distillers, a Honolulu-based maker of vodka and okolehao (a cane spirit with ti root), said he plans to relocate his distillery in industrial Kalihi Kai to 2 acres of farmland in Hawaii Kai, where he plans to grow hybrid sugar cane to make rum that people can sample and buy in a tasting room.
"Sugar cane is one of the easiest things you could ever grow," he said. "It’s like growing grass."
Brand, the Manulele co-founder, believes that even with expanding rhum agricole production in Hawaii, lots of room remains for industry growth. "The Hawaiian alcohol industry is in its nascent stages," he said.
