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Farmers harvest sugar cane by hand for the Ko Hana Hawaiian Agricole Rum Distillery. The four or five farmers employed at the distillery harvest single varieties of cane that will yield the pure sugar cane juice used to produce the distillery’s rum.

A farmer cuts each stalk of year-old sugar cane by hand with a machete. The farm grows 34 different species of cane unique to Hawaii.

Farmers load a tractor bed with freshly harvested sugar cane. Stripped leaves will be left in the field as compost, while the stalks are pressed into juice on site.

Sugar cane juice pours into a bucket as cane stalks are fed into the mill press.

Rum distiller Tyler Johnson checks tanks filled with cane juice. The fermentation process takes about a week and is an important first step before the cane wine can be distilled into rum.

Tyler Johnson checks alcohol content as fermented cane wine is distilled.

Johnson checks an aged rum for quality and finish. The rums rest in wooden barrels up to two years as they darken to a deep brown while the flavors become richer and more intense.

A Ko Hana staff member gives visitors a peak into the barrel room where rum is aged in a variety of wooden barrels. Visitors can take 30-minute tours to learn about the various aspects of rum production.

Visitors sample four different varieties of rum produced at Ko Hana.

A sampling of rum bottles line the bar of the Ko Hana distillery. Each rum is produced from a single variety of Hawaiian sugar cane.