Feb 232024
 

By now little needs to be said about Hampden Estate, the famed Jamaican distillery that had its coming out party in 2018, a distribution deal with Velier, and a seemingly a new series of rums to collect just about every single year. For all its variety though, their presentation is pretty consistent and you can usually tell one at a glance just by looking at a label. Said labels conforming to all the usual Velier standards, and providing pretty much all the background details you could hope for.

In this case we’re dealing with five year old rum released in 2021 and before you ask, it’s called “The Younger” to distinguish it from the Hampden 2010 11 YO LROK also issued in the same year (which is not named, but which we shall call — obviously — “The Older”). The fermentation time is not mentioned, but we can assume a few weeks, using natural or “wild” yeasts; pot still distillation on double retort stills; aged in ex bourbon barrels with a 34% angel’s share.  And diluted down to 47% (as an aside, I’ve seen a label on a 3L jug at 49% but either it’s a misprint or substantially the same as this one) with an ester count for those who like their numbers, of 314.8 g/hLpa. This places the LROK (“Light Rum Owen Kelly”) in the lower levels and the Wedderburn category (only the OWH and LFCH are lower) and also makes the rum extremely approachable without going off the shredding deep end of the higher ester marks.

In spite of the “low” congener count, the rum represents itself well, starting with the open, which sports a serious set of sharp, distinct, funky aromas. Rubber, plastic, kerosene, fusel notes…rough and assertive stuff, which is about what we could expect from a youngish rum, tropically aged or not. It turns a little briny, then channels some citrus, flambeed bananas, yeasty bread, overripe pineapples, cherries, bubble gum. There are even some hints of coffee grounds and the metallic tinge of an ashtray that hasn’t been cleaned.

For 47% that nose isn‘t half bad (if occasionally discombobulated); the palate is in similar territory but here the strength may — surprisingly enough — be a bit too anaemic for finer appreciation. It’s thin and sharpish (not to its benefit, I don’t think), and astringent. It has flavours that in turn are sweet, salt and sour…which is nice, but not  always well coordinated, and one has to watch the sharpness. So – bubble gum, strawberries, citrus (red grapefruit), pineapples, vanilla, and some bitter coffee grounds. Once it quietens down  – and it does – it gets better because the roughness also smoothens out somewhat, without ever really losing its character.  Finish is decent: fruity, funky and some honey, plus cinnamon, cloves and maybe a touch of vanilla and pineapple chunks.

A lot of comments I found about this rum compliment its taste and smell and assure their readers that it’s a true Hampden, representing Jamaica in fine style. Yet almost all have various modifiers and cautions, and many compare it in some way to one of three rums from Hampden: the high-ester versions from the same distillery, the Great House series, and the backbone of the company, the 8 YO standard. Oh, and almost everyone mentions or grumbles about the price. 

This is completely understandable since a frame of reference is usually needed to place a rum in context – such comparisons are therefore useful, if ultimately pointless: trying to say one is better or worse than any other is entirely a matter of personal taste, really. And you either like it you don’t, can afford it or can’t, will buy it on that basis or won’t. As a middle of the road ester-level rum, I myself believe it’s a decent young rum, made in quantity with the usual Hampden quality, but not with anything really special tacked on that distinguishes it as superlative for its bracket. I’d buy the first bottle for sure: and would likely pass on a second after I finish sharing it around. I call that a qualified endorsement.

(#1059)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Feb 162024
 

“Oh wow!” I wrote with a sort of delighted and startled surprise when first nosing Archie Rose’s 40% white rum they called White Cane. I had not tried anything from the distillery before – indeed, I knew very little about it — but the rich and oily scent of a mechanic’s shop fumigated with vanilla flavoured acetones was really not what I had expected as an opening salvo. And it didn’t stop there, because the seeming light ‘n’ easy aromas it started out with contained quite a bit more oomph than was initially apparent – once it opened it up it was brine, olives, ripe and watery fruits, lots of pears and papaya, figs and persimmons, even a hint of caramel and some sweet yet tart apple cider. The nose displayed a thickness and depth that was quietly impressive – one does not often see this kind of profile in a standard proof rum very often.

Putting down my glass, I looked curiously at the sample label. Who was is this outfit? What was behind the name? Was it a left-handed nod to WW1 ack-ack fire, maybe, or a hat tip to Riverdale and the comics? An old but forgotten relative, perhaps, or a gone-to-seed second eleven cricket player from the past who nobody except the owners remembered? 

Apparently not. Some references suggest that “Archie” was a slang word, a pseudonym for an underground distilling bootlegger at a time in the 1800s when the temperance movement was ascendant in Australia and distillation was illicit, if not quite illegal; and since the founder, Will Edwards established the distillery in its first location in Rosebery, an inner suburb of south Sidney, the name seemed a good fit. A more prosaic alternative is that the neighbourhood itself was named after an uninspiring and obscure 19th century British PM, Archibald Primrose, and the distillery took the contracted form of his name, so take your pick. 

Anyway, it was apparently the first new distillery in the city since 1853 (one wonders what the previous one was) and comprised of several Italian made fermentation tanks (named after rappers), and three hand built gas-powered steam-boiler-heated 3600-litre pot stills made by Peter Bailey, who at the time was the country’s only still maker. It was mostly family financed, and sported a very good bar right next to the distillery to help make ends meet.

“White Cane” was and remains the company’s only unaged rum (there are some experimentals coming as well, however), and it’s interesting that they went with that name instead of the near universal “cane spirit” moniker everyone else has been using over there. The source cane came from Condong up in NSW just south of Brisbane, so the molasses likely originated from the Condong Sugar Mill, and the wash blended two kinds of molasses – high test and B-grade —  fermented with two different yeasts for 4-16 days, then run through their main and pilot still at least twice, with part being “cold” (or vacuum) distilled.

That fermentation and complex distillation was probably why the taste, as well as the nose, had enough chops to excite some curiosity, if not outright enthusiasm. It presented like a crisp, tangy, citrus-like 7-up, with green apples, pineapples, ripe pears on the edge of going off, red grapes and a subtle bite of ginger. The nose, I felt, was better, but for the taste to be this interesting at 40% did demonstrate that the awards the rum won (three so far) was not mere happenstance or flinging medals at everything that turned up. The palate continued to provide subtle and almost delicate notes: white chocolate, crushed walnuts some mint, fennel, sweet coconut shavings and some faint mustier cardboard notes, leading to a short, easy, sweet and spicy finish redolent of cinnamon and ginger and papaya. Nice.

Names and origins aside, currently the distillery boasts five different rums (and fifteen whiskies, ten gins, four vodkas and various other alcoholic products, lest you err in thinking their focus is on the Noble Spirit). Their origin was, and remains primarily in, whisky, for which they have won oodles of awards, and boosted their cash flow so well that in 2020 they were able to float A$100 million financing to move to Banksmeadow, a few kilometres south of the original location, leaving Rosebery to be a sort of visitor’s area for tours, classes and other events. Two massive new pot stills were also installed allowing production to be significantly increased.

As always, there is the downside that such a wide variety of spirits production dilutes focus on any single one. Not something I can blame a distillery for, since making payroll, paying rent and expanding the business is what it’s about, but lessening the attention that can be paid to developing and improving one product. Clearly whisky is the core business and everything orbits that priority (my opinion); and we must be careful not to over-romanticize the myth of the Great Little Solo Distiller Working in Obscurity, since commercial enterprises do make good juice, and not always by accident or as throwaways. Recent “Heavy Cane,” “Virgin Cane” and other experimental rums Archie Rose is playing with point to a committed and interested distilling team that wants to do more than just make another supermarket rum.

The White Cane, even at 40%, is pretty good and that’s an endorsement I don’t give often. I think the panoply of tastes — admittedly delicate and occasionally too faint and hard to pick apart — play well together, don’t overstay their welcome or allow any one element to hog the show, and provide a nice drinking experience. Sometimes just as much work goes into an unaged spirit as an aged one — perhaps more since there’s no backstop of ageing to improve anything so what comes off the still had better be ready — and it’s clear the distiller paid attention to the entire production process to provide both mixing and sipping chops. One can only hope the distillery expands the range and ups the proof, because then not only would it likely garner even more awards, but I’d  be able to bug Steve Magarry yet again…to get me a whole bottle, not just a sample.

(#1058)(83/100) ⭐⭐⭐½


Other notes

  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar, Day 7. This is Batch #2 from 2023. Batch #1 was introduced in 2022
  • Production notes from company webpage.
Feb 122024
 

It’s about time to clear up a backlog of older tasting notes that have been shoved to the back by newer and more exciting releases, and so for the next few weeks we’ll try to push some reviews of older expressions out the door. Today we’re going to go back and look at Savanna, that Reunion based distillery which has had a fair amount of good press over the last five years, though perhaps more remaining more popular and well known in Europe than the Americas.

What distinguishes Savanna is the range of what they make. Many distilleries have ranges that are steps of the quality ladder: some have lightly aged and filtered white rums, and cheaper mass-market blends made for mixing, for the budget-minded cost-conscious proles. The next rung would be rums aged up to maybe five or six years, costing a bit more but still affordable to most, moving slightly away from the cocktail circuit without entirely entering the sipping area. Once they get to double figures, say 10-15 years or so, it’s getting premiumised and more to have without mixing, and after 18 years, say, it’s entering rarefied territory. Around this price point are also found special editions, millesimes, limited blends, single barrel releases, commemoratives and other fancy releases that go north of three figures easy. These days secondary maturations or finishes are pretty much found on all levels (except the unaged whites for obvious reasons).

Savanna stands out in that it makes rums from both molasses and cane juice, instantly doubling the potential variety it makes. Just to keep all the permutations clear is probably why they have all those names for their rums: the “Intense” series are molasses-based and relatively low on esters, hence their being named “starter rums;” the “Lontans” (also called grand arôme rums) which are also from molasses but with longer fermentations and with a high resultant ester count; there are also the “Créol” rhums which are straightforward rhum agricoles, made from fresh sugar cane juice; and the “Métis” rums which are a blend of traditionnelle and agricole. Millesimes, fancy finishes and special editions at all strengths pepper their output as well.

From the above, then, you can get a clear picture of what this rums is: a molasses based low-ester blended rum, laid to rest in 2004, aged for 9 years in ex-cognac casks and then finished in a porto cask, released at 46%. These days that’s the spec for a really decent rum, but in 2014 when this came out, they called it a starter, which shows something of how much the world has moved on, and may be why so few reviews of it exist out there. 

Compared to some of the other Savanna rums tried in this lineup, the nose of this 46% rum presents as nuttier and slightly fruitier (strawberries, mild pineapple, cherries); there is a light aroma of acetones and nail polish wafting around and it’s very tart and pleasant…though I’m not sure I could pick it out of a lineup if tried blind.  After some time we have caramel and blancmange and toffee, swiss bonbons, vanilla, and a strong Irish coffee (used to love those as a young man). There is a dry wine-y note in the background, and some slightly bitter tannics reminiscent of pencil sharpener leftovers, none of it particularly excessive, more like a soft exclamation point to the main thrust of the nose.

The palate is somewhat of a letdown: I’ve been whinging about the mild inoffensive anonymity of 40% rums lately, so it’s surprising to find a rum six points higher providing so little character on its own account. It’s light, watery and sharp and none too impressive. Honey, nuts, dry pastries, toffee oatmeal cookies – it’s like a breakfast cereal with some extras thrown in. A bit salty and creamy here and there as the tasting goes on, with red grapes, pancakes, caramel, light molasses and some coffee grounds making their appearance, and they all vanish quickly in a short, sharp finish made exceptional only by its brevity.  

Overall, this is something of a disappointment, coming as it does from a distillery which makes some really impressive drams. Overall, one must concede that it’s not completely delinquent in taste – it does have aspects that are well done, and the assembly is decent: you will get a reasonable sip out of it.  It’s just there isn’t enough on stage for the €90 it goes for, it’s all quite simple and light… and one is left with the question of whether this is a poor man’s sipper or an indifferent high-end rum that got made too fast and issued too early. The fact that Savanna ended up releasing several 12 YO editions from the 2004 distillery outturn (including a grand arome I thought was superlative) suggests the latter may hit closer to the mark.

(#1057)(80/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Other notes

  • This is part of a collection of Savanna rhums Nico Rumlover sent me some time ago when he heard I was interested, long enough back for him to conceivably have forgotten he did so. Well, whether he remembers or not, I’m immensely grateful for the time he took to crate me a great selection of what the distillery can do. 
  • There are several 2004 Porto Finish single barrel editions out there: I have found two Lontans from different barrels, one eight and one nine years old, this 9YO Intense and a couple of 12YO editions. I’m sure there a few others.
  • Distilled April 2004, aged 9 years; outturn 1327 bottles. Initially I supposedly the notation of the barrel number (#973) was what it was aged in, but observed there was also a 2004 12YO which also has cask #973 marked on it and that one has an outturn of 1480 bottles. Facebook netizen Jizeus Christ Guitare set me straight by informing me this was the number of the Porto cask, which makes more sense, as it could reasonably be used multiple times. Given the outturn one wonders whether it’s a port pipe or other large cask.
  • For further reading on Savanna, I wrote a too-brief historical backgrounder on the distillery, here. A more recent visit to Reunion with a tour of the distillery was described by Rum Revelations in 2022.
Jan 282024
 

Consider for a moment the distinctive bottle shape and sleek label design ethos of the Bayou Louisiana white rum.  The crystal clear white and green1 motifs (call me an overly-visual imagineer if you will) hints at cane juice, grass, and sunshine and channels thoughts of a clean and tasty white rum in fine style. Just as well that this is all in my head because while the text tells you the usual stats, little of the images and sense of what they represent, is real.

The company making the rum is called Louisiana Spirits LLC: it was founded in 2011 by brothers Tim and Trey Litel and their friend Skip Cortes, with Bayou as their flagship brand in January 2013 (the idea had been floated in a duck blind). The chosen name was obvious (and survey-tested for its recognition factor, as if this were necessary), and back then the design had a ‘gator on it. By 2018 in a rebranding exercise it had been renamed “White” and the modern design had snapped into focus. The wag in me suggests that maybe more surveys were done but actually that’s when the SPI Group (the owners of Stoli vodka and headquartered in Luxembourg) who had already bought a majority stake in 2016, acquired all the remaining shares and took over. Some still tout it as being the largest privately owned rum distillery in the US, which I guess depends on how you look at it and where the private hands are.

Anyway, the production details: those are scanty. The label says it’s made from molasses and “sugar cane” (what does that mean, I wonder?); the company website notes the molasses as being blackstrap, provided by a family-owned sugar mill in Louisiana, M.A. Patout and Sons (whose centuries-old history is quite interesting in its own right), yet don’t seem to have any interest in making cane juice rums in the one state which has oodles of cane fields in close proximity. They have a pot still. They blend. The white rum supposedly rests for forty days before being bottled. That’s it. 

Based on how it samples, I wonder at that last bit — because all the solid character of a rum that’s had nothing but “rest” to calm it down off the still, is missing. The rum is a whole lot of standard strength nothing-in-particular. The nose channels a puling sort of weak candied ethanol, vanilla, watered down yoghurt (is there such a thing?) plus a whiff of shoe polish, sugar water and the faintest suggestion of pears and watermelon. This is a glass I poured first thing in the morning when the senses were sharp, kept there for an entire day, and that flaccid set of notes was all that was there the whole time.

There’s a bit more action on the plate, though I confess that this is damning it with faint praise since it started from such a low level already. Some sweet gherkins, a touch of tart fruit, biscuits, more ethanol and sugar water. I thought I spotted a green grape making out with a ripe pear at one stage, but admit this could be my imagination, the whole thing is is so faint and lacklustre. The finish is actually not too bad – it has some sharpness and dry robust character, and here one can get a vague sense of apples, green grapes and vanilla. Overall, however, it’s too little, too faint, too late and simply serves to demonstrate how everything that comes before is sub-par. 

The Rumaniacs series boasts many examples of anonymous inflight minis, holiday-resort stalwarts and cruise ship staples exactly like it, and maybe that’s all this is really good for, because it channels the sort of bland, lightly aged, filtered, colourless mixers that Bacardi did with such aplomb in the seventies. Bayou continues this noble tradition, and lures you in with a great presentation bolted on to a taste that’s inoffensively boring and milquetoast, and so devoid of character, that one is, with genuine befuddlement, forced ask what they thought they were doing. If Bayou were trying to make a light vodka-like spirit, or a standard white back-bar mixer without pretensions, then they surely succeeded. If they were trying to make a white that wowed people’s socks off and put the US rum producers on the map, not even close.

(#1053)(72/100) ⭐⭐½


Other Notes

  • From my experience, I would suggest the rum is slightly aged and filtered to white, even if this is not mentioned anywhere.
  • Although taken over by SPD, much of the original staff seem to have remained involved, especially the head distiller, blender and even the owners.

Opinion

While for most average rum drinkers or rum buyers the disclosure on production mentioned above is enough, for my money that’s not even basic information. Fermentation is not mentioned; abv off the still is not disclosed; no photo of the still is on the website; and the ageing program is never discussed, which is to say, is the rum treated a la Bacardi with one or two year’s ageing and then filtered to white, or is a true unrefined white such as are increasing in popularity and which actually taste like a rum, not alcoholic water?

None of this is considered important enough to either mention on their website, in any of their many press releases, or interviews in the media. To me, it says a lot for what the rum truly is: a commercially and indifferently distilled product with no pretensions to being anything more. I don’t hold any grudges on this account, but what’s the big deal about mentioning it? Own your sh*t ,and don’t dress it up like something it’s not.

Still, one can only admire their expansion. The company stated it was moving 15,000 cases a year in seven states by the time Stoli approached them at the tail end of 2015, which is an incredible feat to have accomplished in three years, when you think about what the market in the US is like — one can conclude either it’s because of their great product or their great distributor or great marketing.

But I am of the belief that no producer or distiller who is truly proud of the product they make, tells you so little about it while dressing up their bottle so smartly…or disposes of their interest so fast. The fact that they sold out less than five years after they began suggests that money was always the motive, not making a really good white rum that would put Bayou on any list of great American rum producers. And I think that’s something of a shame.


 

Jan 192024
 

Although I tried all three standard expressions of the Romero Distilling Co. at the Rocky Mountain Food and Drink show in Calgary in 2023, I had already bought all of them before, and this came in useful when double checking my quickly scribbled notes on the “Amber.” That was the one which I had almost bypassed in favour of the “Dark” and the extraordinary full proof Sherry Cask edition — which I still think is one of the best Canadian rums I’ve had to date.

A quick recap: the Calgary-based Romero Distilling Company was founded in 2018 by Diego Romero, an engineer who opened the distillery with his son Tomas (it was the latter who was running the booth that day), with a 2000-litre hybrid copper still and three 2000-litre fermenters; they use Crosby molasses from Guatemala (by way of New Brunswick) as its base, together with a commercial yeast. The company only makes rum, and remain very little known outside Alberta…which I’m hoping will change.

This rum derives from molasses, then, and is dialled in from a pot still configuration. We have no information on the duration of the distillation date, fermentation process, or the exact age of the resulting distillate. As far as I know, it’s a couple of years old (aged in ex bourbon Woodford Reserve barrels), with a relatively short time in the ex-Oloroso sherry barrels…a few months, perhaps – neither data point is provided. I am at a loss why such information is not placed front and centre on the label or the web page, since it would seem to be an obvious selling point, but Romero has stated that they want to de-emphasize the number-counting people do when considering ageing as a factor, and focus on the blend as a whole. As before, I think this is not the right course of action in today’s more open world. But that’s Romero, so let’s move on to what it’s actually like.

The nose starts off by being rather thin and uninviting, which is not unusual for a 40% rum, and it does present as somewhat alcohol forward without much that’s redeeming…until it starts to build up a head of steam. Then we get some plastic, plasticine, iodine and licorice, which is nice, and toffee, caramel, vanilla and brown sugar, which is better. As it opens up there are additional hints of new leather shoes, some spicy notes (cinnamon, maybe, and cardamom), and a peculiar, faint combination of fresh sawdust and peaches in syrup, all very delicate.

Much of this comes back on the palate when tasted. There’s some slightly sweet alcohol, glue, fly paper (I swear!), cardboard, hay and a milk-soaked long-standing bowl of weetabix. With some effort — the rum remains faint throughout and one really has to pay attention — there are also red olives and raspberries, but not a whole lot more.  The finish, no surprise, is short and thin, but very clean and a little sweet. Not too bad.

Eschewing spices — supposedly it didn’t have any — and going for the sherry finish was probably a good idea, because really, the rum would be thin gruel without it. That finish saves it from being some kind of light 1970s throwback of the kind I’ve learned to endure (but not particularly like), and there’s enough going overall on for those with more sensitive snoots than mine to be able to sip it without undue issues. 

For my money, however, the rum is too weak and it’s too faint, and that’s in spite of the sherry finish that provides such an intriguing but hard-to-sense counterpoint to the familiar vanilla and butterscotch notes coming from the ex-bourbon barrels. There’s potential here, and one can sense a better, stronger and more assertive rum waiting to emerge. It’s just not enough, and if we really wanted to see this thing cranked up, well, I guess then we’d call it the full proof edition, wouldn’t we, and it’s already established that that is the better rum. So for those who want to play it safe, save fifteen bucks and have a decent drink, this is the rum that will do the trick. For everyone else, it’ll be slim pickings.

(#1051)(75/100) ⭐⭐½

Jan 152024
 

Once again we start the new year off with a series of rums from the Australian Advent Calendar, 2023 Edition.  First issued by the Australian rum-loving couple Mr. & Mrs. Rum in 2021, not in 2022 and now again for 2023, it answers what we out west have been wondering about for years (well…at least I have) – what’s going on with the rums being made in Australia over and beyond Bundaberg, which everyone cheerfully loathes and Beenleigh which everyone likes? Twenty four rums in the calendar, a whole raft of new and old distilleries strutting their stuff, and let me tell you, to get them to Canada was a ripping yarn in itself…not entirely unlike Butch’s father’s watch, you could say.


We begin the series out of order, with a rum from the island of Tasmania, made by a little outfit called Island Coast Spirits, located just south of Hobart, the state capital (Tasmania is an island state of Australia). It is, it should be noted, not a distillery itself since it has no equipment. The owner, Kirk Pinner, runs over to the Observatory Hill Winery (about half an hour to the NE on the other side of Hobart) which (a) is run by a friend (b) makes rum (and brandy, gin, schnapps and wine) and (c) has a still. He rents that still and makes his own rum, so not quite a contract operation like we saw with Mandakini a few weeks ago, yet not entirely a true producer or an indie either. The website is rather scanty on details, so Kirk very kindly answered an email of mine providing some of this info, and a brief company bio is provided below.

For the purposes of this review, what we need to know is the following: the rum is made on a pot still, using a combination of fermented raw cane juice and molasses…so a hybrid rum if there ever was one. Once off the still it is aged in ex-Bourbon barrels with a light char, for something just under three years and bottled at living room strength of 40%.

“[My desire was…] to produce the spirits I wanted,” Kirk wrote to me, and clearly he had something easygoing in mind. Not some backyard snarling ester-sporting beefcake that stomped all over one’s glottis, just a rum that was easy and accessible. The nose confirmed that he did fairly okay with that: it smelled of delicate icing sugar, vanilla, pastries hot from the oven, as well as more standard caramel, swiss bon-bons and a light touch of molasses and brown sugar. Also some cinnamon, eggnog, ice cream, a relatively sweetish aroma, and all over soft and straightforward and simple. 

The 40% ABV made for a clean and unaggressive entry; it tasted pleasantly warm and a little sweet and came completely without aggro. Vanilla and caramel and toffee carried over from the nose. A few sweetish fruit – peaches, pears – nothing too acidic or tart. Molasses, a hot caramel macchiato, flambeed bananas, icing sugar on a cake fresh out of the oven, leading serenely to a short, finish that summed up the preceding without adding much that was new. 

Picture (c) Island Cost Spirits FB Page

It’s a nice little rumlet without undue pretensions, but that same easy going nature is something of a weak point for those who like their rums more assertive. There are amber Bacardis with more going on than we see here, and I had similar remarks (and reservations) about Killik’s Gold, where I noted that such low ABV hamstrings a rum that could be better a few points higher. But that said, it will work for some, because it’s simply not trying hard to be a game changer…just a soft breezy rum for easy sipping. On that level it succeeds, and the awards it’s racked up in its brief life – a silver medal at the 2022 Australian Rum Awards in Queensland, and another silver at the World Rum Awards in London in 2023 (pot still NAS category) – suggests that others certainly seem to like what the company is offering, my own reservations notwithstanding.

(#1050)(77/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Other notes

  • Fermentation time, barrel size, ratio of sugar cane juice to molasses, outturn, are all unknown
  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar, Day 4

Brief Historical bio

Island Coast Spirits is, as noted, a Tasmanian spirits maker (not a distillery). It was founded in October 2021 and has adhered to the principle of making their spirits on a third party’s distillation apparatus — a pot still — from the beginning. This was a conscious decision made at the inception: Kirk Pinner knew when he began planning, that he did not want the significant overheads and costs/debt associated with setting up his own distillery. He wanted the flexibility to not have all that headache but to be able to concentrate on his own desires and strengths: namely to have the ability to take on projects/new spirits on a whim without worrying about the infrastructure; and to focus more on the business relationships, ingredients, selection of barrels, blending and back end work. To that end he turned to those with some expertise (like Observatory Hill Winery) and used their skills to make his spirits.

In the three years since he began, the company now makes seven different products: Vodka, Rum, Gin and Whisky, and three flavoured vodkas. So far there is just one rum in the portfolio – this one – with another very interesting one in the pipeline waiting to be released sometime in 2024.  In the meantime, the distribution within Tasmania and on the mainland is good, and Kirk is building on his success (and awards) to take his juice on the road to various F&B trade expos in Asia to promote the island, the brand and the rum. 


 

Jan 082024
 

This is the third time I am coming to the famed Nicaraguan rum producer’s 12 year old rum.  The first occasion was in 2011 when I was still somewhat wet behind the ears: then, I commented that it was a bridge between the sipping quality older expressions and the younger mixers of the bartender’s arsenal. In 2017 I picked up another bottle to see if my opinions had changed significantly after additional years of tasting and writing, a wider and somewhat more experienced palate and a better sense of the global nature of rums. They hadn’t. It scored around the same both times.

In 2022 I went through the 12, the 15 and the 18 yet again. There were several reasons for this. One was simply opportunistic — they were available all in a row (well, why not? It’s as good a reason as any). Two, the “Centenario” is relegated to much smaller type, there is a ‘Carbon Neutral Certified’ notation, the “slow aged” thing so many sneered at in years past is gone, and an unambiguous age statement is right there: 12 Years Old. So I was curious whether that translated into something more serious. And lastly, the reviewing game tends to focus on currently popular rums and bottlers, so to revisit an old standby is needed every now and then, perhaps to apply a corrective, to check out a change in blending philosophy, or simply to see how one’s own opinion may have developed. 

On the face of it, it’s not a substantially different rum. It remains a column still distillate from molasses made by the company’s facilities in Nicaragua. It adheres to the Latin/Cuban style of rum-making whereby a light distillate is sought and the real quality of the final product is demonstrated not by fermentation or still-tweaking, but by what happens after: by ageing in ex-bourbon barrels, marrying and skilful blending over time. I’ll take it on faith for now that it really is 12 years old.

By the standards above, the Flor 12 YO does not break much new ground or show off anything widely divergent from its predecessors, though it remains a tasty dram. It is gentle to smell, easy on the nose, well rounded aromatically and reminds of us of why it retains much popularity: some molasses and brown sugar notes, honey, almonds, cinnamon and light flowers. A touch of vanilla, polished leather and smoke, not much more. 

40% won’t ravage the palate and the age has sanded off most of the roughness. Again there is the caramel, bon-bons, light molasses and honey. The almonds and spices – vanilla and cinnamon – make a reappearance in the background and the florals recede somewhat, while lending a subtle and delicate counterpoint. White chocolate, orange peel and nougat round things out in a finish of no great length, intensity or complexity. Like the coitus of the young, it’s over quickly.

While not particularly disappointed by the 12 YO, I’m not really impressed by it either. There are few notes of distinction about it, little that is special which would elevate it above many other blended rums of similar age that compete more successfully in the same age space: El Dorado 12 YO, Bacardi Diez, R.L. Seale 10 YO, English Harbour 10 YO, Appleton 12 YO, all of which score the same or a bit higher. It’s affordable and it sells, and the fact that it remains available after all these years indicates something of its appeal and durability. But to me, it feels like something of an indifferent throwaway, a “merely necessary” rum that is needed to round out the portfolio…and thus, the kind of product one might find on a bottom supermarket shelf, where average rums go to die. 

(#1049)(80/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Other notes

  • All my Flor de Cana reviews, including those of the independents, can be found using this link. For my money, their best rum (aside from the 25 and 30 which I have not tried) has always been the blue bottled 15 YO “21”.
  • The Flor de Caña (flower of the cane) branded rum is made in Nicaragua by the Compañía Licorera de Nicaragua, which was formally established in 1937 (though workers of the San Antonio sugar refinery which was its basis  had been distilling their own festive hooch for local celebrations for maybe half a century before that, hence the “1890” dating on the label). The success of the distilling company led to expansion and to exporting rums to other countries in Central and South America by the late 1950s. Following on the heels of the trend established by DDL in 1992, they began to issue aged premium rums. In the mid-2010s the brand started to slip in popularity as independent bottlers, higher proof and special premium editions  became more popular. The the scandal of Chronic Kidney Disease around the same time was a huge reputational blow, and the company has reportedly addressed the major health issues which led to such damning reports, as well as pivoting to a more ecological production philosophy.
Dec 222023
 

Rumanicas Review R-161 | #1047

You want to careful ordering a Clement XO rhum because there is another one also named thus which is not this at all; and two others with the same bottle shape but different names. Fortunately the other XO has a different bottle style and a different strength and lacks the word “Très” (very) in the title, and the ones that do take the bottle design are called l’Elixir or Cuvée Spéciale XO. So just a little caution is all I’m suggesting.

In another odd circumstance, the subject of today’s retrospective also lacks almost any reviews in the online rumisphere aside from Rum-X (of course) and my own unscored 2010 review. In fact, it does not even appear on Clément’s own website under any of its various collections – Old, Tradition, Modern, Iconic Blue Cane or Cuvee. The closest one gets to it is the sales on auction sites and as far as I can tell, RumAuctioneer put one up a few times, the last time being in 2021 where it fetched a surprisingly modest £150.

What this is is one of the first of the premium blends the company put out and is a marriage of what they felt was three exceptional years’ production: 1952, 1970 and 1976, which were also released as individual millesime bottlings. It’s unclear those individual releases were issued before or after this blended XO (I only managed to acquire samples of each many years later). But since the 1952 component has now run out, the specific blend comprising the XO is now defunct and while the company uses the same sleek bottle for other XO rhums, the label is subtly different for each, denoting a different product.

Note also that whether the rum is composed exclusively of those three vintages or is a blend that includes them, is currently unknown. Dave Russell in his 2017 review thought the latter, and David Kanj on Facebook (who brought it to my attention) said he had never been able to confirm it with Spiribam either. Will update, if I can nail it down one way or the other.

Colour – Gold

Strength 44%

Nose – Luscious; deep fruitiness; persimmons, passion fruit. Herbs, cinnamon, vanilla, light toffee, apricots. Green apples and ripe dark grapes. Very appetising and aromatic, if not as crisp and clean as a modern agricole. Just really pungent and complex.

Palate – There’s a smoky, dry. leathery tang of an old port to the initial tastes, but it comes over nicely because of the heft and solidity n the tongue – the mouthfeel is really quite good. Apples, apricots, hard yellow mangoes on  the edge of going soft, and raisins and red wine. To be honest, after years of acclimatising myself to rums at 60% ABV or greater, the XO here no longer demonstrates sharpness (as I commented in my original review) but crisp solidity, even a touch of softness.

Finish – Just excellent. A fitting conclusion to a delicious dram. Crisp, slightly sweet, smooth, deep, dry and with yellow almost-overripe fruits at every turn.

Thoughts –  I was right not to score this at the beginning of my rum journey, since in 2010, the chops to evaluate it was lacking – to this day we still see too few agricoles in Alberta. Back then I commented on its sharpness and its taste without being too chuffed by it.  Coming back after a span of nearly fourteen years, I appreciate it much more for what it is: one of the best aged agricole blends I’ve been fortunate enough to try. Those who have a bottle squirrelled away have a real treasure in their cabinets, a delicious dram representing a time traveller washing up on our modern shores, from the far off Days of Ago.

(88/100) 


Other notes

  • The AOC was first established in 1996, so none of the component rhums conformed to the restrictions; irrespetive of the AOC on the label, then, those expecting a clean, grassy, herbal modern agricole might be somewhat taken aback by the profile, which has its own unique vibe. I assure you, however, it’s all to the good.
Dec 182023
 

Perhaps this rum was inevitable.  Maybe spurred on by the rising price of ex bourbon barrels, or the desire to experiment, or the curiosity about whether a peated whisky really is like a Caroni, or simply to attract those who can no longer afford the Octomores and other similar expressions of Islay, some bright spark at a rum distillery has finished his rum for six months in a peated (Speyside) whisky barrel.

Is that a real thing, or is it just a stunt? Commentary on Rum Ratings suggests a sharply divided audience on this and when you smell it, you can understand why – that peated barrel has a real influence here. You get the initial slap of iodine, antiseptic industrial hospital corridors and seaweed right away, only marginally offset by vegetable soup, some heavy overripe fruits,  caramel, smoky vanilla and leather. The odour of smoke and wet charcoal and ashes is discernible but remains restrained and stays back, and there’s a bit of rubbing alcohol that the ageing has not managed to dispel. It gets slightly deeper and more involved over time but too  my mind, that’s not enough to really elevate it to something top tier.

This is all fine, but it is rather off the beaten track: and if it’s one thing years of tasting new and experimental rums has shown me is that (as with electronics for example) while there are always some rabid early adopters, and those with tastes that go for something this off the wall, it takes rather longer to bring the average consumer along to accepting something so different. And it is different – it’s like Mhoba’s Bushfire, or some of the more radical rums experimentals that get aged in completely new woods that make them smell and taste like barbecue sauce, or a maple syrup.

Still, smell is one thing, but what’s the taste like? Maybe that has a profile more rum-like? Yes and no. The taste is light (the standard strength again, so that’s nice) and easygoing…up to a point. It has a musky and dark feel to it, with notes of bitter, damp and stale coffee grounds, cardboard and mouldy paper, cheap dry unsweetened chocolate left open in the bin at a grocery too long. Again there are some dark overripe fruits but not much and not many and it’s hard to pin them down – plums, dates, figs, I’d suggest. Also medicine, camphor balls, damp sawdust, ginger and a touch of cinnamon, followed by a short and clean finish that again returns to iodine, rubbing alcohol, some toffee and molasses.

So with that out of the way, when I sit back and reconsider it all: in fine I’m not sure that for the average rum consumer that this actually works. It’s a blend of column still distillates aged 5-10 years and tropically aged in American oak, so that part is fine. The 40% ABV keeps the aggro down to a minimum. I didn’t get a chance to test it, there’s something about the ease and rounded nature of it all – even with that delicate peaty bitterness in the background – that suggests it’s not entirely kosher and has been added to, however slightly (NB: however, not checked by me, so that is a completely personal opinion). 

But that peat…it’s is a love or hate proposition. Whisky drinkers would probably have no problems with this expression at all (and it was an anorak who gave it to me). Admittedly that aspect is not overdone and doesn’t take over the entire thing, but it is pervasive and never lets up, and lends a piquancy to the rum similar to (but quite different from) the profile demonstrated by good Caronis. Moreover, the more subtle fruity and wine-y notes imparted by wine, cognac, or other common finishing casks are pretty much absent, this upsets the balance of various elements and gives the impression the rum is not a vehicle to demonstrate the rum, but the whisky element. So with that in mind, it’s up to an individual drinker to decide whether that’s in her or his wheelhouse. Speaking for myself, I have to admit that it doesn’t entirely play in mine.

(#1046)(78/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Other notes

  • My thanks to Curt from Kensington Wine Market in Calgary who gave me the sample to try.
  • Relicario is a brand not a distillery. Made by Barcelo (now a brand within a larger corporate umbrella and no longer the original family’s enterprise) in the Dominican Republic, on the facilities of Alcoholes Finos Dominicanos, which is a new distillery built with EU funds and owned by several major shareholders and investment firms.
  • 1048 bottle outturn according to the label.  It’s a blended rum of several ages ranging from 5-10 years, not of any particular year.
  • Company legend has it that two bottles of an old rum were found in an old reliquary (which is a container made for holding holy relics like saint’s bones or hair) and the profile was replicated to form the line of the brand. I like a good backstory, but never really believe any of them.
Dec 112023
 

For a country that boasts a huge population of rum-swilling West Indians and a not inconsequential number of Maritimers out east who inhale dark rums with their Jiggs Dinner, it’s odd that rums are not more appreciated and available than they are. To some extent the paucity of decent rums from abroad is alleviated by the emerging local craft distillery movement, with tasty products coming out of Ironworks, Romero, Mandakini and Potters (among several others); too, the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation makes some really interesting blends (Cabot 100 and Young’s Old Sam remain personally appreciated mixing favourites) and there’s even an Indie bottler out in BC called Bira!, run by a friend, Karl Mudzamba which fields a cask strength South Pacific and Mhoba release, with more to come.

Against all of that you have the also-rans that clutter up the store shelves in their multitudes, and which occasionally tax my objurgatory powers and genteel vocabulary to the limit:  rums like Highwood’s Aged White Caribbean, Momento or the Merchant Shipping Co White, Minhas / Co-Op’s Caribbean White, all those cheap Lambs and Bacardis, and so on. There’s no shortage of low-cost fuel for the masses, yet an odd lack of serious attempts to go the Foursquare ECS route and produce a mid-level blended product of real class that can kickstart the premiumisation of Canadian rum.  And yet, as the Mandakini ersatz Malabari rum proved, go even a little off the reservation, take even a bit of a chance, target the right audience…and you can sell out every release you make.

The question the overlong preamble above poses for us today, then, is whether the first release of Secret Barrel Small Batch White Rum is gold or gunk, something that gives Canadian rum brownie points…or drags it down. Now admittedly, the presentation is nifty: it channels the old square shape of turn-of-the-century whisky bottles, as does the design of the label and its font.  And the narrative is amusing if nothing else: small batch, 40% and implying that maybe, possibly, it’s made in Canada (possibly in the south of Alberta, around Crowsnest Pass) by some mysterious old timer named John A. MacDonald. This is a gent who – so the back label helpfully informs us – is a cross between the Most Interesting Man in the World, and one who has exploits so off the wall that he’s obviously a relative of Chuck Norris, Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan…all at once. On the other hand, we get nothing about a true country of origin, a true distillery, a still, source material, ageing, nothing. 

Well, tasting blind sharpens the senses, I tell myself, so knowing the rum is standard strength, I waste no time, pour a glass and move on to how it performs. Nose first: faint nail polish and the light fruitiness of pears, papaya and watermelon start things off. It’s easy smelling, and way too light and pretty much in the wheelhouse of every bartender’s filtered white mixing rum. I expect more, somehow because although it starts off well, it fades really fast and soon it becomes more like a vodka than a rum, or some kind of mildly sweetish cough syrup.  Additionally there is vanilla, some sugar water, cucumbers in rice vinegar, a bit of tinned syrup minus the fruits, and there you have it. 

That taste is somewhat of a let down, to be honest, because the nose suggested there would be something there to enthuse, a bit of tart fruitiness maybe, some sweetness and edge, maybe a lone ester or two. Alas, no. One senses some sugar water and vanilla, a bit of overripe apple, a touch of brine, cucumber slices in alcohol, not a whole lot else; and adding water doesn’t do anything, least of all tease out more.  The finish is, at best, quick and lacklustre with vague hints of acetone, alcohol and sugar water, and so clearly it’s not a taster’s rum: and while two decades ago this might have been a great mixer, these days it fails when matched against the stronger and more distinct overproof cocktail rums many other distilleries are making.

So what’s the background? I mean, it’s surprising how little information there is about the thing and in this day and age no commercially made rum should deliberately chose to be so anonymous without having a serious quality behind it. The SMWS can get away with some of this mystery, but they’re in their own zone and do a decent job of it.  Not so here. 

However, I have managed to find out that the Secret Barrel is a Guyanese rum imported from down south (but not from where you think). It’s been aged a little, about a year or two, and imported as is, then bottled by Highwood Distillery in Alberta, though they themselves had no hand in the selection process – they did so on behalf of the owners of the Secret Distilling Company (see below for more details on company background). 

The whole business about John A. MacDonald is fun to read…and a cute fabrication, perhaps based on one of the founders’ relative or ancestors. Perhaps it’s just as well it’s a fireside yarn. Because although I genuinely wanted to like this rum – surely someone who had a sense of humour and a gift for tall tales would make a rum that’s just a bit off and good for raised eyebrows and a laugh or two? – it doesn’t really come up to scratch. Even with my limited experience in the world, my life is far more interesting than Old Mr. MacDonald’s, I have better tall tales and beer stories than he does, and for sure have had acquired far better rums than the one his name is on.

(#1045)(68/100) ⭐⭐


Company background

A few words on the company behind this little white rumlet. According to their slightly more informative website, Secret Distilling Company was started by a bunch of Calgarians in 2015 (I dug around and found out this was Adam MacDonald (the founder and man behind it all), and his friends Aaron Norris, Brendan O’Connor and Chase Craig, who all took over different aspects of the operation). They saw a market for rum opening in Western Canada, and rather than sinking serious money into a distillery and the concomitant years of development work, they went the blender’s route and looked around for stock. They found it in Guyana, and this is why their website speaks to them selling “Demerara” rums, as well as Banks XM rums.

Now this is where it gets interesting.  First of all, they never stated on the label of those Demeraras which operation supplied the rum, and most of you reading this would instantly think DDL. But it’s not. In fact, it’s from the other rum producing company in Guyana which gets far less attention, Banks DIH, who make the well regarded XM series of rums (which of course also contradicts the “Made in Canada” on the label). Secondly, in the About page they claim the rum is from the “Banks Distillery of Guyana” except that Banks is not and never has been a distillery – they’re a brewery and a rum blender, not a distillery, and have no plans to change that. But ok: let’s chalk that up to beginner’s enthusiasm and cut them some slack.

And thirdly — and this is what got me going down the rabbit hole in earnest — on the aged Demerara rum label, they added the signature of Mr. Carlton Joao, as the Blender. This is two faux pas in one, because (a) they did so without his permission and (b) he’s not a blender at all, but a marketing executive.  How do I know that?  Because I know the guy personally — I went to school with him in Guyana, consulted with him on the Banks company bio — and so as soon as I saw this I picked up the phone and called him and asked what was going on. He said he knew nothing at all about it; Banks sold them stock between 2015 and 2018 and they distribute the XM rum line, but that was all. The commercial relationship was pretty much over years ago.

Where their rums subsequent to 2018 come from is not mentioned anywhere, but since the original founders sold out to White Pine Resources in 2017 (this was reorganised into SBD Capital, the current owner, the following year; they invest in mining and minerals properties and for a while had alcohol and liquor sales as its prime cash generation unit), it’s possible that the Guyana route was closed down and local sources may have taken over. Gradually sales dropped, the share price of SBD dropped from three bucks a share to pennies and when I spoke to Brian Stecyk, the CEO (who was more than helpful, if understandably cagey about the affairs of the company) I got the distinct impression he’s wrapping up the show and Secret Barrel is no longer a functioning entity. In a few years the rum is likely to be a Rumaniacs entry.


 

Nov 252023
 

Rumaniacs Review R-160 | #1041

Few rum aficionados need me to elaborate either on Don Q, the “other” major distillery on the island of Puerto Rico which makes it, Puerto Rico itself and it’s peculiar status vis-a-vis the USA, or indeed, this rum. Any one of them is an essay in itself and can lead to any number of rabbit holes,

Let’s just stick to the basics, then. In brief: like Bacardi, Destilería Serrallés was founded by a Catalan emigre in the 1860s (the sugar plantation the Serrallés family first bought goes back three decades before that), though they lacked the global ambitions of the larger company’s operations and have stayed within Puerto Rico.  Don Q, named after Sancho Panza’s elderly sidekick, is the flagship brand of Destilería Serrallés with several expressions dating back to 1932 when it was launched to compete with Bacardi: however, let’s be clear – the Cristal was first released in 1978, when it was specifically designed to compete with the rising popularity of vodka. Before that, I think white rums were just called “Don Q” and had a distinguishing white label (my assumption), since I can’t find any reference to a specific one predating the Cristal.

The Cristal itself is a white rum, adhering to the Latin style of light ‘n’ easy rum making, and is the result of distillation on a multi-column still, aged in ex-bourbon barrels for between one and five years, filtered to colourlessness, blended, and then bottled at standard strength (40%). The review of the modern equivalent gives you some more details of the version you’re likely to find on store shelves these days – this one, as far as I can  tell, is from the mid to late 1980s, perhaps the 1990s (the label has undergone several revisions over the years and for different countries, so dating is imprecise at best).

Colour – white

Strength – 40%

Nose – Has a sort of light and creamy aroma, like custard drizzled with vanilla syrup.  Acetones and nail polish. Slightly sweet, somewhat warm. A few faint fruity notes – nothing really identifiable leaps out – which are just trembling on the edge of a flat cream soda.

Palate – Sharpish, mostly pineapple, vanilla and flavoured yoghurt, iodine. Not a whole lot going on here and while not really unpleasant, there are too many discernible medicinal and ethanol notes to make to a drink worth having.

Finish – Decently long, sweet vanilla milkshake and an apricot slice or two. Unremarkable, but at least there’s something here, which is already better than most of these bland, anonymous filtered blancos from the era.

Thoughts – My remarks about when it was issued and why, is the key to unlocking why the profile is what it is: inoffensive, bland, easy, vodka-like…and by today’s standards, rather uninteresting.  It remains what it has always been, a cheap bar mixer, without much of an edge to wake up a mixed drink. Older versions like this one seem even blander than the modern ones, and so my recommendation is to get one if you like to drink some rums from Ago, but don’t expect too much, and keep mixing your mojito with what’s on the shelves today.

(73/100) ⭐⭐½

Nov 102023
 

In 2015 an up and coming small rum maker called Plantation wanted to make a bar mixer to go beyond its decently regarded and well-selling Original Dark, which back then was primarily Trinidad distillate. The company had already made a name for itself in the bartending circuit with its blends like the Three Star, and its initial attempts at becoming an indie bottler got some decent reviews (mine among them). People liked them. The secondary maturation abroad and dosage, had not yet become issues. Their rums were deemed pretty good. 

To the end of filling a gap in the overproof dark rum segment of the mixing market, Alexandre Gabriele the owner, repeated the process he had used to make the Three Star – he consulted with people who were in the industry, and brought together six personages of the rum world whose experiences behind the bar and within the cocktail culture were such that their opinions held real weight:  Jeff “Beachbum” Berry from Latitude 29, Martin Cate from Smuggler’s Cove, Paul McFadyen who was then at Trailer Happiness, Paul McGee from Lost Lake, Scotty Schuder from Dirty Dick, and Dave Wondrich, a cocktail historian. Based on lots of samples and lots of tastings (and probably lots of cheerfully inebriated arguments) they set to work to make a mixer that it was hoped would elevate tropical cocktails and Tiki drinks to the next level, take on Lemon Hart and Hamilton’s overproof rums, and carve its own niche in the world.

Products designed by committee rarely succeed, but here may be the exception that proves the rule: from that beginning so many years ago, the OFTD, first released in July 2016, has become one of the most popular mixing drinks ever made, perhaps not quite rivalling Bacardi in ubiquity, but so versatile and affordable and let’s face it, even drinkable, that it has become a commercial and private bar staple. Even as the groundswell of dislike for Plantation has grown into ever more poisonous online discourse, the Old Fashioned Traditional Dark, made from rums deriving from Barbados, Guyana, and Jamaica, has flourished. It eclipses every other rum in the company’s “Bar Classic” series of the line (Stiggins’ Fancy and Xaymaca are popular for other reasons); it is a step above and much more interesting than the overly sweet “Signature” blends and surely easier on the wallet than the Single Cask, Extreme or Vintage editions.

What makes it so popular and so well regarded? To some extent it really is how well the blend works; the strength certainly helps, and for sure so does the lack of any additives – it is one of the few rums Plantation makes which is not dosed. When one looks under the hood, it’s really quite a bit more complex than at first seems to be the case: back in 2018 The ‘Wonk said that the makeup was Guyana (Port Mourant distillate aged 1-2 Years in new and ex-Cognac French oak), Barbados (WIRD distillate, 4 years in new French oak and 2-4 Years in heavy toasted American white oak); and Jamaica (Clarendon MLC 1-2 Years in new French oak, Long Pond TECC 1-2 Years also in new French oak, Long Pond STCE 8½ years in ex-bourbon and ex-Cognac, and lastly some Long Pond TECA 19½ years in ex-bourbon and ex-Cognac). All blended and tied up in a bow at 69% ABV, and while perhaps by 2023 the blend has shifted somewhat, that’s not an inconsiderable amount of taste profiles to be balancing against one other — that anything drinkable comes out at the other end is some kind of minor miracle, because my experience is that blends trying to do so much with so many things, often crash and burn.

Not here, I don’t think. The nose is no slouch and gets going immediately: hot fierce and sharp as befitting the strength, and starting the party off with banana (at one point I got banana bread, at another flambeed), caramel, and brown sugar damp with molasses. Coffee grounds, unsweetened chocolate, anise and allspice are there, leavened with coconut shavings, a touch of anise, brine, and even a mild pinch of citrus. It’s initially quite sharp and alcoholic and it’s recommended to let the glass stand a bit to let that burn off, and once you get there, it’s a nose that sticks around for a long time.

The palate is where one has to make a decision regarding the strength because it is young and it is rough at the inception – many reviews and write ups suggest adding a bit of water to tame it. I don’t think that’s really necessary but then, I have had a lot of rums north of 70% so maybe I’m just used to it. Anyway, the initial palate is all ethanol until it burns off; some rubber and licorice and damp sawdust (that may be the PM talking), molasses and caramel, bitter coffee grounds and chocolate again with traces of ripe mangoes, grapes and even some pineapple (which may be the Jamaican tekkin’ front).  There are some vanilla, bon-bons, citrus notes and black pepper here and there, and a finish that oddly reminded me of chocolate oranges mixing it up with salt caramel ice cream topped with a few strawberries…go figure, right?

Evaluating it after trying it maybe four or five times over a period of a year, I get why it’s popular: once you get past the initial burn, you can sip the thing. It is dark, strong, noses nicely and tastes a treat, and such burn and sharp stabs as it displays are, to me, just products of its relative youth (I doubt that there is a whole lot of the aged Longpond elements in there), and in fairness it is designed to be mixed, not sipped.  It makes a cool rum and coke of course, and does yeoman’s work in both a daiquiri and a mai tai as well as any other libation a creative bartender can come up with. On top of all that, the damned rum is really affordable: I’ve heard that bars are incentivised with huge cash-back enticements, and that the bulk capacity of WIRD helps keep production costs down, but all that is behind the scenes – this is a rum that subjects itself to the Stewart Affordability Conjecture and takes it seriously.

And if the taste doesn’t sway you, consider the popular statistics. It is a fixture on just about every “with what do I start stocking my home cocktail bar?” recommendation list I’ve ever seen, and the reddit comment sections are filled with people remarking that it’s a rum worth having on any shelf. There is almost no negative review on any subreddit that I’ve looked at, and even those that are less than complimentary usually concede that some aspects of it are fine, or that it has its points here and there and that it’s a moral decision for them not to buy it or stock it. Of the 185 consumer ratings on Distiller from 2016 to 2023, 95% are three-star or higher; on Rum Ratings, nearly 90% out of 257 raters gauged it at 7/10 or better and on Rum-X it has an average of 7.5/10 from 194 people who left a score. These are representative of wide cross sections of the rum drinking public and cannot easily be discounted, whatever one might think of the parent company (and nowadays that is almost all negative). Paul Senft, The Fat Rum Pirate and Rum Shop Boy have all written about it and liked it.

Summing up, the Plantation Old Fashioned Traditional Dark is a deserved yet unusual — perhaps even controversial — entry to the Key Rums series. It is a multi-country blend, not something that showcases a certain country.  Yes, it was deliberately created to do only one thing, and therefore its value as an all-round consumer drink is somewhat circumscribed; yes it’s really strong, and sure…in that segment it stays and plays.  Yet as I have suggested here, it has qualities over and above all that.  It supercedes the modest aims of its creators, to the point where it actually can stand by itself. It remains, nearly a decade after its introduction, one of the most reviewed, commented on and widespread rums around and if its shine is less now than it was when first introduced and now that it has stiffer competition, there is no reason to doubt either its many uses or availability.  It remains, for all its parent company’s woes, an incredibly popular and in-use bar staple and drinking adjunct to this day. It demonstrates, if nothing else, how well the Caribbean distillates work with each other in a way that is not often seen. And that’s no mean accomplishment for any rum – especially one made by this outfit – to claim. One can only ask why more of the company’s rums don’t adhere to its philosophy.

(#1038)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½


Other Notes

  • In this essay, I have made a deliberate decision to focus on the rum: not to get into the conflict and bad press Plantation gets (or why they get it), not to express my personal opinion on the issues surrounding the company, and to simply mention that such issues exist. There are sufficient resources around — reddit has some good if heated discussions on the matter — for anyone with an interest to find out what the story is.
  • I am unsure if any part of the ageing takes place in Europe and was unable to confirm it one way or the other.
Oct 292023
 

Rumaniacs Review R-159 | #1036

Few references exist to track down this aged bottle with stained yellow label and a description remarkably thin even for the Days of Ago when nobody cared.  There is no distillery of make, no strength, no country of origin we can evaluate, nothing.  It is a white rum, has pictures of several medals on it (or maybe those are those coins, like pieces of eight?) and the implication of the words “The Spanish Town – Jamaica” is that it hails from there. One does not even get the strength, though my hydrometer tested it out at 37.8%, so either it is 40% standard and then dosed down, or it’s clean and maybe 37%-38%. 

As for the dating, the best source is a May 2019 auction listing on Whisky Auctioneer which suggests it’s from the 1960s, and which I have no grounds to seriously dispute – the label fonts and design and lack of provenance tend to support it, however thin that is. However, the auction site’s notation that it was produced in Spanish Town itself is not, I think, credible.

This leaves us with just the company, Costa Y Montserrat, SL from Barcelona in Spain. That most invaluable of resources, Pete’s Rum Labels, doesn’t provide any true data, but it does have another label, which suggests they were into the retailing of Jamaican-style rums which makes them an importer and blender, and the whole Spanish Town thing is just atmosphere and a cool label design but held no real truth (which is a shame, but okay…)

The company hails from the Catalan town of San Fructuosa de Bages (officially named Sant Fruitós de Bages), just to the north of Barcelona and the industrial estate of Manresa immediately to its west; wine has been made there for centuries. The Costa & Montserrat company refers to a famous Benedictine monastery of that name, built on a mountain nearby 1 However, that aside, what we have is the founding of the company in 1840, which made brandy in the early 20th century, and also fruit liqueurs in the late 1970s. I think it still exists, but under some other name I was unable to trace, and if it does, it’s not making rums any longer.

Colour – white

Strength – Tested at 37.8%

Nose – Astringent and sharp. It smells alcoholic (no pun intended), speaking more of raw ethanol than the easy lightness of a finely blended white cocktail rum. The puling strength is partly responsible for that of course.  Also some rubber, minerally notes, green peas from a can, watermelon and a touch of sugar water. 

Palate – Surprisingly there’s some brine here, again those canned peas (or, to be more precise, the water from that can), vague light sweet fruits such as papaya, watermelon and pears, but all very lacklustre, very much in the background.  It’s like a dumbed down, weakly flavoured, underproofed vodka.

Finish – Almost nonexistent, really. Light sugar water, no burn, no tickle, no real taste.

Thoughts – If the intention of the label is to point towards Jamaica, I assure you that sampling it dispels any romantic notions that somehow I had picked up an undreamed-of pot-still Rum from the Cocktail Age. No such luck.  It lacks strength, it lacks taste, it lacks any identifying characteristics of country or terroire, and is best seen as a pre-21st-century-Renaissance historical artefact that sheds light on rum’s development over the decades, rather than some kind of distant classic from a long vanished era. There’s a reason why it only fetched £31 on that auction. It’s a historian’s rum, not one for the bar crowd or connoisseurs of unappreciated rum, or even speculators.

(65/100) ⭐½

Oct 232023
 

 

Originally published as a standalone review in October 2023; revised and extended to Key Rums series in January 2024

Few rums from India make a splash in the western world, and that’s a peculiar thing since it’s entirely possible they were among the first people to actually make any kind of spirit from sugar cane (although it’s likely the crown goes to the Iranians whose “good wine of sugar” Marco Polo supposedly enjoyed on his travels) and for sure have some of the best selling rum brands on the planet. We may not hear of them very often but McDowell’s No. 1. Contessa, Old Port, Hercules, Two Indies and a few others, have a huge market footprint out east.

Historically, rum in India has always been a down-market tipple for the masses, largely because it lacked the snooty pretensions of whiskies (though they, for decades, laboured under similar perceptions until they changed their game), and was made in large quantities using relatively easily available molasses, panela or cane juice. On a larger scale, rum was popular when made by distilling companies because its method of production was essentially column still near-neutral alcohol plus additives for taste: cheap and easy to make at scale, priced to sell. This made rum do well at the rural level — where the majority of Indians still live — but cut no ice at all in the rest of the world.

Among the first to break this mould was the company of Mohan Meakin (previously Dyer Meakin), which was established in the mid-1800s. They made at least some kind of rum all along, but it was the 1950s that were key: in December 1954 they released the first Old Monk rum to the armed forces in its signature Old Parr-style bottle, aged around seven years. It shattered class barriers by being marketed not just the rank and file jawans but to the officer class, and gave rum as a whole a boost by making it more socially acceptable, even respectable, up the social scale.

From that humble beginning sprang a brand of uncommon durability and popularity. For the next fifty years, anchored by huge sales to the military and canny placement in five-star hotels, Old Monk rum was the most popular brand of rum in India, with increasing sales abroad. It became the spirit of choice among university students for decades, and as these educated young people fanned out and emigrated across the world they brought their nostalgic love for the rum with them, establishing the brand in new countries where the company set up distribution arrangements in many countries to satisfy this demand. For a while, so strong was cultural attachment to Old Monk that the global diaspora regularly requested relatives bring some with them when they came visiting, or brought it back themselves when they did. 

Yet even if its sales were gargantuan (for decades, it was one of the five top selling rums in the world), outside a few major regional, internal and historical markets, it was never a truly global widespread seller; one rarely if ever saw the squat and tubby bottles at international spirits or bar expos, and though I’ve passed the vatted 7YO several times on local shelves in several countries, I’ve never seen it at a single festival. And the general opinion of those modern reviewers who have tried it is somewhat dismissive: adjectives like “crude”, “oversweet”, “rough” and “spiced” are common in most write ups I’ve seen, and it’s often relegated it to mixer status, with grudging compliments occasionally thrown in. The Old Monk series of rums, then – and there are quite a few – attract a curious mix of indifference, scorn and loving nostalgia from rum drinkers, some of which is understandable, some less so.  

It continues to be made, however, and continues to sell and for all intents and purposes remains almost a cultural institution in India, so its importance to understanding rum around the world must be accepted. Unlike Appleton, say, it doesn’t look like they have continually tweaked the recipe, and the bottle we see nowadays is recognizable the same as the original. It remains a vatted 7 year old rum from molasses, or that nutrient rich variant called jaggery, which we’ve met before (opinions vary, and the company isn’t telling).I don’t know what the original strength was back when it was first introduced, but at least for the last decade and a half I’ve only seen it sold at 42.8%. Let’s take it as it is, then, and move on.

As a rum it presses all the right buttons.  You can smell molasses, sandalwood, some tar, and overripe bananas, plus some tannics. That’s the first pass.  After opening up it reaches further and hits the spice jar: ginger, vanilla, cardamom, cumin, I would say, and some sweet paprika, all of which is nice and heavy and almost perfumed, while never losing sight of the fact that it’s a rum.

On the tongue the taste is dark and medium heavy, with strong notes of salted – almost bitter –  caramel and unsweetened chocolate, coffee grounds, molasses and licorice. The strength is just about right for all this smorgasbord of subcontinental notes and doesn’t burn a whole lot going down, so sipping neat is an option.  It’s not that sweet and there’s that vague spice shelf drifting in from the nose even here. The finish is like that as well,  being mild, short, breathy, warm, and again, redolent of licorice, caramel and spices, plus what the Little Big Caner called a mix of pepsi and jerky (go figure).

If pressed for a comparison, I’d suggest that the Old Monk has a fair bit in common with the dusky heaviness of the Demeraras, or perhaps Goslings and other dark molasses-forward rums. You can sense the similarities with the Amrut’s Two Indies or the Old Port as well; except that it has its own vibe and that might be because it is either (wholly or partly) made from jaggery, or because it really does have something added to it. We don’t know. Old Monk has always been looked at slightly askance, because it’s hard to shake the feeling this is not what we’re used to, not a rum that’s made completely “clean” and something’s been sprinkled in. But honestly, it’s not too bad, though it sometimes feels a little unfinished. I like the offbeat and unusual in rum, and in the main the Old Monk is very much like Amrut’s whiskies are: definitely what they’re supposed to be — a rum in this case —  just with a slight kink and twist to mark them out as noticeably different. On its technical merits and how it noses and tastes I can’t say my score is wrong: but since this is a rum from outside our regular area, there are bound to be variations. 

So with all that, does it deserve to be in the pantheon of those rums I deem “key” to understanding  the spirt? I argue that it is. Firstly it remains immensely popular and among more than just expatriate Indians, and needs to be seen for what it is. Secondly, it has a long history, both as a company and a brand, and shows something of how rum developed outside the more comfortingly familiar regions we extol in every other post on the subject. We need to understand and appreciate more than just rums from the Caribbean and Latin America, and have to learn about profiles that are at odds with our perceptions of how rum should be made, or should taste. No rum that has lasted this long without serious change and still sells this well, can be ignored just because it’s not in current fashion. It needs to be acknowledged as a rum from its region, for its people, maybe even of its time. Amrut conquered the whisky world by making whiskies to global standards.  Old Monk becomes a key rum by resolutely adhering to its own.

(#1035)(79/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Other Notes

  • I’m unsure how different the Old Monk Supreme XXX is from this one. Perhaps it’s just the bottle as both are supposedly 7 years old.
  • There’s a lot of backstory to the brand in the company profile, which I strongly recommend taking the time to read.
Oct 212023
 

In the last review we looked at a product from Romero Distilling, a small and relatively new-ish distillery in Calgary which has the distinction of focusing almost exclusively on making rums (of all kinds). At first blush it seems to conform to the standards of many occasionally unfocused local distillers who are still playing around trying to find the perfect groove: their “Dark” rum left me somewhat dissatisfied and mostly indifferent (spiced rums not being my thing for reasons I went into some detail in that review), and while I didn’t mention it, the “Amber” — which I own, opened and tried at home — hasn’t turned my crank much either.

The Sherry Finish Cask Strength Rum, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal, and an order of magnitude better than either of those — it quite literally left me looking happily at my glass, wondering whence this thing had sprung, and completely unwilling to stop trying it. Now, it’s a pot-still 1200-bottle limited edition 57% ABV rum without any spices, colourants or additives, so right away it has a better starting point than the other two; it’s aged for two years or so in ex-Woodford Reserve barrels and then another two-plus in newly emptied ex-Oloroso sherry barrels brought over from Spain – that to my mind makes it a double aged (not a finished) rum, but whatever…the important thing is, what comes out the other end is to my mind, really impressive.

First of all there’s the way the nose opens. Compared to the low strength and rather thin aromas of its spiced sibling, this packs a solid punch: it presents some woody and tannic notes, with solid sweet caramel, chewing gum, toffee, molasses and a delicate hint of a cinnamon-flavoured unsweetened mocha. Not too much fruitiness here – more dates and coconut shavings – but a fair amount of cereals, rye bread, cardboard and crushed almonds. Really great smells, and one that’s worth keeping around for more than just the time it takes to have a sip or three and move on.

When tasted, it continues well: hot fresh pastries like pine tarts or pecan pie start the show, and here some fruit start to make themselves noticeable: ripe and heavier ones like sapodilla, plums, prunes and some apricots, with flashes of molasses and honey (love that). There’s even the slight trace of a good brie, some olive oil, rotten lemons, and something savoury lurking in the background, as if it is trying to channel a raw clairin, or a tequila. The finish is also quite good, lasting a long time and wrapping things up with salt caramel, coffee, some brininess and those fresh baked pastries.

To say I was “merely pleased” is understating matters. I was damned impressed. The rum seemed so good on the first try that not only did I keep the glass going for the next two hours, but as soon as I got home, went straight out and bought a bottle online (I’m told that the rum has just gone into general release in Alberta). What’s also really interesting is that for 57% ABV, double the ageing and no spicing it up, it only costs C$7 more than the C$75 Dark with which I had previously been relatively unenthused.

So, in the final analysis, although I have many more rums from north of 49 to try, so far this is one of the best Canadians I’ve yet come across, the highest scoring to date. It’s not a copy of some Caribbean profile, doesn’t seek to emulate noble sires from hotter climes, but is completely, calmly, resolutely, itself. It adheres to the profile of rum while providing just enough kinks and twists to show that the makers knew exactly what they were doing when they made it.  It shows how something better than the dronish herd of mass produced tipple can be made here, and hopefully sell, and while I’m sure over time other rums will inevitably eclipse it…for now, it remains a high point of the Canadian rum scene and deserves serious attention.

(#1034)(86/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐


Other Notes

  • The rum was awarded “Best in Class” at the 2023 Alberta Beverage awards (in a three way tie).  Given the judges’ primary expertise, what it was rated against, and what else was on the list of candidates and winners, this is not an award to be taken completely seriously, and the scores were, shall we say, somewhat excessively enthusiastic. But it had to be mentioned.
  • Company details can be found in the review of the Romero Dark
  • The rum is a blend of several barrels and an outturn of 2000 bottles.
  • A hydrometer test comes out at 56.8% ABV, so it’s clean from that perspective (and tastes that way, but I checked anyway)
  • The company runs tour, tasting and blending sessions at its facility in Calgary, which I’ve heard from friends of mine who went, are quite good.
  • There’s a fair bit of marketing copy on the website and other promotional materials, about rum running in Canada during Alberta’s own Prohibition era, but this is local colour and has no bearing on Romero directly.
Oct 172023
 

So there I was walking around the impressively well organised Rocky Mountain Wine and Food Festival, which had boatloads of beers, wines and spirits and food (and precious few rums), all superbly arranged in terms of space and one’s ability to navigate. For a guy used to the tight confines and crowded booth frontage of European festivals, it was eye opening to be able to walk five abreast in any direction and join ten people in front of a display and not bump elbows. Every now and then I wandered back over to Karl Mudzamba and his compadre Ernie, who were manning the Bira! booth, to apprise him of any new finds, or just hang out and enjoy their company.

One of the few rums partaking this event was Romero Distilling Company, which is located in Calgary: it was founded in 2018 by Diego Romero, an engineer who came to the country from Spain in the 1960s and worked in the mining and mineral processing industries as an adult before moving on to what we can only imagine was a passion project. He opened the distillery with his son Tomas (it was he who was running the booth), bought a 2000-litre hybrid copper still, three 2000-litre fermenters and, if memory serves, uses Crosby molasses from Guatemala (by way of New Brunswick) to get things going.  The company only makes rum, opting not to dilute its focus with other kinds of spirits, as so many others do, and remains very little known outside Alberta.

Now, I’ve actually already bought a bottle of the Dark and the Amber rums, and I’ve written a few quick tasting notes on both, but have not gotten around to trying either one seriously, or doing any real research – so it was good to see a bottle available for tasting at the booth, and Tomas patiently led me through the basic details, which I’ll not discuss until after I give you the tasting notes.

The standard strength (40%) rum is, as its name implies, dark. It’s also got a nose that’s peculiarly tannic in a sweetish kind of way, slightly oaky, and quite crisp. There’s quite a dollop of spices hitting you right away – cardamom and vanilla are the most obvious, with some cinnamon, light licorice, rosemary and black unsweetened tea backing that up. It’s too tame to do any damage and it looks to have been aged a few years – more than that is hard to tease out.

It remains easy and quite soft on the palate, and the crisp cleanliness of the nose is retained. It’s flavourful and the sense of the spices continues: the mouthfeel is really nice, and I suspect that even if the label doesn’t say so, there’s more than just some barrel ageing going on here. There are some red wine and bourbon notes in the background, a touch of ripe peaches in syrup, and overall it’s quite pleasant, even if additional vanilla and cardamom and cinnamon seem insistent on making themselves felt.  Finish is quite short, but at least it’s clean, and repeats most of the spices, slight tannics, ginger and fruit reasonably well.

So, after all this, what is it? Based on the label, you’re not getting much: 40%, molasses based, batch number, aged in ex-bourbon barrels. The website is where you get more: ex-Woodford Reserve barrels, pot still distillation…and additional spices. Which spices? That’s not given. How long is it aged? Not provided either. Year of distillation? Nada.

Tomas on the other hand, was quite informative and outgoing. He confirmed the barrels, and said the Dark is made as a blend, consistently about two-plus years old (hence the lack of a year of make), with all natural ingredients, nothing artificial. And while he called his still a single-column still, the website entry for this rum mentions it’s a pot still, and an article in the Calgary Herald mentions a hybrid, which last makes more sense given its flexibility and the photographs I’ve seen.

Essentially then: the Dark is a spiced rum, even if it doesn’t say so explicitly.  This is a puzzle since the company does make an amber coloured Spiced version, so it’s unclear why the title was left off. Tomas said that they don’t emphasise the ageing because that just leads to preconceptions that young rums can’t be good ones and they wanted it to speak for itself.  Maybe so, but I suggest that in today’s climate of disclosure, nothing is really lost by providing consumers with what they need to make an informed choice when buying a C$75 rum, and if Renaissance proved anything, it’s that rums aged under five years can be pretty damned fine.

So. What did I think? For people like my vlogger friend Steve the Barman in the UK, who likes expounding on the joys of rums like this, it’s right in his wheelhouse. It’s decent enough. It’s tasty, sweetish and as an after dinner drink will work just fine. Those who like rums like the Kraken, Don Papa, AH Riise, Bumbu and Captain Morgan will find much to enjoy. As a rum on its own terms, I myself find it less successful, and the cardamom and vanilla in particular have a disconcertingly powerful impact on the overall profile, shouldering aside other and more delicate aspects. On the basis of these comments you can decide where your own preferences lie, I think.

(#1033)(Unscored)


Other notes

  • It would be remiss not to mention that the Dark has won several awards: a Gold Medal in the Frankfurt International Trophy 2022 as well as the competition’s Best Canadian Spirit that same year; and a gold and silver medal in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2021 and 2022 respectively (both in the Dark Rum category).
  • The company runs tour, tasting and blending sessions at its facility in Calgary, which I’ve heard from friends of mine who went, are quite good.
  • There’s a fair bit of marketing copy on the website and other promotional materials, about rum running in Canada during Alberta’s own Prohibition era, but this is local colour and has no bearing on Romero directly.
  • The crow on the logo reflects the Crowsnest Pass in the south of Alberta, through which moonshine was supposedly transported on its way to the US in the bad old days.

Opinion

It’s no secret that spiced rums hold no particular appeal for me. Though occasionally their taste is nice enough, there is no yardstick by which to judge them —  some sort of baseline by which to assess their profile, the levels of what’s put in, how many different spices, where those come from, and to what spirit exactly such additions are made.  In other words, it becomes impossible to judge value or effectively compare one with the other. Are you paying for what is touted as an all-natural product (always a plus in these organic-everything times)? The hard-to-get (and therefore expensive) spices and flavourings? The exclusivity or age or quality or source of the rum stock it’s put into?  The length of time it all marries in casks, leading to additional price hikes? 

Who knows these things?  Nobody except the producer, that’s who. And therefore, I can’t tell whether a given spiced rum is neutral alcohol gotten on the cheap to which stuff has been added (perhaps to get around the costs of a years-long barrel-ageing program), or a youngish rum topped up with all-natural ingredients that make for a nicely flavoured drink. Both could conceivably be sold at a premium with all sorts of glib explanations.

Years of looking at spiced, flavoured or infused rums (yes, I do try them) have left me with a certain cynicism regarding what goes on a label, and at end, it comes down to this – in the absence of a common, agreed-to standard, no matter how informal, I just don’t trust them. I have no doubt that small and upcoming distilleries like Romero suffer from a lack of regional (let alone global) recognition, but they’re not helping themselves by the lack of proper disclosure here either (though it may be completely inadvertent). It’s not an inconsequential issue for a consumer being asked to pay that price, and hampers a more serious consideration of a distillery that really does make some interesting rums, another of which I’ll tell you about next time.


 

Sep 222023
 

Don Q is the other big brand from Puerto Rico that many believe has bragging rights over the Big Bad Bat when it comes to quality, yet somehow does not inhabit as a deep a mindspace as Bacardi does. The brand is very well known in the US and Canada (though I don’t see it for sale out west very often) but I get the impression it’s somewhat less of a thing in Europe or Asia – probably because they have plenty of brands of their own and so don’t exist in the same spirituous desert.

Don Q is the flagship brand of the other huge distilling operation on the island of Puerto Rico, Destilería Serrallés: like Bacardi it was founded by a Catalan emigre in the 1860s, though they lacked the international ambitions of the larger company and have stayed within Puerto Rico the whole time. Destilería Serrallés produces three main tiers of this branded rum: the Traditional range of mixing agents (Cristal, Gold and 151); a series of flavoured rums, and the more upscale “Serrallés Collection”, which is where the aged, finished and stronger premiums live. Don Q as a brand is named after Don Quixote (one wonders where Sancho Panza is lurking), but the reason has little to do with the wannabe over-the-hill knight and more to do with the author and his masterwork (see below).

The Cristal is a white rum from the Traditional range: it is of course nothing like the robust white brawling full proof rums whose praises I have extolled in past lists of Great Whites, the ones that go out there sporting an attitude, showing off their glutes and spoiling for a fight. In point of fact it’s a light rum coming off multiple distillation runs on a five-column industrial still, aged in ex-bourbon barrels for between one and five years, filtered to colourlessness, blended, and then bottled at standard strength (40%). Therefore it adheres more to the ethos of relaxed and affordable backbar general mixers, a sort of workhorse of daiquiris and mojitos, hearkening back to the light rum period of the previous century, than something more primitive and elemental.

The tasting notes show why the above paragraph can be written. There’s vanilla, coconut shavings, some nail polish and brine.  Also, after some time, one can pick out citrus, light cream soda, cherries, some ripe juicy pears. It just kind of fades away at this point and there’s little more to be gained by hanging around

The palate shows off a similarly light and easy island charm: sweet, light, creamy, with some watermelon, papaya, cream soda, ginger, and again, the pears, maybe a couple of bananas.  A dusting of cinnamon can be discerned with care, and the finish is as expected – short, prickly, a touch of honey and coconut shavings set off by that slight twist of lemon. 

The Cristal, then, is a completely serviceable rum with just enough taste in there to lift it (slightly) above more anonymous fare that tries less, and I can see why some consider it a step above other whites, including Bacardi’s. There’s a bit of edge lurking behind the inoffensive first taste, a hint of undiscovered character. That said, the strength makes that difficult to come to grips with, and rums like this are never going to be my go-tos unless I just want to get econo-hammered. Overall they display too little of interest, being quite content to stay in the background, sink in the cocktail, and disappear. Thus, they play it safe and take no chances – the alcohol is delivered, the drink is ok, it goes down easy, no fuss, no bother, mission accomplished. 

That will work fine for people who don’t care, and I don’t cast any aspersions on either buyer or seller in this matter – the purpose of the review, then, is less to pass judgement than to simply tell you what you’re getting when you fork over your two bits. As with Bacardi Superior, Lamb’s and other lightly aged, filtered white rums, the answer is, “not a whole lot”.  But then, that’s also why you don’t pay a whole lot – it’s quite cheap, and you’re not getting a dated, decades-old rum of complexity and age which is old enough to vote and will take your an hour to come to grips with…just a relatively neutral, inoffensive rum that serves its limited purpose, and delivers exactly what you pay for, plus a few cents extra.

(#1027)(76/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Other notes

  • The rum is cheap, yes: this also comes not only from economies of (large) scale, but from the impact of the cover-over tax rebate the company receives, which keep prices down.
  • This is not a much-reviewed rum; the Fat Rum Pirate rated it two stars in 2017 and he commented on its neutrality – he wasn’t impressed. Spirits Review gave it 7 olives out of 10 in an undated review probably coming from around 2010 (the design of the bottle is an earlier variant). Honestboozereviews, writing in 2018, figured it rated around 6.5 points and mentioned it mixed well, was easy to find, and cheap. Lastly, Dave Russell of the dormant site Rum Gallery scored it 8.5 points in 2012 and said that he asked Robero Serralles about the name Don Q, and was told it linked the brand — made by the descendants of Spanish Catalans — to Spain and its preeminent work of literature, and both were masterpieces.
Sep 152023
 

Rumaniacs Review R-158 | #1025

Most people in the UK are familiar with the Woods brand and the rise of online auctions over the last years spread knowledge further, so it’s become reasonably common knowledge that Woods was founded in 1887 and bought by William Grant & Sons from Diageo in 2002 along with OVD and Vat 19. However, Diageo’s ownership seems to have been rather recent – they acquired the Woods brand from Seagram in 2000 when that company merged with Vivendi and divested some of its properties.

1955 Advertisement for Wood’s Old Charlie

Seagram’s acquisition of Woods was much earlier, though: there is a reference that in during the Second World War, Seagram “imported rum from Puerto Rico and Jamaica, which led to the purchase of distilleries in the Caribbean that produced Captain Morgan, Myers’s, Wood’s and Trelawny rums.” This is probably Longpond and Clarendon in Jamaica (the  Puerto Rico operations are outside the scope of this article); and a 2009 paper by Graham Taylor notes that “Between 1952 and 1956, Sherriff & Co. of Jamaica, Wood & Co., Ltd., Robert Legge & Co., Ltd., and Myers Rum Co., Ltd., of Nassau were all added to the Seagram empire.”

Whoever owned it and whether a company favoured Jamaica or Guyana for the releases, Wood’s remains a successful brand on sale to this day – supposedly still using the original recipe for Navy rum (which is unlikely, but ok, that’s marketing for you). For the most part they have acted as merchant bottlers, blending and bottling rums from  the British Caribbean, primarily Jamaica and Guyana – the current Old Navy Rum is all Guyana, for example while there is no sign of a Jamaica – and vacillated between 40% and 57% ABV over the decades, depending on what they were making.

Not much has changed since I first wrote about Woods 100 Navy Rum ten years ago – the site remains a receptacle of no-information. We have no sense of who the movers and shakers of the original company were, what other rums they made, how the labels changed over the years, the different bottlings, the heritage, the history, the 2002 sale, nothing. And to add insult to injury, there’s not even a mention of the Old Charlie rum, let alone who he was, and nowadays, this version is neither made nor listed on the website. Stuff like this makes me despair for the next generation of rum writers and researchers.

Colour – Amber

Strength – 70° Proof / 40% ABV

Nose – Solid aromas here…but initially quite peculiar. Peeling wallpaper, tatty paper, cardboard and old books in the bookshelves of back alley second hand bookstores where you might find a first edition of Rums of the Eastern Caribbean gathering dust. Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, brine, cream puffs, ginger bread cookies, lemon meringue pie…a sort of olfactory dessert table, accompanied by enough faux leather to outfit a bunch of wannabe hoods doing a doo-whop on the corner. Or maybe Adam West just flew by in new rubber threads, who knows – the rum is old, it could be anything

Palate – Not bad.  Iodine, ethanol, acetone, all burning off fast. Some licorice (rather light), caramel, vanilla, toffee, all the usual that suggests something of a nascent Appleton from Ago but which remains hard to define precisely. Brine, hot black tea, fish oil, olives. It’s not very sweet, rather more like tart. Nuts and too-old, too-strong, too-bitter percolated coffee, yet for all that, I liked it.

Finish – Short. Nothing special here, a recap at best. Dry, some ripe fruits, raisins, chocolate, coffee.

Thoughts –  It’s okay. A lot of muskiness, a sort of dry spiciness, not so much in the funk department. It’s hard to pinpoint the rums origin as Jamaican beyond doubt (although there’s no real reason to) because the crisp clarity of today’s funky island rums which we have learned to grade so well, is missing — and so to say which estate distillery made it, or even that it’s Jamaican at all, is harder than it appears. Still, the general profile of the rum remains consistent with others from the brand I’ve sampled over the years, and if auction sites come up with these older 1970s and 1960s and earlier Woods rums, I’d buy them on general principles, and not just for the history.

(82/100) ⭐⭐⭐½


Other Notes

  • My thanks and deep appreciation to Nicolai Wachmann who sent me the sample, knowing of my love and interest in older and almost forgotten rums.
  • The exact dating and bottling of the rum is unclear. Given the source, I think 1970s is a reasonable estimate – a bottle from the 1960s strikes me as being too rare on the secondary market and by the late 1970s the ° Proof symbol was replaced by % ABV.
  • Age is unknown, still unknown, estate/distillery is unconfirmed to be (possibly) Long Pond or Clarendon.
Sep 062023
 

Bristol Spirits – also known as Bristol Classic Rum — holds the distinction of being one of the earlier independent UK bottlers who was and remains specifically not a distillery or a whisky bottler, such as the ones which held sway in the 1980s and 1990s. While Gordon & MacPhail, A.D. Rattray, Cadenhead and a few other companies from Scotland occasionally amused themselves by issuing a rum, few took it seriously, and even the indie Italians like Samaroli and Moon Imports and Rum Nation took a while to get in on the act. Of course, the worm is turning and the situation is changing now with the rise of the New Brits, but that’s another story.

Bristol Spirits, unlike those old houses, focused on rum almost immediately as they were founded in 1993, and while their earlier bottlings are now the stuff of misty legend and tall tales, I can tell you of some releases which are now considered near-classics of the genre: the 1980 30YO Port Mourant, the 1974 34 YO Caroni, and the pair of Very Old Rums from 1974 (Jamaica, 30YO) and 1975 (Demerara, 35YO); plus, some would likely add the Rockley Still 26YO 1986 Sherry Finish. Gradually as the years wore on, John Barrett – who remains the managing director of the company and runs it personally with his son in law Simon Askey – branched off into barrel selection and ageing and does a brisk sideline in trading aged rums or laying down new stocks with other small indies or private clients, and occasionally dabbles in the blending game…more to assuage a creative itch and see what will happen, I sometimes think, than to make the final sale (Florent Beuchet of Compagnie des Indes has also gone down this path).

One of these blends which Bristol came up with is this interesting overproof bottled at 59% – unfortunately there’s very little I can tell you about the off-white product, since there is literally nothing online anywhere that speaks to it. The strength and that it comes from Guyana and Guadeloupe is all I know, though Simon tells me it was released around the late 1990s / 2000 (after which, in an interesting bit of trivia, JB soured on doing miniatures such as I had scored for this review) and the Guadeloupe component was likely Damoiseau (to be confirmed) – other than that, the still of the former, the distillery in the latter, the proportions, the ageing, the source material, the actual release date…all the usual stuff we now almost take for granted is missing from official records.

Well, that makes it a really blind tasting, so let’s get to it.  Nose first, and it’s an odd one: charcoal, ashes and iodine, balanced by some brine, olives, figs and dates.  The fruits take their time arriving, and when they do one can smell green apples and grapes, tart apricots, but little of the crisp grassiness of any kind of agricole influence. The Little Big Caner, who was lending his snoot, remarks on smells of old bubbling oil leaking from a hot engine block, a sort of black and treacly background which I interpret as thick blackstrap molasses, but more than that is hard to pin down, and there’s a kind of subtle bitterness permeating the nose which is a little disconcerting to say the least.

The taste is more forgiving and if it’s on the sharp and spicy side, at least there’s some flavour to go with it. Here there is a clean and briny texture, that channels some very ripe white fruits (pears, guavas, that kind of thing), with some lemon zest and green grapes hamming it up with watermelon and papaya and just a touch of peppermint. There some herbaceousness to the experience, yet all this dissipates to nothing at the close, which is briny, spicy, sweet and has sweet bell peppers as a closing note of grace.

In assessing what it all comes down to, I must start with my observation that so far I have not found an agricole-molasses British-French-island-style blend that seriously enthuses me (and I remember Ocean’s Atlantic). The styles are too disparate to mesh properly (for my palate, anyway, though admittedly your mileage and mine will vary on this one) and the warm tawny wooden muskiness of Guyanese rum doesn’t do the ragtime real well with the bright clean grassy profiles of the French island cane juice agricoles. 

And that is the case here. There are individual bits and pieces that are interesting and tasty – it’s just that they don’t come together and cohere well enough to make a statement. At the end, while this makes for a really good mixing rum (try it in a daiquiri, it’s quite decent there), as a rum to be tried on its own, I think you’ll find that the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

(#1023)(79/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Other notes

  • The rum is a slightly pale yellow, almost white. The label blurb calls it a blend of white rums (on the left side) but below the logo of two intertwined Gs is a remark that they are “selected and bottled from the wood”, which implies at least some ageing. More cannot be said at this time.
  • It was confirmed that John Barrett blended this himself. As soon as I get more information on the sources, I’ll update the post. Many thanks to Simon, who helped out a lot on short notice.
Sep 012023
 

Foursquare and WIRD and Mount Gay grab the lion’s share of social media attention from which originates so much of our news from Barbados, and so we sometimes overlook the fourth rum maker on the island, St. Nicholas Abbey.  They are a small boutique distillery that became famous a decade ago for their lovely etched squarish bottles which you could once get refilled at a discount if you presented it at the distillery (maybe no longer now, alas).

SNA remains tiny in comparison with the other distilleries, run as part of a heritage site of the same name, and managed by the Warren family (see my original reviews here and here for some details), and at the beginning, bought rum stock from Foursquare down the road to get their program off the ground – Richard Seale also provided support and advice.  Initially they issued 5, 10 and 12 YO aged rums — these were the first reviews of their line that I did —  and over time this trio has been added to and developed into some much more high end hooches: a 15 and 18 and 20 YO and (heaven forbid) even a 23 YO…which admittedly I’ve never seen or tried (but want to). The rums were (and to some extent remain) rather more expensive than is the norm for similarly aged rums, which I know from personal experience; yet they sold and continue to sell, and these days SNA cultivates its own cane and makes its own rums rather than buying externally.  What this has inevitably led to is a suite of younger rums like the unaged white, a white overproof — and a different 5YO than the one I sharpened my tasting buds on all those years ago. 

The stats for this 5YO, then: a lightish rum deriving from cane syrup (made in small batches from cane juice – so really, a sort of it-which-must-not-to-be-named agricole), coming off a pot-column hybrid still at 92% and then taken down to 65% or so for setting into ex-bourbon barrels. Like the white overproof it is a massive 60% ABV – and it’s a smart move to do so, since it allows the aficionados to get their intensity fix, while having exactly the same rum but weaker, sold to the general marketplace.

What surprises then, bearing in mind the tech sheet, is how relatively subdued the nose is at the beginning: some light and sweet honey, mead, plus a smorgasbord of white fruits (because of course there are); gradually one senses fanta, soda pop, 7Up, a little citrus, vanilla, and the slightly sour but still piquant sense of oranges gone off. The light fruits are always there, set off to some extent by brine, olives, unsweetened chocolate and the rich scent of overripe cashews (the ones with external seeds) which always reminds me of tequila for some reason.

The nose is somewhat rough, admittedly, and this is also the case on the palate.  What saves it is the rich and multilayered texture and intensity of the tastes that are handed over. Green peas, peaches, fruits, fleshy and ripe and juicy; a very firm profile, quite spicy.  Some unsweetened chocolate again, orange marmalade and a dusting of mint and vanilla, yet one misses the vaguely herbal and grassy notes which the source material suggests might be there. But anyway, it’s quite good, and the finish ends well: long, sweet and a little sour, some pineapple-in-syrup notes in the rear, mostly a nicely done fruit salad drizzled with Malibu and some fresh lime juice.

Chosing between the unaged overproof and this 5YO beefcake is pointless – they’re both good rums and serve different purposes.  Trying them together, I enjoyed each of them…in different ways. I felt that overall the unaged white held somewhat more character and likely made a better cocktail, because it had not yet been changed or tamed by age or wood; on the other hand, it was lacking the additional complexity and sharp firmness the 5 YO OP was showcasing. In a pinch I’d try to get the pair.  As for scores, well, back in the day I scored the standard strength 10-12-15 trio higher than I’m scoring this one now (if not by much): but whatever the score is, ultimately I think that this young overproof – with its level of controlled intensity and low-key voluptuousness – is pretty much on par with those venerable starter guns that SNA used to make its name all those years ago.

(#1022)(85/100) ⭐⭐⭐½


Other notes

  • The rum is a blend without any years of distillation or bottling. They are evidently going for a long term consistent taste profile and specific barrels from specific years are the province of more premium bottlings up the line. The ‘single cask’ in the title suggests they decant a whole lot of rum into many casks at the same time, and blend them together over time within that set (otherwise they really would have years of make in the title)
  • The bottles remain the same, with glass etching of the abbey house engraved on each, and a mahogany tipped stopper.