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Saint James Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 1986

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Jun 232016
 
saint-james-vintage-1986 crop

Photo copyright (c) lagourmandinerhumerie.com

Rumaniacs Review 023 | 0423

Supposedly the 1970s and 1980s are the rarest vintages of many Martinique rhums – nearly thirty years later, that’s as little as makes no difference, since any and all rhums from that era are now collector’s items, irrespective of the country. Many have been lost forever and aren’t even remembered. This one from 1986 deserves to be rescued from the pit, however, because it’s pretty good.

Saint James on the north east coast of Martinique has been around since 1765 when Father LeFebure of the Brothers of Charity first devised a cane spirit, which he began shipping to the British colonies up north. Initially he named the rhum Saint Jacques after a gent who actually bought the island in the 1630s (from the Compagnie des Îles d’Amérique) and developed it into a successful French colony – but not one to let sentiment (or his faith, apparently) get in the way of sound commercial bastardization, he renamed it Saint James to sound more English and thereby increase sales.

Colour – Amber

Strength – 43%

Nose – Wow! What a lovely, deep, fruity nose. Is this an AOC agricole? Nope, the island adopted it only in late 1996, so all kinds of weird stuff was going on before then…and thank heavens for that. This nose is lovely – vanillas and oaken tannins, white flowers, sweet peaches in syrup, but held at bay by a crisp driness almost like a Riseling, and ending up with (get this) fanta soda pop and bubble gum. Don’t ask me how, I just smell this thing and call it as I see it – but it’s great.

Palate – On a medium-to-light bodied, deliciously warm mouthfeel, the Fruit Express continues to romp: dark red cherries, apricots, wound about with light and chirpy citrus peel; dates and raisins, lime juice soaked brown sugar…yet somehow the rhum remains light and sprightly, not heavy at all and without any kind of overbearing sweetness. Last tastes with water add white chocolate, some weak coffee grounds and grasses wet in the rain, all very very nice.

Finish – more a summing up of the preceding than anything new, and quite short, perhaps to be expected from 43%. Warm, a little bite, clean and very clear, with more leather and oak, some citrus (a little), and fruits. Only complaint is I wish it was longer.

Thoughts – The AOC is something of a double edged sword to rummies – drinkers and makers both. Many appreciate the standards, others chafe under the restrictions. It’s always interesting to see how different the old ways are from the new, just by comparing any modern aged Saint James with this one rhum from a generation ago. The 1986 may be long out of production, costs upwards of €500 and rare as a negative Velier review, but that doesn’t mean the ways of the old masters were in any way bad ones.

(86/100)

 

SMWS R3.5 Barbados 2002 11 Year Old Rum (“Marmite XO”) – Review

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Jun 222016
 

SMWS R3.5 1

A big ‘n’ badass Bajan rum, brutal enough to be banished to Netflix, where Jessica Jones and Daredevil occasionally stop by Luke Cage’s bar to have some.

“They may be more throwaway efforts than serious exemplars of the blenders’ arcane arts,” I remarked once of one of the 151s with which I amused myself. The SMWS on the other hand, does this overproof stuff with the dead seriousness of a committed jailbird in his break for freedom. They have no time to muck around, and produce mean, torqued-up rum beefcakes, every time. So be warned, the “Marmite” isn’t a rum with which you good-naturedly wrestle (like with the 151s, say) – you’re fighting it, you’re at war with it, you’re red in tooth and claw by the time you’re done with it, and afterwards you’re somehow sure that the rum won. You may feel exhilarated just surviving the experience

Behind the user-friendly façade of the muted camo-green bottle and near-retro label of unintended cool, lies a rum proudly (or masochistically) showcasing 74.8 proof points of industrial strength, the point of which is somewhat lost on me – because, for the price, who’s going to mix it, and for the strength, who’s going to drink it? It’s eleven years old, aged in Scotland, and hails, as far as I’ve been able to determine, not from the Rockley pot still owned the West Indies Rum Distillery, but in the Rockley “style”, making it a cousin of the Samaroli Barbados 1986 and the SMWS R3.4 10 year, old and thereby setting the stage.1

SMWS R3.5 2The hay blonde rum oozed intensity right from the moment it was cracked. It was enormous, glitteringly sharp, hot, strong and awesomely pungent – the very first scents were acetone, wax, perfume and turpentine, so much so I just moved the glass to one side for a full ten minutes. That allowed it to settle down into the low rumble of an idling Lambo, and gradually lighter notes of flowers, lavender, nail polish, sugar water and olives in brine came through, though very little “rummy” flavours of caramel and toffee and brown sugar could be discerned. It was clear nothing had been added to or filtered away from this thing.

Having experienced some rums qualifying as brutta ma buoni (which is an Italian phrase meaning “ugly but good” and describes such overproofs perfectly) I was very careful about my initial sip. And with good reason – it was hellishly powerful. Incredibly thick and coating on the tongue. Massive, razor-sharp flavours of brine, cherries, more olives, some dried fruits, watermelon, and that weird combination of a cucumber sandwich on rye bread liberally daubed with cream cheese. Christ this was hot – it was so over the top that were you to drink it in company, you wouldn’t be able to hear the guy next to you screaming…he’d have to pass you a note saying “OMFG!!!”. Yet that’s not necessarily a disqualification, because like the 3.4, there was quite a bit of artistry and complexity going on at the same time. I have never been able to follow the SMWS’s tasting notes (see the label), but concede I was looking for the marmite…it was just difficult to find anything through that heat. Once I added water (which is a must, here), there it was, plus some nuttiness and sweetness that had been absent before.

All of this melded into a finish that was, as expected, suitably epic….it went on and on and on, holding up the flag of the overproofs in fine style, giving up flavours of hot black tea, pears, more florals, and a final hint of the caramel that had been so conspicuously absent throughout the tasting. I had it in tandem with the 3.4 (and the R5.1, though not strictly comparable), and liked the earlier Bajan a bit more. But that’s not to invalidate how good this one is – about the only concession I have to make is that really, 74.8% is just a tad excessive for any kind of neat sipping. Overall? Not bad at all – in fact it grew one me. There was a lot more going on over time — so quietly it kinda sneaks up on you — than the initial profile would suggest, and patience is required for it.

SMWS R3.5 3

In trying to explain something of my background to my family (a more complicated story than you might think), I usually remark that no West Indian wedding ever really wraps up before the first fistfight erupts or the last bottle of rum gets drained. The question any homo rummicus reading this would therefore reasonably ask, then, is which rum is that? Well…this one, I guess. It’s a hard rum, a tough rum, a forged steel battleaxe of a rum. It maybe should be issued with a warning sticker, and I honestly believe that if it were alive, it would it could have Robocop for lunch, yark him up half-chewed, and then have him again, before picking a fight in Tiger Bay. It’s up to you though, to decide whether that’s a recommendation or not.

(#281 / 86/100)

Kirk and Sweeney 12 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jun 192016
 

K&S 12 YO 1

Not a bah-humbug rum…more like something of a “meh”.

I have an opinion on larger issues raised by this rum and others like it, but for the moment let’s just concentrate on the review before further bloviating occurs. Kirk and Sweeney is a Dominican Republic originating rum distilled and aged in the DR by Bermudez (one of the three Big Bs of Barcelo, Bermudez and Brugal) before being shipped off to California for bottling by 35 Maple Street, the spirits division of The Other Guy (a wine company). And what a bottle it is – an onion bulb design, short and chubby and very distinctive, with the batch and bottle number on the label. That alone makes it stand out on any shelf dominated by the standard bottle shapes. It is named after a Prohibition-era schooner which was captured by the Coast Guard in 1924 and subsequently turned into a training vessel (and renamed), which is just another marketing plug meant to anchor the rum to its supposed piratical and disreputable antecedents.

Dark orange in colour, bottled at 40%, the K&S is aged for 12 years in the usual American oak casks. Where all that ageing went is unclear to me, because frankly, it didn’t have a nose worth a damn. Oak? What oak? Smelling it revealed more light vanilla and butterscotch than anything else, with attendant toffee and ice cream. It was gentle to a fault, and so uncomplex as to be just about boring…there was nothing new here at all. “Dull” one commentator remarked. Even the Barcelo Imperial exhibited more courage, wussy as it was.

K&S 12 YO 2To taste it was marginally better, if similarly unadventurous. Medium bodied, with an unaggressive profile, anchored by a backbone of vanilla and honey. There was a bit of the oak tannins here, fiercely controlled as to be almost absent; not much else of real complexity. Some floral notes, cinnamon, plums and richer fruits could be discerned, but they were never allowed to develop properly, or given their moment in the sun – the primary vanilla and butterscotch was simply too dominating (and for a rum that was as easy going as this one, that’s saying a lot). The Brugal 1888 exhibited a similar structure, but balanced things off a whole lot better. Maybe it was just me – I simply didn’t see where all the ageing went, and there was little satisfaction at the back end which was short, soft as a feather pillow, and primarily (you guessed it) toffee and cocoa and more vanilla.

So the rum lacks the power and jazz and ever-evolving taste profile that I mark more highly, and overall it’s just not my speed. Note, however, that residents in the DR prefer lighter, softer rums (which can be bottled at 37.5%) and its therefore not beyond the pale for K&S rum to reflect their preference since (according to one respected correspondent of mine) the objective here is to make an authentic, genuine DR rum. And that, it is argued, they have achieved, and I have to admit – whatever my opinion of it is, it’s also a very affordable, very drinkable rum that many will appreciate because of that same laid back, chill-out nature to which I’m so indifferent. Just because it doesn’t work for me doesn’t mean a lot of people aren’t going to like it. Not everyone has to like full proof rums, and not everyone will ever be able to afford indie outturns of a few hundred bottles, if they can even get them; and frankly not everyone wants a vibrating seacan of oomph landing on their palate. For such people, then, this rum is just peachy. For me, it just isn’t, perhaps because I’m not looking for rums that try to please everyone, are too easy and light, and don’t provide any challenge or true points of interest.

Opinion:

Years of drinking rums from across the spectrum leads me to believe that there’s something more than merely cultural that stratifies the various vocal tribes of rummies. It is a divide between rum Mixers and rum Drinkers, between bourbon fanciers moving into rums versus hebridean maltsters doing the same (with new rum evangelists jumping on top of both), all mixed up with a disagreement among three additional groups: lovers of those rums made by micro-distillers in the New World, aficionados of country-wide major brands, and fans of the independent “craft” bottlers. Add to that the fact that people not unnaturally drink only what they can find in their local likker establishment, and what that translates into is a different ethos of what each defines as a quality rum, and is also evident in the different strengths that each regards as standard, and so the concomitant rums they seemingly prefer.

That, in my opinion goes a far way to explaining why a rum like the K&S is praised by many in the New World fora as a superb rum…while some of the Old World boyos who are much more into cask strength monsters made by independent bottlers, smile, shrug and move on, idly wondering what the fuss is all about. Because on one level the K&S is a perfectly acceptable rum, while on another it really isn’t…which side of the divide you’re on will likely dictate what your opinion of it and others like it, is.

(#280 | 81/100)

Other notes

  • I actually think it’s closer to a solera in taste profile – the Opthimus 18 was what I thought about – but most online literature says it is really aged for twelve years. I chose to doubt that.
  • Bottle purchased in 2013…I dug it out of storage while on a holiday back in Canada in 2016 for this review, and then again in 2024 when I recorded a video recap.
  • K&S also produces an 18 and 23 year old version. The rum was noted to be a blend, and from molasses, in a 2020 Forbes article, where it was also noted that the age statement was dropped from current labels.

Bristol Spirits Enmore 1988 20 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jun 152016
 

Enmore 1988-1

A slightly discombobulated Enmore from the year Feynman died and Rihanna was born. I wonder if that says anything about it?

Bristol Spirits is a UK independent bottler formed in 1995, and so can no longer be considered a new kid on the block. Its label design has gone through several iterations before settling on the current wildly coloured labels that so kidnap your eyes when you spot them on the shelf, and unlike some other indie bottlers, they pretty much issue all their rums at what they consider the appropriate strength, usually between 43%-55% with outliers at 40% in existence. Like, say, Compagnie des Indes, they mostly bottle rums from all the usual and comforting locations – Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana, Cuba, Trinidad — while occasionally indulging themselves with diversions to less common places like Mauritius, Nicaragua, Peru, Haiti, Grenada and Guadeloupe.

Enmore 1988-2Some basic details on provenance: the Enmore continuous wooden coffey still is the only one of its kind extant, and while it is not a hundred-plus years old (the greenheart wood has been gradually replaced over the decades) it is well-used and still in operation to this day. The company notes on the rum speaks about being made from the pot still made by John Dore in 1880, but I suspect this may be in error, since these are actually two separate stills, the John Dore pot still is not made of wood (or from Enmore as far as I know), and the Enmore still is not a pot still. So let’s just assume this came from the wooden Enmore coffey still and move on before everyone falls asleep or breaks out the Rambo knife to settle the issue.

Right, with all that out of the way, what have we got here? A dark hay blonde 43% spirit bottled by an always-interesting company, from a country and a still for which I have a fond regard. And, I must admit, some very strange tastes, that seriously made me check my glencairns to see if they had been washed right: because I was asking myself, did it get stored in the pantry to near the spices? The initial nose was light and warm and provided comforting smells of vanilla, raisins, licorice (the red kind) and a trace of sealing wax and turpentine…but there was also an undercurrent of garam masala, tumeric and drier indian spices coiling around in there that was as bizarre as Jessica Rabbit’s decolletage. I wasn’t complaining, mind…it just seemed out of place, and at least it didn’t derail the entire experience, being too vague to dominate the profile. Anyway once the rum settled into its paces, more familiar notes of caramel, toffee, nougat and crushed walnuts emerged, with a dry kind of sawdust mustiness pervading the thing. I can’t say it overwhelmed me, though it was pleasant enough.

Palate was better, much better: more light bodied than the initial impressions above would suggest, as awkward as Tom Hanks in his new “Big” grown up body. Initially presenting an almost-hot, briny foretaste, it developed really well with muted individual detonations of raisins, vanilla, dried fruit, apples just starting to go, some more licorice, some molasses, a flirt of citrus peel and again, those odd spices creeping around like John McClane serving up a little chaos in the mix – and these aren’t complementary sweet breakfast spices but sere, aromatic, powdery, crisp-smelling piles of spices on an open table (saffron, paprika, masala, more tumeric, cardamon, cumin)…it felt like walking through an open-air spice souk in the Middle East (oh wait…). The finish was actually quite good: I hadn’t expected something so assertive from a 43% rum, but it delivered – a little sharp, more of that driness, caramel cream, brine, vanilla ice cream, cherries, licorice and some last hints, very faint, of nutmeg.

Okay, so in the sense that the rum was an oddball, it diverged from a more standard and familiar profiles, and showed more potential than delivery (much like Windows 2.1 did), while retaining the power to interest and enthuse. It was not a depressing experience, nor a dour one (I was watching “Grave of the Fireflies” off and on as I made my notes, hence the comment). It was more a reminder of how a single still can produce several different variations on a theme, the way it was suggested that Old Enzo kept making the same car, just sleeker and better and faster each time. Consider: the Velier Enmore 1988 (issued at 51.9% and one year younger) was more brutal, more intense, but better behaved, with flashes of brilliance; the Renegade Enmore 1990 hewed more to a standard profile (and wasn’t an Enmore anyway, but a Versailles), Secret Treasures Enmore 1989 was firmer and darker, while the El Dorado EHP wasn’t as complex. Nobody who’s had that many varieties of a single still’s rum can ever say they were running on empty…there’s something for everyone here and you won’t feel short changed if you manage to find Bristol Spirit’s version on some dusty shelf in a back-alley shop someplace, forgotten and ignored, and you snap it up.

(#279 / 86/100)

Other notes:

Enmore 1988-3

Damoiseau Rhum Vieux Millésimé 1989 20 Year Old – Review

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Jun 122016
 

Damoiseau 1989-2

The 1980 Damoiseau was no fluke, as this 1989 forcefully demonstrates.

Last week I wrote about the Longueteau Grande Reserve which I tasted in tandem with this excellent Damoiseau (and five or six others), and wow, did this one ever stand out. At the risk of offending that actually rather pleasant and inoffensive Grande Reserve, I think the Damoiseau shows what it could have been with some egging on. (Actually, this is what the Pyrat’s XO could have been had they ever found their cojones, lost the oranges and dialled the whole thing up to “12”, but never mind).

Because frankly, I believe that the dark orange 58.4% twenty year old beefcake is one of the better rhums to come out of Guadeloupe – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, there are few, if any, missteps of any kind (unless you count the paucity of any single sterling point of achievement as a misstep) — there’s so much that’s right with it, that it seems almost churlish to point out where it fails to ascend to the heights of brilliance achieved by, oh, the Chantal Comte 1980 or even Damoiseau’s own 1980 older brother.

Dsmoiseau 1989-1

Consider first the smell of the thing: it was amazingly full bodied, with a charging, yelling, joyous nose – if Braveheart ever visited Guadeloupe, it’s this he would have been drinking and all the Scots would be speaking creole and we’d never have heard of that obscure Hebridean tipple. Candied light oranges started the revels off (here’s where my reference to the Pyrat’s came in – observe the tact with which the citrus was presented here versus the overripe nonsense Patron has been selling). Peaches, apricots, and brown sugar soaked in lime juice, which sounds a little loopy until you actually taste it. And after letting the rhum open up a bit and settle down, lovely aromas of honey, licorice and sweet soya came forward to lend piquancy and heft to the experience.

Damoiseau 1989There were fond memories of other agricoles issued at cask strength in my tasting, and I felt no particular amped-up over-aggressive heat from the 58.4% ABV at which it was bottled. The sharpness burned off in no time, leaving a warm solidity of the honey and soya to carry forward from the nose. And then it was like slow fireworks going off – strongly heated black tea, coffee, chocolate, earthy, waxy and citrus notes detonated on the tongue in solemn grandeur. Some fleshy fruits (more apricots and peaches), lemon zest and yes, those candied oranges were back again for an encore, dancing around the backbone of the other, firmer notes. The control of the oak, by the way, was pretty good, and in no way intrusive – at most there was some background of vanilla and vague tannins, and even that was in no way offensive or overbearing.

I was looking for the herbal and grassy profile of a true agricole, and must confess there were just about none. It was just a really well-constructed panoply of tastes both strong and subtle, leading into a slow, warm finish as post-coital languor in a courtesan’s boudoir – you almost want to break out the newspapers and some shag for your pipe as you enjoy long, pleasant closing notes of coffee, orange peel, and bitter black chocolate. What a lovely piece of work indeed.

As I’ve observed before, I have a slight, sneaking preference for Guadeloupe agricoles over Martinique ones (though both are good, of course – it’s like asking me who I love more, Little Caner (my fast-growing cheeky son) or Canerette (my just-graduated, far-too-clever daughter)…a pointless exercise since both have aspects of real distinction which get equal adoration from their papa). I must simply sum up by stating that the way traditional, classic agricole components in this rum have been melded with something that is almost, but not quite, a molasses product, is masterful. This, for its price, is a rum to treasure.

(#278 / 88/100)

Other notes:

  • Distilled April 1989, bottled January 2010, so, a whisker under 21 years old
  • Tasted in Paris in 2016, courtesy of Christian de Montaguère and Jerry Gitany. I bought seventeen rums and tasted a raft more, which we all thought was fair. Merci beaucoup, mes amis.
  • Nope, I never managed to acquire the Velier Damoiseau 1989 for a comparison. But now I really want to.
  • €100 for this? Great value for money. BUT….In an odd (but not entirely uncommon) coincidence, Serge Valentin of WhiskyFun wrote about this rhum this same week. He rated it at 78, remarking on its ‘indefinite’ character. Also, Single Cask Rum ran three Damoiseaus past each other (1989, 1991 and 1995) and it lost out to the other two…so balance their reviews with my more enthusiastic one. If you can, try it yourself before buying.

Longueteau Très Vieux Grande Réserve 2004 Rhum – Review

 2 Responses »
Jun 072016
 

Long

Strong beginning, fine development, chokes on the backstretch

There are many things about agricoles that I slowly learned to appreciate: the clear profiles, the subtleties of their ageing, the differences and similarities with the molasses based rums that some almost indifferently dismiss as ‘industrials.’ So far I seem to be leaning more towards Guadeloupe rhums than those from Martinique, and while the Grande Reserve I sampled in Paris in April 2016 wasn’t one of the shining stars of the firmament, it wasn’t all that bad either and I had several hours to come to grips with it properly

Longueteau distillery has been around since the end of the 19th century, and is located in Domaine Espérance Belair, Sainte-Marie (on a SE corner of Basse-Terre) – it produces the Karukera and Longueteau lines. Originally the whole estate was part of the the property of the Marquis de Sainte Marie, but the poor chap dedicated himself somewhat excessively to the pleasures of the nobility that came with his station – wine, women and gambling, all the expected high points — and was forced to sell out to Henri Longueteau in 1895 to cover his debts. The notary handling the sale, so local legend has it, passed it to Henri on trust, since that worthy didn’t have enough money either, and that faith seems to have paid of handsomely. Four generations of the family have kept the estate going ever since.

Longueteau-2This dark orange-gold ten year old began well on the nose: phenols, acetone, caramel, sweet red licorice, wet cardboard, it gave a good impression of some pot still action going on here, even though it was a column still product. Then there was some fanta or coke — some kind of soda pop at any rate, which I thought odd. Then cherries and citrus zest notes, blooming slowly into black olives, coffee, nuttiness and light vanilla. As a whole, the experience was somewhat easy due to its softness, but overall it was too well constructed for me to dismiss it out of hand as thin or weak.

That thin note of acetone and nail polish remover came and went as fast as a man through the window of his paramour’s house when the husband comes through the door. Thick and almost full bodied, warm, welcoming, non-aggressive. Herbal and grassy notes, much less prevalent than in a true agricole (or a white) and I got the impression, right or wrong, as I do with many Guadeloupe rums, that this was a molasses based rhum (which it isn’t). With water there was more fanta and soda pop, bubble gum, plums and prunes. Certainly fruit, without the tartness of unripe mangies but something more subdued, like ripe black cherries and soft apricots, and some of that watery soggniess of watermelon just starting to go. But hey, I liked it, and to be able to pick out that much from a living room strength rum is no small achievement — maybe it was the cognac barrels in which it had been aged. The finish was more problematic – short, nutty, giving up hints of salty caramel. The fruity notes were there but just, I dunno, evaporated. Nice enough, just the weakest part of the whole experience, which was a shame after noting how well it all started.

So where does that leave me? Feeling pretty good, all in all, because it is a very well assembled rhum, with few faults except a certain lack of heft, and the finish which seemed in a hurry to either get me to put the glass down, or to refill it. It shared many points of kinship with another rhum I had that day, the Damoiseau 1989 20 Year Old (which was better). Part of the issue might be the 42%. Perhaps it was filtered, I don’t know. For your average Tom, Dick or Harrilall it would work pretty well, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to start working his way around to the French islands’ products, without hesitation. It’s a very good rhum for that — even if for me, it’s not one to add to my pantheon of great rums.

(#277 / 85/100)

Other notes

Distilled Mar 2004, bottled April 2014

LOngueteau-3

Professor Cornelius Ampleforth Rumbullion – Review

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May 312016
 
ampleforth

Picture (c) Ocado.com

Too much spice, too much sugar, too little interest.

The name is almost Dickensian in its imagery. Professor Cornelius Ampleforth could be straight out of the Pickwick Papers…you know, some chubby, benevolent older fellow in half-specs and a faded waistcoat, with rather limited mental capacity, down on his heels, but possessing a good heart. Whatever – the name evokes a certain good humour and indulgence from us, and at the very least is evocative. That, unfortunately, doesn’t make the Professor’s Rumbullion a rum worth drinking, unless you are into spiced rums and like to have that in your drink (which I’m not and I don’t, so be aware of my personal preferences in this review).

Whether there really is a Professor Cornelius Ampleforth is subject to intense and spirited debate by all the same people who can tell you the middle name of the runner up of the 1959 Tiddlywinks Championship in Patagonia. The UK company which releases the Rumbullion is called Atom Supplies and under its umbrella of e-commerce and business consultancy, also runs the online shop Master of Malt, and the brand is their independent bottling operation.

They certainly have a sense of humour, as evinced not only by the Professor’s name, but the “Bathtub Gin” they also sell. What they don’t have is a desire to tell you anything meaningful – one has to go outside their website to find it’s a blend of unnamed Caribbean rums flavoured with various fruits, spices, and Madgascan vanilla. No countries, no distilleries, nothing else. An informational sinkhole of annoying proportions.

Bottled at 42.6% and darkly coloured within an inch of the Kraken, what we had here was a rum that assaulted the nose immediately with enormous and instant nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon notes, caramel and toffee and chocolate, all of which rushed and jostled and ran heedlessly together like a mob entering a Black Friday sale where everything is 90% off. It was also rather thick and almost chewy, and while back in 2010 I appreciated the Captain Morgan Private Stock for precisely those reasons (no longer, mind you), here it was simply excessive, and there was no order to any of it, no gradual progression from one series of well-blended, coherent smells to another…and that made the whole experience something of a disorganized mess.

And by the time I got around to tasting it, those spices really became too much, which led to flagging interest, waning ardour and a lot of grumbling and head shaking. So there was cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg and sweet dark chocolate – these were somewhat better behaved now – to which, with some water, were added scents of cloves, marzipan (I liked that) and candied oranges, at which point the party was over and I was blatted into near catatonia by just wave upon wave of cloying sweetness (quick Prof, pass the insulin!). So yeah, there were additional elements of taste that weren’t bad, just so strong and so much that it was like having seven incidences of coitus in one night – one wakes up the next morning with an utterly blank brain and no desire to do anything meaningful. Even the warm, short fade exhibited this oversweet sense of warm syrup, without adding any new notes – there was the incessant hammer of cinnamon, caramel, vanilla, and to me it was just overkill.

To its credit, as I don’t hide my preferences, the makers don’t hide anything either: it is a spiced rum, it’s trumpeted as such, and they’re proud of it. But as always, it’s mostly marketing that one gets when one checks: a secret recipe (hate those), fancy wrapping and no information on components or ageing, if any. I guess for less than thirty quid we shouldn’t be asking for more. This rum is squarely aimed at the casual imbibers who just want a tasty, tarted up, adulterated drink with a little bit of oomph and no hassle, and so although I acknowledge that spiced rums sell briskly for precisely those reasons, they really aren’t my tot of grog.

(#276 / 72/100)

Other notes

  • For the record, I disapprove of an online shop not disclosing in its listings that it is itself the maker of a rum whose tasting notes (by its own staff) are rabidly enthusiastic.
  • The RumShopBoy posted a truly funny and apropos review of this and the Navy Strength variation, and despised the ground it walked on…largely due to measured 43g/L of additives.

Navy Neaters 95.5º Proof (Guyana-Barbados Blended) Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
May 252016
 

D3S_3878

A blue-water rum for the Navy men of yore.

This may be one of the best out-of-production independent bottlings from Ago that I’ve had. It’s heavy but no too much, tasty without excess, and flavourful without too many offbeat notes. That’s quite an achievement for a rum made in the 1970s, even more so when you understand that it’s actually a blend of Guyanese and Bajan rums, a marriage not always made in heaven.

I’ve trawled around the various blogs and fora and articles looking for references to it, but about all I can find is that (a) Jolly Jack Tars swear by it the way they do Woods or Watson’s and (b) it’s supposedly slang for undiluted Pusser’s navy rum. “Neaters” were the undiluted rum served to the petty officers onboard ship; ratings (or regular sailors if you will), were served with a measure of rum famously known as the tot, which was a quantity of diluted rum called grog, and if you don’t know the terms, well, brush up on your reading of rums.

The rum is bottled at 95.5º proof, and one has to be careful what that means – it’s not actually half that (47.75%) according to modern measures, but 54.5%. And that’s because originally 100 proof rum was actually 57% and so….well, you can do the math, and read a previous essay on the matter to get the gist of it. Beyond that, unfortunately, there’s very little information available on the rum itself — proportion of each country’s component, and which estate’s rums, for example — so we’re left with rather more questions than answers. But never mind. Because all that aside, the rum is great.

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I have to admit, I enjoyed smelling the mahogany coloured rum. It’s warmth and richness were all the more surprising because I had expected little from a late ’60s / early ’70s product ensconced in a faded bottle with a cheap tinfoil cap, made by a defunct company. It started off with prunes, pepsi-cola (seriously!), molasses, brown sugar and black tea, and developed into cherries and purple-black grapes – complexity was not its forte, solidity was. The primary flavours, which stayed there throughout the tasting, were exclamation points of a singular, individualistic quality, with no attempt at subtlety or untoward development into uncharted realms. In the very simplicity and focus of its construction lay its strength. In short, it smelled damned good.

The heavy proofage showed its power when tasted neat. Neaters was a little thin (I guess the nose lied somewhat in its promise) but powerful, just this side of hot. No PM or Enmore still rum here, I thought, more likely Versailles, and I couldn’t begin to hazard where the Bajan component originated (WIRD is as good a guess as any). Still, what an impressive panoply of tastes – flowers, cherries again, some brown sugar and molasses, coffee grounds, watermelon. The softness of the Bajan component ameliorated the fiercer Guyanese portions of the blend, in a way that I hadn’t seen before, and boy, did that ever work. It was smooth and rattling at the same time, like a mink-overlaid machine gun. With some water added, a background of fried banana bread emerged, plus more brown sugar and caramel, salt butter, maple syrup and prunes, all tied up in a neat bow by a finish that was just long enough and stayed with the notes described above without trying to break any new ground. So all in all, I thought it was a cool blast from the past.

D3S_3877A well made full proof rum should be intense but not savage. The point of the elevated strength is not to hurt you, damage your insides, or give you an opportunity to prove how you rock it in the ‘Hood — but to provide crisper, clearer and stronger tastes that are more distinct (and delicious). When done right, such rums are excellent as both sippers or cocktail ingredients and therein lies much of their attraction for people across the drinking spectrum. Perhaps in the years to come, there’s the potential for rum makers to reach into the past and recreate such a remarkable profile once again. I can hope, I guess.

Company bio

Charles Kinloch & Son were wine and spirits merchants who were in existence for almost a hundred years when they joined the Courage Brewery group in 1957. That company had been around since 1757 and after many mergers and acquisitions was itself taken over by the Imperial Tobacco Group in 1972, eventually passing to the Foster’s Group in 1990. In 1995 Scottish & Newcastle bought Courage from Foster’s and it changed hands again in 2007 when Wells & Young’s Brewing company bought all the brands under that umbrella. By then Navy Neaters had long been out of production, Kinloch was all but forgotten, and the current holding company now is more involved in pubs and beers in the UK than in rums of any kind.

(#275 / 86/100)

Other notes

  • The rum had to have been made post-1966, given the spelling of “Guyana” on the label. Prior to that it would have been British Guiana. The metric system of ml and cl was introduced in 1980 in the UK, so this can reasonably be dated to the 1970s.
  • The age is unknown. I think it’s more than five years old, maybe as much as ten.

Nine Leaves Angel’s Half Rum (French Oak Cask)(2015) – Review

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May 182016
 

Nine Leaves French 2

A love note to the concept of kaizen

It’s an old joke of mine that Nine Leaves’ staff consists of a master blender, office assistant, purchasing agent, bottler, General Manager, brand ambassador and sales office, and still only has one employee. This was and remains Mr. Yoshiharu Takeuchi, who single-handedly runs his company in the Shiga Prefecture of Japan, and basically issues some very young rums (none are older than six months) on to the world market. The unaged whites in particular are getting all sorts of acclaim, and I have one to write about in the near future.

Back in December 2014 I wrote about the six-month-aged 2014 French Oak, which I thought intriguing and pleasant to drink, though still a bit raw and having some issues in the way the flavours blended together. Running into Mr. Takeuchi again a year later, I made it a point to try that year’s production, the The American Oak “Spring 2015” and this “Autumn 2015” … and can happily report that Nine Leaves, in its slow, patient, incremental way, is getting better all the time (and as a probably unintended side-effect, has made me buy a few more Japanese rums from other companies just to see how they stack up).

Just a brief recap: the rum was distilled in a Forsythe copper pot still, double distilled, using sugar cane juice from cane grown in Okinawa, so the rum is an agricole in all but name. Mr. Takeuchi himself decides when and how to make the cuts so that the heart component is exactly what he wants it to be. The rums are then aged for six months in the noted barrels, which are all new, and lightly toasted, according to a note Mr. Takeuchi sent me..

Nine Leaves French 1

The French Oak “Autumn 2015” rum was a bit lighter in hue than the American Oak version I tried alongside it, and also a little easier on the nose…and smoother, even rounder to smell, in spite of its 48% strength. There was a subtly increased overall depth here that impressed – though admittedly you kinda have to try these side by side to see where I’m coming from. Aromas of fanta, orange, cinnamon, vanilla were clear and distinct, as clean and clear as freshly chiselled engravings, and after a while, sly herbal and grassy notes began to emerge…but so little that one could be forgiven for forgetting this was an agricole at all. This was something I have enjoyed about Nine Leaves’s rums, that sense of simultaneous delicacy and heft, and the coy flirtation between molasses and agricole profiles, while tacking unobtrusively to the latter.

The profile on the palate continued on with that subtle dichotomy – it was slightly sweet and quite crisp, beginning with some wax and floor polish background, well controlled. Sugary, grassy tastes of cane juice, swank, vanilla, some oak, dill and incense led off, and while it displayed somewhat more sharpness and a little less body than the roundness of the nose had initially suggested, further softer notes of watermelon, cucumbers and pears helped make the experience a bearable one. As with the American, there was a chirpy sort of medium-long finish, as the rum exited with dry, bright, clean flavours of citrus, breakfast spices, some cinnamon and maybe a touch more of vanilla. It was clearly a young rum, a little rambunctious, a little playful, but overall, extremely well behaved. I sure can’t tell you which agricole is exactly like it – Nine Leaves inhabits a space in the rum world uniquely its own, while never losing sight of its rummy antecedents. That’s always been a part of its charm, and remains a core company competence.

Clearly Nine Leaves is slowly, patiently improving on its stable of offerings. I spent a few hours checking for news that the company intends to issue progressively more aged rums without result – it seems that the current idea is to continue with gradually improving the young rums that area their bread and butter (though I know that Yoshi has a few barrels of the good stuff squirrelled away in his warehouse someplace that he isn’t telling us about, and will issue a two year old American oak rum as a limited edition at some point). I can’t fault the concept, and if a new distiller can make rums this decent, and improve a little bit every year, you can just imagine what they’ll be putting out the door within the decade. Until then, we could do a lot worse than try one of these lovely seasonal issues Nine Leaves makes.

Kampei!

(#274 / 84.5/100)

Other notes

  • Because of some obscure tax regulations in Japan regarding spirits three years old, Nine Leaves is unlikely to issue really aged rums for the foreseeable future
  • The French Oak cask rums are now no longer being produced.

Ron Bacardi Superior “Carta de Oro” Añejo – 1970s

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May 162016
 

bacardi-oro-gold-1970s-rum-001Rumaniacs Review 022 | 0422

On the surface, rums like this one remind one how long Bacardi has been around (as if we could forget); the Superior has also had a long history – I found a photo dating back to the 1930s. This one is of more recent vintage, the 1970s, and made in the Bahamas (and that’s where I’ll tag it). Other versions of this rum were made in Trinidad and Cuba, some white, some not. The labelling of “Carta de Oro” and “Añejo” and the colour, however, makes this a lightly aged product, less than five years old I’d say, based on taste.

Colour – hay blonde

Strength – 40%

Nose – As light as the morning sunshine on a winter day, so lacking in anything resembling strength I wonder if my sample was mislabelled and it was actually 37.5%. It’s right on the edge of vanishing in a stiff breeze: vanilla, citrus peel, some really weak watermelon and papayas, with the vaguest hint of something unidentifiably tart over the horizon.

Palate – Mild, thin, watery, weak, wussy, bland, feeble, insipid, lifeless. You can swallow this whole, no problem. The idea of adding water to the rum is an exercise in redundancy. After ten minutes or so one can sense sugar water, light lemon zest, brine, pears, cucumber, and if water had a smell, lots of that. It barely registers as a rum, though some faint rummy-ness manages to make it out if you search for it.

Finish – Short, vague, here now, gone a second later. Couldn’t sense anything beyond some heat, a little brine and vanilla and (again) light lemon.

Thoughts – This might have been a cocktail mixer back in the day, or a digestif of some kind. Chuck a lemon and some soda in there (or the perennial coke) and you’d be okay. As a rum to stand alone, it falls down stone dead without even a feeble twitch. Maybe I’m bringing a modern sensibility to a rum from Ago, and not taking into account the lighter Spanish style so in vogue in those days: but if Kinloch can produce a Guyanese rum around the same time that could tear all thirty volumes of Encyclopedia Brittanica in half at once, I don’t know what was stopping Bacardi.

(72/100)

Neisson Rhum Agricole 2005 Vieux – Review

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May 152016
 

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There are few (if any) weaknesses here: conversely, not many stellar individual components either. It’s just an all-round solidly assembled product that missed being greater by a whisker.

So here we are, gradually inching up the scale of the Neissons, with a rum I felt was slightly better than the Tatanka I looked at some weeks ago. Now, that one had a bright, colourful label to catch the eye (Cyril from DuRhum did a review of the lineup, here), and yet appearance aside, this one was, in my estimation, a smidgen better. It’s a subtle kind of thing, having to do with texture, taste, aroma and a quiet kind of X-factor that can’t be quite precisely quantified, merely sensed and noted. But yes, I felt it was better. In fact, it was the second best of the raft of Neissons I tried in tandem, and only the XO exceeded it.

Issued at a sturdy if uninspiring 43%, the Neisson Rhum Agricole Vieux 2005 is a nine year old rhum, an amber-red liquid sloshing around the standard slope-shouldered rectangular bottle which came in a sturdy, nicely done cardboard box. As with all Neisson products, it was AOC certified, self-evidently and agricole, and like its siblings up and down the ladder, had its own take on the way a rhum should be put together.

D3S_3822I speak of course of that oily, sweet salt tequila note that I’ve noted on all Neissons so far. What made this one a standout in its own way was the manner in which that portion of the profile was dialled down and restrained on the nose – the 43% made it an easy sniff, rich and warm, redolent of apples, pears,and watermelons…and that was just the beginning. As the rhum opened up, the fleshier fruits came forward (apricots, ripe red cherries, pears, papayas, rosemary, fennel, attar of roses) and I noted with some surprise the way more traditional herbal and grassy sugar cane sap notes really took a backseat – it didn’t make it a bad rhum in any way, just a different one, somewhat at right angles to what one might have expected.

I had few complaints about the way it tasted. Again the strength made it an easy sipping experience, very smooth and warm and oily. One thing that I always look for in a rhum is points of difference and originality, a divergence between smell and taste, for example, and the way one blends seamlessly into the other, with some elements disappearing, new ones appearing, and the way they dance together over time — the Neisson 2005 was very nice on that score, presenting as dry, yet also luscious, and just sweet enough. In fact, that teriyaki style profile had almost totally been subsumed into a tangy, tart texture wound about with half-ripe yellow mangoes, lemon peel, the creaminess of salt butter on dark peasant bread, more fruits, nuts, florals, and some white guavas. And all of that segued pleasantly into a medium length, velvety fade that gave up last notes of peaches, pecans, and more of that tartness I enjoyed.

There’s very little I disliked here – the texture might have been better, the strength might have been greater (Rhum Rhum Liberation 2012 Integrale did the job exceedingly well, for example though the Neisson really felt thicker to me in comparison). Nothing major. What it did not do was excite any real passion aside from a rather clinical series of observations on my voluminous notes, like “Good!” and “Nice!” and “Tastes of…” and “Balance well handled” and so on. I liked it and I would recommend it to you, no sweat, and my essay here provides all the technical notes one might require for an evaluation of its merits.

D3S_3821But I also didn’t get much in the way of wonder, of amazement, of excitement…something that would enthuse me so much that I couldn’t wait to write this and share my discovery. That doesn’t make it a bad rhum at all (as stated, I thought it was damned good on its own merits, and my score reflects that)…on the other hand, it hardly makes you drop the wife off to her favourite sale and rush out to the nearest shop, now, does it?

(#273 / 86/100)

Other notes

  • 290 bottle outturn
  • Cyril wrote a much more positive 92-point review of the same rhum (in French), so you can compare his point of view and mine.

Rhum J.M. Vieux Millesime 2002 10 Year Old

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May 112016
 

D3S_3667

A wonderfully sippable AOC agricole from J.M. in Martinique

The unquantifiable quality of the J.M. 1995 Très Vieux 15 Year Old has stayed with me ever since I first tried it. Some aspects of the rhum did not entirely succeed, but I could never entirely rid my memory of its overall worth, and so deliberately sought out others from the stable of the company to see if the experience was a unique one. And I am happy to report that the Millesime 2002 10 year old is a sterling product in its own way, and perhaps slightly exceeds the 1995…though with such a small difference in scores, you could just as easily say they are both excellent in their own ways and let it go at that.

For all the enthusiasm of the above paragraph, it should be noted that sampled side by side, the two rhums are actually quite distinct products, each good in their own way, but not to be confused with one another. Consider first the aromas hailing from this 46.3% orange gold rhum – they presented as quite fruity and aromatic, quite rounded and mellow, not always a characteristic of agricoles. As it opened up over the minute, flavours of cherries, red grapes, herbals, dill, sugar cane and grass rose gently out of it….and, if you can believe it, a sort of weird and persistent bubble-gum and Fanta melange that took me somewhat unawares, though not unpleasant by any means.

On the palate the texture was phenomenal, smooth and warm and assertive all at once. There was little of the aridity of the 1995: it presented a sort of restrained spiciness to the senses; some vanilla and tannins were discernible, but very well controlled and held way back so as not to unduly influence what was a very well balanced drink. 46.3% was a good strength here, and allowed firm traditional vegetal and grassy notes to take their place, before gradually being replaced – but not overwhelmed – by citrus zest (that was the Fanta doing a bait-and-switch, maybe), mint, cucumbers, watermelon, papaya and rich, ripe white pears. And then there was more…rye bread, salt butter, very delicate notes of coffee and chocolate…just yummy. It was an enormously well assembled rhum, luscious to taste and with walked a fine line between Jack Sprat and his wife…one could say it was like the last thing Goldilocks tried, being just right. Some of the dry profile I had previously sensed on the 1995 was evident on the finish, but again, nothing overwhelming – it was warm and aromatic with light tangerines, spearmint gum, more ripe cherries and those delectable grapes I had noted before. All in all, just a great sipping agricole, with similarities to the Karukera 2004, la Favorite Cuvée Privilège and maybe, if I stretched, even Damoiseau’s products.

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J.M. is located in northern Martinique at the foot of Mount Pele, and I’ve written a company summary in my review of the 1995, if you’re interested. One fact that came to my attention afterwards was that JM char the inside of their barrels by setting fire to some high proof rum distillate, and then scraping the char off, which may have something to do with the fruity character of the aged rhums they put out. The rhum itself was distilled on a creole copper pot still to 72% before being set to age and then diluted to “drinking strength.” I wonder what would happen if they ever decided to take a chance and leave it cask strength.

Most people I speak to about agricoles, especially those who have tried just a few (or none), comment in a way that suggests they are considered pretty much all the same — grassy, herbal, watery, a trifle sweet maybe, and (horrors!) more expensive. A lot of this is true, but after having tried the marvellous variety of rhums from Martinique and Guadeloupe, the sharp industrial chrome of the whites versus softer aged products, I can say with some assurance that there is an equally dazzling variety within cane juice rhums as there is in the molasses based products. And this is one reason why in the last year I’ve really tried to write about as many of them as I could lay hands on. Trying the JM 2002 with its complex, layered and warm profile makes me glad the adventure still has some kinks in the road, and that I began it in the first place.

(#272 / 86.5/100)

Other

  • Aged in ex-bourbon oak, not French oak (Limousin)

Compagnie des Indes 1998 Guadeloupe 16 Year Old Rum – Review

 3 Responses »
May 082016
 

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A lovely, light rum , as elegant as a Viennese waltz: it’s missing something at the back end, but nothing that would make me consider telling anyone to steer clear.

Compagnie des Indes so intrigued me when I first came across their Cuban rum back in early 2015, that I’ve already looked at two of their more offbeat products (from Fiji and Indonesia), and have detailed notes on five more commercially minded ones, which I’ll try to deal with in the next weeks and months (in between every other rum I want to write about). This one hails from Guadeloupe and is a solid entry to the genre without breaking too much new ground or attempting to reinvent the wheel.

Bellevue (Le Moule) is actually a subset of Damoiseau, and is separated from its better known big brother in order to distinguish its molasses rums from the cane juice products Damoiseau more commonly produces. It’s located NE of Grand Terre (not Marie Galante…the other Bellevue which provided several iterations from Duncan Taylor and Cadenhead is there) . In 2015 CDI got in on the act when the issued this sixteen year old rum (it’s a whisker short of seventeen), but have made no effort to distinguish the two Bellevues (except to me, because I asked to clear up my confusion…thanks Florent.)

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It’s always useful to know ahead of time where an aged rum was in fact aged, because as many writers before me have pointed out, tropical maturation is faster than Continental ageing, and the resultant qualities of the final product diverge: Velier, for example, has always favoured the tropics and ages there, which goes somewhat to explaining the intensity of its rums; while CDI prefers more subtle variations in its rums deriving from a prolonged rest in Europe. Knowing that helped me understand the staid elegance of a rum like this one. The nose, easy and warm at 43%, presented soft and fruity without hurry, with some driness, cardboard, and pickles (yeah, I know, I know…). Pears, ripe apples and white guavas, with a hint of zest, something like tangerine peel mixed up with some bubble-gum, plus an undercurrent of burnt sugar lending a very pleasing counterpoint.

At 43% the texture of this golden rum was medium bodied trending to light, and pleasant for all that. It was unusually dry and a bit too oaky, I felt – the tannins provided a dominance that somewhat derailed the other parts of the profile. It started out a little soft — bananas, kiwi fruit and white flowers — before nectarines and fresh cucumber slices on rye bread emerged, which in turn gave way to ginnip and unripe apples and mangos. It took time to get all this and the integration of all these elements was not perfect: still, overall it was a perfectly serviceable rum, with a short, crisp, clear finish redolent of caramel, sugar cane juice, vanilla and more fruitiness that was light and sweet without ever getting so complex as to defy description.

There’s a certain clear delicacy of profile that has run through the Compagnie’s rums I’ve tried thus far. They do not practice dosing, which is part of the explanation – the European ageing is another – but even so, they are uniquely distinct from other independent bottlers who also follow such practices. This and the relatively low strength makes their rums possess an unhurried, easygoing nature that is not to everyone’s taste (least of all full proof rummies or cask strength whisky lovers). This one in particular lacks overall development, but makes up for it with interesting tastes you have to work at to discern, and at end it was a rum you would not be unhappy to have shelled out for. At under sixty euros (if you can still find it) it’s pretty good value for money, and gives a really good introduction to the profile of a Guadeloupe outfit with which not everyone will be familiar and whose rums are nothing to sneeze at.

(#271 / 85/100)

Other notes

  • Distilled March 1998, bottled February 2015
  • 281 bottle outturn
  • No additives, filtering or adulteration.
  • Masters of Malt remarks this is made from molasses, not cane juice. Florent, when contacted, said: “Yes indeed it s a molasses rum. There are two Bellevue distilleries in Guadeloupe. One on Marie Galante producing cane juice rums. Another one at Le Moule producing molasses sometimes.”

Mana’o Jus de Canne Rhum Blanc – Review

 1 Response »
May 042016
 

Mana'o 1

Cool stoicism and subdued power, all in one rhum.

Standard “table” white rums have always been around, and perhaps appeal more to those mix them into gentle cocktails and go on to play Doom II on “Please Don’t Hurt Me” difficulty. In the main, the best known ones were — and are — filtered, light mixing agents which made to adhere to a philosophy best described as “We aim not to piss you off.” They excite a “ho-hum” rather than a “wtf?”

Not so the current crop of clear, unaged rums which have been making an increasing splash in our small world and driving cocktail makers and barflies into transports of ecstasy. They are more aggressive spirits in every way, often coming from pot-stills, with strong, assertive tastes that as often frighten as enthuse, and are admittedly tough to love. French Island white agricoles, cachaças (and clairins) are embodiments of this trend, which doesn’t stop other various makers from issuing variations from Jamaica, Guyana or Barbados (like the DDL High Wine, or Rum Nation’s Jamaican 57%, for example).

A new rhum aiming to break into this market reared its head in the 2016 Paris RhumFest – a product from, of all places, Tahiti, not the first country you would be thinking of as a bastion of the spirit. The rhum was launched by Brasserie du Pacifique in late 2015, has a sleek looking website short on details, and when I drifted by Christian’s place in Paris a week or two back, he and Jerry Gitany insisted I try it. It aimed, I suspect, to straddle the mid-point of the white market – it was not so unique as the clairins, and not so filtered-to-nothing as the Lambs or Bacardis of the world. In pursuing this philosophy, they’re channeling the French islands’ agricoles, carving themselves out a very nice niche for those who have a thing for such rums but would prefer less roughness and adventurousness than the clairins provide so enthusiastically.

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Coming from first press sugar cane grown on the island of Taha’a (NW of Tahiti), it is made from a pot still (see my notes below), and presented itself as quite an interesting rhum. When gingerly smelled for the first time (at 50%, some caution is, as always, in order), you could see it had been toned down some – sure there were the usual wax and floor polish and rubber-turpentine leaders, they simply weren’t as potent as others I’ve tried. Vegetal, grassy, watery scents hung around the background, it was slightly more salt than sweet, and presented an intriguingly creamy nasal profile…something like a good brie and (get this) unsweetened yoghurt with some very delicate citrus peel.

To taste it was, at the beginning, very robust, almost full bodied. Just short of hot; and dry, dusty vegetals and hay danced across the palate immediately, accompanied by sweet sherbet and mint ice cream notes. And that wax and polish stuff I smelled? Gone like yesterday’s news. As it opened up and water was added,it became very much more like a traditional agricole, with watery elements – sugar cane sap, white guavas, pears, cucumber, dill, watermelon – getting most of the attention, and lighter herbal and grassy tastes taking something of a back seat. I said it started robustly, but in truth, after a while, it settled down and became almost light – it was certainly quite crisp and pleasant to drink, with or without water. The fade was pretty good, long and lasting, salty and sweet at the same time, with some last hints of lemongrass, crushed dill, faint mint and olives finishing things off.

This was a well-behaved drink on all fronts, I thought. It’s not terribly original, and my personal preferences in such whites run closer to more untamed, barking mad clairins and the higher-proofed French agricoles — but you could easily regard this as a decent introduction to the white stuff if you wanted more than a standard table tipple, but less than the deep pot still pungency coming out of Haiti. Sometimes we focus so hard on the Caribbean that we lose sight of new companies from other countries who are shaking things up in the rumworld and producing some pretty cool rums. This looks be one of those, and I doubt you’d be displeased if you bought it.

(#270. 84/100)

Other notes

  • The website makes mention of the use of a “discontinuous pot still”. As far as I am aware, the term arose from a bad translation of the Spanish “alembique descontínuo” which is simply a pot still by another name.
  • It is unclear whether the Tahitian company Ava Tea, supposedly the oldest distillery in Tahiti, is directly involved in the making of this rhum, or just lent some technical expertise (and the pot still).
  • Mana’o means “to think” or “to remember” in Polynesian languages (including Hawaiian), and has many subtler shades of meaning. It’s probably a sly reminder that sugar cane originated in Asia.

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GDL El Dorado Bonded Reserve Rum – Review

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Apr 282016
 

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A rum from Ago. Perhaps only a Guyanese or a retired British Navy man could truly love it.

For the most part, over the last months I’ve concentrated on fairly well known rums, made by bottlers with whom we’re all reasonably familiar. Today, I’m going to reach into the past a bit, to the Guyana Distillers El Dorado Bonded Reserve. Sorry, what? I can hear you say, You mean DDL don’t you, Mr. Caner? Yeah…and no. This rum was made in the early 1980s before DDL changed its name, and in it was one of those hooches like the King of Diamonds, now long gone and out of production…in it, we can see what local rum was like before El Dorado was launched to the overseas market in 1992.

Sampling this rum pulled back a curtain of the mind. As a young man, I had had it years ago, before DDL became what it now is, before craft rums and independent bottlers were up to their current stature, and way before the El Dorado line had established itself as one of the baselines of the rum world. You’re not going into the extreme past like with the G&M Long Pond 1941, St Andrea 1939 or even the St James 1885, no…but the Bonded Reserve does demonstrate how fast the rum world has in fact evolved since those days – because I cannot remember trying anything quite like it in recent memory.

It was an old bottle. The label was faded and old fashioned, the tinfoil cap spoke to different days. Even the bottle glass looked worn and tired. Within it was a 40% rum that decanted a golden rum into the glass. It smelled thin and dusty, with not much going on at the inception – some smoke and leather and vanilla, a touch of caramel and grapes, raisins, with some cumin and molasses to round things out, all quite subdued and tepid.

D3S_3880Tasting the Bonded Reserve raised all sorts of questions, and for anyone into Mudland rums, the first one had to be the one you’re all thinking of: from which still did it come? I didn’t think it was any of the wooden ones – there was none of that licorice or fruity intensity here that so distinguishes them. It was medium to light bodied in texture, very feebly sweet, and presented initially as dry – I’d suggest it was a column still product. Prunes, coffee, some burnt sugar, nougat and caramel, more of that faint leather and smoke background, all rounded out with the distant, almost imperceptible murmuring of citrus and crushed walnuts, nothing special. The finish just continued on these muted notes of light raisins and molasses and toffee, but too little of everything or anything to excite interest beyond the historical.

To be honest, the rum was so divergent from the firm, crisp, well-known profiles of todays’ Demeraras that it suggested an almost entirely different product altogether. It could just as easily have been a Trini or Bajan rum, or even (with some imagination) a softer Spanish-style product. Given that it won a double gold medal in Leipzig in 1982, one can only hazard that the competition that year was feeble, and the rum renaissance through which we fortunate beings are currently living through had yet to gather a head of steam.

In fine, then, it’s almost, but not quite, an historical artifact. It’s no longer for sale, isn’t being made, and it was by mere happenstance that I saw this on the Whisky Exchange in 2014 and had some spare cash left over . Rating it might do it an injustice, because you’ll look long and hard to ever find its twin…I might have bought the last one.

So, how do I put this? Well, let’s see – it’s a rum, contains alcohol, and that’s nice; it’s not entirely bad, or undrinkable. It will do good things to your cocktail, and there’s my recommendation for it, I guess, because at the end, assuming you ever see a bottle, you probably won’t ever enjoy it any other way.

(#269. 77/100)

Other notes

  • Peter’s Rum Labels in Czech Republic have this exact label on file, but noted as being made by DDL. DDL was formed in 1983 when Diamond Liquors (Sandbach-Parker’s company) and Guyana Distillers (Booker McConnell’s) were merged. So this rum had to be made between the time of the medal it won in 1982 and the creation of DDL in 1983. That would explain how I was able to still find it to drink in 1985 in many shops in Georgetown and the countryside.
  • Guyana Distillers was based out of Uitvlugt, which goes a long way to clarifying the lack of a characteristic or familiar profile, since their still was a four column French Savalle still, producing several different kinds of rum. Based on my tasting, I’d suggest the rum is less than five years old…maybe three or so

Banks DIH XM Royal Gold 10 Year Old – Review

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Apr 252016
 

D3S_5678

For me this is a rum that evokes real nostalgia, even though I’ve mostly moved past it.

I enjoy storytelling, but if rambling background notes and local anecdotes are not your thing, skip three paragraphs.

It was a fact of life in Guyana in the 1980s and 1990s that as one moved up the income scale from poor to less poor, one upgraded from Lighthouse matches to bic lighters to zippos; from leaky, loosely packed Bristol cigarettes to Benson & Hedges (gold pack, preferably made in the UK, not Barbados), and stopped swilling the pestilential King of Diamonds (which nowadays has gained stature only by being long out of production), younger XMs and High Wine rums, in favour of the somewhat more upscale Banks DIH 10 year old.

Alas, as a young man just growing out of training wheels and nappies, my slender purse (and near nonexistent income) relegated me to matches, Bristols and XM five, which my best friend John and I smoked and swilled in quantities that makes me shudder these days. We’d sit in the convival open-air tropical atmosphere of Palm Court, smoke up a storm (killing those butch Mudland-sized mosquitoes in their thousands), and call happily to our favourite waiter who knew us on sight “Double five, coke an’ a bowl a ‘ice, Prince!” followed by “Keep ‘em comin’! I don’ wan’ see de bottom o’ de glass.” I somehow suspect that were we to get together one of these years, John and I, this routine would not change appreciably, as long as Prince is still around.

D3S_5672Starting as “Demerara Ice House” (there really was an ice factory in Water Street, and yes, it’s still there) and now called D’Aguiar’s Industries and Holdings (hence the DIH) at the beginning of the 20th century, the D’Aguiar family built up a huge food and drinks conglomerate, of which rums remain a relatively small part – they were and remain one of the first and largest bottlers in the Caribbean. They have a huge facility right outside Georgetown in the fragrantly named “Thirst Park”, they make beer, soft drinks, distilled water (among many other consumer nibbles) and with respect to rums, act as blenders, not makers like DDL. Their best known rums back then were the 5, 10 and 15 year old, the Premium Blend, and to this has currently been added a VXO, 12 year old, a White and XM “Classic”. Legend has it they have a rum or two squirrelled away that’s 20 or 25 years old, but I never saw it myself. (And if you really are interested in a more in-depth look at Banks, see the company bio I posted in February 2018)

All right, so much for the reminiscing. What we had here was a tubby bottle quite different from the slim one I recall, containing a dark orange-gold rum bottled at 40%. The XM in the title stands for “eXtra Mature” and has always been a sort of informal title for the rums, since nobody ever refers to them as “Banks” – that moniker refers to the company’s beer. It was aged for close on to ten years in bourbon barrels, and then finished for another six months or so in cognac barrels, which allows the company to wax rhapsodic in its marketing materials about this being “a cognac of rums”.

Smelling the XM 10 made me wonder whether there wasn’t some Enmore or Port Mourant distillate coiling around inside, even if it’s true they don’t buy anything from DDL. It was warm and not too sweet, pungent with wet cardboard, cereal, vanilla, licorice, dried fruits and some faint rubbery, waxy undertones stopping just short of medicinal. It lacked heft, which was not too surprising given the standard strength, though most casual drinkers would have little to find fault with here – it was perfectly serviceable, if ultimately not earth-shaking in any way.

To taste it was quite good, and demonstrated some agreeable heft for a 40% rum (it reminded me somewhat of the Pusser’s 15 in that regard). Medium bodied, soft and quite warm, there was also a queer kind of thin-ness to the overall profile, which fortunately did not transmute into any kind of unpleasant sharpness. It entered with a sort of dusty driness, started with tart flavours of mango and anise and ginger cookies, then softened to flavours of red olives, vanilla, caramel, some light toffee, overripe cherries and bananas – overall, after some minutes the lasting impression it left on my mind was one of light sweetness and licorice, and the finish followed gently along from there, being warm and pleasantly lasting. It did not provide anything new or original over and beyond the taste, simply placed a firm exclamation point on the easy going profile that preceded it.

D3S_5677My own opinion was that it lacked body and needed a firmer texture…the XM 10, while not exactly anorexic, gave the impression of having rather more potential than actuality, and the flavours, decent and tasty enough by themselves, suffered somewhat from dumbing things down to standard strength (this may be my personal preferences talking — I’ve gone on record many times in stating that 40% is just not good enough for me anymore — so take that bias into account). On the other hand, maybe it’s like the DDL 12 year old, a bridge to the better rums in the XM universe like the 12 and the 15…and since I obtained those the other day, once I review them I can tell you whether this paucity of character is a characteristic of this rum only, or some sort of preference of the master blender that permeates the line. Honestly, I hope it’s the former.

(#268 / 82/100)

Other notes:

  • I find the cheap tinfoil cap to be somewhat surprising for a ten year old rum.
  • Nowadays Banks DIH no longer buy their bulk stock from Diamond and have no sugar cane fields, distillation apparatus or processing facilities of their own. They remain blenders, and buy raw rum from around the Caribbean (Trinidad and Barbados), which is one reason their juice is not and can not be called “Demerara” rum, the other being that DDL won a court case to have that distinction. Since this bottle notes the word “Demerara” on the back label, I suspect it was an older one dating back from before the court case, made from original stocks which were sourced in Guyana.
  • I was treated with extreme courtesy by Jerry Gitany and Christian de Montaguère at the latter’s eponymous shop in Paris last week: after selecting a raft of rums – about seventeen altogether – I plundered ten of their opened stocks, of which this was one. The Little Caner might have been bored out of his mind for the three hours it took me to work my way through those ten samples (it was meant to be only six…Jerry kept opening new bottles for me to try and my resistance was weak), but I had a wonderful time. Merci beaucoup, mes amis.

Velier Enmore (Versailles Still) 1988 19 Year Old Rum – Review

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Apr 222016
 

Enmore

It is a rum of enormous taste and great breadth of profile…and if it had been a little less serious, a little more forceful, I would have called mine Falstaff.

In spite of its light blonde colour, there has always been something dark and dour, almost Heathcliff-ish, about the Enmore rums, including this 1988 variation (maybe it’s the bottle design of black-on-dark-red). It’s a brilliantly done piece of work, a drone-quality delivery system for ensuring your taste buds get every bit of nuance that can be squeezed out. And that, let me tell you, is quite a bit.

So many people have written about Velier and its products (myself among them), in particular the Demeraras which made the company’s reputation, that I won’t rehash the background, as there are sufficient reference materials out there for anyone to get the details. With respect to this rum, however, some additional information is necessary. According to the label, it was continental aged, not the more heavily hyped tropical ageing that Velier espouses these days. Also, since it was distilled in November 1988 and bottled in March of 2008 it’s actually a nineteen year old rum, not twenty (which is why I’ve titled the review that way). And lastly, it was not one of those rums Velier selected in situ in Guyana and then bottled, but originally shipped to Europe in bulk and then chosen for bottling there. So in these respects it is somewhat at a tangent to more famous rums from the Italian company.

Does this matter to me? Not really. I like the wooden stills’ outputs as a whole, and have tried several Enmores, including the too-weak EHP issued by DDL itself in 2007. Overall, rare as they are, they are all worth (mostly) the coin, and if my love is more given to Port Mourant rums, this one does the brand no dishonour. In fact, it’s a very good product, adhering to many of the pointers we look for in rums from Guyana in general, and Velier in particular.

EHP_2

Getting right into it, I loved the nose…it was just short of spectacular, opening with coffee, toffee, and anise. Rich thick petrol and wax and shoe polish aromas developed rapidly, but they were well dialled down and in no way intrusive. Newcomer to rum who read this may shake their heads and ask “How can anyone taste crap like that and like it?” but trust me on this, the melding of these smells with the emergent molasses and fruity background, is really quite delicious, and I spent better than fifteen minutes coming back to it, over and over again,

Hay blonde (or light gold) in colour, one might think this meant a wussie little muffin of a rum. Nope. It was bottled at a mouth watering 51.9%, tasting it was a restrained kinetic experience – not on the level of the >60% beefcakes Velier occasionally amuses itself with (you know, the kind of rums where you can hear the minigun shells plinking on the ground as you drink) but sporting a taste vibrant enough to shake the shop I was in, if not so fiery as to require tongs to lift and pour. Medium-to-full bodied, the initial attack was straw, cedar, hay, dust and very little sweet of any kind. The wax and petrol, and smoky flavours were all there, yet not at all dominant, more a lighter counterpoint to others, which, after a few minutes, began a slow and stately barrage across the palate: dried dates, raisins, tart ripe mangoes, cloves, papaya, flowers, dark chocolate and a slight briny sense underlying it all. It was, I must stress, quite a powerful overall drink, in spite of it not being as strong as others I’ve tried over the years. “Firmly intense” might describe it best.

The finish was one to savour as well. It was of medium length, a little dry, and gave up no particularly new notes to titillate, merely developed from the richness the preceded it. Some additional sweet came forward here, a vague molasses and caramel, more chocolate – the best thing about it was a lovely creaminess at the back end, which did not detract in the slightest from dark fruits, more freshly sawn wood, a little smoke, brine and chocolate.

Velier was bottling rums since around 2000, and for my money their golden years occurred when they issued the best of the Demeraras, around 2005-20102– that’s when the 1970s editions rolled out (like the Skeldon and PM, for example). And if, good as it is, the Enmore 1988 doesn’t ascend quite to the heights of many others, no lover of Demerara rums can fail to appreciate what Luca did when he issued it. The Enmore falls right into that band of remarkable Velier offerings, and the romantic in me supposes that it was made at a time when Luca was mature enough in his choices to pick well, but still young enough to remember the reasons why he loved rums in the first place. All the reasons he loved them. This rum is one of the showcases of the still, the country, and the man.

(#267. 89/100)

Other notes

  • 419 bottle outturn from two barrels.
  • Personal thanks and a big hat tip go to Pietro Caputo of Italy, who sent me the sample gratis.
  • Top and bottom pictures come from Marco Freyr of Barrel-Aged-Mind, who also reviewed this rum.

Enmore 1988 1

 

St. Nicholas Abbey White Rum – Review

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Apr 132016
 

D3S_3647

A tasty, unaged, pot-still white rum, which St. Nicholas Abbey seems to have made while in a playfully experimental phase.

So there I was last week, reading through my notes and writing unenthusiastically about the 3 year old “Real McCoy” white rum from Barbados, which found little favour with me. But consider this unaged counterpart made right up the road from St. Nicholas Abbey, also issued at 40%, also a white and in just about every way a superior product. What could account for such a difference? Well, part of it is the lack of filtration, another is the source – it is a full pot still product, not a blend of pot and column. Double distilled and with a longer than usual fermentation period (5 days plus two more of “resting”).

Whatever the case, unaged white pot still rums are getting quite a bit of attention these days, moving the rum world away from dependable silver mixing agents whose name everyone knows, to something a bit more…well, adventurous. Clairins and agricoles have always been around and are leading the charge, but cachacas are making some waves too, and if more makers like Nine Leaves, St. Nicks and Rum Nation and others are spending time and money on making them, the next few years will be quite interesting on that front.

This particular rum tried very hard to walk the line between too much and too little, and succeeded pretty well: not for St. Nicks’s was the dumbing down of their product to appeal to a mass market by making a rum that wouldn’t offend anyone; and yet dialling up the volts to something that would be polarizing was not for them either. They issued it in a smart looking bottle, at a tolerable 40%, and it was soothing enough to appeal without entirely disguising the potential and tamed wildness of its antecedents.

A rum like the White can only really be appreciated by trying it in tandem with rums like it up and down the scale. For example, take the aromas: wax, olives, paraffin wax, floor polish and brine leaped out of the glass, and I know how unappetizing that sounds (I was fortunate in that I’ve tried more potent popskull and so I kinda knew what to expect). But if you compare it with the DDL Superior High Wine, Rum Nation Pot Still 57%, or the Clairin Sajous, (or the Vaval, or the Casimir) which all packed more punch, you could make a reasoned argument that 40% really works for a larger drinking audience with rums like this. The character of the rum might be dampened a bit, yet it’s still there, singing as chirpily as a cageful of canaries. And be comforted…after some minutes the nose does even out a bit, bringing forward more floral notes, the light sugariness of candyfloss, papaya and sugar water…even a flirt of light honey. However, it should be noted that there were few signs of any of that vegetal, grassy smell which is so prevalent in agricoles.

The taste was also quite intrguing. I was expecting that oily, paraffin bedrock to continue, and indeed, this was there, just not that dominant. The profile, which began with some heat, was reasonably smooth, sweet, light and clear, presenting anise, flowers and ripe cherries that kept what most would call unpleasant off-notes in the background, where they contributed a note or two — the floor polish was noticeable, for example — without overwhelming the taste outright. With water additional cinnamon, whipped cream and crushed walnuts could be discerned, and the finish, while short, was very crisp and clear, without any driness at all. Considering that I walked up to the St. Nick’s not expecting much of anything, it was a very pleasant surprised to be pampered by the overall worth of what I initially took to be just another throwaway white mixer.

Summing up, then, I think this is a very good all purpose white rum, and if it does not ascend to the heights of crazy as exemplified by the stronger rums noted above, you can see it had the potential to do so had they decided to beef it up some more. It retained enough character and zest to stand by itself and possesses sufficient off notes to enhance whatever cocktail you’re thinking of dunking it into. In that sense, it’s a great “bridge” rum — it can be for both drinking neat or mixing, and would neither alienate those who despised the more elemental pot still whites, nor piss off the guys who prefer something that gives more bassa-bassa. When you think about it, for any clear rum to pull off that trick is quite a feat, and that’s part of why the St. Nick’s product (and many agricole white rums) succeeds, when the white McCoy three year old, or other industrial white mixing fodder like Bacardi Superior so sadly don’t. And it also succeeds, for my money, because it had the guts to actually go somewhere new.

(#266. 83/100)

Other notes

  • The source distillate in this case is not Foursquare, but St. Nick’s own stocks, from their own sugar cane.

Rhum Barbancourt Réserve Spéciale (1970s)

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Apr 102016
 

Barbancourt Reserve Speciale

Rumaniacs Review 021 | 0421

Here’s a pretty decent, if somewhat anorexic, rhum from Haiti, courtesy of the House of Barbancourt. The name “Réserve Spéciale” is still in use, and refers these days to an eight year old, but so scarce is any kind of information on the sample I was provided (even getting a photo was problematic hence the lousy quality of the one you see here), that for me to say it was an eight year old back then is an educated guess, not a fact. Still, info or no info, a sample was sent, and there it is and here we are. It’s not something a rum junkie can ignore.

Colour – dark amber

Strength – 43%

Nose – Thin and yet still very aromatic. Lots going on here – light cherries, and dark prunes, fried bananas and french bread covered over with green grape skins and dark chocolate (I know how that sounds, believe me) – the way it all comes together is tailor made for leisurely sniffing.

Palate – For a rum this dark, it’s surprisingly delicate…y’know, like a sumo wrestler wearing heels. Heated with a sly citrus sharpness to leaven it all. More plums and ripe cherries carrying over from the nose, to which is added grapes, black olives, vanilla, cinnamon and some cardamon as it develops. With water not much changes, some vague grassier hints round things out. It’s actually quite a smooth product, once it settles down. Still lacks real body though.

Finish – Short and easy, warm and fragrant. Florals, lemon zest, grass, vague but unidentifiable fruitiness plus some vanilla. A bit too thin, really, but I concede that what it does present is nothing to sneeze at.

Thoughts – Nothing much to say. A decent agricole all the way through. The modern Barbancourt series are not very far away from this, which says a lot about the overall consistency of the line through the decades.

(83/100)

Opinion

Sometimes even a short series of notes like those above illustrate larger points about the rum universe.

What is becoming clearer as I do these reviews, is that while independent bottlers take care to keep track of and list every one of their offerings — including from which country, from what year and at what strength — more commercial “country-based” makers (like DDL, Barbancourt, Mount Gay, Angostura, St. Lucia Distilleries, Flor de Cana, the Travellers, the Jamaicans etc etc) who keep a single line of rums stable for many years, never really bother. That’s why Carl Kanto could mourn the passing of older DDL rums marketed in the pre-El-Dorado days, of which no trace, no list, no photograph, no profile, and no sample remains.

I believe that in these cloud based internet days, every rum maker owes it to the generations to come to preserve a complete set of every rum they have ever made, are making, and will make — in writing and in photographs, and maybe with a few cases squirrelled away in a vault someplace. It may seem like a waste now, but in fifty years it would be a treasure beyond price. And as we all get older ourselves, haven’t we all noted that the years are passing more quickly? That fifty years will be gone in a heartbeat.

 

 

 

The Real McCoy 3 Year Old White Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
Apr 092016
 

D3S_3629

Bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts will get more out of this than I ever will. It redefines the word “understated.”

Knowing how I have never been entirely satisfied with rums from Barbados, I decided to buy a few about which many have waxed rhapsodic, followed that up with trying as many as I could at the 2015 Berlin rumfest, and continued on the theme by begging my friends in Europe for samples of their personal stocks of independent bottlers’ Bajans. Let’s see if I can’t get to the bottom of why — with just a few exceptions — they don’t titillate my tonsils the way so many others have and do.

Take for example this white three year old from the “Real McCoy” company, which is using stocks from Foursquare. Others have written about Bill McCoy, a Prohibition era rumrunner who never adulterated his stocks (some of which came from Foursquare, according to a documentary made by Bailey Pryor). Apparently Mr. Pryor was so enthused by what Bill McCoy had done that he approached Richard Seale with a view to creating a modern equivalent: and after some time, the 3 year old white, a 5 year old and a 12 year old were out the door in 2014. This one is a blend of copper pot and column still distillate, 40% ABV, aged in American ex-bourbon oak, and an offering to bartenders and barflies and mixologists everywhere.

D3S_3629-001

Part of my dissatisfaction with filtered white rums meant for mixing was demonstrated right away by the aromas winding up through my glass: I had to to wait around too long for anything to happen. The nose was warm and faintly rubbery, with some faint tannins in there, sugar water, light cream,and a green olive hanging around with maybe three marshmallows. A flirt of vanilla loitered around in the back there someplace but in fine, I just couldn’t see that much was going on. “Subtle” the marketing plugs call it. “Pusillanimous” was what I was thinking.

To be fair, a lot more started jumping out of the glass when the tasting started. It was crisper and clearer and firmer than the nose, a little peppery, more vanilla, cucumbers, dill, ripe pears, sugar cane sap. It’s not big, it’s not rounded, and the range of potential tastes was too skimpy to appeal to me. Skimpy might work for a bikini, but in a rum it’s a “Dear John” letter, and is about as enthusiastically received. The finish? Longish – surprisingly so, for something at 40%, though still too light. More sugar and dill, guavas and pears, and that odd olive made a small comeback. I’m sorry, guys, but this isn’t my thing at all. I want more.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to kick off the Barbados tour with a filtered white 3 year old. It was thin, watery, too weak, and the tastes struggled to get out and make themselves felt. Maybe it’s the charcoal filtration that takes out some of what I like in my rums. The profile is there, you can sense it, just not come to grips with it…it’s tantalizingly just out of reach, and like the Doorley’s XO, it lacks punch and is simply too delicate for my personal palate. For its price point and purpose it may be a tough rum to beat, mind you, but my personal preferences don’t go there. And having had white rums from quite a few makers who revel in producing fierce, joyous, in-your-face palate shredders, perhaps you can understand why something this easy going just makes me shrug and reach for the next one up the line.

(#265. 74/100)

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