Search Results : skeldon

El Dorado Rare Collection – Skeldon 2000-2018 18 YO Rum – Review

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Jan 082020
 
El Dorado Rare Collection – Skeldon 2000-2018 18 YO Rum – Review

No matter how many Guyanese wooden-still rums get bottled sporting the famed letters PM, VSG or EHP, none of them save perhaps the very oldest have anything near the mythical cachet of rums bearing the name “Skeldon”.  Even when I penned my original review of Velier’s Skeldon 1973 back in 2014 (when the company and Luca Gargano were hardly household names), it was clear that it had already become a cult rum. Nowadays the 1973 or 1978 rums sell for thousands of dollars apiece any time they come up for auction and that price and their incredible rarity makes them [Click here for the full review…]

Velier Skeldon 1978 27 YO Full Proof Old Demerara Rum – Review

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Sep 192018
 
Velier Skeldon 1978 27 YO Full Proof Old Demerara Rum - Review

Every rum drinker who’s been at it for a while has a personal unicorn.  It might not always be some hoary old grandfather of a rum, forgotten by all but barking-mad rum nerds, or the miniscule output of a distillery no-one now remembers (like the Heisenberg Distillery) — sometimes it’s just a rum that’s hard to get and isn’t for sale in local markets. Occasionally it’s even one they possess already but which evokes strong positive memories. One of mine has always been the Skeldon 1978, which was too rare or too expensive (usually both) for me to acquire. It [Click here for the full review…]

Velier Skeldon 1973 32 Year Old Rum

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May 242015
 
Velier Skeldon 1973 32 Year Old Rum

*** Rumaniacs Review 002 | 0402 I looked at the Skeldon 1973 in detail a while back.  Since an extra sample came my way I re-tasted and have added it to the Rumaniacs lineup.  Still a fantastic rum, just about unavailable now except to the fortunate few with very deep pockets. Distilled in the Skeldon estate on the Corentyne coast in Guyana in April 2005 from a Coffey still. 4 barrels, outturn 544 bottles. Nose: Pungent and rich to a fault; coffee, burnt sugar cane fields, brown sugar, tons of licorice, fleshy fruit (peaches, prunes, black grapes), honey. Mocha, walnuts, [Click here for the full review…]

Velier Skeldon 1973 Full Proof 32 Year Old Rum – Review

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May 102014
 
Velier Skeldon 1973 Full Proof 32 Year Old Rum – Review

It’s official.  Velier has raised the bar for super premium rums, with an extraordinary 32-year old blast from the past that will excavate a punt-wide trench in your wallet if you ever find one. The 544-bottle run of the Skeldon 1973 Old Demerara Rum has, since being released in 2005, become something of an object of cult worship.  In 2012 a single bottle went for sale on eBay for close to  €500. I searched for three years before I found a gent in France willing to part with his (and at a cost I’m glad my wife never found out [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…]

Velier 70th Anniv. St. Lucia Distillers “Warren Khong” 2010 7 YO Rum – Review

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Dec 082021
 
Velier 70th Anniv. St. Lucia Distillers "Warren Khong" 2010 7 YO Rum - Review

It’s the Red Queen’s race, I sometimes think: top dogs in the indie scene have to keep on inventing and innovating to maintain their lead, release ever-older or fancier bottlings, enthuse the fans, show how cool they are, all to remain in the same place — and none, perhaps, know this as well as Velier, whose various “series” go back a decade or more and keep the bar set really high. The legendary Demeraras, Caronis and Habitations, the Indian Ocean series, Endemic Birds, Foursquare Collaborations, 70th Anniversary, Appleton Hearts, True Explorer, Rhum Rhum, NRJ…the list just keeps growing. But the [Click here for the full review…]

Opinion – Canny or Crazy? Dark Matter’s Auction Prices

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Nov 172021
 
Opinion - Canny or Crazy? Dark Matter's Auction Prices

What the hell just happened? Did somebody really just pay five figures for a bottle of rum from a new distillery? No more than a year ago when he took an astonished look at where rum prices were going on Rum Auctioneer, Ian Burrel humorously if rather crudely remarked that you could bottle RS’s piss and still get a buyer and even more of it was Luca’s (and I was told of one rum commentator who would probably thank them both for with tears in his eyes and buy all he could get irrespective). Now, we may have hit a [Click here for the full review…]

Rom Deluxe (Denmark)

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Nov 072021
 
Rom Deluxe (Denmark)

  For such a newly established company (in rum years, anyway), Rom Deluxe as created a rather enviable visibility quotient for itself. Their near iconic “Wild Series” of rums in particular are not only strikingly eye-catching but boast several entries on the list of strongest rums ever issued, and this goes right back to the issuance of the first one in the series, the Wild Tiger (a Jamaican DOK from Hampden), which I reviewed with equal parts fear and exhileration. They have branched out and expanded into other aspects of the rum business and while they are not quite on [Click here for the full review…]

Velier Uitvlugt 1988 17 Year Old Demerara Rum – Review

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Sep 222021
 
Velier Uitvlugt 1988 17 Year Old Demerara Rum - Review

€57. Think about that for a minute. That’s how much this rum cost when it was first released in 2005. Good luck finding it anywhere near that, now. By 2019 the bottle price had already climbed past £1800 and as of this writing it is closing in on three grand on the auction listings.  And it’s not even the most famed or the best of the Demeraras, because the unicorns most avidly sought after and collected tend to be the PM and Skeldons, and maybe the Albions and UF30E. For some reason, Diamond, LBI, Blairmont and Uitvlugt rums from the [Click here for the full review…]

Opinion – The Implications of Superfast Ageing and the Alteration of Rum

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Feb 172021
 
Opinion - The Implications of Superfast Ageing and the Alteration of Rum

This is a completely theoretical “what-if?” about the implications for the rum world if the technological process of superfast ageing were ever to be perfected. Ever since ageing of spirits became a thing, people have been trying to make it faster in a sort of half-assed time-travel wish-fulfilment. They’ve tried the adding of wood chips, smaller barrels, keeping the barrels in motion, dosage, temperature control, music, ultrasound, etc etc – all in an effort to have the taste of a 20 year old rum stuffed inside a spirit made the day before yesterday. Take Rational Spirits’ Cuban Inspired rum I [Click here for the full review…]

Opinion – Flipping: Love, Loathe Or Leave It

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Jan 212021
 
Opinion - Flipping: Love, Loathe Or Leave It

Flipping at is most basic is simply reselling, and mostly seen as akin to scalping tickets. A seller has a bottle of a rum which is sold out of the stores that a buyer wants , and a bargain is struck usually at a markup. It’s a sale. Its specificity arises because of the practice of buying a (usually newly released) rum alight with a buzz and hype: not to enjoy, but to resell at a profit – in other words, introducing yet another intermediary with sticky finger between the distillery of origin and the consumer. Unsurprisingly, flippers have become [Click here for the full review…]

Cadenhead Uitvlugt 1964 36 YO Guyana Rum (PM) – Review

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Aug 052020
 
Cadenhead Uitvlugt 1964 36 YO Guyana Rum (PM) - Review

The Cadenhead 1964 Port Mourant is one of the great unicorns of our time, a rum whose 36 years of ageing sail majestically across the senses, impervious and indifferent to the up-and-coming claimants for the crown of “oldest” and “strongest’ and “bestest” and “mostest”.  Not since the Age of Velier have we seen anything like this and in some ways it supersedes even those behemoths we had all ignored back in the day, because they were “too expensive.” And expensive this is: in June 2020 a variant bottle of this thing (bottled in 2000, 70% ABV) was bid up past [Click here for the full review…]

Velier Enmore 1998 Full Proof 9 YO Old Demerara Rum – Review

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Jun 032020
 
Velier Enmore 1998 Full Proof 9 YO Old Demerara Rum - Review

It will come as some surprise to anyone reading this review, when I say that there is a certain pointlessness now, to reviewing a Velier rum from The Age.  After all, this is a very young rum, not considered one of the Legends like the Skeldon or Port Mourant series, it’s practically unfindable, quite expensive when you can, and nowadays you’re more likely to find an ounce of Unobtainium than one of these unicorns.  Also, 2007 was not noted for the richness of its releases — only the LBI 1998 and the Versailles 1998 were offered that year, both also [Click here for the full review…]

The El Dorado Rare Collection – Releases I, II & III and Subsequent Developments

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Jan 282020
 
The El Dorado Rare Collection - Releases I, II & III and Subsequent Developments

The El Dorado Rare Collection made its debut in early 2016 and almost immediately raised howls of protest from rum fans who felt not only that Velier had been hosed by being evicted from their state of privileged access to DDL’s store of aged barrels, but that the prices in comparison to Luca’s wares (many which had just started their inexorable climb to four figures) were out to lunch at best and extortionate at worst.  The price issue was annoying — at the time, DDL had no track record with full proof still-specific rums, or possessed anything near the kind [Click here for the full review…]

El Dorado Rare Collection – Albion 2004-2018 14 YO Rum – Review

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Jan 062020
 
El Dorado Rare Collection - Albion 2004-2018 14 YO Rum - Review

In early 2016 when the first Rares from El Dorado hit the market, there was a lot of mumbling and grumbling in the blogosphere.  Most of that was the feeling that Velier (which was to say, Luca Gargano, whose star was in rapid ascent back then) had been inconsiderately evicted from his privileged access to DDL’s barrels in a cheap shot to muscle in on the market niche he had almost singlehandedly built, for tropically-aged ultra-old full-proof still-specific Guyanese rums.  But almost as loud was the squealing about the prices, higher than Velier’s and the prevailing indies’ rates, which were [Click here for the full review…]

Reviews (A-J)

 

This is the first page of rum reviews; it is arranged in alphabetical order, from A through to J. The number on the left of each review is the sequence in which it was written, the score being on the right. Newer posts are marked. [Click here for Page 2 of Rum Reviews, from K to Z] [Click here for the Rumaniacs “Heritage” rum reviews] 0937 1423 Single Barrel Selection Antigua 2015 7 YO High Congener Rum (91) 0822 1423 Single Barrel Selection Barbados (WIRD) 2000 16 YO Rum (85) 0720 1423 Single Barrel Selection Brazil/Barbados 2019 2 YO Blended [Click here for the full review…]

Reviews (K-Z)

 

This is the second page of rum reviews; it is arranged in alphabetical order, from K through to Z. The number on the left of each review is the sequence in which it was written, the score being on the right. Newer posts are marked. [Click here for Page 1 of Rum Reviews, from A to J] [Click here for the Rumaniacs “Heritage” rum reviews] 0579 K&L “Faultline” Uitvlugt 1994-2014 20 Year Old Guyanese Rum (85) 0883 Kalki Moon “Plant Cane” Australian Cane Spirit (Batch 1) (82) 1088 Kalki Moon “The Mill” Australian Unaged White Rum (Batch 1) (84) VIDEO 1072 Karu Distillery [Click here for the full review…]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hampden Estate 8 Year Old Overpoof Rum – Review

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Dec 242018
 
Hampden Estate 8 Year Old Overpoof Rum - Review

My own personal memories of the Hampden Overproof will always be combined with the Tasting of the Century in London, where we tried those magnificent old rums the Harewood 1780, St James 1885, Bally 1924 and Skeldon 1978…and the two new Hampdens. Truth to tell, my focus was so fiercely on that geriatric quartet, that I had little time to pay attention to the twins….time kind of ran out on me, and I could barely do them justice. So knowing I had the bottles in Berlin, I waited until October and then dealt with them there again. Velier, as is [Click here for the full review…]

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