Yeasts isolated from sugar cane and its juice during the production of aguardente de cana.

Sugar cane plantations have been expanding over a large area of the world for many centuries. During that time, sugar and several types of liquor, particularly rum, have been manufactured in huge quantities. In Brazil, about 300 million L of aguardente de cana are produced annually (Anon., 1953) by distilling fermented cane juice. Although the natural yeast flora of sugar cane juice may contribute to that of sugar and may play an important role in manufacturing liquors made from sugar cane products, very little work has been published on this point. Ashby (1909) isolated several yeast cultures from sugar cane juice. He referred to some of these cultures as oval budding yeasts and to the others as fission yeasts. Different types of yeasts were isolated by workers from cane molasses, cane sugar, and syrup (Owen, 1949). The work reported here was carried out to obtain a better idea of the natural yeast flora of sugar cane and its fresh and fermented juice. Moreover, certain yeast cultures could be selected in order to study their effect, when used as pure starters, on the production of aguardente de cana which is the Brazilian national liquor.