John Watlings’s Distillery Amber Rum (Bahamas) – Review

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Nov 092026
 
John Watlings's Distillery Amber Rum (Bahamas) - Review

John Watlings Distillery out of the Bahamas, which was established on the Buena Vista estate in downtown Nassau in 2013, has a number of rums in their portfolio, few of which have excited any kind of splash. Pale, Amber, Buena Vista, Paradise (Sherry finish), and Single Barrel, and all except the last one are relatively young blends. They don’t say so outright – the website of the “distillery” is an exercise in frustrating obfuscation –  but it’s reasonable to assume that they cater not to the international rum scene, but the Bahamas tourist and cruise ship trade. The Amber, which [Click here for the full review…]


Colours of Rum Jamaica High-Ester 2YO Jamaica Rum (Hampden) – Review

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Nov 052026
 
Colours of Rum Jamaica High-Ester 2YO Jamaica Rum (Hampden) - Review

It’s a personal opinion of mine that one of the (many) reasons that rum don’t get no respect — especially from people who have grown up with the unshakeable conviction that the summit of distilled spirits is an uber-aged single malt — is that whiskies have no top-tier young guns. The very idea that a completely unaged whisky could be seen as a ninety-point buck is unthinkable, and all other spirits are tarred with this assumption. Yet in rums, it’s not only possible, but increasingly common. Young rums, whether completely unaged or just touched with a brief brush of the [Click here for the full review…]


Colours of Rum Clarendon 1995 29YO No.16 Jamaica Rum – Review

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Nov 012026
 
Colours of Rum Clarendon 1995 29YO No.16 Jamaica Rum - Review

One of the things I genuinely appreciate about Europe is the plethora of small, almost unheralded local spirits shows they have all over the place. Granted, many of these are for spirits other than rum – whisky continues to hold the pride of place – but almost all of them have a few booths squirrelled away where the good stuff is shown off over (or under) the counter.   One of these was the Budapest whisky show I went to back in May 2026, less for the rums than to meet my old friend and long time correspondent Sandor, who runs [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson Rhum Vieux Agricole “Cyril Kongo” Martinique Rum – Review

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Aug 042026
 
Neisson Rhum Vieux Agricole "Cyril Kongo" Martinique Rum - Review

Introduction The Neisson Rhum Vieux Agricole “Cyril Kongo” Martinique Rum is a rhum that leaves me deeply conflicted. It is so limited you’d hardly ever see it, it’s extraordinarily tasty, one of the best rhums I’ve tried in ages, has a presentation ethos off the scale – but it’s so damned expensive that one is left wondering who the hell could possibly afford it, and for what purpose.  For, as I remarked once before on another uber-pricey rum, if you could afford it could you appreciate it, and if you could appreciate it, would you even be able to buy [Click here for the full review…]


Ishigaki Distillery “Nagura” Unaged Japanese Rum – Review

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Jul 132026
 
Ishigaki Distillery "Nagura" Unaged Japanese Rum - Review

The rum under discussion today is a rum from Japan, which had something of a renaissance in the making of rum since the post WW2 years, when privations and restrictions on the use of rice for alcohol when food was scarce, forced a re-evaluation of which alcohol they should be making. That’s not me being flippant, just pointing out that while some form of rum has been made ever since distillation technology first came to the islands in the 16th century, it never quite dethroned sake, awamori or shochus from the local pantheons. Probably the best known of the Japanese [Click here for the full review…]


Naga “Full Proof” Kingdom of Siam 10YO Thailand Rum – Review

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Jul 012026
 
Naga "Full Proof" Kingdom of Siam 10YO Thailand Rum - Review

Naga’s full proof 62.3% ten year old rum from Thailand, is the one that lies at the core of all the others in the range.  For the standard 10YO, they diluted it to 40%. For the “Shani” version, they aged it an additional year in P/X. But for my money, had they simply started out with this one, their reputation would have instantly gone to where the Issan and Chalong Bay – small Thai distilleries which are not affiliated with ThaiBev – marked out their turf from the get-go. This is not to say that the lesser proofed releases from [Click here for the full review…]


Naga “Shani” Kingdom of Siam 11YO Thailand Rum – Review

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Jun 172026
 
Naga "Shani" Kingdom of Siam 11YO Thailand Rum - Review

The label of the “Shani” requires some explanation. Part of the branded Naga line of rums — a sort of cross between a merchant bottling, a contract rum and an independent bottling — it is made in Thailand by ThaiBev and released by Sebastien Folloppe, a consultant and marketer in the rum world who once worked for Bardinet. The word “Shani” has a double meaning: on the one hand it refers to the purple and red colours associated with Thai sunsets on Saturdays, and also denotes Saturday itself, or the planet Saturn in Hindu and Sanskrit-derived languages across Asia. And [Click here for the full review…]


Naga Indochinese 10 YO Rum (Thailand) – Review

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Jun 082026
 
Naga Indochinese 10 YO Rum (Thailand) - Review

We’ve run into Naga and its rums before, back in 2019 at the Paris Rhumfest that year, when we tried their Indonesian lineup. There’s a reason those rums and not the ones from Thailand were there, and that backstory is so interesting (and lengthy) I have elected to include it below this review, so let’s just dive straight into the rum itself. Naga is a branded rum from Thailand, supplied by one of the many distilleries owned by the spirits quasi-monopoly ThaiBev. The label incorporates many different elements: the word “Naga” for example, refers to a mythical water serpent in [Click here for the full review…]


Ron Viejo de Caldas “15” Gran Reserva Especial (Colombia) – Review

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May 282026
 
Ron Viejo de Caldas "15" Gran Reserva Especial (Colombia) - Review

Introduction Very early on in this gig, I came across an underproofed Colombian rum, the Ron Viejo de Caldas 8YO, bottled at a flaccid 35%. It was a product of Industria Licorera de Caldas (ILC), a distillery located in Manizales, a city in the department of Caldas, about an eight hour drive to the west of Bogota. I never saw another one of their products until recently, so when I was given the opportunity to try the 40% ABV “15” at Berlin’s Rum Depot, I took the opportunity to see whether the newer, older expression would or could change my [Click here for the full review…]


Nobilis No. 42 Diamond 2014 8YO DHE/PM (Oloroso Cask) Guyana Rum – Review

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May 182026
 
Nobilis No. 42 Diamond 2014 8YO DHE/PM (Oloroso Cask) Guyana Rum - Review

The Danes love their rum. Like, I mean, really love it. For a country as small as they are (just under six million), they drink more than any of the other Scandinavian countries. AH Riise, Skotlander and Hansen are major rum brands, there are an even dozen or small and mid-sized distilleries making rum scattered around the small country, and they have had some really cool indie bottlers over there – 1423, Rom Deluxe, Norse Cask and Nobilis, for example – possessing reputations that are nothing to sneeze at.  It is this last named company, that is behind the rum [Click here for the full review…]


Rum Club Private Selection No. 63 “The Beast” Blended Rum – Review

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May 072026
 
Rum Club Private Selection No. 63 "The Beast" Blended Rum - Review

Introduction and background As I’ve noted before, perhaps the best rum shop in Germany is the Rum Depot in Berlin, run by Dirk Becker, the man behind the annual German Rum Festival, itself one of the top rum-focused spirits expos in the world. I’ve been coming to this place regularly since 2012, a practice that I have followed ever since, and these days, I always drop in any time in the city. Sometime around that same year (2012), Rum Depot began not only selling rums, but bottling them for its branded line of “Rum Club Private Selection” editions. Like most [Click here for the full review…]


Below The Salt “Trois Capitaines” Merchant Reserve Navy Rum: The King’s Cut – Review

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Apr 102026
 
Below The Salt "Trois Capitaines" Merchant Reserve Navy Rum: The King's Cut - Review

Introduction If you recall, a few weeks ago Cap’n Colp hove into view, all flags waving and bunting streaming, and rolled a barrel into my house. No, really. Uninvited, unexpected, unannounced (I hesitate to say “unwanted”) he took out his trusty thief, jammed it into the barrel, and poured me a shot of liquid gelignite so extraordinary for its extreme youth, that here, a fortnight later, I’m still  uncrossing my eyes. I mean, that sh*t was really quite amazing, the more so since it’s such a rare thing, here in the wilds of suburbia where the LCBO holds sway and [Click here for the full review…]


Habitation Velier Foursquare 2021 LFT Unaged White Rum – Review

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Mar 252026
 
Habitation Velier Foursquare 2021 LFT Unaged White Rum - Review

I still remember the hushed rumours that swirled around the rumiverse even before the 2022 TWE Rumshow opened its doors. Richard Seale had something new, something original and something fierce in his leopardskin rock star trousers, and while supposedly it wasn’t officially on the shelves, maybe a sly wink and a significant nod to Pete Holland who was tending booth that time, and perhaps,possibly – you could score a taste? Or so the tall-tale teller in me likes to remember. It’s a good story, isn’t it? The truth is rather more prosaic. Yes we did hear rumours about a new [Click here for the full review…]


Phraya “Deep Matured” Aged Thailand Rum – Review

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Mar 162026
 
Phraya "Deep Matured" Aged Thailand Rum - Review

The top end release of the Phraya triptych of aged rums that is released by Sang Som distillery in Thailand clearly seeks to dominate the premium aged rum space in Asia, and proudly boasts of the 8 gold medals it has won in various spirits competitions from 2012 to 2024. The bottle is handsome to a fault, the backstory is cute, the wording evokes interest, the price is high enough to suggest exclusivity, and the website is really pretty, with lots of nice photos and words. Unfortunately, when we take all this apart, what remains is somewhat less than the [Click here for the full review…]


Phraya “Elements” 8YO Thailand Rum – Review

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Mar 132026
 
Phraya "Elements" 8YO Thailand Rum - Review

In a previous review I looked at the entry level Phraya aged rum from Thailand, called “Elements”, and this one is not too far distanced from that one, except in so far that it has a definitive age statement – 8 years. However, it is an ongoing blended rum, so there is not a year of distillation or bottling to be found anywhere – and, as the brand rep at the German Rum Festival remarked to me, it is a relatively new product, having been introduced in 2023, almost a decade after the original edition came to market. Clearly, then, [Click here for the full review…]


Phraya “Elements” Thailand Rum – Review

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Mar 102026
 
Phraya "Elements" Thailand Rum - Review

With the release of the Shakara rum by Velier a couple of years ago, and small-distillery bottlings made by Chalong Bay and Issan, Thailand has come into the spotlight as an Asian rum producer to which we should perhaps be paying more attention. For now the rums we know about are made mostly by such small producers, because even the big guns in Asia are somewhat less known (or revered) in the west – Mekhong, Naga, Tanduay, and ThaiBev’s Sang Som are some of them. To this stable has been added the Phraya brand, first established in 2011 by the [Click here for the full review…]


Worthy Park Cane Juice High Ester Pot Still Rum (2024 Ed.) – Review

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Feb 272026
 
Worthy Park Cane Juice High Ester Pot Still Rum (2024 Ed.) - Review

Jamaicans, while known for their white overproofs (think Hampden’s Rum Fire, J. Wray White Overproof and Worthy Park’s own Rum Bar) and of course their funkiness, are less famed for anything to do with cane juice. Yet, for once, here, we have a rip snorting 54% piece of cane juice derived liquid gelignite channeling both agricole purity and Jamaican funk-badassery, that causes innocent Caners to expire at the side of the road after taking a snootful. No, really Unfortunately, this is something of a limited special edition, released on behalf of a NY based spirits distribution company called Skurnik Wine [Click here for the full review…]


Velier “Mother Mesccia” Pure Single Rum (Haiti/Monaco) – Review

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Feb 082026
 
Velier "Mother Mesccia" Pure Single Rum (Haiti/Monaco) - Review

Introduction With respect to Velier’s 2025 released white rum called “Mother Mesccia”, it seems to be something of an adapted revival – it’s neither precisely old, nor precisely new. At best, it’s a re-interpretation of a product of yesteryear. But it is interesting, from a historical perspective if nothing else. The way the story goes, back in the 17th century, Monaco – then a Mediterranean trading hub –  often bought rum from Genoese sailors returning from the Caribbean, (they exchanged it for local citrus fruits to ward off the vitamin-C deficiency known as scurvy). This rum was then blended with [Click here for the full review…]


La Maison Du Rhum Fortin Distillery 2007 13YO Rum Batch 3 (Paraguay) – Review

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Feb 022026
 
La Maison Du Rhum Fortin Distillery 2007 13YO Rum Batch 3 (Paraguay) - Review

Among South American rums, some countries just don’t make waves outside their own borders. How many of us have heard of Gran Chaco from Bolivia, or Isla Ñ and Tickerman from Argentina, for example? In Paraguay, the source of today’s review, we’ve been fortunate once before to try the “Herocia” from the Fortin brand, and here we have another one from the distillery of origin (see below for details), brought to us courtesy of La Maison du Rhum in France – this is in turn a 2017-founded brand of the French spirits distributor Dugas, and may be the only way [Click here for the full review…]


Rum Club Private Selection #60 Galapagos Islands 2015 10YO Rum (Ecuador) – Review

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Jan 122026
 
Rum Club Private Selection #60 Galapagos Islands 2015 10YO Rum (Ecuador) - Review

The practise of wine and spirits merchants releasing their own branded products is a long and storied one, going back more than a century (think of Berry Bros. and Rudd, Doorly’s, Goslings, or even Masters of Malt, as just a few examples). They acted, therefore, as progenitors and continuations of the indie bottling scene that has so defined the upscale market in the modern rumiverse. One of the best of such shops in Germany is undoubtedly Dirk Becker’s Rum Depot in Berlin, which I have been visiting on and off since 2012 and remains a favourite stopping place of mine. [Click here for the full review…]


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