Chalong Bay Tropical Note Series Kaffir Lime (700 ml)

Founded in 2012 by Marine Lucchini and Thibault Spithakis on Phuket's south-east coast, Chalong Bay was built around a deliberate philosophical inversion: applying a 40-year-old Armagnac copper alambic imported from France to sugarcane grown in Southeast Asia — the crop's ancestral homeland — reversing the colonial direction of rum knowledge entirely. The distillery sits in Chalong sub-district, metres from the Andaman Sea, where year-round tropical monsoon heat and humidity shape the character of the raw material before distillation begins.

The base spirit uses 100% first-press juice of a single indigenous Thai sugarcane variety, hand-harvested without burning and pressed within approximately six hours of cutting. Fermentation runs in stainless steel with a selected yeast strain; the new-make exits at 65–73% ABV before progressive dilution to 40% ABV — with no wood contact at any stage, preserving the raw tropical-vegetal character of the cane. The Kaffir Lime expression belongs to the Tropical Notes sub-range, where kaffir lime is introduced via vapour infusion through a flavour basket on the alambic — a technique borrowed directly from gin production, making this a botanical rum by distillation method rather than post-still blending. Thai alcohol licensing law prohibits the word 'rum' on the label; bottles are legally designated 'The Spirit of Phuket distilled from 100% pure sugarcane.'