J. Bally Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 1979

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May 282017
 
J. Bally Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 1979

Rumaniacs Review #045 By now two things are clear about these older Bally rhums – aside from some educated guesswork, we don’t know how old they are, and by this time, 1979, the AOC noted on the label is somewhat of a puzzler, unless the thing is seventeen years old, in which case it would hardly be labelled a mere “rhum vieux” but an “XO”.  So maybe after the initial ageing they stored it in tanks or flagons and only bottled it after 1996…or, more likely, it came under a previous version of the official 1996 AOC designation.  At this point, [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson L’Esprit 70⁰ Blanc Rum – Review

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May 252017
 
Neisson L'Esprit 70⁰ Blanc Rum - Review

#367 In my own limited experience, Neisson has been one of the most distinctive Martinique agricole makers I’ve come across.  There’s something salty, oily, tequila-ish and musky in those of their rums I’ve tried, and while this might not always be to my liking, the quality of their work could never be denied.  To date, I’ve stuck with their aged rums, but back in 2016 L’homme à la Poussette (I’m thinking his poussette should be retired soon as his kids grow up but I hope he never changes the name of his site) passed along this ferocious white rhino, perhaps [Click here for the full review…]


J. Bally Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 1982

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May 242017
 
J. Bally Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 1982

Rumaniacs Review #044 We’re slowly moving past the more recent vintages of the Bally rums and into something not necessarily older, but bottled from longer ago.  Hopefully they’ll throw some light into the development of the profile over the years.  The quality of the older expressions is not necessarily or always better just because it was made thirty five years ago…but yeah, perhaps in this case it is. The 1982 is certainly one fine piece of work, made at the original Bally site before the distillery closed in 1989 and production was shifted over to Simon. Colour – Dark Amber Strength – [Click here for the full review…]


J. Bally Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 1992

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May 232017
 
J. Bally Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 1992

Rumaniacs Review #043 Leaving aside the independent bottlers, the agricolistas from Guadeloupe and Martinique seem to like producing a specific year’s output with much more enthusiasm than most molasses based rum producers, who (until recently) preferred to release specific “recipe-style” blends that changed little from year to year.  There’s something to say for both ideas – consistency of taste over time, versus the individualism of specific date points – which just supports my thesis that even in writing about a social spirit, larger philosophical issues about our world can be discussed using them as an example. In this case, we’re not moving [Click here for the full review…]


Nine Leaves “Almost Spring” (Cabernet Sauvignon) Rum – Review

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May 232017
 
Nine Leaves "Almost Spring" (Cabernet Sauvignon) Rum - Review

#366 Nine Leaves, for whose intriguing rums I have always retained a real fondness, remains a one man operation in Japan, and while I have not written much about them of late, they continue their regular six month release regimen without pause, and have become must-stop booths at the various festivals they exhibit at on the Circuit.  Every now and then they issue an expression somewhat at right angles to their regular “six-month-aged” line, such as the Velier 70th Anniversary edition from 2017, the two-year-old “Encrypted” from 2016 and this one-year-old from 2015, which was the commercial 48% variation of [Click here for the full review…]


J. Bally Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 1993

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May 212017
 
J. Bally Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 1993

Rumaniacs Review #042 The first of six Bally rums (no relation to me), which we’ll also post faster than usual, since they are, again, part of a series.  Let’s start with the most recent. For those who are interested in agricoles (which these assuredly are), J. Bally from Martinique has been around since 1917 or so (land prices after the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee were low), but the sugar estate of Lajus goes back even further, to the mid-1600s.  Alas, Bally has been closed since 1989, but their stills continue.  The Simon distillery now owns them, and supposedly the original recipe for [Click here for the full review…]


Hamilton St. Lucia 2004 Pot Still 9 Year Old Rum – Review

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May 182017
 
Hamilton St. Lucia 2004 Pot Still 9 Year Old Rum - Review

#365 Just about everyone in the rum world knows the name of Ed Hamilton. He was the first person to set up a website devoted to rum (way back in 1995), and many of us writers who began our own blogs in the 2000s or early ‘teens — Tiare, Tatu, Chip, myself and others — started our online lives writing in and debating on the forums of the Ministry of Rum. He has written books about rum, ran tasting sessions for years, and is now a distributor for several brands around the USA.  A few years ago, he decided to [Click here for the full review…]


Appleton Estate 50 Year Old Rum (2012)

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May 162017
 
Appleton Estate 50 Year Old Rum (2012)

Rumaniacs Review #041 Everyone knows about the 50 year old rum Appleton pushed out the door a few years ago.  Not only because of the age, which they touted as “the oldest rum ever” even though that was patently untrue, but because of the stratospheric price, which even now hovers around the US$4500 mark (give or take).  I’m not sure if they still make it — it was specifically commissioned for Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of Independence in 1962, so I suspect it was an 800-bottle one-off halo-issue —  but that price alone would make many take a really jaundiced view [Click here for the full review…]


Appleton Reserve 20 Year Old Rum (Ceramic Jug)(1960s/1970s)

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May 152017
 
Appleton Reserve 20 Year Old Rum (Ceramic Jug)(1960s/1970s)

Rumaniacs Review #040 As with the 12 year old ceramic jug, I don’t think that Appleton is exaggerating in the slightest when they call this a “Rare Old Jamaican Rum,” – at the time it was issued in the 1960s or 1970s they might have been hyping the product a tad, but now?  Not likely. Still, you can actually find it if you’re prepared to pay Masters of Malt, who name this a 1970s era rum, the £700 it costs.  And that’s more than the Longpond 1941 fetches these days.  I must confess that for an aged artifact bottled (or “jugged”) [Click here for the full review…]


Banks DIH XM Supreme 15 Year Old Rum – Review

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May 142017
 
Banks DIH XM Supreme 15 Year Old Rum - Review

#364 Until the release of the XM Golden Jubilee 20 year old rum in May 2016 for the occasion of Guyana’s 50th anniversary of independence, the jewel in the crown of Banks DIH’s XM line was the fifteen year old.  Over the last five years or so it suffered, in my rearview-mirror opinion, by simply following the party line, being bottled without regard for the emerging trend of stronger rums in the minds of the tasting public, and also perhaps from being a indeterminate, mostly column-still blend without a really good barrel strategy.  This relegated it to being an outlier [Click here for the full review…]


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