Doctor Bird Jamaican Rum – Review

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Feb 192020
 
Doctor Bird Jamaican Rum - Review

The strangely named Doctor Bird rum is another company’s response to Smith and Cross, Rum Fire  and the Stolen Overproof rum. These are all made or released in the USA (Stolen hails from New Zealand but its rum business is primarily in the US), but the rums themselves come from Jamaica, and there the similarity sort of breaks down, for the Doctor Bird is one of the few from Worthy Park — one of the New Jamaicans which has quietly been gaining its own accolades over the last few years — and not from Hampden or Monymusk or Longpond or [Click here for the full review…]


Ron Barceló Imperial Premium Blend (12 YO) – Review

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Feb 172020
 
Ron Barceló Imperial Premium Blend (12 YO) - Review

Barceló has slipped somewhat in our mental map of rum companies to watch, which comes as no surprise to those noting the current dominance which the Big Countries and the Big Names have in defining what we “should” be drinking. But ⅓ of the “Three Bs” of the Domincan Republic has been around for a while, releasing their light Spanish-style rons day in and day out, and if their primary markets are elsewhere than the homes of the online commentariat who flog Jamaica, Guyana and Barbados almost without pause, then at least their level of expertise shows no sign of [Click here for the full review…]


Cadenhead Green Label Demerara 12 YO (Laphroaig Cask) – Review

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Feb 122020
 
Cadenhead Green Label Demerara 12 YO (Laphroaig Cask) – Review

What a difference the passage of years makes. In 2010, a mere year after my long rum journey began, I came across and wrote about the Cadenhead 12 YO and gave it a rather dismissive rating of 76, remarking that while I liked it and while it had some underlying harmony, the decision to mature it in Laphroaig casks led to “not a rum, but some kind of bastardized in-the-middle product that isn’t fish or fowl.” Later I began searching for it again, having in the interim gained rather more respect for what Cadenhead was doing.  The Campbelltown-based company of [Click here for the full review…]


Lemon Hart Royal Navy Demerara Rum 151 (1970s)

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Feb 092020
 
Lemon Hart Royal Navy Demerara Rum 151 (1970s)

Rumaniacs Review #110 | 0699 Lemon Hart needs no further introduction, since the brand is well known and reasonably regarded – I’ve written about quite a few of their products.  Their star has lost some lustre of late (though one of their recent 151 releases from 2012 or thereabouts found much favour with me), and it’s interesting that Ed Hamilton’s own line of 151s was specifically introduced to challenge the equivalent LH, if not actually supplant it.  With so much going on at the high end of the proof-list these days, it’s good to remember what Lemon Hart was capable [Click here for the full review…]


Berry Bros. & Rudd Hampden 1990 17 YO Jamaican Rum – Review

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Feb 052020
 
Berry Bros. & Rudd Hampden 1990 17 YO Jamaican Rum - Review

Hampden is now one of the belles du jour of the New Jamaicans, but it’s been on the horizon for much longer than that, though sadly much of its output from the Elder Days was sold outside Jamaica as a sort of miscellaneous bulk item, to be bastardized and mixed and blended and lost in the drab ocean of commercial rums that made up most of what was sold up to ten years ago. Never mind, though, because these days they’ve more than made up for that by issuing rums under their own estate brand, getting the single-barrel limited-edition treatment [Click here for the full review…]


Helios Distillery “Teeda” 21 Year Old Japanese Rum – Review

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Feb 032020
 
Helios Distillery "Teeda" 21 Year Old Japanese Rum - Review

The Okinawan Helios Distillery came to greater attention (and reknown) of the western rum scene in 2019, when they presented a white rum and a 5 Year Old that were impressive right out of the gate.  Perhaps we should not have been surprised, given that the company has been in the business since 1961 – it is supposedly the oldest such distillery in the country. Then, it was called Taiyou, and made cheap rum blends from sugar cane, both to sell to the occupying American forces, and to save rice for food and sake production. In the decades since, they’ve [Click here for the full review…]


Rhea Distillers Gold Rum – Review

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Jan 302020
 
Rhea Distillers Gold Rum - Review

India is one of these countries that makes a lot of rum but is not reknowned for it — and if you doubt that, name five Indian rums, quick.  Aside from a few global brands like Amrut (who are more into whiskies but also dabbled in rum with the Old Port Deluxe and the Two Indies rums) rum makers from there seem, for the moment, quite happy to sell into their internal or regional markets and eschew going abroad, and are equally indifferent to the foreign rum festival circuit where perhaps they could get more exposure or distribution deals. Perhaps [Click here for the full review…]


The El Dorado Rare Collection – A Brief Recap of Releases I, II & III

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Jan 282020
 
The El Dorado Rare Collection - A Brief Recap of Releases I, II & III

The El Dorado Rare Collection made its debut in early 2016 and almost immediately raised howls of protest from rum fans who felt not only that Velier had been hosed by being evicted from their state of privileged access to DDL’s store of aged barrels, but that the prices in comparison to Luca’s wares (many which had just started their inexorable climb to four figures) were out to lunch at best and extortionate at worst.  The price issue was annoying — at the time, DDL had no track record with full proof still-specific rums, or possessed anything near the kind [Click here for the full review…]


Four Bells Finest Old Navy Rum (1970-1980s)

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Jan 262020
 
Four Bells Finest Old Navy Rum (1970-1980s)

Rumaniacs Review #109 | 0695 It may be called a Navy rum but the label is quite clear that it’s a “Product of Guyana” so perhaps what they were doing is channelling the Pussers rums from forty years later, which also and similarly restricted themselves to one component of the navy rum recipe. The British maritime moniker has always been a rather plastic concept – as an example, I recall reading that they also sourced rums from Australia for their blend at one point – so perhaps, as long as it was sold and served to the Navy, it was [Click here for the full review…]


L’Esprit Beenleigh 2013 5YO Australian Rum – Review

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Jan 232020
 
L'Esprit Beenleigh 2013 5YO Australian Rum - Review

The French-bottled, Australian-distilled Beenleigh 5 Year Old Rum is a screamer of a rum, a rum that wasn’t just released in 2018, but unleashed. Like a mad roller coaster, it careneed madly up and down and from side to side, breaking every rule and always seeming just about to go off the rails of taste before managing to stay on course, providing, at end, an experience that was shattering — if not precisely outstanding. It is bottled by L’Esprit, the Brittany-based company that provided two of the most powerful whites I’ve ever tried (from Fiji and Guyana); and distilled by [Click here for the full review…]


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