Key Rums of the World – St. Lucia Distillers Chairman’s Reserve (Original)

 1 Response »
Apr 032022
 

Of all the rums that St Lucia Distillers makes, perhaps the best known and most widely drunk is the line of Chairman’s Reserve. It was already well regarded when I started this gig in 2009, and it remains a workhorse brand of the company today, more than twenty years after its debut. The Bounty brand is below it, the Admiral Rodney was once above it (in perception if nothing else) but the Chairman’s Reserve always held a cachet all its own, even when it was represented by just that single expression that started the cart rolling.

Made as a blend of pot and column still distillate with around five years ageing, the Chairman’s Reserve aims at a middling sort of profile that eschews the extremes of either light Latin ease or hard-edged funky uniqueness. The rum was created in the late 1990s when Laurie Bernard (the Chairman himself) felt it was time to create a premium rum that would showcase what the island had to offer – more than just bulk rum shipped elsewhere, more than merely the local or tourist trade island rums like Bounty and Denros…something a bit more upscale. I don’t doubt that some inspiration was taken from the enormous success of the 1992 release of the El Dorado 15 year old and Mount Gay’s own experiments with premiumization, but what was created was so good and remained so popular, that even two decades in, the rum has not lost its lustre.

Which is not to say the rum stayed the same, or that others did not come along that changed the marketing. In 2011 the Chairman’s Reserve “Forgotten Casks” rum was released; the Admiral Rodney and the annually reformulated “1931” limited editions were trotted out at roughly the same time, all aimed at taking the distillery brand more upscale. This process continued — perhaps even accelerated — in 2017 when SLD was acquired by GBH (Spiribam) and a game of musical rums began. They expanded and switched around the Admiral Rodney rums, from being a single rum positioned between the Bounty and the Chairman’s Reserve, to several older and named “ship” expressions at the top end. The yearly 1931 series was discontinued entirely (No. 6 was the last one), the profile was locked into a single stable “1931” (it’s got about 9% cane juice, I’ve heard), and was moved to the top of the premium line with the words “Chairman’s Reserve” added to the labelling.

Now, Chairman’s Reserve – that one single special rum they had started with – had to that point been seen as the premium face of SLD, the recognized face of the brand’s exports, right back from the time of its introduction in 1999. However, when the portfolio was being rationalised, it was likely felt that it was a little too staid, maybe no longer top-tier…and so it was decided to expand it, a lot. The Reserve became a whole range in its own right, a series varying in both quality and price – when last I checked there were nine separate rums bearing the imprimatur of Chairman’s Reserve: the Original, Forgotten Casks, “2005”, “2009”, “Lewellyn Xavier,“ “White Label”, Legacy” “1931” and the “Masters Selection.” They range from about twenty pounds for the Original, to over a hundred for the Master’s Selection, and only one (the Master’s) exceeds 46%.

With all that competition and expansion and premiumisation, the Original seems to have faded to the back, but I submit to you that this should not be the case. It remains enormously affordable and one of the few of the St Lucia Distiller’s stable one can find just about anywhere; it is widely commented on, and almost every reviewer still standing has, at some point, taken a crack at the rum (or one of its descendants). It was the first St. Lucia rum the Fat Rum Pirate tried in 2014, and he loved it; so did the Rum Shop Boy, six years later, as well as The Rum Howler; the boys at Rumcast mentioned the CR series in their 2020 roundup (Episode #17 at 0:24:50), John Go in the Philippines came to it more indifferently in 2021, but if Rum Ratings and reddit are anything to go by, people have been encouraged to go for the other variations in the Chairman’s line precisely because the original colonised our mental mindspace so comprehensively…even if they have forgotten the first one from which all others descend.

And when I went at it again in 2021, I came to understand something of its enduring appeal, because even at 40% ABV, even with its great familiarity (I’ve tried it many times, though only in social settings that precluded taking detailed notes upon which to base a review), it held up its end really really well. Granted it was standard strength, and that doesn’t always work: but the nose it started out with was quietly impressive. It was creamy, buttery, slightly sweet (but not sweetened) and smelled deliciously of toffee, Danish cookies, salted caramel ice cream, vanilla, honey and a touch of brine. Not a whole lot of sharp fruits presented themselves, and apricots and banana and ripe cherries were pretty much all, so no sharper citrus notes were there to start a riot. There were hints of herbs like rosemary, and spices like cinnamon to round things off.

Taste wise too, it was assembled with self-evident care and skill. Here it was saltier than the nose had suggested it would be – more salted caramel, more saline, a hint of olives, butter – to which were added lemon meringue pie drizzled with brown sugar and a tawny, rich honey, leading to a fully respectable finish that summed up all the preceding points – musky caramel, toffee, molasses, bon bons, vanilla, brine, honey and a good mocha, with a little sharpness added to round things off.

This is a rum that would never be mistaken for a Guyanese, Jamaican, Brazilian, Cuban, or French island rhum, ever, and in fact, my thought was that the closest it came to was actually a slightly more pot-still-driven Barbados pot-column blended rum like Doorly’s or the Real McCoy. The overall profile was not so much uber-complex as completely and solidly precise, each note coming into its own, distinctly and clearly, then being replaced by another one. Never too many, never too few, nothing too demanding, always just enough to make for a seriously sippable drink that broke neither palate nor wallet.

Indeed, my feeling about this rum has always been that it wouldn’t scare anyone off the boat and would actually entice quite a few to come on board, not just to rums in general, but St. Lucia in particular. Because by all the measures of price, availability, brand recognition, overall taste, and approachability, the original Chairman’s Reserve just nails it. It’s a fair bet that most people wanting to dip their toes into St Lucia territory will start not with the Bounty rums, or the Admiral Rodneys (that premium cachet, rightly or wrongly, is not conducive to starter efforts), but with one of the Chairman’s Reserve expressions and they can all, every one of them, trace their ancestry back to this one original, the progenitor of the line. It’s a perennial classic for beginners or experts, for sippers, swillers or mixers, a mainstay of rum collections old and new, and it continues to call upon us to heed and hearken to its siren song. Few who do so walk away disappointed.

(#896)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

 

Bounty “Spirit of St. Lucia” Rum (1970s-1980s)

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Dec 192021
 

Rumaniacs Review R-131 | 873

Bounty Rum — not to be confused with the South Pacific Distillery rum of the same name — was the first branded rum produced by St. Lucia Distillers in 1972 when the combine was formed through the consolidation of the Dennery Distillery (which was owned by the Barnard family) and the distillery run by the Geest family at Roseau Bay.

The rum was considered the workhorse of the brand, a step down from the subsequent releases of the Chairman’s Reserve, Admiral Rodney and other blends of greater perceived cachet and exclusivity that came into prominence in the post-2000 rum renaissance.

The Bounty rum brand has never been retired from active duty, and continues to be sold all around the Caribbean to this day: it is something of a back bar staple in the US, a mixer’s drink for the most part. The various rums that were developed over time can be flavoured, spiced, white, aged, unaged, column or pot-column blends, and retain their popularity by virtue of their affordability and generic usefulness.

The rum was part of a set of minis from the 1970s and 1980s that I bought, and since the label is all but unfindable and there is nothing to distinguish it otherwise, I am forced to make some assumptions until Mike Speakman or SLD (hopefully) gets back to me: I think it’s from the 1970s, sold for airline and hotel minibar use; a column still spirit, slightly aged; and the closest thing to it in 2021 is probably the Bounty Gold rum (not the Dark). No rum as shown on this label remains in production.

Colour – Light gold

Strength – 40%

Nose – Quite sweet, notes of honey, mead, molasses and brown sugar. There’s also the aroma of hay, sawdust and decaying paper, the musty smell of old libraries and second hand bookstores. With a bit of time to open up, we get green peas, cherries, tart yoghurt and even the slight metallic bite of a coin.

Palate – Interesting: some brine and olives to start, plus nuts, almonds and nougat. The slight sweetness of molasses and brown sugar carries over from the nose, as well as raisins, spices, grass and a touch of dill and rosemary.

Finish – Short and aromatic, with spices, brine and light fruitiness. Plus, a touch of dustiness returns here.

Thoughts – In today’s climate it can work as a sipping rum, I suppose, though I doubt many would use it for anything but to make a mix, even assuming it could be found. It’s nice enough, and shows clearly how far St Lucia Distillers’ other rums have come since this was originally made. But back then it was all light blends, and this Bounty rum adheres faithfully to that lackluster profile.

(78/100)

Other Notes

  • Brief subsequent history: in 1993 the Barnards bought out the Geests, and in 2005 sold out to CL Financial who in turn, after their reckless financial exposure to the crash of 2008 nearly bankrupted them, sold out to the Martinique conglomerate Group Bernard Hayot (Spiribam), the current owner.
  • The ageing and still are unknown: my assumption is that as with most such rums made back in the day, it was from a column still, and aged less than five years. It’s descendant is probably the current Bounty Gold rum which is a 2YO column still rum.

 

Silver Seal Special Reserve “Dennery” St. Lucia Rum (Sestante Collection)- Review

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Aug 302021
 

This rum has a very long title: it’s full name is the Silver Seal St. Lucia Distillers “Dennery” Special Reserve Rum, of the “Sestante Collection.” It’s something of a collector’s item these days, though issued relatively recently around 2017, and all the various terms on the label require some background explanation that might derail your interest in the review itself (unless you’re a trivia and history nut like I am and actually, y’know, enjoy this stuff).

Let me just provide some bare bones detail on the rum, get right into the tasting and then you can nod off to the extraneous material beneath that if you’re of a mind. Firstly, it’s a single cask bottling of 600 70-cl bottles watered down to 43% (hence the substantial outturn). It’s a no-age-statement and undated rum which is highly annoying given that it came from a single cask, and demonstrates that much as we like the indie bottlers, some (even the Oldies) still have a ways to go on matters of disclosure from time to time. Since there’s only one distillery on the island, it’s no hardship to deduce who made it.

That’s the easy part. Things get tricky from here: there are few references online about the rum – not a single reviewer I know has tasted the thing, and those that tasted its cousin, the “Superior” like Wes, Serge or Steve, had similar grouches about it, that there was just nothing to go on, and SS was not returning calls. The SS website was and remains completely useless; and as if that isn’t bad enough, there are three separate “Dennery” rums from Silver Seal: the Superior, the Special Reserve with a silver box (600 bottles, 43%) and the Special Reserve from the Sestante Collection with the dark red box (600 bottles, 43%). All display a similarly stunning paucity of information.

Another peculiarity is how dark it is – it possibly speaks to decades-long maturation, if one is feeling generous and if SS ever bothered to mention it. But probably not. A first sniff and a snoot rapidly dispels any such ur-aged collector’s edition fantasies. It presents immediately with such a deep black licorice note that I remember thinking this was a mislabelled Demerara. It smells of the rich, wet loam of newly turned garden earth after a rain. Thick aromas of licorice, bitter caramel, wood chips billow out, later accompanied by unsweetened chocolates, coffee, then citrus, chocolate oranges, mint, dark cake. It’s very solid and not subtle, and completely at odds with the 1931 series of rums I was trying alongside it. Or, for that matter, with the standard Admiral Rodney.

The palate was similarly odd…yet hauntingly familiar. It took me back to the jungles of Guyana where I worked as a young man fresh out of school, redolent of rotten, moss-covered logs decaying into damp dirt and leaves, under a dripping canopy speared here and there with dappled sunlight, and I literally cannot find another way to accurately describe this remarkable profile. It tasted of old and well-polished leather Berbice chairs, minerals, smoke, compost, unsweetened chocolate and dark fruits, creamy cake and just a touch of brine and lemon peel, leading into a long (for 43%) and dry finish that showed off closing notes of aromatic tobacco, dried prunes, dates and again, that leather.

Unusual? Yeah, it’s unusual. Based onthe writers’ tasting notes it shares a lot of DNA, it would appear, with the Superior — and this is where real info on each of the three releases would have helped us understand the tastes better. It reminded me less of a St. Lucian rum than an over-oaked Versailles from Guyana, and – in a strange way – even the dour wooden mustiness of the Saint James 1885. I’m going to give it points for unusual tastes and an interesting experience that does not fail (in my opinion, too often people mark something down because they expect it to be one way and then it doesn’t conform to the preconceived notion, for good or ill) but take away a few for excessive dark sweet oak and licorice that dominates too much.

So is it a buy? The SS Dennery does occasionally sail into — and out of — various auctions for under £200, so it’s something of a pricey-but-affordable indulgence. And it does have a solid indie name behind it, and tastes and samples well. Yet I can’t find myself recommending the thing. Not because it is too little like a St. Lucian, but because if Silver Seal didn’t care enough to tell us anything concrete about its age or its components or dates or stills, then either they’re too lazy to actually service their consumers in the modern age, or they know damned well what it is they’re peddling and are hiding it. This starving author ain’t buying on either account.

(#846)(83/100)

Other Notes

  • Silver Seal was founded by an Italian, Ernesto Mainardi in 2000 and like its predecessor, the Sestante import company which he had established in the late 1970s, it dealt primarily in whiskies: they began to do their own bottlings in 1985. Few records of the rums either company made are extant – most of the famous Silver Seal rums we know today were issued after Mainardi sold both companies to Massimo Righi, the owner of Whisky Antique, in 2010.
  • “Sestante” means sextant in English, and is the name of a collection Silver Seal created that was meant to pay homage to Mainardi’s original company. It showcases both whiskies and rums, but it remains unclear what makes them special. Too few of the rums in that collection – not that we know anything much about them since there’s no master list anywhere – have been reviewed to make any definitive statement about the matter.
  • St Lucia Distillers was formed in 1972 through the consolidation of the Dennery Distillery, which was owned by the Barnard family, and the distillery run by the Geest family at Roseau Bay. In 1993 the Barnards bought out the Geests, and in 2005 sold out to CL Financial (may their glasses be perpetually empty) who in turn, after their reckless financial exposure to the crash of 2008 nearly bankrupted them, sold out to Spiribam, the current owner.
  • Since St. Lucia Distillers has four stills (two John Dore pot stills, a hybrid Vendome pot still, and the original two-column McMillan coffey still) and their standard line is all blended, the Dennery rum is likely a pot-column blend (my opinion).
  • There is no “Dennery” style or classifiable rum type (unlike, say, the Rockley over in Barbados). The name has been given to the rum as a callback to the distillery’s origins, that’s all.

Opinion (adapted from my coment on FB)

I make a lot of noise about prejudging rums based on expectations, and indeed, I firmly believe it is hard to let such notions go when you know you’re tasting a rum this old, from that distillery located in this-or-that particular country. Your experience and background serve to provide background and comparators. As well as, of course, your preferences, biases and likes/dislikes.

But I also believe in the provision of information by the bottler, and to evaluate a special edition – which this supposedly is – one has to know what exactly is special about it: is that the age? provenance? distillation? great harvest from a special year? fancy barrels?

None of this is provided by Silver Seal, and yet within that limitation, the rum is quite nice (though a rather startling divergence from what we understand to be St. Lucian rums). But the opinion on “just the profile” is now harder to contextualize because that’s the only data point there is. Is it as good as other rums that old, other rums that come off of that still, that strong, that year? There’s simply no way to know that or discuss it, and as such I find myself not recommending it for the buy unless you really want to get it and have the free coin. Which I don’t and I don’t.

Hamilton St. Lucia 2007 7 Year Old Pot Still Rum – Review

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Feb 042021
 

Given the backward Prohibition-era-style rules governing alcohol in the US, Americans rightly sigh with envy when they see the rum selections in Europe. To get their favourite rums, they have to use any number of workarounds: bite the bullet and go over in person to buy some; have somebody mule it; come to an arrangement with a local liquor store in their state; or, heaven forbid, courier it – a tricky and not hazard-free process, I assure you.

But occasionally the situation goes in reverse, and it’s the Europeans who grumble at the luck of the Yanks. Ed Hamilton’s little indie operation of eponymous rums is one of these. Although perhaps the most renowned for the 151 Demerara rum (which went head to head with Lemon Hart in the early 2010s and has remained a bar staple ever since), the Collection also includes a Worthy Park edition, a Navy rum, a white rum, a New York blend, even a pimento liqueur…and several years’ releases (from 2004 through 2009) of St. Lucia Distillers’ rums, bottled in between 2013 and 2015.

Today we’re looking at the Hamilton 2007 7 year old rum sent to me by my old schoolfriend Cecil Ramotar, which can be considered a companion review to the 2007 9 year old I wrote about four years ago (but of which I still had a smidgen for comparison purposes…in the name of science, of course). Like its older brother, the 7 YO came off of SLD’s Vendome pot still in September 2007 and set to age in ex-bourbon casks, shipped to the US in 2014 and bottled in January 2015 straight from the cask with additives of any kind. At a snorting, growling 60.4%, which I thought was excessive until I realized that several others in the line were even stronger.

That strength was bolted on to a firmness of profile and a solidity of taste that was really quite remarkable, and smelled, at the beginning, like I had stumbled into a high end cake shop with a fruit stand somewhere in there. There were aromas of honey, marzipan, cinnamon and unsweetened dark chocolate; vanilla and the sort of rich pastry that makes really good cookies. I wandered out back and found the fruit shelf: apples, green grapes, fanta, strawberries, and just the faintest hint of saline solution and olives, all dusted liberally with brown sugar.

Well, the nose might have been good, but taste tells the tale, right? Yes indeed. Again I remarked on its lack of sharpness, it’s lack of raw sandpaper scrape. I mean yes, it was spicy and hot, but it more gave an impression of real heft and weight rather than cutting pain. It was slightly salty and sweet and sour all at once, with the piquancy of gooseberries and unripe mangoes married to riper and more dusky fruits: raspberries and peaches and apricots. Somehow the molasses, salted caramel, brown sugar and creme brulee didn’t up-end that profile or create any kind of crazy mishmash – the integration of citrus, flowers, pastry and cereal notes was pretty well handled and even added some peanut brittle and mint chocolates at the back end, during a nicely long and aromatic finish.

Clearing away the dishes, it’s a seriously solid rum. If I had to chose, I think the 2004 9 Year Old edges this one out by just a bit, but the difference is more a matter of personal taste than objective quality, as both were very tasty and complex rums that add to SLD’s and Ed Hamilton’s reputations. It’s a shame that the line wasn’t continued and added to — no other St. Lucia rums have been added to the Hamilton Collection since 2015 (at least not according to the master list on Ed’s site) and that makes them incredibly desirable finds in that cask strength desert they call a rum selection over there. Worse, only 20 cases of this one were released…so a mere 240 bottles hit the market, and that was six years ago.

Now, in 2021 I think these rums are a close to extinct, akin to the Stolen Overproof Jamaican which was made, sank without a trace and is regarded as something of an overlooked bargain these days. With reviews like this one and for the kind of quality I argue the Hamilton St Lucia rum displayed, it may now be seen as more desirable, but good luck finding any. If you do, I think you’d like it (though see “other notes”, below), and hopefully accept that it’s right up there with the better known rums of the New Jamaicans, Barbados or Mudland. In my mind, deservedly so.

(#799)(85/100)

Other notes

  • Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the empty reviewing landscape in the US where the rum was primarily distributed, few have bothered to say anything about it. Spirits Surveyor wrote about it last year (December 2020) in a short eval, rating it 7 (presumably out of 10) and commented on “liquid baking spices”. In July of 2020 LIFO Accountant on Reddit didn’t care for it and thought it too hot and unbalanced and rated it 4/10, preferring the 9 YO. TheAgaveFairy, also on reddit, gave it a 6+ and extensive tasting notes…and even thought it was a Jamaican for a bit. On RumRatings, it scored between 8 and 9, assuming you discount the one perspicacious gent who didn’t like it because he didn’t care for agricoles.
  • There’s another 7 YO from 2007 in the Collection, with a slightly lesser proof of 59% ABV.

St. Lucia Distillers “1931” 4º Edition Rum (2014)

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Aug 302020
 

Rumaniacs Review #120 | 0757

Each of the 1931 series has some sort of tweak, a point of uniqueness or interest, to make it stand out. The first two, in my estimation at least, were fairly conservative pot-column blending experiments (but very well done). The Third Edition added some sugar to a blend of all four stills and upped the complexity some. By the time they got to 2014, it was clear there was a gleeful maniac running free and unsupervised in the blending area, and he used a bit of just about everything he had in the lab (including agricole rhum, the first made from sugar cane juice at SLD since the 1930s), in an effort to create the ultimate complex blend that only a 9-Dan Master Blender from some insanely intricate solera system could possibly unravel. But oh man, what he created was stunning for a rum bottled at such a quiet 43%.

Brief background: there are six releases of the 1931 rums, one per year between 2011 and 2016, each with its blend of aged pot and column still distillates. In 2017 the 1931 moniker was folded into the Chairman’s Reserve part of the portfolio and it effectively ceased production as a brand in its own right. For the historically minded, the “1931” refers to the year when the Barnard family’s Mabouya Distillery was founded near Dennery – it merged with the Geest family’s Roseau distillery in 1972 to create the modern St Lucia Distillers.

Once again, the St. Lucia distillers site gives zero info on the blend, but direct communication with them provided everything we might want. The blend breakdown is below the tasting notes, and I should note a smidgen of sugar (about 4-6 g/L according to Mike Speakman, who also provided the breakdown).

Colour – Gold

Strength – 43%

Nose – Damn, but here, the brine and licorice notes are so distinct it’s almost sweaty. Brine and olives, salty caramel ice cream, some vanilla. Honey, leather, some smoke, molasses-soaked brown sugar. I particularly liked the light twist of lime and mint which offset thicker aromas of bananas and peaches.

Palate – The balance of the various flavours permeating this thing s really very good. The tart acidity of sour cream and fruit melds deliciously with softer, creamier flavours — think lemon meringue pie but with bags more apricots, peaches, green grapes, lime and apples. The salt caramel and molasses is present but unobtrusive, and while the agricole element remains faint, it is there, and maybe just shy. A flirt of vanilla and aromatic tobacco round off a very satisfying profile.

Finish – Shortish, mostly vanilla, lemon zest, light chocolate, and whipped cream.

Thoughts – Whoever made this blend is a genius. Of the six St. Lucians I had on the go that day, only one eclipsed it (and not by much). It’s admirable and amazing how much flavour got stuffed into a rum released at a strength that too often is seen as its own disqualifier. I can’t speak for the 1931 #5 and #6, but of the first four, this is, for me, undoubtedly the best.

(86/100)

The components of this blend are as follows:

89% molasses-based.

46% Column still, of which:

  • 6% Aged 11 years (Bourbon cask)
  • 9% Aged 9 years (Bourbon cask)
  • 9% Aged 7 years (Bourbon cask)
  • 9% Aged 9 years (Bourbon cask)
  • 7% Aged 7 years (Bourbon cask)
  • 3% Aged 9 years (Port cask)
  • 3% Aged 9 years (Port cask)

11% from a Pot/Column blend:

  • 50% from John Dore 1. Aged for 10 years (Bourbon cask)
  • 50% from a Column still. Aged for 10 years (Bourbon cask)

32% from a pot still of which:

  • 13% Aged for 15 years, from John Dore 1 (Bourbon cask)
  • 5% Aged for 9 years, from John Dore 2 (Bourbon cask)
  • 7% Aged for 10 years, from Vendome (Bourbon cask)
  • 7% Aged for 9 years, from John Dore 1 & Vendome (50% each) (Bourbon cask)

11% Sugar cane juice based (Agricultural rhum).

  • Aged for 6 years from John Dore pot still (Bourbon cask)

Summary of blend

  • 13% Aged for 15 years
  • 6% Aged for 11 years
  • 18% Aged for 10 years
  • 36% Aged for 9 years
  • 16% Aged for 7 years
  • 11% Aged for 6 years.
  • 94% aged in Bourbon casks
  • 6% aged in Port casks.
  • 51.5% Column Still
  • 33.0% Pot Still John Dore 1
  • 5.0% Pot Still John Dore 2
  • 10.5% Pot Still Vendome

The six editions of the range are colour coded and reviewed as follows:

  • 2011 1st edition – pale yellow [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2012 2nd edition – lavender [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2013 3rd edition – turquoise [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2014 4th edition – black [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2015 5th edition – magenta [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2016 6th edition – coral [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]

A complete flight of all six at once was done and written about by Phil Kellow of the Australian blog Philthy Rum in 2018.

St. Lucia Distillers “1931” 3º Edition Rum (2013)

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Aug 262020
 

Rumaniacs Review #119 | 0756

It’s important that we keep in mind the characteristics and backstories of these St. Lucian rums, even if they were discontinued within the memory of just about everyone reading this. And that’s because I feel that before we turn around twice, another ten years will have passed and it’ll be 2030, and sure as anything, someone new to rum will pipe up and ask “What were they?” And I don’t want us all to mourn and bewail, then, the fact that nobody ever took notes or wrote sh*t down just because “wuz jus’ de odder day, mon, so is why you tekkin’ worries?” That’s how things get lost and forgotten.

That said, no lengthy introduction is needed for the 1931 series of rums released by St. Lucia Distilleries. There are six releases, one per year between 2011 and 2016, each with its unique and complex blend of pot and column still distillate, and each with that blend and their ages tweaked a bit. In 2017 the 1931 moniker was folded into the Chairman’s Reserve part of the portfolio and it effectively ceased production as a brand in its own right. For the historically minded, the “1931” refers to the year when the Barnard family’s Mabouya Distillery was founded near Dennery – it merged with the Geest family’s Roseau distillery in 1972 to create the modern St Lucia Distillers.

A different level of information is available for the blend contained in this one versus others: in short, the St. Lucia distillers site gives us zero. Which is peculiar to say the least, since the 3rd Edition is quite interesting. For one, it’s a blend of rums from all the stills they have – the Vendome pot still, the two John Dore pot stills and the the continuous coffey still, all aged individually in American oak for 6-12 years. However, nowhere is the age mentioned, and that appears to be a deliberate choice, to focus attention on the drinking experience, and not get all caught up in numbers(so I’ve been told). And, in a one-off departure which was never repeated, they deliberately added 12g/L of sugar (or something) to the rum, probably in a “Let’s see how this plays” moment of weakness (or curiosity).

Colour – Dark gold

Strength – 43%

Nose – Rather dry, briny with a sharp snap of cold ginger ale (like Canada Dry, perhaps). Then a succession of fruits appear – oranges, kiwi fruits, black grapes – plus licorice and some molasses. Reminds me somewhat of Silver Seal’s St. Lucia dennery Special Reserve. Some sawdust and wet wood chips, quite pungent and with a nice dark citrus though-line, like oranges on the edge of going off.

Palate – Ginger again, licorice, citrus peel, molasses, vanilla and a chocolate cake, yummy. Fruits take a step back here – there’s some kiwi and grapes again, not strong, lemon meringue pie, bubble gum and tinned fruit syrup. Also a trace of vegetable soup (or at least something spicily briny), bolted to an overall creamy mouthfeel that is quite pleasing.

Finish – Sums up the preceding. Ginger cookies, cereal, fruits, rather short but very tasty

Thoughts – It’s better than the 2nd Edition, I’d say, and tasted blind it’s hard to even say they’re branches off the same tree. A completely well done, professionally made piece of work.

(83/100)

The six editions of the range are colour coded and reviewed as follows:

  • 2011 1st edition – pale yellow [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2012 2nd edition – lavender [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2013 3rd edition – turquoise [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2014 4th edition – black [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2015 5th edition – magenta [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2016 6th edition – coral [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]

A complete flight of all six at once was done and written about by Phil Kellow of the Australian blog Philthy Rum in 2018.

St. Lucia Distillers “1931” 2º Edition Rum (2012)

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Aug 232020
 

Rumaniacs Review #118 | 0755

It’s been years since I sipped at the well of a “1931” St. Lucian rum – at that time the 2011 First Edition was all that was available and I gave it a decent write up (I liked it) and moved on to the Admiral Rodney, Chairman’s Reserve and other products the company made. However, I never lost my interest in the range and over the years gradually picked up more here and there, with a view to one day adding them to the Key Rums of the World as a set: but since they are limited and no longer very available commercially (and may even be slowly forgotten), the Rumaniacs is where they will have to rest.

There are six releases of the “1931” series, one per year between 2011 and 2016, each with a different coloured label, each with its blend of pot and column still distillate, and their ages, tweaked a bit. In 2017 the 1931 moniker was folded into the Chairman’s Reserve part of the portfolio and it effectively ceased production as a brand in its own right. For the historically minded, the “1931” refers to the year when the Barnard family’s Mabouya Distillery was founded near Dennery – it merged with the Geest family’s Roseau distillery in 1972 to create the modern St Lucia Distillers.

The St. Lucia distillers site gives this information on what’s in here: casks from 2004, 2005 and 2006 were used (but not how many). These include

  • casks containing 100% coffey still distillates matured in a combination of American white oak casks and port casks
  • casks with 100% pot still distillates aged in American white oak
  • casks with 50/50 blends of pot/coffey still aged in American white oak.

The blend was assembled and then placed back into American white oak casks for a period of three months for a final marriage before being bottled. It almost sounds ungrateful of me, after so many years of bitching I want more detail, to wonder what the proportions of each are, but what the hell, I remain pleased we get this much.

Colour – Mahogany

Strength – 43%

Nose – Salty, even briny, with an accompanying sweet crispness of a nice (but tamped down) Riesling. Fanta, sprite and citrus-forward soda pop. Some bad oranges, green grapes and apples, plus watery light fruits (pears, watermelons) and vanilla, a trace of chocolate. Not much heavy aroma here, but a fair bit of light and sprightly fragrance.

Palate – Soft and easy to drink, just a bit of edge and barely any sharpness. Rather tame. Sweet, floral and with lots of ripe white fruits bursting with juice. Melons and mangoes, some background heavier notes, tobacco, chocolate, nutmeg – a nice combo, just lacking intensity and any serious pungency (which is a good thing for many).

Finish – Short, wispy, easy, not much more than what the palate gave. Some citrus, cumin, soda, tobacco.

Thoughts – Somehow it seems gentler than any of the other St. Lucia 1931 rums I’ve tried, less assertive, less rough, more tamed. It has a fair bit going on with the varied tastes and notes, but it comes off as not so much complex as “needlessly busy”. That could just be nitpicking, though, for it is indeed quite a nice sipping rum and a good exemplar of the blender’s skill.

(82/100)

The six editions of the range are colour coded and reviewed as follows:

  • 2011 1st edition – pale yellow [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2012 2nd edition – lavender [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2013 3rd edition – turquoise [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2014 4th edition – black [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2015 5th edition – magenta [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]
  • 2016 6th edition – coral [Rumshop Boy] [Fat Rum Pirate]

A complete flight of all six at once was done and written about by Phil Kellow of the Australian blog Philthy Rum in 2018.

Old Fort Reserve Rum (St. Lucia) – 2000s

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Dec 022018
 

Rumaniacs Review #087 | 0574

As with the Bucaneer rum in R-086, the Old Fort Reserve rum is from St. Lucia Distillers, and while it won an award in the 80-proof light category in an (unknown) 2003 “Rumfest”, it was withdrawn from the company’s lineup in that same year. Bucaneer did not fit the portfolio as the company had decided to concentrate on brands like Bounty; and the Old Fort Reserve had a similar fate – it was overtaken by the Chairman’s Reserve brand. What this means, then, is when you taste an Old Fort (and you are interested in such historical matters) then you are actually trying the precursor to one of the better known current St Lucia marks.

Although somewhat overtaken by developments in the rum world in the new century, back in the 1980s and 1990s, the Old Fort was considered to be the premium rum of the distillery, and was blended in such a way as to represent the best the company had to offer. As far as I know, it was 6-8 years old, matured in ex-bourbon casks (Note – the original Chairman’s Reserve was aged for 4½ years and then aged a further six months after blending so if the philosophy from Old Fort was continued then my ageing figures may be in error – I’m checking on that).

Colour – Gold

Strength – 40%

Nose – A little sharp, but also sweet, fruity (apricots, orange marmalade, ripe apples), dusty, dry with just a little honey, brine and pickled gherkins in the background. Somewhat earthy and “dirty” at the tail end. A nice nose, though demonstrating more promise than actuality.

Palate – Diluted syrup decanted from a tin of peaches. Pears, cucumbers, sugar water, watermelon, and a nicely incorporated deeper tone of molasses and caramel. Still somewhat briny, which gives it a touch of character that I liked, and some gently emerging notes of dill and cumin round off what these days is an unaggressive profile, but which back in the day was considered top of the line.

Finish – Longer than expected for standard proof, dry, dusty, salty finishing off with molasses and light fruits.

Thoughts – It’s unexceptional by today’s standards, and its successor the Chairman’s Reserve (especially the Forgotten Cask variation) is better in almost every way. But as a historical artifact of the way things were done and how rum brands developed on St. Lucia, it really is a fascinating rum in itself.

(77/100)

Other reviews by various members of the Rumaniacs can be found at the website, here.

Buccaneer St. Lucia Rum (1990s)

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Nov 242018
 

Rumaniacs Review #086 | 0571

Ed Hamilton, in his 1995 book Rums of the Eastern Caribbean, made mention of the Buccaneer rum as a regular part of the St. Lucia Distillers lineup, but nowadays the rum is no longer in production – the last reference to it was an award given to it in the 2003 Rum Fest (which fest it was is somewhat open to conjecture), and a notation that it was discontinued, later confirmed by Mike Speakman that it was in the same year. So we can assume that the Buccaneer I tasted is at best an early 2000s rum, no later, and probably earlier. An interesting point is that Hamilton wrote of it as being 43%, but both the label photo in his book and my sample came in at 40%. It’s likely that both variations existed, depending on the market in which it sold (i.e., US versus Europe) – DDL did the same with its El Dorados, for example. Also, Eastern Caribbean Distillers (as per the fine print on the label) is a subsidiary of St. Lucia Distillers set up in 1987, but I can find no reference as to when the name ceased to be used.

[As an aside, Buccaneer is a title used by several rums over the decades: I found references to a Buccaneer Superior White, a blend of Bajan and Guyanese rum (Buccaneer Vintners, UK); another from Maryland USA (Majestic Distilling) that touted its origin as Virgin Island rum; and a Buccaneer matured rum from Ghana, made by Gihoc Distilleries in Accra, but the background of which is too lengthy to go into here.]

Colour – Dark Gold

Strength – 40%

Nose – Honey, molasses, brine, olives, and the richness of ripe prunes, very arm and smooth. It’s a little sharp to begin with (it settles after five minutes or so), and has some interesting background aromas of gherkins, cucumbers, pears and a sort of salt-sour tang that’s difficult to pin down precisely but is by no means unpleasant.

Palate – Oily, salty and sweet all at once. Tastes a little rougher than the nose suggested it might be, but is also quite warm after one adjusts. Pineapple, cherries, mangoes, followed on by dates, molasses, honey and brown sugar, and a touch of vanilla.

Finish – Medium long, and here the molasses and burnt brown sugar notes really come into their own. Also some light fruitiness, aromatic tobacco and vanilla, but these are buried under the molasses, really.

Thoughts – Certainly a rum from yesteryear. Nowadays the big guns from St. Lucia Distilleries are the 1931 series, the Admiral Rodney, the Chairman’s Reserve (and its offshoot the “Forgotten Casks”) and some of the cask strength offerings of the Independents (including Ed Hamilton himself). The writing had been on the wall for the wide variety and range of the distillery’s rums even back in the 1990s as they focused on core competencies, consolidation and better-selling brands. It’s kind of a shame, because this rum was quite a decent dram – but I like to think that all they learned in all the decades since they made them, has now been incorporated into the excellent series of standard proofed rums they make now. In that sense, the Buccaneer still lives on.

(80/100)

Secret Treasures St. Lucia 2005 9 Year Old (John Dore Pot Still) Rum – Review

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Jun 222017
 

#374

Two bottles of Secret Treasures St. Lucian rum came my way in early 2017, entirely unexpected and unannounced, and both were fascinating variations on a theme. Did I say thanks to Eddie K? I think so, but let’s just tip the trilby to the man one more time, because even next to its very sound brother, this baby from a John Dore pot still is no slouch either, and not much has been written about either one, and it’s entirely possible that they are among the most under-the-radar value-for-money indie rums around.

Since there’s not much more to say about the basic details of the originating bottler already noted in the Vendome Pot Still essay, here’s the additional background relevant to this rum: it is from St. Lucia Distillers, made on their John Dore pot still, aged nine years (same as its sibling) in ex-bourbon barrels, issued at 55% and gold in colour. The outturn is not noted anywhere, and the Haromex website only speaks about “carefully selected barrels” so I have no idea how many bottles are out there (though coming from a single cask, around 300 bottles isn’t out to lunch); or even where the ageing process took place — from the profile I’d hazard a guess that it was done in St. Lucia. I also believe it’s from the same batch as the others in this series, so consider 2005 as the distillation date as reasonable.

That out of the way, what did it smell like. Different from the Vendome, for sure. The nose was all low key fruitiness, medium sweet. You could sense something of old furniture lovingly polished and floors well waxed, mingling delicately with a little oak and brine, but the gradually emergent breakfast spices, sugarcane sap, cinnamon, peaches, cherry and pineapple carried the day. Overall, it’s a firm yet not overbearing, skirting delicacy by a whisker, and noticeably heavier than the Vendome (the comparisons are inevitable, of course, as they were tried in tandem). As the rum opened up, there was also caramel and nougat and some tangerines, with muskiness and cardboard and dry breakfast cereal, coming together in a very good balance.

The palate was curiously indeterminate when initially tasted, before it settled down. Yes there was coffee and chocolate with a little caramel drizzle, but the fruits seem reticent and initially took a back seat to muskier, heavier notes. It was good, just not entirely distinctive. It also tasted a little winey, possessing the qualities of a zinfandel or maybe even a dry (but not oversweet) Tokaji. It’s only after waiting ten minutes that the fruits came out full force and became the dominant note – pineapples again, cherries, ripe peaches in syrup, papaya and licorice with vanilla and whipped cream tidying up the loose ends. The finish summarized all of the preceding, being easy and warm, quite smooth, with chocolate, nougat, cloves and a hint of saltiness and citrus closing up the shop.

On balance, while I could tell them apart, figuring out which is better is a lost cause. The Vendome pot still rum from last week was an excellent product by itself, with the crispness dialled down and a solid complexity married to individuality and balance in a way one can’t help but appreciate. Its twin from the John Dore still evinced a somewhat cleaner, more fruity profile, with additional notes of coffee and cocoa forming a tasty synthesis that I enjoyed just as much. This was why I spent a couple of days with the two glasses (regularly recharged of course – I sacrifice my liver for the art), going back and forth from one to the other, but truth to tell, for all their individuality and heft, I can’t chose between them in terms of overall quality and don’t really want to.

So I’m giving them both the same score, and no matter which one you end up with, if St. Lucian rums are your thing, or good quality unmessed-with fullproof rums of any kind turn your crank, you won’t feel shortchanged by either one. This rum and its brother are a useful counterweight to the more distinctive Jamaicans, Bajans, Guyanese or Trinis. And they remind us all that there’s another type of profile – somewhat unsung, occasionally overlooked — that’s also a part of the already excellent British West Indian rum canon.

(86/100)

For an in-depth discussion of the production process and the stills, Marco Freyr has done his usual superb work in his own review of the rum, which he scored at 91.

 

 

Secret Treasures St. Lucia 2005 9 Year Old (Vendome Pot Still) Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Jun 192017
 

#373

In recent years, St Lucia and its eponymous distillery has been inching towards its own understated cult status: pot still rums, no additives, a finish-variation here or there, good barrel strategy, all round good stuff, and somehow (don’t ask me why) still lacks the cachet of the big four (Trini Caronis, Guyana’s DDL, Bajan FourSquare and, of course, dem Jamaicans). Many of my rum chums swear by their rums, however, whether made by independents or issued on the island, and I can tell you, they deserve the plaudits, because they’re good.

Assuming you’ve already gone through various batches of the Admiral Rodney, Chariman’s Reserve, Forgotten Casks, and any of the 1931 series made by St. Lucia Distillers — or have given Ed Hamilton’s 9 year old 2004 cask strength a whirl — and are still hankering after something with equal or greater impact, I’d strongly recommend you go to the full proof offerings in general, and this one in particular. Why? Because independent bottlers are not blenders and only satisfy themselves with a single barrel (usually) that conforms to their standards. They’re not trying to move huge quantities of rum and stock the shelves of supermarkets for purchase by the lowest common denominator, they’re trying to sell small outturns of exactingly chosen rums. And when you smell and taste something like this, you can see why they’re so good and why they command both cachet and price.

If you doubt me, please sample Secret Treasures’ take on a golden nine year old 53% beefcake from St. Lucia Distiller’s Vendome pot still. The opening aromas are heavenly – old leather shoes, lovingly polished (and without any sweaty socks inside), combined with acetone, glue and nail polish remover that were present but not overbearing and gracefully retreated over time, giving over the stage to fruitier parts of the nose. These consisted of delicate florals, vanilla, raisins, prunes and a little anise and oak. Nine years was a good age, I thought, and kept the tannins present and accounted for, but not dominant – that part of the nose simply melded well and at no point was it ever excessive.

As for the palate, well now, that was relatively thick, smooth, warm, a little sweet, and all-over pleasant to try. What made it succeed is the balance of the various components, no single one of which dominated — though that in turn was at the expense of some crispness and a feeling that things were dampened down, perhaps too much. Here, citrus and apple cider were the opening notes (unlike the John Dore 9 year old variation by the same maker, where other flavours were at the forefront). These were followed by green peas and avocados (seriously!), some brine, vanilla, nutmeg, pineapples and cherries, with some smoke and oaken flavours which remained where they should, in the background. It deserves some patience and careful sipping to bring out the full panoply of what was available, so don’t rush. The finish was surprisingly short for a rum bottled at this strength, and here the tart notes take a step back and the softer stuff is more noticeable – aromatic tobacco, wine, grapes, cinnamon, and just a bare whiff of tannins and lemon peel.

Overall, it was a really well made product and I liked it enough to try it several times over a period of two days just to nail down the finer points, but eventually I just put away my notebook, and enjoyed it on the balcony by itself with no other motive beyond having a pleasant, tasty, neat shot of rum.

Secret Treasures, a brand originally from an indie out of Switzerland called Fassbind, has been on my radar since 2012 when I tried their amazing Enmore 1989 rum and initially thought it was “okay”, before it grew on me so much over a period of days that I polished the entire thing off on my own (while fending off my mother’s grasping hands, ‘cause she liked it too damned much herself). Fassbind was acquired in 2014 by Best Taste Trading GMBH, yet curiously neither old nor new company website makes mention of the rum line at all – and the label on this bottle speaks of a German liquor distribution company called Haromex as the bottler, which some further digging shows as acquiring the Secret Treasures brand name back in 2005: perhaps Fassbind or Best Taste Trading had no interest in the indie bottling operation and sold it off.

Whatever the case, the changes in ownership and always small outturn even in Europe meant that the Secret Treasures line are something like Renegade or Murray McDavid rums, and exist in the shadows cast by the Scots, Bristol Spirits, Rum Nation, Velier, Samaroli, the Compagnie, etc (and the new bloods like Ekte and so on). But it seems that no matter who the owner is, they continue to bottle small batches of single barrel rums, and let me tell you, they’re worth having. This rum and its twin, all by themselves, have made me enthusiastic about cask strength St. Lucian rums all over again.

(86/100)

Other notes

According to Maco Freyr, who reviewed this rum in his customary and exacting depth of detail back in early 2016, date of distillation is 2005.

A somewhat irrelevant aside:

Aide from diversifying one’s collection, there are very good reasons why passing around one’s acquisitions generously, without reservation and irrespective of the rarity, is a good thing – it builds goodwill, it shares the good stuff around among true aficionados, it cuts down on costs for others not so fortunate, and most of all, the reciprocity of people who are on the receiving end of your geriatric jolly juice can often be off the scale. I’ve shared most of my Skeldon 1973, PM 1974, Chantal Comte 1980, Trois Rivieres 1975, and actually given away a full bottle of a Velier Basseterre 1995 and a Longpond 1941 (with the admonition that the happy recipients in their turn should pay it forwards, as they have).

It’s precisely because of such an attitude that I got sent two of the most interesting bottles in months, if not years: two Secret Treasures St. Lucia rums, both nine years old: this one, and the other (which I’ll look on in the next review) from a John Dore pot still, both at cask strength. To Eddie K., who sent them without warning, advertising, fanfare or expectations, a huge hat tip. You da man, amigo.

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

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May 182017
 

Photo (c) Quazi4moto from his Reddit post. This is the exact bottle the sample was taken from

#365

Just about everyone in the rum world knows the name of Ed Hamilton. He was the first person to set up a website devoted to rum (way back in 1995), and many of us writers who began our own blogs in the 2000s or early ‘teens — Tiare, Tatu, Chip, myself and others — started our online lives writing in and debating on the forums of the Ministry of Rum. He has written books about rum, ran tasting sessions for years, and is now a distributor for several brands around the USA. A few years ago, he decided to get into the bottling game as well…and earned quite a fan base in North America, because almost alone among the producers in the US, he went the independent bottler route, issuing his juice at cask strength, thereby helping to popularize the concept to a crowd that had to that point just been mooning over the indie output from Europe without regularly (or ever) being able to get their hands on any.

This rum was distilled in 2004 on a Vendome pot still by St. Lucia Distillers, who also make the Admiral Rodney, 1931, Forgotten Casks and Chairman’s Reserve, if you recall. They have both a Vendome pot still and a John Dore pot still (as well as a smaller one, and the rums mentioned above are made by blending output from all in varying proportions) – Mr. Hamilton deliberately chose the Vendome distillate for its complexity and lack of harshness, and its source was from Guyanese molasses fermented for five days.

With my usual impeccable timing, I moved away from Canada at that exact time, and never managed (or seriously attempted) to pick up any of the Ministry of Rum Collection, since my attention was immediately taken up with agricoles and the European independents. However, one correspondent of mine, tongue in cheek as always, sent me an unidentified sample (“St. Lucia” was all the bottle said), and after tasting it blind, being quite impressed and writing up my notes, I asked him what it was. Obviously it was this one, a nine year old bottled at a rip-snorting 61.3%. And it really was something.

On the nose, the high ABV was hot but extremely well behaved, presenting wave after wave of the good stuff. It started off with rubber and pencil shavings, old cardboard in a dry cellar, some ashy kind of minerally smell, coffee, cumin and bitter chocolate…and then settling down and letting the rather shy fruits tiptoe forwards – raisins, some orange peel, peaches and prunes, all in balance and well integrated. No fault to find here – I was unsure whether a standard proof drink would have been quite as good (in fact, probably not). Throughout the whole exercise – I had the glass on the table with some others for a couple of hours – there was some light smoke and burnt wood, which fortunately stayed in the background and didn’t derail the experience.

As for the palate, wow – if gold could be a taste, that was what it was. Honey and burnt sugar, salty caramel all mixed up with flowers, more chocolate and the citrus peel. The tannins from the barrel began to be somewhat more assertive here, but never overbearing. In fact, the balance between these components was really well handled. With water, deep thrumming notes of molasses and anise shook the glass, leading to grapes, pineapple, acetone (just a little), aromatic tobacco and olives in brine; and throughout, the rum maintained a firm, rich profile that was quite excellent. Somewhere over the horizon, thunder was rolling. And as for the finish, here it stumbled a little on the line – long as it was, the tannics became too sharp; and while other closing hints remained firm (mostly molasses, caramel and brine plus maybe a prune or two) overall some of the tempering of one taste with another was lost.

But I must note that the rum is a damned good one. I think it’s a useful intro rum for those making a timorous foray into cask strength, and for those who wanted more from the Admiral Rodney or the 1931 series, this might be everything they were looking for from the island.

Some years ago I ran several of the standard proof St Lucia Distillers rums against each other, observing that while they were quite good, they also seemed to be missing a subtle something that might elevate their profile and quality, and allow them take their place with the better known Bajans, Jamaicans and Guyanese. As the rum world moved on, it is clear that in small, patient, incremental steps — perhaps they were channeling Nine Leaves — St. Lucia Distillers, the source of this rum, were upping the tempo, and it took a few European indies and one old salt from the US, to show what the potential of the island was, and is. St. Lucia may have been flying somewhat under the radar, but I’m here telling you that this is a lovely piece of work by any standard, admirable, affordable and — I certainly hope — still available.

(86/100)

Other notes

  • Vendome is a company, not a type of still, and dates back to the first decade of the 1900s, building on experience (and customers) dating back as far as the 1870s when Hoffman, Ahlers & Co. were doing brisk business in Louisville (Kentucky).
  • Aside from the eight St. Lucian rums in the portfolio, The “Hamilton Collection” includes Jamaican and Guyanese rums. The Hamilton 151 is specifically intended to be better than (not to supplant) the Lemon Hart 151 which was out of production at the time.
  • Kudos, thanks and a huge hat-tip to Quazi4moto, who sent the sample. He was, you might remember, the gent who sent me the Charley’s J.B. white rum I enjoyed a few months ago.

St. Lucia Distillers “1931” Series 1º Edition Rum – Review

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Dec 042012
 

Good sipper for the money: if you’re on a budget, get the Admiral Rodney Extra Old, if not, this one is a shade better for not too much extra.

(This is the last entry in my four-rum review series of St Lucia Distiller’s rums, which I tasted together a few weeks ago).

Rum makers occasionally issue an expression which commemorates an event or a date that has particular meaning for them and then turn that into a marketing tool (like the Angostura 1919 or the Flor de Cana “21”) – it’s always touted as being a cut above the ordinary, although I have my private feelings about the veracity of such statements. In this instance,

The sources for this excellent rum were the distillates from three copper pot stills and one columnar (Coffey) still ranging from 1999 to 2004 (which, given that it was made in 2011 makes it a 7 year old): the rums were aged (according to the company site) in white oak casks including Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, Buffalo Trace and a couple of Port casks, then blended and left to marry for three more months before bottling at 43% abv.

Influences from all that bourbon and whisky, as well as the oak, were immediately evident on the nose, which was fuller, deeper – even darker – than its predecessors. Not quite on the level of the El Dorados, but very nice for all that, and got even better as it opened up. Traces of raisins and dried fruits mingled happily with pomegranates, figs, and apples just on the ragged edge of going too ripe, enveloped in a robust smoky background.

The rum itself had a medium to heavy body (I have a personal predilection for that), more dark red fruits, dried raisins, honey, a subtle grapey hint, and again that smoky background which made me suspect that one of the barrels may have been charred to lend some more pizzazz to the profile. Oddly, I noted few soft or fleshy kind of notes (as might have come from bananas), but a hint of orange peel, all tied up in a neat bow by burnt sugar and toffee. And on the finish it was really quite pleasant, soft and unaggressive, yet warm and long as well, with none of the savage elan of, oh, the Appletons, exiting with a hint of old tobacco and dried, well cured leather. It’s often been mentioned that with some experience one could discern a pot stilled product from one that was predominantly column stilled: and I’d guess that the richness of what I was sampling derived primarily from the pot still portion of the blend.

The 1931 was un-chill-filtered, and evinced an overall taste that was quite a bit gentler than we might be expecting to find in a slightly stronger rum (43%, remember) – I remarked in the Admiral Rodney review that this was closer in style to the Barbadians as opposed to the Cubans or the Jamaicans who are a bit more aggressive in their rum profiles and have more perceptible, spicy and citrus notes, and here again, I came to the same conclusion.

Now, on balance, I don’t believe the 1931 is quite as joyous or as interesting or as over-the-cliff a bungee jumper as the Renegade St Lucia 1999, which I liked precisely for those attributes. That one took a chance, went off the reservation, and revelled in its difference: the 1931 played it mostly safe, though it did so exceedingly well. I also don’t rate it as a super premium rum, good as it is — I have some rums in my shelf which really are super premiums, so I have a good basis for comparison and can stand by that remark. Still, for eighty dollars in my location, the 1931 is definitely a great buy.

When you really get down to it, the St Lucia Distillers 1931 expression is quite similar to the St. Nicholas Abbey 8 year old, the Dos Maderas PX 5+5 (perhaps not as heavy), or, more so, the Admiral Rodney made by the same company (though a tad stronger, with that pot and column still blend, 7-12 years old) – similar enough to its sibling, in fact, that you could try the two side by side and not immediately know which was which unless you were paying attention. That’s not entirely a problem though – it’s a subtle, soft, supple, well blended, well-aged, rum of depth and complexity and excellent all round quality. I’d not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who wants a good sipping rum.

***

Epilogue: a summing up of the four St. Lucians

Apologies to the eponymous Islanders, but there’s something subtle missing in these St Lucia rums…an element of, oh…aggressive decisiveness, of oomph and yobishness and in your face “I’m a rum” gobsmack. None of the rums are bad by any stretch, and all can be had by themselves and enjoyed quite nicely, thank you very much….but perhaps they’re taking something away from the laid back nature of St Lucia itself, which has never really had or sought much visibility or power in Caricom. Just as in real life, the Guyanese, Bajans, Trinis and Jamaicans are walking away with all the rum headlines, while little St. Lucia is happy to putter along quietly behind, making its lovely little rums, but not combative or bellicose enough to take on all comers with fire and brimstone and make them world beaters. We rum lovers will know of and appreciate their quality…sadly, not everyone else will.

(#134. 84/100)

 

Renegade St Lucia 1999 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Nov 232012
 

In my opinion, the best of the St. Lucia rums hailing from the eponymous distillery

We choose friends for many reasons: in my case it’s a question of what quality they add to my overall existence and what I can contribute to theirs. I may not like everything about them, or they about me (admittedly, I occasionally piss people off, sometimes just by being in the same room breathing the air they’d rather be smoking) – yet all my friends are interesting, all have quirks and characters that are appreciated and savoured. I feel the same way about rums – they may not be the best at what they try to be, but if they go for the fences with cheerful abandon, well…how can I not appreciate that?

Renegade Rums are a subset of what I term “series rums” (like the Rum Nation, Secret Treasures, Bristol and Plantation series, for example – in years to come they came to be called independent bottlers) with which I have had a love-hate relationship since I first began trying them four years ago. Some were too much like whisky, others were not aged enough, in some cases the finish just didn’t work (for me – others may differ in their assessments), and in yet others it seemed like they weren’t loved enough by the maker. In other cases they succeeded swimmingly

The Renegade St. Lucia 1999 10 year old was firmly in that last camp. Bottled at a pleasant, tongue-titillating 46% and presented in that frosted, etched bottle I’ve always sighed over, it was distilled ina double retort pot still, aged for ten years in used Bourbon casks and then finished (for three months, I think) in Chateau LaFleur casks, which provided something of a fruity Bordeaux hint to the final profile. It was probably this which made me appreciate it more: quirky it might have been, but I couldn’t argue with the originality.

The amber, medium bodied rum was the lightest-coloured of the rums hailing from St Lucia which I tried (Forgotten Casks, Admiral Rodney and the 1931), and right away after decanting it leaped up and stabbed me in the nose with the now familiar pitchfork of Renegade’s slight overproofishness (is that a word?). Plasticine, rubber and play-dough were evinced right out of the gate – not aromas I particularly cared for, but bear with me, reader: stay with it. I had a similar experience with the Rum Nation Jamaica 25 and 1985 Demerara 23, and you gotta let that sucker breathe a bit. Do that and the next wave comes over the beachhead…smokiness, cherries, sweet breakfast spices, nougat, well-polished leather and aromatic pipe tobacco in an antique tobacconists shop found in an old European capital, along a well hidden cobbled street on a blustery day in autumn.

The taste followed right along, heated, yes, just not overbearing and mean. It wasn’t the smoothest of sipping quality rums, no – strength and youth showed in a slight bite for which I marked it down, and it had a dry tang and brininess that at first startled me – but the rum was decently aged, there was a woody backdrop to which was gradually added salt water taffy, candy, caramelized apples…plus cherries and apricots, all held in balance and harmony by scorched pine wood. Coiling around all of these sumptuous tastes were notes of Russian or black china tea…lapsang-suchong. I mean, this was just heavenly, especially since the relative youth of the rum made it spry and agile and almost mischievous, without the deep, mellow ponderousness of grandfathers (in rum years) like, oh, the Panamonte XXV or the El Dorado 25. The long finish was similarly good, exiting in the leisurely, sauntering fashion of a prima donna who knows she’s good, leaving behind the memory of salty biscuits and marzipan.

All three of St. Lucia Distillers rums scored within a few points of each other, weaknesses and low scores in one area recouped by strengths in another. Tough to choose between them all, yet, at end, I absolutely preferred the Renegade version of St Lucia’s rums to any of the others, good as they were. What it came down to was a question of character. The Admiral Rodney and 1931 were solid well-made rums: they merely hewed so closely to the line that some of the characteristics of playful experimentation were lost. For sheer originality, for sheer joy and exuberance and verve, for complexity and interesting profile, the Renegade had it.

(#133. 83.5/100)

St. Lucia Distillers Admiral Rodney Extra Old Rum – Review

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Nov 232012
 

Soft, smooth, tasty. I’d rank it as a mid range sipping-quality rum. You won’t regret the purchase if what you’re after is something that lacks the relative spiciness of a Cuban or Jamaican product and trends more to the softer Bajan style.

St Lucia Distillers is the only remaining distiller remaining in St Lucia after the closures of many other companies on the island in the last hundred years, and a consolidation of the last two — Barnard and Geest — in 1972. It is now owned by CLICO’s parent company CL Financial out of Trinidad 1, which has had its share of financial problems in the last years, and also owns a majority stake in Appleton Estates, the Jamaican rum maker, as well as Angostura in Trinidad itself. In the spirits world I guess you could say they are a bit like a small Diageo of the Caribbean.

St Lucia Distillers source molasses out of Guyana to make their excellent series of top-end rums, primarily this one and the 1931 – I choose not to accept that the decent (but not superlative) Chairman’s Reserve Forgotten Casks is a true premium rum. The Admiral Rodney rum is named after the British Naval officer who was victorious in the Battle of the Saintes in 1782, which ended the French threat to Jamaica and asserted British predominance in the Caribbean thereafter. (Given that he was “vain, selfish and unscrupulous” and was often accused of nepotism and having an obsession with prize money, this might strike some as surprising, but never mind – I guess it’s the battle that’s important).

Made from a blend of rums aged eight to twelve years, somewhat navy in character (though not as much as some other darker and more in-your-face rums that tout the fact front and center), Admiral Rodney rum is aged in oak casks once used for bourbon, and unchill filtered (always a good thing). The Admiral presented himself in a round shouldered square bottle with a cool wooden-tipped cork as big as W.C Fields’s nose (though not as red). What distinguished the dark amber rum inside was its overall softness. A gentle, warm and light-smoky nose redolent of light flowers, orange peel and vanilla wafted up from the glass, and I was pleased to be able to pick up cinnamon, coriander and mild caramel notes, without any of them actually dominating the other. Usually in lesser offerings, the burnt sugar and butterscotch-caramel flavours dominate and let you know in no uncertain terms that here is a man’s rum (or so they believe)…this one was serenely confident in its own rum-ness, and disdained such crass embellishment.

I liked the taste and mouthfeel as well. It was a little heavier than medium, and a shade more spicy than the 1931 bottled at 43% and about the same as the 46% Renegade St Lucia 1999. Which I must admit, is odd for a forty percenter. Still, once it settled down it evinced notes of honey and mild tropical fruit – papaya, guavas, ripe mangos – and gradually turned a shade dry. It was on balance sweeter and richer than the Forgotten Casks, and quite smooth, with the taste of burnt brown sugar and caramel being quite muted. It was, when I thought about it, remarkably unaggressive, and seemed to aim for some of the let’s-please-everyone nature of a Honda Civic (which is both a good and a bad thing). The medium long finish reminded me of a decent wine, something like a pinot grigot, or a chenin blanc, with closing tastes of those same soft fruits, and white flowers on the exit. All in all, a very pleasant sipping rum with very little attitude or aggro.

What’s this rum good for? Well, as a sipping spirit in its own right, I think it’s not shabby at all. Great bouquet, good palate and finish, excellent on many levels. As the Forgotten Casks rum was, it’s a better than decent introduction to sipping rums for those on a budget (I paid around sixty bucks for it), and its overall softness makes the intro a gentle one instead of something more elemental that rapes your gullet. It may not convince a whisky drinker to take the plunge into the dark side, but a wine dabbler? Oh yes.

(#132. 83/100)

Chairman’s Reserve – The Forgotten Casks Limited Release – Review

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Nov 172012
 

Good rum, but overshadowed by the marketing message

The ad copy reads like a dream: casks squirrelled away in 2007 when a fire ravaged St Lucia Distillers warehouses, were misplaced and then found, and when tried, evinced a more complex flavour profile than that of the standard Chairman’s Reserve (which, alas, I have yet to sample). Is it, as it is marketed, something special?

I have a reason for leading in this way: the other day while Mark the Mad Rock God was receiving instruction from his guitar Yoda, Yoda’s wife and I ran four separate St Lucia distillers products through the wringer (the Forgotten Casks, the Admiral Rodney, the Renegade St Lucia, and the 1931). All were good, all were tasty. Yet somehow, if even by a nose, the Forgotten Casks variant finished in the rear in spite of its overall quality. In other words, there were three other products by the same distillery that beat it.

Speaking of the maker: St Lucia Distillers was formally born in 1972 when the two remaining distilleries on the island — the Barnard Family Estate in Dennery, which was for the most part producing strong white rums, and the Geest family distillery at Roseau — merged to form a joint venture. Today, St. Lucia Distillers Limited is located on the site of the old Geest Distillery, once a part of the Sugar Manufacturers mill in Roseau, on the west coast of St. Lucia. In 2005 the Barnard family, sold to CLICO, with third generation rum-maker Laurie Barnard staying on as Managing Director (Update: CLICO went bankrupt and sold the distillery to Spiribam in 2016). The aged plant from the two original distilleries which formed the company was replaced in the second half of the 1990s with a new two-column still, which permitted a rapid diversification of product lines: vodka, gin, brandy, many other rums. However, as a result of St Lucia’s move away from land intensive sugar cane cultivation to bananas, they no longer grow their own sugar, but import molasses from (where else?) Guyana. Both the new stills and a secure source of supply ensured that the company was able to expand and it has created a good export market to Europe and Africa.

Perhaps the first inkling that the St. Lucia Distillers may not themselves consider the Forgotten Casks rum among their best offerings is the cheap tinfoil cap. Not a nail in the coffin, precisely…more like a polite nose tap. Squat bottle, decent label, ensconced in a cheap cardboard box giving the history of the forgotten casks themselves. The aroma was nothing to sneeze at, mind: soft scents of citrus (more lime than orange), marzipan and a sort of warm smokiness attended my pouring this dark amber rum. As it opened up, dried dark fruits (raisins?), chocolate and burnt brown sugar began to make themselves subtly felt. It was not a heavy rum to nose, but a very pleasant unobtrusive one, with a subtlety that was quite attractive, and distinct enough to better both the Doorly’s XO and the Juan Santos Five Year old, which were too timid to let us know what they were all about

The arrival of the medium bodied rum was a shade heated, though not so much as to be unpleasant — at 40% I would have been surprised if it had been. The light smoky background persisted under a soft kind of light crispness: Mary, who was kind enough to sample this with me, suggested a wine lover – particularly one who appreciated a Sauvignon-Blanc – would probably really enjoy this baby. As we sampled back and forth we noted tastes of a buttery creaminess, English biscuits, and then caramel and toffee. And a driness that led to a medium long finish redolent of that same creamy caramel. I’d hesitate to add this rum to a mix…it’s borderline, still a bit rough around the edges and needing some couth, yet good enough for the curious to try on their own.

Is it better than the original Chairman’s Reserve which was never misplaced? I can’t tell, since I never had any. However, my online research of St Lucia Distiller’s website suggests that while the original is a blend of rums individually aged for 4½ years and then aged a further six months after blending, this variant is a blend of coffey and pot-still rums seven to twelve years old, first separately aged (by still output) in white oak barrels and then married for a further five years (maybe while lost?)…so probably since 2007. Therefore I’d hazard a wild-ass-guess that yeah, it’s probably better just ‘cause it really is older — and for those who are fortunate enough to try them both side by side, feel free to comment and let me know. (As an aside, note that the Admiral Rodney rum made by the same company is aged eight to twelve years so perhaps this one is either a high-end Chairman’s Reserve or a low end Admiral Rodney.)

So: the Forgotten Casks are officially a limited edition of misplaced casks now found and bottled. It’s considered by the makers to be a premium rum. Tastes pretty good, in my opinion. You want to intro someone to rums (especially a wine drinker)…good place to start may be here. All this is good. But it’s not as if, like the original Angostura 1919, the barrels were superlatively enhanced by the fire, or lost for literally decades. These barrels were misplaced for about four or five years, and all that means to me is that they were aged a bit more. The rum is simply not an undiscovered steal or some unbelievably good rum that somehow slipped past us.

It’s a good rum, a tasty rum and a nice rum. That it isn’t an utterly premium undervalued rum has more to do with its marketing promo campaign than the fact that it’s a decent product, perhaps matured differently and tasting well for its age. I honestly don’t think they needed to state that the barrels were lost and found, because the Forgotten Casks rum stands up quite nicely on its own without further embellishment – all they really needed to say it was an eight or ten years old or something. And the problem for St. Lucia’s Distillers this created, in my opinion, is that by naming the rum as they did, they created an expectation it did not meet, and a cachet I don’t think it quite deserved.

(#131. 81/100)

Other Notes

  • The order of the four rums in my tasting (the reviews for which are not yet complete) is from bottom to top: Forgotten Casks, Admiral Rodney, Renegade and 1931. Less than ten points separate the first from the last, and all exceed 80, which qualifies as good for me and says a lot for the overall quality of the line.

 

Elements 8 Gold Rum – Review

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Aug 182010
 

First posted 18 August 2010 on Liquorature.

I’d seen this trapezoidal bottle once in a while on the occasional shelf in Calgary, but I’d never been interested enough, or seen it in sufficient quantity – let alone heard anything about it – to decide whether it was worth a buy or not. It was an interesting surprise when a very helpful gent from Co-op named Dan Ellis (may the ice in his glass never melt) sourced the thing out. Now granted, I had been making sneery remarks at the paucity of his rum selection (as opposed to the Scottish drink) so the honour of his stores certainly came into play here. But I’m happy he bothered.

Lightly-aged rums do not usually inspire me to treat them with any great degree of reverence and a blend even less so, but in this case, the styling of the bottle and its comparative rarity (and, it must be stated, price – I’m as much of a snob as anyone at times, sorry), made me take more than usual care in checking it out. I was…intrigued. And in retrospect, I’m glad I took the time. The nose seemed fairly straightforward on the get go – a clear, intense light gold rum, very delicate (Oh God, was this another friggin’ Doorly’s? was the first thought through my mind), but with a slight hint of peaches and citrus, and definitely apple – it reminded me of my favourite (and very expensive) Riesling. My wife, who loved that New Age bottle to pieces, rudely snatched the glass from my hands and watching her little button nose try to extract scent from the glass that swallowed it whole was almost as entertaining as her attempts to translate her thinking into English. We both tasted the oak, but she noted that there was a hint of dried forest leaves dampened by a summer rain too. And after we stood it for a bit and it opened up, there was the molasses and burnt sugar revealing itself around the skirts of the first aromas like a shy girl hiding behind her mommy. A girl with some spirit because there’s no getting away from the slight medicinal tang to the nose which spoils what is otherwise a really good nose.

On the tongue and in the mouth, the Elements 8 Gold changed its character again: it grew up, took off its braces and flirted without shame, flicking up its skirt and laughing. Not assured enough to be mature, still young enough to have some rawness to it, but no longer in its girlhood, it bucked in coltish adolescence across my taste buds, coating the palate with soft oiliness. The thing is, there is no caramel or toffee taste in this thing at all – a first for me. It’s not sweet and has a deep, rich burn going down, like a well aged cognac. And the body is excellent, medium heavy, and maintaining that odd …cleanness which I really liked. But the finish is fast — our tomboy hasn’t learned to make a kiss last yet, so while she is fine as peaches and cream, she needs a little polish to make her into a world beater that men will stampede over each other to taste.

Elements 8 is a self-styled “premium” rum made in the St Lucia Distillery, but care has to be taken in distinguishing it from the actual products of that distillery (for example, the Admiral Rodney, or the Chairman’s Reserve brands) – the [e]8 organization works closely with the distillery while not either owning it or being owned by them. The Elements 8 Rum Company is a UK enterprise run by two gentlemen, one of whom, like me, is a Caribbean infused German (don’t ask). The founders of Elements 8 saw that rum, like whiskies, vodkas, gins and tequilas, could reach upscale quality and prices by dint of differentiation, innovative distillation and blending, product design, clever marketing and word of mouth.

Elements 8 is an instructive study in how to raise expectations with glowing advertising. Unlike the Kraken, which simply had fanboys going ape over it (unnecessarily so, in my opinion), this one had quality written all over its commercial messaging. Supposedly eight elements of production are married in a holistic manner to produce a rum modestly referred to as being of surpassing quality: environmental (St Lucia boasts a unique micro-climate which imparts its own character to the rum but then, so does every other island), cane from Guyana – I was told it was molasses not the actual sugar cane (one of the ads, which touted the cane as being “hand selected” had me doubled over in laughter), water from protected rainforest habitats, three differeing yeasts, distillation, tropical ageing, blending and filtration, all in harmony. The rum is distilled in three different stills: a John Dore double retort copper pot still for the heavy, flavourful components, depth and finish; a Vendome Kentucky Bourbon copper pot still which gives the rather unique flavour profile; and a steel columnar still for the lighter components. Since each still is charged with three different washes (from the three yeasts), we have nine blend components (actually, ten) which are blended and aged for a minimum of six years in oaken barrels that once held Buffalo Trace bourbon. Not bad.

All right, so I tasted, I researched, I drank, then added an ice cube, and after it all, tried it as a mixer. My conclusions?

Well, forget the mixing part. You get an interesting ginger taste with coke, but it isn’t really worth it: the [e]8 Gold is dense and viscous enough not to need the enhancement. The nose, as I said is clean and complex, rewards time and care, and is very attractive except for that last bitchy smackdown of medicine (some care in the distillation or ageing, perhaps an additive or two might mitigate that). The taste is something else again. I’m not sure rum lovers who like their caramel and sweetness will appreciate the slightly salty tang of a rum that is more like a cognac. If you can get past that, the smoothness of the finish and the overall richness of the blend make this quite a unique drink, one that, like Bundie or the Pyrat’s XO, can be identified blind with no doubts whatsoever. Just not entirely a rum the way I expect one to be (this may be a limitation of mine, not the rum…get a bottle and make your own determination).

So it’s not quite my thing – maybe I’m not yuppie enough, or just like my sweet rum taste more than something made and designed for the bars of the upper class – but in way I feel a little sad, too. The nose had real promise, really set you up for something special, and at the end I felt like the geek who got to kiss the head of the cheerleading squad, only to find she couldn’t kiss as well as my expectations had been led to believe she could. I’m left with all excitement and no true satisfaction.

I’m hoping that in the years to come, Elements 8 will find a way to marry the traditions of the older rum distillers with the new wave innovations of this century, to come up with something truly spectacular: the fact that they are attempting to produce a premium white rum speaks at a fair amount of determination to think out of the box. I’ll not hesitate to buy anything from their line I see going forward.

(#055)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • Thanks go to one of the founders of [e]8, Andreas Redlefsen, who was kind enough to answer all my questions on his organization, its history, outlook and methods.
  • The rum is a spiced product, a fact unknown to me at the time when I tasted it.
  • My remarks about preferring sweeter rums are amusing when read in retrospect, given the development of my tastes over time.