Privateer Navy Yard Rum (Barrel Proof) – Review

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Sep 192019
 
Privateer Navy Yard Rum (Barrel Proof) - Review

Much of the perception of small and new companies’ rums is tied up in their founders and how they interact with the general public. Perhaps nowhere is this both easier and harder to do than in the United States – easier because of the “plucky little engine that could” mythos of the solo tinkerer, harder because of the sheer geographical scale of the country. Too, it’s one thing to make a new rum, quite another to get a Je m’en fous public of Rhett Butlers to give a damn.  And this is why the chatterati and online punditocracy barely know [Click here for the full review…]


Zafra Master Reserve 21 Year Old Panama Rum – Review

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Sep 162019
 
Zafra Master Reserve 21 Year Old Panama Rum - Review

Going back to familiar rums we liked back in the day is something in the nature of revisiting the comfort food of our youth. The memories are strong and consoling, recalling a time of less snark, less cynicism and a whole lot more enjoyment. Surely such positively-associated, fondly-remembered rums deserve a place on the high-scorers list? The problem is, that’s all some of these are – memories.  The reality, informed by a more discerning palate and more varied experience, tends to deflate such candidates and show us both what we liked about them then, and maybe don’t so much, now. [Click here for the full review…]


St. James Pot Still Agricole White Rhum – Review

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Sep 122019
 
St. James Pot Still Agricole White Rhum - Review

This is a rhum to drive you to tears, or transports of ecstasy, because it’s almost guaranteed that either you’ll regret you never tried it (though you’ll only know that after you do), or fall in lust with it immediately, then bang yourself over the head for not buying more when you did.  It’s a white rhum screwed tight to a screaming 60%, unaged, and made, Lord save us, from St. James’s old pot stills — which created a juice so unlike anything else from the island that people crossed themselves when they saw it, it couldn’t be labelled as [Click here for the full review…]


L’Esprit Diamond White Rum – Review

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Sep 092019
 
L'Esprit Diamond White Rum - Review

Usually, I don’t worry about not acquiring all those aged, rare or otherwise amazing rums that make the social headlines, since I know that most exceed the reach of my scrawny purse, my ability to beg, or the extent my nonexistent wheedling skills.  Too, after ten years of this, I’ve been fortunate enough to try so many rums that many of my personal unicorns have been tried and written about. Therefore I know it will strike many as rather peculiar that for the last two years I’ve been hunting for two very special rums issued by Tristan Prodhomme – and [Click here for the full review…]


Diplomatico “Distillery Collection” No. 2 Barbet Still 6YO Rum – Review

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Sep 062019
 
Diplomatico “Distillery Collection” No. 2 Barbet Still 6YO Rum – Review

If Diplomatico’s Distillery Collection No.1 (the one from the kettle still) was a garden sprinkler trying to be a fire hose, then this one is no more than a quick leg-lift against the tree.  It is a decent enough rum for the style, but lacks any kind of serious chops to make it rise above its more famous and distinct Distillery Collection siblings, or even that perennial favourite of the tippling class, the Diplo Res Ex. And that makes its price-point and supposed street cred a dubious proposition at best. The Distillery Collection is an attempt by Diplomatico to capitalize [Click here for the full review…]


Diplomatico “Distillery Collection” No. 1 Kettle Still 6YO Rum – Review

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Sep 042019
 
Diplomatico "Distillery Collection" No. 1 Kettle Still 6YO Rum - Review

Outside the independents who release from all points of the compass, the rums du jour are the New Jamaicans, the pot still Bajans, the wooden-still Guyanese, the fancy St Lucian still-experimentals, French island aged and unaged rums, new Asian whites, grogues and of course the clairins (and we’re all waiting for Renegade).  In the maelstrom of so many releases, Latin rums as a class are less popular than in their heydey, outside their countries of origin, and even I tend to view them with some impatience at times, wondering when they’re going to get back in the game with some [Click here for the full review…]


Key Rums of the World: Damoiseau Rhum Vieux Agricole 5 Year Old

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Aug 182019
 
Key Rums of the World: Damoiseau Rhum Vieux Agricole 5 Year Old

The French islands provide a reviewer with a peculiar problem when trying to pick a single rum as being a “Key” anything. This is largely because Martinique and Guadeloupe are alone in the world in possessing such a gathering of world-famous rum distilleries in such a concentrated geographical space (a comparison to Islay, say, is not entirely out to lunch). Several Caribbean islands have a single large distiller (St. Lucia, Trinidad) or two (Grenada) or a few (Cuba, Barbados, Jamaica), and Haiti of course comes up for special mention — but none have so many whose names resound through the [Click here for the full review…]


L’Esprit Diamond 2005 11 Year Old Guyanese Rum – Review

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Aug 142019
 
L'Esprit Diamond 2005 11 Year Old Guyanese Rum - Review

Damn but this rum is strong. Standard strength among the cognoscenti has been drifting up from 40% to nearly 50% (give or take), with the low sixties selling well, and the high sixties occasionally spotted running in the wild.  But over 70% ABV, and we’re entering more rarefied territory. When people see one of these, they cross themselves like Supes when he sees green kryptonite. A sip of one, and you know what it’s like to be t-boned by a fully-armoured SUV carrying a banana-republic dictator. And all his no-neck bodyguards. What’s all the more astounding about L’Esprit’s Guyanese Diamond [Click here for the full review…]


Sammy’s Beach Bar White (Hawaii) Rum – Review

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Aug 122019
 
Sammy's Beach Bar White (Hawaii) Rum - Review

Last week, I remarked briefly on persons who are famous or excel in some aspect of their lives, who then go off an lend their names to another product, like spirits – Blackwell was one of these, George Clooney’s Casamigos tequila is another, Bailey Pryor’s Real McCoy line might be among the best known, and here is one that crossed my path not too long ago, a Hawaiian white rum made with the imprimatur of Van Halen’s Sammy Hagar who maintains a residence on Maui and has long been involved in restaurants and spirits (like Cabo Wabo tequila) as a [Click here for the full review…]


Blackwell Fine Jamaican Rum – Review

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Aug 072019
 
Blackwell Fine Jamaican Rum - Review

The Blackwell Fine Jamaican rum is the result of another one of those stories we hear these days, about somebody with good intentions, oodles of spare cash, and some street cred in another creative field of endeavour (music, movies, TV, writing, master of the universe, Wall Street, take your pick), deciding they can make [insert product name here] just because (a) they always liked it (b) they have eaten / drunk / smoked / worn / read / watched / experienced it for many years and (c) they want to immortalize their own preference for said product.  “How difficult can [Click here for the full review…]


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