Nine Leaves “Encrypted” II 2 Year Old Rum (2017 release) – Review

 3 Responses »
Apr 172019
 
Nine Leaves "Encrypted" II 2 Year Old Rum (2017 release) - Review

You just gotta love Yoshiharu Takeuchi, who hired a brand ambassador, travel agent, accountant, general manager, master distiller, janitor, chief cook and bottle washer, the cook, the baker and candlestick maker, and still only has a single employee in his Japanese rum-making outfit Nine Leaves – himself. And lest you think he’s a dour, serious, penny-pinching cost-cutting ninja who’d prefer to be making a Yamazaki single-handedly or something, you can take it from me that he’s a funny, personable, dynamic and all-round cool dude, a riot to hang out with in any bar in any country. Oh yeah, and he [Click here for the full review…]


Berry Bros. & Rudd 1982 33 Year Old Jamaica Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Apr 092019
 
Berry Bros. & Rudd 1982 33 Year Old Jamaica Rum - Review

The stats and the label speak to a rum that can almost be seen as extraordinary, which usually fills me with dread as a reviewer: for, how could any rum live up to that? I mean – from Jamaica in the 1980s, 33 years old, a cousin to another really good rum from there, bottled by an old and proud indie house…that’s pretty impressive, right? Yet somehow, against my fears,  Berry Bros. & Rudd have indeed released something special. The initial tasting notes could come from any one of a dozen rums, but as it develops and moves along, it [Click here for the full review…]


Smooth Ambler “Revelation” 1990 23 YO Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Apr 072019
 
Smooth Ambler "Revelation" 1990 23 YO Rum - Review

When a bunch of the rum chums and I gathered some time back to damage some rums and show them who was boss, one of them remarked of this rum, “Easy drinking” — which initially I thought was damning it with faint praise until I tried it myself, and continued with it three or four more times after they all staggered back to their fleabag hotels, surprised by its overall worth.  It’s not often you get to try (or be really pleased by) an indie bottling from the USA, given how much they are in love with starting whole distilleries [Click here for the full review…]


Moon Imports 1974-2004 30 YO Demerara Rum (Sherry Wood) – Review

 No Responses »
Apr 032019
 
Moon Imports 1974-2004 30 YO Demerara Rum (Sherry Wood) - Review

It’s entirely possible that in 2004 when this rum was released, just before the movement towards accuracy in labelling got a push start, that a label was hardly considered to be prime real estate worthy of mention. That might be why on this Moon Imports rum from 1974, Port Mourant is spelled without a “U”, the date of bottling and ultimate age of the rum is not mentioned and it’s noted as a “rum agricol – pot still.” Hang on, what….? So the search for more info begins. Now, if you’re looking on Moon Imports’ own website to find out [Click here for the full review…]


La Souris à Moustache Alban 1986 28 Year Old Full Proof Old Demerara Rum – Report

 4 Responses »
Apr 012019
 
La Souris à Moustache Alban 1986 28 Year Old Full Proof Old Demerara Rum - Report

  In late 2018, a relative of this writer was the lead taster of a focus group assembled to test-taste a rum from an Italian company which sought to re-vitalize and even supplant the Velier Demeraras by issuing a rum of their own.  Your indolent-but-intrepid reporter has managed to obtain a copy of the official report of Ruminsky Van Drunkenberg, who is, as is widely known (and reported in last year’s authoritative biography of the Heisenberg Distillery) a man with pure 51 year old pot still hooch in his bloodstream, and whose wildly inconsistent analytical powers (depending on his level [Click here for the full review…]


Domaine de Séverin Rhum Agricole Blanc (1990s)

 No Responses »
Mar 262019
 
Domaine de Séverin Rhum Agricole Blanc (1990s)

Rumaniacs Review # 095 | 0611 As noted in the biography of the Domaine de Séverin, what we’re getting now from the new owners is not what we were getting before.  The company’s distillery changed hands in 2014 and such rums as were made back in the day immediately became “old”, and more obsolete with very passing year.  From the old style design of the labels, I’d hazard that this one came from the 1990s, or at the very latest, the early 2000s, and I have no background on ageing or lack thereof – I would imagine that if it [Click here for the full review…]


Domaine de Séverin

 2 Responses »
Mar 252019
 
Domaine de Séverin

Quick, name five Guadeloupe rum brands.  Yeah, not that easy, is it? You could probably reel off Longueteau, Damoiseau, Bielle, Bellevue, Capovilla, Labatt, Reimonenq, Karukera, and then with some head scratching remember Gardel and Courcelles (which is closed).  And then there’s this little guy in the mid-north of the left “wing” of the butterfly-shaped island called La Domaine de Séverin. If you have not heard of it before, that’s little surprise, as it is possibly among the least known French Island distilleries around (Bologne, Monte Bello, Simmonet and Mon Repos are others, and there are a plethora of small ops [Click here for the full review…]


Domaine de Séverin Rhum Vieux (1990s)

 No Responses »
Mar 212019
 
Domaine de Séverin Rhum Vieux (1990s)

Rumaniacs Review # 094 | 0610 Séverin is a small distillery in the north of the left “wing” of Guadeloupe (called Basseterre), whose history can be divided into three parts: 1800-1928 when different owners held the small estate and grew various agricultural crops like pineapples and sugar, 1928-2014 when the Marsolle family held it and created the marque of Domaine de Séverin for their rhums, and the post-2014 period when the distillery (but not the whole estate) was sold to a local businessman called Jose Pirbakas. Although there was a cessation of operations after the takeover due to differences in [Click here for the full review…]


Isautier “Louis & Charles Isautier” Cuvée 70 Old Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Mar 192019
 
Isautier "Louis & Charles Isautier" Cuvée 70 Old Rum - Review

Whether or not you can place Reunion on a map, you’ve surely heard of at least one of its three distilleries: Savanna, and that high-ester still of theirs that’s driving rum geeks into transports of ecstasy.  Yet for almost the same time, there have been two other distilleries on the island, Riviere du Mat (which made the delicious Millesime 2004 and XO rums) and the oldest of the three, another family owned outfit called Isautier, which I wrote about in a brief bio a few days back Isautier, among all their punches and arranges, make an interesting selection of aged [Click here for the full review…]


Isautier (Réunion)

 No Responses »
Mar 172019
 
Isautier (Réunion)

Réunion is an island to the east of Madagascar, and has had a long history with European colonizers, which resulted in a bewildering plethora of names. The Portuguese who were the first on the scene named it Santa Apolónia in the very early 1500s; then a century later the French took over in the 1630s, calling it Île Bourbon in 1649 after the French royal House of Bourbon. Colonisation started in 1665, when the French East India Company sent the first settlers, after which the island was retitled “Île de la Réunion” in 1793 with the fall of the House [Click here for the full review…]


 Older Entries