Laodi Pure Sugar Cane Rhum (White) – Review

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May 202019
 
Laodi Pure Sugar Cane Rhum (White) - Review

The word agricole is nowadays used indiscriminately to refer to any cane juice distillate, no matter where it is made, and by consumer and producers both.  Discussions have recently popped up on FB arguing that appropriating the term under such circumstances was (and is) theft of reputation and quality, which the French Island rum makers had garnered for themselves over long decades (if not centuries) of quality rhum-making, and was therefore being ripped off by any producer not from those islands who used the term.  And here comes a rum company from the Far East, Laodi, seeming to have found [Click here for the full review…]


Tanduay CLX Chairman’s Reserve Philippine Rum – Review

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May 152019
 
Tanduay CLX Chairman's Reserve Philippine Rum - Review

Tanduay, for all its small footprint in the west, is one of the largest rum makers in Asia and the world (they’re either 1st or 2nd by sales volume, depending on what you read and when), and have been in business since 1854. Unsurprisingly, they see fit to commemorate their success with special editions, and like all such premiums with a supposedly limited release meant only for the upper crust, most can get one if they try. The question is, as always, whether one should bother. The presentation of the CLX rum is good – boxed enclosure, shiny faux-gold label, [Click here for the full review…]


Naga “Java Reserve” Indonesian Double-Aged 7 YO Rum – Review

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May 132019
 
Naga "Java Reserve" Indonesian Double-Aged 7 YO Rum - Review

Everything you research on Naga is likely to make you rend your robes with frustration at what little you do manage to dig up. Yet paradoxically, everything you do find out about the rum itself seems guaranteed to keep you reading, and make you buy it, if no other reason than because it seems so damned interesting. The label seems designed specifically to tantalize your curiosity.  Perusing it, you can with equal justification call it “Naga Batavia Arrack” (“made with Indonesian aged rum” says the script, implying there it’s arrack plus rum), or “Naga Double Cask rum” or “Naga Java [Click here for the full review…]


Sang Som Special Rum (Thailand) – Review

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May 092019
 
Sang Som Special Rum (Thailand) - Review

Like most rums of this kind, the opinions and comments are all over the map.  Some are savagely disparaging, other more tolerant and some are almost nostalgic, conflating the rum with all the positive experiences they had in Thailand, where the rum is made. Few have had it in the west, and those that did weren’t writing much outside travel blogs and review aggregating sites. And that’s not a surprise. If you exclude the juice emerging from new, small, fast-moving micro-distilleries in Asia, and focus on the more common brands, you’ll find that many adhere to the light latin-style column-still [Click here for the full review…]


Sangster’s Old Jamaica De Luxe Gold Rum (1980s/1990s)

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May 052019
 
Sangster's Old Jamaica De Luxe Gold Rum (1980s/1990s)

Rumaniacs Review #097 | 0621 As far as I can tell, Dr. Sangster arrived in Jamaica to lecture at UWI in 1967, got sidetracked into the rum business, and died in 2001. During his time on the island, Dr. Sangster did more to popularize rum cream and spiced / infused rums (pineapple, coconut, orange, etc – there were some 20+ varieties) than promote pure rums themselves, but he was also known for his blends, like Conquering Lion Overproof and this one, the Old Jamaica DeLuxe Gold which is definitely off the grid and, in a curious way, also quite modern. [Click here for the full review…]


1423 S.B.S. Mauritius 2008-2018 10 YO Rum – Review

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May 022019
 
1423 S.B.S. Mauritius 2008-2018 10 YO Rum - Review

Like those tiny Caribbean islands you might occasionally fly over, the Maria Loca cocktail bar in Paris is so miniscule that if you were to sneeze and blink you’d go straight past it. When Mrs. Caner and I go inside, it’s dark, it’s hectic, it’s noisy, the music is pounding and the place is going great guns. At the bar, along with two other guys, Guillaume Leblanc is making daiquiris with flair and fine style, greeting old customers and barflies and rumfest attendees, the shaker never still. Even though he doesn’t work there, he seems to know everyone by their [Click here for the full review…]


El Dorado Rare Collection PM+Diamond 2001-2017 16 YO Rum (Velier 70th Anniversary) – Review

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Apr 292019
 
El Dorado Rare Collection PM+Diamond 2001-2017 16 YO Rum (Velier 70th Anniversary) - Review

El Dorado and their high-end collection, the Rares, continue to inspire head scratching bafflement – they get issued with such a deafening note of silence that we might be forgiven for thinking DDL don’t care that much about them.  Ever since 2016 when they were first released, there’s been a puzzling lack of market push to advertise and expose them to the rum glitterati. Few even knew the second release had taken place, and I suggest that if it had not been for the Skeldon, the third release would have been similarly low key, practically unheralded, and all but unknown. [Click here for the full review…]


Barbosa Grogue Pure Single White Rum – Review

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Apr 242019
 
Barbosa Grogue Pure Single White Rum - Review

Although the grogues of Cabo Verde have been seeping through our rumconsciousness for years now, it’s a curious thing that there are almost no reviews to be found online at all. All we have is rumours and quiet whispers in the dark corners of smoke-filled tiki-bars, random small comments on FB, and stories that Luca Gargano of Velier has been sniffing about the islands for years, perhaps putting together another series of organic, pure single rums designed to wow our socks off. 2019 might at last, then, be the year to change that, as grogues were quite visible in the [Click here for the full review…]


Inner Circle “Green Dot” Overproof Rum (Australia/Fiji) (2000s)

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Apr 212019
 
Inner Circle "Green Dot" Overproof Rum (Australia/Fiji) (2000s)

Rumaniacs Review # 096 | 0617 Inner Circle out of Australia is one of those rums originally made by a now-defunct company called the Colonial Sugar Refinery, which had a long history pretty much unknown outside its country of origin. Formed in 1855, CSR established refineries in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji by the 1890s, and iin 1901 they opened a distillery in Sidney, using pot stills to make rums from Fijian and Australian cane. The Inner Circle brand name, which appeared in 1950, came from the limited high-quality rums they made for distribution to the favoured elite of the [Click here for the full review…]


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

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

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


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