Ruminsky

Rewinding 2023: The Year in Rum

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Jan 052024
 

Speaking from my solitary spot in the rumiverse, 2023 was in many ways a year of challenges and changes and oddly enough, also of maintaining the status quo and holding the line. It was an exciting year with many new experiences and many new rums, and while I could not attend quite as many festivals as I might have preferred — or met as many friends, colleagues, aficionados and rum people as I wanted to — in many respects the year was a success on other levels and I really can’t complain except for one thing: I didn’t get to taste enough, or write enough. All this while the rum world was expanding and generating ever more new and fascinating branches and going in some interesting directions.

So here’s my observations on the state of the rumiverse, and my commentary on emerging trends and some interesting issues that popped up over the year.

Personal

For those who know something of my vagabond nomadic existence, the big event of 2023 was that after ten years living and working abroad, I returned with my family to Canada, leaving behind a stash of rums in Europe which — in spite of much begging, pleading, negotiating or even outright conniving — had to stay there because the duties and tax levied on shipping such a huge collection were simply unaffordable. One of these days I’ll figure out what to do with it, I guess. 

Happily, the decade away showed me that at least Alberta (if not other provinces) began to get a pretty good rum selection, often from abroad but also from Canadian producers. Admittedly we get only the most occasional Velier rum, and none of the Foursquare ECS series; most of the indies are absent, agricole availability remains weak and juice from the Far East, Taiwan or Australia are wistful daydreams; but enough distillery and independent bottlings are now being seen that one can reasonably pick up a cask strength rum from Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, Japan, and even the odd American edition, with some sleuthing…a high point for me was finding the Japanese Teeda 21 YO, for example.

On the flip side, what with trying to get professional, family and social life back into order, it made writing harder; a lot of that was just finding the time and energy to keep it up. The level of written output maintained for so many years – two reviews a week, essays, opinion pieces, articles and what have you – declined, and so for 2023 I only wrote 86 reviews (vs 88 the year before) even though I travelled less; wrote no published opinions (though quite a few unpublished ones), made no new lists, posted no essays. The Key Rums and Makers series languished somewhat for lack of time to do the deep dives they require: they limped along. And there were at least regular updates to several reference posts which I like keeping an eye on: the Strongest Rums of the World, the Guide to Online Resources and the Annual Global Rumfest Schedule, all of which I think are really useful, and which should not be left to become dated. I remained active on Reddit and posted a few longform comments, but let’s face it — the reduction in output was marked. This was and is frustrating because there are a lot of things I want to research and document more deeply, and the hope is that in 2024 as things settle down I can resume a better output and address these.

Other stuff

Being able to interact with people in an environment where alcohol was not illegal — which is to say, outside of a rum festival environment – was also something I had not realised I missed so much during years of enforced teetotalling. People could actually come over and taste with me. I could attend a tasting, and get a bit of a buzz on, talk to interesting people, meet new ones. The New Renegade tasting run by Jane Nurse at Willow Park was a great evening, and I reconnected with all the fun people at Kensington Wine Market (especially when they had a rum tasting of their own). Mitch Wilson passed through on his world tour, and I attended his Black Tot session in Edmonton; I met Karl Mudzamba of Bira! when he came to Calgary and had an awesome afternoon riffing about the subject with him and some friends. And having Logan, Dwayne, Carter and Neil come over to share their finds and damage my shelf on a weekend afternoon was just a great experience. That said, the store people at major emporia almost totally ignore this category and know little about it, nobody outside the extremely small circle of rumdorks in Western Canada has a clue that there even is such a reviewer as the ‘Caner, and so the obscurity that I began with has come full circle.  C’est la vie.

Mitch of Black Tot and the Krzysiek (the Rum Explorer), Berlin 2023, on the cruise….

With respect to rum festivals, well, those had to be chosen carefully and it was with real regret that I passed on Paris for their major events in March and October and had to limit things to the TWE and German rum shows, which was a decision driven by their being a week apart so attending both was feasible. They were great though: going on a nighttime rum cruise in Berlin with Matt & Carrie, Mitch, the Colours of Rum crowd, the Rum Explorer and Mrs. Caner was an event of which I will retain fond memories; I met up with Alex of the Rum Barrel, Steve Magarry from Oz, Dawn Davies, Dirk Becker, Pete Holland, the Skylark boys, Kris Van S., the UK rum-loving crowd, and of course the UK rum-making crowd from all those amazing little distilleries up and down the country. Overall, I just had a lot of fun walking around and talking to people.

Unsurprisingly, my new location almost demanded that my focus on which rums to review be shifted again, as they already have several times. My desire to try more rums from Australia was temporarily sated (though I look forward with real eagerness to writing about the 2023 Advent Calendar), and I have a backlog of rums from new distilleries from the UK to write about. I lack access to the best of the newest that’s out there – in that respect Canada has not really changed – but on the flip side this leaves me free to spend some time looking at what Canada itself has to offer. For the most part, my initial forays have proved uninspiring – especially among the white rums – but there are glimmers of light in the darkness. Romero and Ironworks demonstrated real quality, for example, and I know there are others to be found and written about.

Passing 1,000

Another event of some note was, of course, that the ‘Caner finally hit that once-unthinkable milestone of the 1,000th review. You have to understand what that meant to a guy who, when he started, once thought that making it to a hundred was cool beans…and didn’t even think there were a thousand rums to taste (let alone that they could be sourced). I’m not the first to get there – Serge Valentin was and remains way ahead (as I write this in the final days of 2023 he’s closing fast on 2000 rum entries) and I’m of the firm opinion that had Wes Burgin (The Fat Rum Pirate) not taken a leave of absence from the reviewing gig he would have gotten to that stat next since he wrote and posted fast and more often. But you’ll forgive me for being just a little proud of the accomplishment. The enormous catalogue of essay-length reviews, none of which was phoned in or just dashed off, all of which I can stand behind, has proved to be a consumer reference tool as useful in it own way as any book out there; and hardly a week goes by when someone doesn’t ask about a rum from decades ago which now only lurks on those sometimes obscure and forgotten posts. Tasting notes go stale within a few years, but as snapshots of a moment in time the background details and surrounding context do serve a useful function to laypeople now getting involved in the field…and this is why, although I think the Key Rums series is important, my real love is given to the Rumaniacs, started so many years ago in Paris.

Anyway, as an aside: when I began approaching the milestone I wanted to write about something very special. I sent out an exploratory note to Luca Gargano in Genoa to see if there was anything I could raid his legendary warehouse for, but that got nowhere. And seeing how occasionally, very occasionally, Richard Seale puts out a two- or three-bottle extraordinary release for worthy causes, I seriously considered approaching the man and asking him what could be done…but couldn’t find the courage (or the arrogance to pretend it was a huge deal to anyone except myself). Yet, as luck and a penchant for sniffing around liquor stores would have it, one day I found that amazing Lost Spirits Jamaican rum from 1976 gathering dust (for two freakin’ years!) in an Edmonton shop, and after thinking hard about it for a fortnight, ended up getting the bottle, it became Review #1000, and never regretted that for a moment – it’s now another one of those rums for which I need a special occasion to share with others.

Developments in the Greater Rum World

With respect to the rumiverse generally, here are few observations I made throughout the year.

For one, the number of independent bottlers just keeps increasing every year, and it seems like each turn around the sun brings a new challenger out to the front, in a way that just excites people’s interest and ignites their enthusiasm.  In past year we had the Companie, 1423, Nobilis, Bira!, Rom Deluxe, Valinche & Mallet, TBRQ, Dram Mor, Nectar of the Daily Drams, Swell de Spirits, Rum Sponge and others, and I don’t think it’s wrong to say the Polish company Colours of Rum was the one people were looking at in 2023, if the scuttlebutt, social media commentary and sheer visibility factor is taken into account – certainly they seem to be all over the place these days and the rums they select are damned fine. Holmes Cay is also of note: they made waves mostly in the States and now have an increasing presence in Europe as well (especially with that thundering duo of the uber-aged pot still Foursquare rum and the Grand Arome from Savanna they came out with).

Alas, we lost sight of Sangar from Liberia, and I heard Toucan from French Guiana folded its tents which is a shame and a loss for all of us. Mim in Ghana has changed hands I think; fortunately there’s a fair bit of their juice floating around Europe. Nine Leaves in Japan is having some difficulties and I don’t think they’re doing much right now, and Moscoso in Haiti is using others’ facilities to make their klerens. As always we have losses to offset the gains.

Concurrent with all that, are a plethora of new and small distilleries emerging from around the world. In the UK we saw Retribution, Ninefold, Outlier, Dropworks, J. Gow and the Islay Rum Company take on greater visibility (they were founded in previous years and I met many in 2022, but they deserve mention again here). Matugga out of Uganda is going strong in a new direction. Australian distilleries like Killik, Tin Shed, Husk and Beenleigh began to be represented more in the indies’ repertoire, and none too soon, because a raft of others making rums of equal quality is snapping at their heels and I’m convinced we’ll see many more cross our sightline in the years to come (and none too soon).  The Asian scene remained quiet and I can’t say I saw much from Sampan, Vientiane or Issan on the festival circuit, but I know they’re all still there so maybe I just attended the wrong festivals and didn’t shop enough.

With the pretty half of Renaissance Distillery – TWE Rumshow 2023

If I had to single out a single distillery for kudos — outside the indies, the Aussies or the New Brits (and I loved them all) — it’s going to have to be Renaissance out of Taiwan, whose single cask, full-proof, sub-five year old rums were simply astonishing, all of them. Their coming out party was at the TWE Rumshow in July and I consider myself fortunate to not only meet the husband and wife team and their sons (same age as the Little Big Caner) but to attend their masterclass and find out more about what they went through to get to this stage….sort of like toiling for a decade to become an overnight success. I know they brought over their best half-dozen to wow us proles, but nobody can make six rums that good without knowing exactly what they’re doing.

And this brings me to an observation I had first made to myself a year ago, thought was premature to state in 2022, which now seems to be appropriate: young rums we would not have looked at seriously before have started to become really damned good. We are conditioned to look for big numbers and multi-decade old rums and yes, those will always be fine and expensive and command our desire.  Yet consider how many rums ten years or younger – even five years and below – have crossed our paths in the last few years and which enthralled, wowed and out-and-out impressed us. Renaissance was one, the Australians and Brits showed us a bunch of others, and even the various blends coming out of more established distilleries around the Caribbean are showing a serious uptick in quality and appreciation. My friends in the whisky world groused many years ago that first the distilleries and blenders made a big thing of “age is everything” until aged stocks ran low at which point they switched the mantra to “age isn’t everything” in their marketing.  Perhaps the same thing also happened in rum, but the amount of new distilleries selling really fantastic younger rums to make cash flow suggests that our little corner of the spirits world may simply be better at making such elixirs.

Arminder, the gent behind Rum Revival, (c) Rum Revival Instagram feed

Online Resources

If you were to consider only website-based reviewers you might think the writing gig is one of diminishing interest and output. I have come to the realisation that this is not so, it’s just that the format and platform and methodology has changed. The rum writing and reviewing game is as vibrant as ever, one only has to look elsewhere.

Some years ago I commented on my dissatisfaction with the increasing prevalence of the “short form” review model (you could argue Serge Valentin popularised if not actually created it), whereby quick, tasty little McNuggets of reviews are written, tasting notes are briskly and succinctly provided and a score assigned. I felt – then and to some extent now – that bereft of context and without placing of a rum in its larger universe, with no provision of some historical or other background, such reviews may be quick to write and lend themselves to building a fast library of tasting notes, but are not always as valuable in the long term. However, in all the ensuing years, the trend has continued and it’s time to stop whining and simply accept that this is the way the world now consumes information. And indeed some of these little reviews, which are almost always platform-based on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or even FB, are pretty good, with the subreddit /r/rum being the best of them all, and Instagram coming right behind it.

It’s not just written micro-reviews either. Other formats are becoming more prevalent. A new short-form video reviewer I like, Arminder Randhawa, started his Instagram feed and YouTube channel “Rum Revival” in 2022; and 2023 is when he really picked up a head of steam and became much more well known. I met him at TWE Rumshow in July and he’s pretty much the same as he is in his videos: fun, pleasant, engaging. In his videos he is crisp, informative and has good editing chops – his presentations really move along and unlike some others, eschew gimmickry, stay resolutely focused and on point which is why he can get away with very short ones. 

Older stalwarts like Steve the Barman (on YouTube) remain fixtures on the video scene and almost makes me want to try a spiced rum on occasion (he lives in hope). His philosophy is simply that somebody needs to talk about these bottom feeders as well and so he does it, with a blend of enthusiasm and fast talk that is really fun to watch. He has not changed my mind so far, but then, he doesn’t need to. And a hat tip to Ready Set Rum in the USA who has much fun with his friends and rums as he ever did. All three of these made the Rum Raiders “Five Most Influential Rum YouTube Channels of 2023” list – along with Nia of My Rum Diaries and the duo of Roger and Robert of Just Drinking.

In any event, what I did not see as clearly then but which has slowly come into focus, is that such visual or short form reviews are part of the third internet generation of creative endeavour.  This is a generation of creatives which moves a lot faster, attracting a cohort of the consuming audience whose attention span is a lot shorter and probably skews younger. Thousand word essays are passe, reading is so yesterday, and it’s crisp little reviews that make up the bulk of the reviewing ecosystem these days, including the video reviews and podcasts that have become more popular, and this is where I should give a loud shout out to the pair of Will Hoekinga and John Gulla who run that always excellent biweekly podcast The RumCast, which for me is required listening even when I disagree with them. With the exception of Steve and Ralfy who are in the UK, they serve a primarily American audience (and this shows if you know what you’re looking for), but all have a reach far exceeding that and should not be ignored.

A quick roundup of the others around the world: the UK rum reviewing scene has tilted and the three long time resources of Rum Diaries Blog, Rumshop Boy and The Fat Rum Pirate have ceased writing. They remain active on social media and the general rum community but hardly review any longer. Into their place have stepped others. Alex of the Rum Barrel is one of the best: he is a bartender at Trailer Happiness and you sort of wonder where he finds the time to be so prolific; his UK rum distillery tour is an example of the passion and breadth he brings to the subject. Another is Stuart, who runs the Secret Rum Bar and is a short form multi-bottle reviewer in the vein of Single Cask Rum and WhiskyFun. He takes horizontal or vertical tastings as his schtick, and it’s always a good read. Sandor over in Hungary must come in for mention, as he is a long form writer who writes in Hungarian and one of a kind over there, single handedly fighting to get rum some recognition in Eastern Europe. 88 Bamboo represents Asia in fine style and I look forward to the day I can meet their editorial and writing team. Nothing in Australia that I know of (which remains a shame), and Africa and South America remain silent (or at least unknown to me). In the USA, it’s mostly rum clubs (like Austin or Memphis) and reddit contributors with ancillary websites that churn out content these days, and none have made a larger impact outside their region so far as I can tell, though I usually read them all.

The Soapbox Commentary Section

It was with some relief that I observed that to some extent, the vituperation that so characterised 2019-2021 online discourse died down — at least a bit — as COVID receded and the great social movements the world experienced took a break, as they inevitably do – until the next crisis. 

But by no means are any of the issues gone: they’re sleeping, not dead and it seems like people just need something to get them fired up when things gets too quiet. Dosing and disclosure remain on the docket and reliably come up for rancorous discussion every few months on some platform or the other. A fair amount of people who regularly dive into this subject cheered when another lawsuit was filed against a multinational for bad label design related to its ageing, without ever bothering to actually check what the laws really require and what will very likely happen (which is nothing).

The Ministry of Rum FB group, one of the largest social media rum clubs, became a cause célèbre for a while. The issues that got people sharpening their digital codpieces were a combination of  a change in the ethos of the group (to a less adversarial, more inclusive — but also more dollar-centric and monetised — track), the treatment of existing mods/admins, and the seemingly arbitrary removal or banning of those who posted controversial opinions and commentary, without warning. This flashed in the pan until those who it affected (unsurprisingly, this was mostly the same ones who comment the most about all the usual flashpoints) departed the group en masse and immediately found more congenial FB homes. I genuinely didn’t approve (or see the point) of either side’s high handed actions given how many options each had, but there’s no question that the cesspit that the MoR had become is much less brutal now…at the expense of a certain Darwinian character it once held. Not everyone appreciates the change, probably because there are now limits where before there had been none.

The long standing issue of the Barbados and Jamaica GI remains unresolved, and continues to elevate rhetoric and blood pressures in equal measure, even as the spillover to MF / Plantation continues apace on social media.  I find nothing but a raging desire to be right, to shut down dissent, and to target favoured enemies in petty vendettas in most of these posts, and have almost completely disengaged from any discussions on the subject, or even reading them, because how many times do you have to hear “Plantation is sh*t” before you get it? The GI is of great importance and I’m personally behind a strong version endorsed by Foursquare, SNA and Mount Gay (the most recent version of which most commentators have never read), but I argue that the lack of tolerance, the inability to be reasonable, to see points of view other than one’s own, has done more to hurt the case than help it. I simply cannot understand — and will never accept — the constant hate  and personal attacks promulgated by a pompous commentariat who have no skin in the game but are somehow okay with telling everyone else what to think and drink (or what not to)1. And this is why thoughtful people simply sign off from getting involved, which is to everyone’s detriment. Moreover, I am convinced that it’s just a matter of time before one of these flame wars gets physical, and when (not if) it happens, you can be sure that the loudest voices who make the environment so toxic will never take any blame for inciting it. It’s a measure of how deeply this issue and the self-censorship it engenders has become embedded in the rum ecosystem, that I rewrote this one paragraph six times and pruned it savagely (it’s a summary of a much longer unpublished opinion piece), and even now I’m leery about the reaction it will inevitably provoke. But it has to be said and someone has to come straight out and say it – the enmity that people provoke and promote with their intractable trolling does our world no service, because like it or not, Plantation is not going anywhere and the GI is not in our hands…so all that spilled digital ink is accomplishing nothing positive at all. It’s time to take a step back and calm down.

Favourite Reviews / Articles of 2022

As I said, my output decreased somewhat with respect to the essays and commentaries and company biographies but here are some that managed to stand out, even if only in my personal opinion:

  • A user on reddit asked about my tasting methods when there are loads of samples to go through, so I wrote him an extended explanatory reply. 
  • An extended opinion on the background surrounding the Tamosi “Kanaima” rum formed an addendum to the review which I think was a useful correction and counterweight to the vitriol that had attended the release of the rum a few years ago (which many forgot about, but I didn’t). It just goes to show how much savage commentary is driven by feelings, ego and a desire to be heard rather than anything more thoughtful or knowledgeable.
  • Only two Key Rums articles went up this year (although there is material for more to come) – the Bacardi “Ocho” and the Plantation OFTD, the latter of which was posted with some trepidation (see Soapbox, above), but which was received reasonably well.
  • The Sugar House Overproof rum review was a cheerful look at a masterful unaged rum from one of the New Brits which impressed me to the tune of 90 points. I had similar fun with L’Espirit’s “still strength” unaged MPM rum from Guyana and reread it every now and then for a laugh. Similarly, I enjoyed writing about the Outlier Distillery’s impressive “Hurricane” rum which was bottled at a growly 64% and had taste chops to die for, which was almost matched by the Bundie Overproof.
  • A small series of Rumaniacs reviews of older Bacardis is useful for the window they open into the past — R149 – R154
  • Review #1,000 must come in for mention here as I spent a lot of time researching it and even more drinking it. It’s one of the most magnificent rums I’ve ever tried, both for taste and for heritage.

Best Rums Tasted During the Year

As before I decided to stick with the Rumcast’s simple categorization (more or less) otherwise this post (already overlong) would become unmanageable.  Even within that restriction, it’s really kind of amazing how many fantastic rums crowded into my sightline this year, whether through tastings, festivals, the generosity of friends or simple happenstance (“Oys!! You gotta try dis ting, mon!”). I remain grateful and enriched by the sheer variety I was able to try…which, in 2023, numbered more than 200.

Unaged Rum

It’s not that I didn’t try more unaged rums than this small list suggests, it’s just that overall they were good but not always exceptional.  I could just as easily have added a Savanna or three, and several more from Australia and the UK.  These however, were the ones that stood out to me, and for my money, that HSE was simply the very best of a really strong field with the stunning Islay Rum Distillery Uine Mhor coming a close second. I should have bought myself a bottle, honestly.

Aged Rum (5 years or less)

  • JM VSOP 4YO 43% (Martinique)
  • Rom Deluxe STCHE 2019 3YO Longpond (Denmark/Jamaica) 69.6%
  • Chalong Bay Double Barrel 2YO 47% (Thailand)
  • TBRC Black Gate Australian Rum 3YO 57.2% (UK/Australia)
  • Hampden DOK 2017 5YO 64.6% (Jamaica)
  • Ninefold Distillery Watson’s Reserve 3YO No.1 59% (UK)
  • Renaissance Rums, Taiwan

Australia, Martinique, Jamaica, UK, Thailand, Taiwan…how to chose from such a cornucopia?  I almost hate to narrow things down to just one, because all entrants were uniformly lovely and showcased so much variety.  But this year, I want to give the blue ribbon to Renaissance for sheer overall excellence, even if the others were right there alongside it.

Aged rum (Over 5 years)

  • Rum Club No. 40 Beenleigh 2007 64.8% (Germany/Australia)
  • Appleton Hearts 3rd Edition 1993 63%(Jamaica)
  • Foursquare-Velier Raconteur 61% (Barbados)
  • TBRC Mount Uncle 12 YO Rum 64.9% (Australia)
  • Homes Cay Barbados 2002 20YO Pot still 51.1% (USA/Barbados)
  • The Last Drop Distillers 1976 44YO Rum 68.5% (UK/Jamaica)
  • Havana Club 11YO 50% (TWE Special Release)(Cuba)

It almost seems like blasphemy to pass by a magnificent Mount Uncle rum, a 20 YO Foursquare pot still, or one of the Appleton Hearts, yet I think from my own review notes, I have to award my best aged rum to the Last Drop 1976.  For those who want to have a nomination and award given to something they might actually get to try one day, I’m going to have to say Raconteur was surely a well deserved #2, though I emphasise how strong the entire field is, and that none would be a fail under any circumstances.

“New to me” rum

Honestly, my love is given to this section because this is where rums that don’t always score well — some do, some don’t — but which have a certain something to them, get to shine and show their chops and be recognized.  This year India (or Indian style) had a moment, the New Brits were kicking ass and taking names, and the Philippines’ Luisita deserves serious praise for getting out from under the shadow of Don Papa and somewhat redeeming the honour of the Philippines. Yet, I want to acknowledge Canada’s Romero Distilling’s full proof sherry cask rum, which was by far the best Canadian rum I’ve had thus far and gives me hope that this non traditional region of rum making will rise up and be counted in the years to come.

Most Surprising Rum, aka “AITA for liking it?” Award

Here’s a section that keeps me honest, because they are rums where I had to exercise serious effort not to prejudge. Romero’s Amber and Dark rums did not impress which made their Cask Strength rum so much more impressive; everyone hates on Bundie (not the least in Australia) yet their overproof presented as not half bad. I walked into Cargo Cult not expecting a whole lot and walked back out again really impressed and listening to Steve Magarry snicker. And of course people do know of my general indifference to Doorly’s…so how amazing is it that I really enjoyed not one of their really old expressions but their barely-out-of-diapers 3YO? In this category, I just have to give it to Havana Club though, because normally I’m not a great fan of the Latin / Cuban rum style: however, their 11YO was so solid and well assembled, pipped the 15 YO so easily (which I didn’t think that was possible), that I could not ignore it.  What a lovely dram indeed.

(Really) Honourable mentions

  • Isautier Agent Double 01 and 02 (Reunion)
  • Foursquare Touchstone (Barbados)
  • The New Renegade Pre-cask / Aged Series (Grenada)
  • The new ED cask strength series 2009 (PM and ENM)(Guyana)
  • Naga Rums (Indonesia)
  • Ninefold Distillery’s rums from the UK
  • Worthy Park 2015-2020 5 YO Canadian Only Edition 68% (Jamaica)
  • English Harbour High Congener Series 2014 6 YO 63.8% (Antigua)

These not-quite-there-by-a-nose rums are those that scored just a smidgen below the threshold I would use to bring anything into these categories, but were somehow good enough, memorable enough, that I want to call some attention to them irrespective. Isautier’s duo of cane juice and molasses based rums ensorcelled me, and the Naga rums from Indonesia weren’t of the best but unique and special even so. Ninefold just keeps on getting better every damned year and it’s tough to pick a fave so I chose the lot. Touchstone from Foursquare was really quite lovely (as most of the ECS range is), and I remain chuffed by what El Dorado has done after giving up on the Rares, and folding its limited edition aged caskers into the regular portfolio. Worthy Park and English Harbour are perennially high quality hooches, with some exceptional outturns found this year. Here though, the pride of place must go to Renegade’s precask line and also their young aged rums, most particularly the Pearls, which really was a sublime little rumlet, for something so young.

Overall best

I doubt it’s a secret that of all the rums I tried this year, that Last Drops 1976 took home the crown, and right behind it came the Cadenhead TDL 19YO which I still suspect has a smidgen of Caroni in it (unproven, but…). So that’s number 1 and 2, yet they are so unavailable it almost seems like a cheat to name them to the pantheon at all, because, what’s the point for regular rum folks? With that in mind, I reread my notes, rechecked my scores, revisited my memories, and decided that among all these really fantastic rums, this year I have to declare a tie between the Killik Handcrafted and the Black Tot 50th Anniversary because they were both original, stunning, tasty and unique rums that took rums to another level. But again, I cannot emphasise enough that any of the rums on this list is worth looking for and trying, if you can. I hope you do.

So, once again, there you have an example of my inability to make a top three listing that summarises an entire year of writing, thinking, tasting and reviewing. I hope you find it useful and enjoy your drinking, because I certainly did, and with that, I close this overlong annual review, except for one last section which I too often leave out.

Acknowledgments

No such wrap up would be complete without some words of appreciation, since the effort is never entirely solo and many people are involved in what I do. First and foremost, Mrs. Caner who has and always has had, my back, and in turn, my love. She allows me the time to think and write, and acts as a valued counsellor, especially when I’m angry. She sniffs and mutters dark imprecations about the Prada purses she isn’t getting because of my mad pursuit of the next rum, the next festival, the next meet-up…but I know she supports me in all I do, and once in a while might be persuaded to give a grudging compliment, especially if she gets to stow away on a trip to Paris in exchange.

Gregers in Denmark, thanks for all your help, and your friendship; Matt, our back and forth commentary always enriches the narrative. To Steve Magarry who once endured me babbling away for two hours in a Moroccan cafe on a Sunday morning before escaping on a flight back home, to Mr & Mrs Rum who put together those advent calendars that introduced us all to Oz, and the entire Australian and New Zealand rum community who have been so helpful and generous with your time – I’m deeply grateful to you all. Dawn Davies, you’re great, appreciate everything – still owe you a dinner sometime. Steve the Barman, Keegan, Jazz and Indy, well, what can I say, it’s always fun to hang out with you dodgy lot. For the Canadians, my appreciation goes to Dwayne in Sask (originator of the famed Conjecture), Karl of Bira! in BC, Logan, Carter, and Neil in Calgary, the KWM folks — Shawn, Curt, Andrew — who always squirrel away some of the good stuff, or find me the last seat in a tasting; and Robin in TO as always. Tips of the trilby must also go to all those people who lend quiet assistance or act as sounding boards, without recompense or mention: CityBarman, John Go, Richard Seale, Sean Caleb, Christelle Harris, Will and John of Rumcast and many more.

This is a lot, but yet, and yet…one more specific person deserves mention and must not only be thanked, but saluted: the badass, cocktail-sipping Teutonic marvel with more pizzazz then the Energizer Bunny, able to leap pallets of rums and cringing reviewers in a single bound, the indomitable, pragmatic, helpful and supportive, one and only Grandma Caner. If Mrs. Caner gave moral and personal support, Grandma Caner was the one who enabled the infrastructure. For the decade I was in the Middle East, the woman patiently gave up her basement to my rum purchases, rented storage, unpacked boxes, cleared my extravagant buys through customs or the post office, and sometimes fetched them home in her bicycle panier – in summer or winter, rain, snow or shine like a one-grandma Pony Express. Her small apartment was the site of the famed Caner Afterparties, and she took time and money to help me maintain a foothold on the rum scene wherever it was happening. She gets too little thanks in these pages, but she’s amazing, the greatest Mom I know, and there’s a bunch of people who’ve met her over the years who think the same.

And lastly, my personal thanks and heartfelt appreciation goes to all the very many rum loving individuals who read my work, occasionally leave a comment, and in all ways provide impetus for the project to continue. It would not be the same without all of you. Thanks again, and have a great 2024!

 

Cadenhead Dated Distillation Trinidad “TDL” 2001 19 YO Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
Dec 282023
 

A.D.Rattray. Gordon & MacPhail. Berry Bros. & Rudd. Cadenhead. The names evoke whisky, empire, Scotland and the early days of the Rum Renaissance through which we are still living. For the longest while, the occasional rums issued by these long-established companies, some of which are centuries old, allowed the diligent and solitary rumhound to taste what rums could be, were made to be, and kept the spark alive. Because throughout the second half of the 20th century, they were among the few bottlers of rum who eschewed the movement to light rums (i.e., chase Bacardi, copy vodka) and laid the foundation for the famed indies who came later – Samaroli, Bristol Spirits, Moon Imports, Veronelli, Velier, Rum Nation and so many others. They did so by bottling single barrel limited edition offerings, often at cask strength, and even providing marques, provenance and all sorts of other details we now take for granted (though even then, it was rarely enough).

While A.D. Rattray issued various countries’ rums in a consistent sort of series (their Caroni 1997 was one of the first of its kind I ever tried), G&M was only an occasional bottler, while BBR had the distinction of introducing us to Fiji, Foursquare and an epic 1975 Demerara way before we knew these were must-haves. Cadenhead however, took it in a different direction: alone among these early bottlers they created three separate lines of rums: in order of increasing value they were and are the Caribbean blends, the Green Label Series, and the Dated Distillations (see below for a more in-depth discussion) – and the last one is the one that excites more avarice and grail quests than just about any other bottler unless it’s the early Jamaican and Guyanese releases of Rum Nation, or the initial bottlings of Velier.

Some of the DD series were standard indie bottlings – middle aged, middle strength, from well known distilleries. Barbados (including “Blackrock”), Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica were the regulars, with others from Cuba, Fiji, Belize, Brazil, Guadeloupe, Nicaragua…even a single youngish 70% pot still release from St Lucia. Most were distilled during and after the 1990s…but their real unicorns were and are the very old ones: a 1974 30YO Uitvlugt, a 1974 19YO Longpond, and a 1971 22YO Enmore, and a bunch of 1960s Uitvlugts and Port Mourants that are rarer to see than Luca without a smoke or a sweater. Even on auctions you won’t find these very often and if you do you can be sure you won’t be able to afford them.

Which brings me to today’s rum. On the surface, it’s actually not that impressive, and I’m genuinely not trying to be elitist or anything, just clear: when one hears of a rum from the Trinidad Distillery, column still, 19 years old, from 2001…well, one hardly feels the fires of avarice burning in the cockles of one’s heart – because aside from Caroni and maybe Fernandes and 10-Cane, is there anything “serious” coming out of Trinidad, or Angostura? There are 294 bottles in play, at 55% and let’s face it, in these days of multiple indies pushing out product from Caribbean estates’ pot stills lovingly tended in distilleries with oodles of history, this is a rum that fades into the middle distance. A good rum, you tell yourself, but hardly a must have.

I imagine that a tyro nosing this for the first time with no advance notice must feel something like us newbs walking into that first John Wick movie without any forewarning. The sheer kinetic energy of that fight in Wick’s house is emblematic of the entire experience with the TDL 2001 because the initial nose is, in short, simply incredible. It’s rich, it’s deep and it seems to go on forever. It smells darkly tawny, Demerara-like, with ripe plums, prunes and bags of red cherries, cranberries, raisins and (wtf?) even a fusel oil background, a sort of medicinal iodine, or peat. In between all that waft hints of more delicate florals, dates, caramel, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, pine needles and bon-bons, all impacting the schnozz like a playful lion batting your face. For 55% ABV, the intensity and clarity of the aromas is just off the scale.

Oh and the taste isn’t lagging by any stretch either. In fact, it’s racing to get ahead. It’s really quite inspiring how much is stuffed into the profile of what is ostensibly a rum of no great shakes. It opens with hot tar and rubber, the hot smoky smell of a trust fund Lambo doing doughnuts in the Walmart parking lot, and then the fruits start coming with a marching band alongside. Prunes, overripe cherries, plums, blackcurrants, cranberries, pineapples, strawberries, followed by stewed apples, molasses and newly polished leather. And the spices, there’s plenty of those – ginger, vanilla, cardamom, sandalwood, even a taste of chamomile. It’s a veritable cornucopia and left me wondering in baffled astonishment what on earth they fed this thing before releasing it. Even the finish showed something of this richness and pungency, closing things off with dates, sweet balsamic vinegar (the kind with a fig infusion), lychees and overripe cherries and even a last touch of peatiness. It’s got so much going on that it becomes the sort of rare beast you have to go back to at least twice to really nail down.

It should not work as well as it does, yet it does. The depth is startling, the complexity completely unreal and it is clearly a whisky lover’s wet dream (as evidenced by the amount of anoraks who waxed rhapsodical about it after the fact). Quite frankly I have no idea how this has escaped notice or review all these years and am simply happy I managed to snag some. The only thing I can say with some surety and personal conviction about it, is that TDL / Angostura has got to have a bunch of Caroni barrels squirrelled away and salt some of their best rums with them, because that depth, that power of aroma and palate, surely comes from more than just an anonymous industrial still. It is perhaps no accident that so many positive notices have attended TDL’s 2002 “Flag Series” Trinidad rum that Velier issued this year, where similar surmises have been raised.

But in the end, this is what I come down to: every now and then you come across a bottle – and it’s almost by unheralded happenstance – that is so surprising, so unexpected, so immeasurably good, that it simply overloads your circuits and leaves you grateful that even in this day and age you can still be amazed and that there still exist interesting, tasty, off-the-scale rums that make one happy to try some, and thankful to have the opportunity.  For me, this is one of those.

(#1048)(93/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ 

Other notes

  • The three ranges of Cadenhead’s releases are:
    • The cask strength, single-barrel Dated Distillation series with a three- or four-letter identifier and lots of detail on source and age; I submit these are probably the best and rightly the most sought-after rums from the company (aside from a 1939-distilled Green Label from Ago).  The only question usually remaining when you get one, is what the letters stand for.
    • The Green Label series; these are usually single-country blends, sometimes from multiple distilleries (or stills, or both), mostly from around the Caribbean and Central/South America; a few other countries have been added in the 2020s.  Here you get less detail than the DDs, mostly just the country, the age and the strength, which is always 46% ABV. They had puke yellow labels with green and red accents for a long time, but now they’re green for real, as they had been back in the beginning.
    • Classic Blended Rum; a blend of Caribbean rums, location never identified, age never stated (anywhere), usually bottled at around 50% ABV. You takes your chances with these, and just a single one ever crossed my path. 
    • Strictly speaking there is a fourth type sometimes referred to as a “Living Cask” which is a kind of personalized shop-by-shop infinity bottle.  I’ve only tried one of these, though several are supposedly in existence.

Clément Rhum X.O. Très Vieux Rhum Agricole (2010s)

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Dec 222023
 

Rumanicas Review R-161 | #1047

You want to careful ordering a Clement XO rhum because there is another one also named thus which is not this at all; and two others with the same bottle shape but different names. Fortunately the other XO has a different bottle style and a different strength and lacks the word “Très” (very) in the title, and the ones that do take the bottle design are called l’Elixir or Cuvée Spéciale XO. So just a little caution is all I’m suggesting.

In another odd circumstance, the subject of today’s retrospective also lacks almost any reviews in the online rumisphere aside from Rum-X (of course) and my own unscored 2010 review. In fact, it does not even appear on Clément’s own website under any of its various collections – Old, Tradition, Modern, Iconic Blue Cane or Cuvee. The closest one gets to it is the sales on auction sites and as far as I can tell, RumAuctioneer put one up a few times, the last time being in 2021 where it fetched a surprisingly modest £150.

What this is is one of the first of the premium blends the company put out and is a marriage of what they felt was three exceptional years’ production: 1952, 1970 and 1976, which were also released as individual millesime bottlings. It’s unclear those individual releases were issued before or after this blended XO (I only managed to acquire samples of each many years later). But since the 1952 component has now run out, the specific blend comprising the XO is now defunct and while the company uses the same sleek bottle for other XO rhums, the label is subtly different for each, denoting a different product.

Note also that whether the rum is composed exclusively of those three vintages or is a blend that includes them, is currently unknown. Dave Russell in his 2017 review thought the latter, and David Kanj on Facebook (who brought it to my attention) said he had never been able to confirm it with Spiribam either. Will update, if I can nail it down one way or the other.

Colour – Gold

Strength 44%

Nose – Luscious; deep fruitiness; persimmons, passion fruit. Herbs, cinnamon, vanilla, light toffee, apricots. Green apples and ripe dark grapes. Very appetising and aromatic, if not as crisp and clean as a modern agricole. Just really pungent and complex.

Palate – There’s a smoky, dry. leathery tang of an old port to the initial tastes, but it comes over nicely because of the heft and solidity n the tongue – the mouthfeel is really quite good. Apples, apricots, hard yellow mangoes on  the edge of going soft, and raisins and red wine. To be honest, after years of acclimatising myself to rums at 60% ABV or greater, the XO here no longer demonstrates sharpness (as I commented in my original review) but crisp solidity, even a touch of softness.

Finish – Just excellent. A fitting conclusion to a delicious dram. Crisp, slightly sweet, smooth, deep, dry and with yellow almost-overripe fruits at every turn.

Thoughts –  I was right not to score this at the beginning of my rum journey, since in 2010, the chops to evaluate it was lacking – to this day we still see too few agricoles in Alberta. Back then I commented on its sharpness and its taste without being too chuffed by it.  Coming back after a span of nearly fourteen years, I appreciate it much more for what it is: one of the best aged agricole blends I’ve been fortunate enough to try. Those who have a bottle squirrelled away have a real treasure in their cabinets, a delicious dram representing a time traveller washing up on our modern shores, from the far off Days of Ago.

(88/100) 

Other notes

  • The AOC was first established in 1996, so none of the component rhums conformed to the restrictions; irrespetive of the AOC on the label, then, those expecting a clean, grassy, herbal modern agricole might be somewhat taken aback by the profile, which has its own unique vibe. I assure you, however, it’s all to the good.

Ron Relicario Peated Finish Aged DR Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Dec 182023
 

Perhaps this rum was inevitable.  Maybe spurred on by the rising price of ex bourbon barrels, or the desire to experiment, or the curiosity about whether a peated whisky really is like a Caroni, or simply to attract those who can no longer afford the Octomores and other similar expressions of Islay, some bright spark at a rum distillery has finished his rum for six months in a peated (Speyside) whisky barrel.

Is that a real thing, or is it just a stunt? Commentary on Rum Ratings suggests a sharply divided audience on this and when you smell it, you can understand why – that peated barrel has a real influence here. You get the initial slap of iodine, antiseptic industrial hospital corridors and seaweed right away, only marginally offset by vegetable soup, some heavy overripe fruits,  caramel, smoky vanilla and leather. The odour of smoke and wet charcoal and ashes is discernible but remains restrained and stays back, and there’s a bit of rubbing alcohol that the ageing has not managed to dispel. It gets slightly deeper and more involved over time but too  my mind, that’s not enough to really elevate it to something top tier.

This is all fine, but it is rather off the beaten track: and if it’s one thing years of tasting new and experimental rums has shown me is that (as with electronics for example) while there are always some rabid early adopters, and those with tastes that go for something this off the wall, it takes rather longer to bring the average consumer along to accepting something so different. And it is different – it’s like Mhoba’s Bushfire, or some of the more radical rums experimentals that get aged in completely new woods that make them smell and taste like barbecue sauce, or a maple syrup.

Still, smell is one thing, but what’s the taste like? Maybe that has a profile more rum-like? Yes and no. The taste is light (the standard strength again, so that’s nice) and easygoing…up to a point. It has a musky and dark feel to it, with notes of bitter, damp and stale coffee grounds, cardboard and mouldy paper, cheap dry unsweetened chocolate left open in the bin at a grocery too long. Again there are some dark overripe fruits but not much and not many and it’s hard to pin them down – plums, dates, figs, I’d suggest. Also medicine, camphor balls, damp sawdust, ginger and a touch of cinnamon, followed by a short and clean finish that again returns to iodine, rubbing alcohol, some toffee and molasses.

So with that out of the way, when I sit back and reconsider it all: in fine I’m not sure that for the average rum consumer that this actually works. It’s a blend of column still distillates aged 5-10 years and tropically aged in American oak, so that part is fine. The 40% ABV keeps the aggro down to a minimum. I didn’t get a chance to test it, there’s something about the ease and rounded nature of it all – even with that delicate peaty bitterness in the background – that suggests it’s not entirely kosher and has been added to, however slightly (NB: however, not checked by me, so that is a completely personal opinion). 

But that peat…it’s is a love or hate proposition. Whisky drinkers would probably have no problems with this expression at all (and it was an anorak who gave it to me). Admittedly that aspect is not overdone and doesn’t take over the entire thing, but it is pervasive and never lets up, and lends a piquancy to the rum similar to (but quite different from) the profile demonstrated by good Caronis. Moreover, the more subtle fruity and wine-y notes imparted by wine, cognac, or other common finishing casks are pretty much absent, this upsets the balance of various elements and gives the impression the rum is not a vehicle to demonstrate the rum, but the whisky element. So with that in mind, it’s up to an individual drinker to decide whether that’s in her or his wheelhouse. Speaking for myself, I have to admit that it doesn’t entirely play in mine.

(#1046)(78/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • My thanks to Curt from Kensington Wine Market in Calgary who gave me the sample to try.
  • Relicario is a brand not a distillery. Made by Barcelo (now a brand within a larger corporate umbrella and no longer the original family’s enterprise) in the Dominican Republic, on the facilities of Alcoholes Finos Dominicanos, which is a new distillery built with EU funds and owned by several major shareholders and investment firms.
  • 1048 bottle outturn according to the label.  It’s a blended rum of several ages ranging from 5-10 years, not of any particular year.
  • Company legend has it that two bottles of an old rum were found in an old reliquary (which is a container made for holding holy relics like saint’s bones or hair) and the profile was replicated to form the line of the brand. I like a good backstory, but never really believe any of them.

Secret Barrel Canadian Small Batch White Rum (Batch 001) – Review

 1 Response »
Dec 112023
 

For a country that boasts a huge population of rum-swilling West Indians and a not inconsequential number of Maritimers out east who inhale dark rums with their Jiggs Dinner, it’s odd that rums are not more appreciated and available than they are. To some extent the paucity of decent rums from abroad is alleviated by the emerging local craft distillery movement, with tasty products coming out of Ironworks, Romero, Mandakini and Potters (among several others); too, the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation makes some really interesting blends (Cabot 100 and Young’s Old Sam remain personally appreciated mixing favourites) and there’s even an Indie bottler out in BC called Bira!, run by a friend, Karl Mudzamba which fields a cask strength South Pacific and Mhoba release, with more to come.

Against all of that you have the also-rans that clutter up the store shelves in their multitudes, and which occasionally tax my objurgatory powers and genteel vocabulary to the limit:  rums like Highwood’s Aged White Caribbean, Momento or the Merchant Shipping Co White, Minhas / Co-Op’s Caribbean White, all those cheap Lambs and Bacardis, and so on. There’s no shortage of low-cost fuel for the masses, yet an odd lack of serious attempts to go the Foursquare ECS route and produce a mid-level blended product of real class that can kickstart the premiumisation of Canadian rum.  And yet, as the Mandakini ersatz Malabari rum proved, go even a little off the reservation, take even a bit of a chance, target the right audience…and you can sell out every release you make.

The question the overlong preamble above poses for us today, then, is whether the first release of Secret Barrel Small Batch White Rum is gold or gunk, something that gives Canadian rum brownie points…or drags it down. Now admittedly, the presentation is nifty: it channels the old square shape of turn-of-the-century whisky bottles, as does the design of the label and its font.  And the narrative is amusing if nothing else: small batch, 40% and implying that maybe, possibly, it’s made in Canada (possibly in the south of Alberta, around Crowsnest Pass) by some mysterious old timer named John A. MacDonald. This is a gent who – so the back label helpfully informs us – is a cross between the Most Interesting Man in the World, and one who has exploits so off the wall that he’s obviously a relative of Chuck Norris, Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan…all at once. On the other hand, we get nothing about a true country of origin, a true distillery, a still, source material, ageing, nothing. 

Well, tasting blind sharpens the senses, I tell myself, so knowing the rum is standard strength, I waste no time, pour a glass and move on to how it performs. Nose first: faint nail polish and the light fruitiness of pears, papaya and watermelon start things off. It’s easy smelling, and way too light and pretty much in the wheelhouse of every bartender’s filtered white mixing rum. I expect more, somehow because although it starts off well, it fades really fast and soon it becomes more like a vodka than a rum, or some kind of mildly sweetish cough syrup.  Additionally there is vanilla, some sugar water, cucumbers in rice vinegar, a bit of tinned syrup minus the fruits, and there you have it. 

That taste is somewhat of a let down, to be honest, because the nose suggested there would be something there to enthuse, a bit of tart fruitiness maybe, some sweetness and edge, maybe a lone ester or two. Alas, no. One senses some sugar water and vanilla, a bit of overripe apple, a touch of brine, cucumber slices in alcohol, not a whole lot else; and adding water doesn’t do anything, least of all tease out more.  The finish is, at best, quick and lacklustre with vague hints of acetone, alcohol and sugar water, and so clearly it’s not a taster’s rum: and while two decades ago this might have been a great mixer, these days it fails when matched against the stronger and more distinct overproof cocktail rums many other distilleries are making.

So what’s the background? I mean, it’s surprising how little information there is about the thing and in this day and age no commercially made rum should deliberately chose to be so anonymous without having a serious quality behind it. The SMWS can get away with some of this mystery, but they’re in their own zone and do a decent job of it.  Not so here. 

However, I have managed to find out that the Secret Barrel is a Guyanese rum imported from down south (but not from where you think). It’s been aged a little, about a year or two, and imported as is, then bottled by Highwood Distillery in Alberta, though they themselves had no hand in the selection process – they did so on behalf of the owners of the Secret Distilling Company (see below for more details on company background). 

The whole business about John A. MacDonald is fun to read…and a cute fabrication, perhaps based on one of the founders’ relative or ancestors. Perhaps it’s just as well it’s a fireside yarn. Because although I genuinely wanted to like this rum – surely someone who had a sense of humour and a gift for tall tales would make a rum that’s just a bit off and good for raised eyebrows and a laugh or two? – it doesn’t really come up to scratch. Even with my limited experience in the world, my life is far more interesting than Old Mr. MacDonald’s, I have better tall tales and beer stories than he does, and for sure have had acquired far better rums than the one his name is on.

(#1045)(68/100) ⭐⭐

Company background

A few words on the company behind this little white rumlet. According to their slightly more informative website, Secret Distilling Company was started by a bunch of Calgarians in 2015 (I dug around and found out this was Adam MacDonald (the founder and man behind it all), and his friends Aaron Norris, Brendan O’Connor and Chase Craig, who all took over different aspects of the operation). They saw a market for rum opening in Western Canada, and rather than sinking serious money into a distillery and the concomitant years of development work, they went the blender’s route and looked around for stock. They found it in Guyana, and this is why their website speaks to them selling “Demerara” rums, as well as Banks XM rums.

Now this is where it gets interesting.  First of all, they never stated on the label of those Demeraras which operation supplied the rum, and most of you reading this would instantly think DDL. But it’s not. In fact, it’s from the other rum producing company in Guyana which gets far less attention, Banks DIH, who make the well regarded XM series of rums (which of course also contradicts the “Made in Canada” on the label). Secondly, in the About page they claim the rum is from the “Banks Distillery of Guyana” except that Banks is not and never has been a distillery – they’re a brewery and a rum blender, not a distillery, and have no plans to change that. But ok: let’s chalk that up to beginner’s enthusiasm and cut them some slack.

And thirdly — and this is what got me going down the rabbit hole in earnest — on the aged Demerara rum label, they added the signature of Mr. Carlton Joao, as the Blender. This is two faux pas in one, because (a) they did so without his permission and (b) he’s not a blender at all, but a marketing executive.  How do I know that?  Because I know the guy personally — I went to school with him in Guyana, consulted with him on the Banks company bio — and so as soon as I saw this I picked up the phone and called him and asked what was going on. He said he knew nothing at all about it; Banks sold them stock between 2015 and 2018 and they distribute the XM rum line, but that was all. The commercial relationship was pretty much over years ago.

Where their rums subsequent to 2018 come from is not mentioned anywhere, but since the original founders sold out to White Pine Resources in 2017 (this was reorganised into SBD Capital, the current owner, the following year; they invest in mining and minerals properties and for a while had alcohol and liquor sales as its prime cash generation unit), it’s possible that the Guyana route was closed down and local sources may have taken over. Gradually sales dropped, the share price of SBD dropped from three bucks a share to pennies and when I spoke to Brian Stecyk, the CEO (who was more than helpful, if understandably cagey about the affairs of the company) I got the distinct impression he’s wrapping up the show and Secret Barrel is no longer a functioning entity. In a few years the rum is likely to be a Rumaniacs entry.

 

2024 Rum Festival Schedule

 2 Responses »
Dec 062023
 

MOVED TO THE RIGHT SIDEBAR

Each year for the last two years I have tried to post a constantly updated calendar of all rum festivals around the world for those who need such a thing to plan holidays, abscond from soused spouses or otherwise plot malfeasance with similarly minded rum chums. The post remains a peculiarly unread part of this site, but I find it so useful that to stop curating it strikes me as a sort of diss to dedicated rumistas and business types (you know who you are) who need a facility of this nature to tie together the major and minor shows of the year. So welcome to 2024’s initial listing. It’s a first pass, with many festivals remaining undated and unconfirmed so far.

The listing is in three sections: the main confirmed events, the single-organisation events that have multiple festivals over the entire year, and the unconfirmed items which will be reviewed every month or so to make sure they’re properly included in the “Live” area.

For the most part I have excluded whisky and other spirits expos unless they have a significant rum component of their exhibition (like Whisky Live, for example).  However, this year will include some larger trade fairs and expos that are about the spirits industry as a whole (although there is no guarantee of completeness here as I lack the time to research more). Also included is the 2nd German Armagnac festival, just because I felt like it and because many German rum lovers helped start it, so a hat tip and helping hand is in order for all of them.

Still, for all that, it is heartening to see how many events crowd the calendar, not just in Europe but around the world; and while Canada and South America continues to lag and Africa is barely represented, the sheer variety of geographical dispersion — from Asia, Europe (including the eastern side), USA, the Caribbean and Australia — must surely represent a greater appreciation for the wide variety of rums out there, and who makes them. It’s good to see so many and I hope that more will be initiated in the years to come.

This is one of those posts where I actively solicit user input; there are new events springing up all the time and some will be missed in the first posting; however, long time readers will know I regularly update the post and FB with new events or changed dates / venues as news becomes available. Please contact me if I have left anything out, have made a mistake, or if you have better info on dates.

CONFIRMED EVENTS

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

  • TBA

SINGLE ORGANISERS WITH MULTIPLE EVENTS

  • Bar Convent Trade Show
    • Oct Berlin (see above)
    • Jun Brooklyn (see above)
    • Jul São Paolo (see above)
    • Nov Singapore (Website)(FB)(IG) – exact date TBA
  • Pro Wein Trade Show
    • Mar Dusseldorf, Germany (see above)
    • Apr Tokyo, Japan (see above)
    • Apr Singapore (see above)
    • Nov Mumbai, India (see above)
    • Nov Shanghai, China (see above)
    • 2025 Hong Kong, China, dates TBA
  • Gin & Rum Festival, UK – Multiple Cities (tickets)9
    • Apr 05-06 Birmingham
    • Apr 13 Swindon
    • Apr 20 Cardiff
    • Apr 27 Bristol
    • Jun 01 Derby
    • Jun 08 Lincoln
    • Jun 22 Leeds
    • Jul 06 Stoke-on-Trent
    • Jul 20 Peterborough
    • Jul 27 Reading
    • Aug 03 Bournemouth
    • Aug 10 Colchester
    • Aug 16-17 Glasgow
    • Aug 31 Swansea
    • Sep 07 Manchester
    • Sep 14 Brighton
    • Sep 21 London
    • Oct 05 Northampton
    • Oct 12 Edinburgh
    • Oct 26 Liverpool
    • Nov 02 Cheltenham
    • Nov 16 Newcastle
    • Nov 23 Sheffield
  • The “Gin to My Tonic” Gin, Rum and Vodka Festival, UK – Multiple Cities (FB)(IG)(Tickets)10
    • Feb 03 Colchester
    • Feb 10 Harrogate
    • Mar 02 Cheltenham
    • Mar 02 Liverpool
    • Mar 09 Exeter
    • Mar 23 Birmingham
    • Apr 20 Reading
    • Apr 27 Shrewsbury
    • May 03-04 Manchester
    • May 04 Aylesbury
    • May 18 Nottingham
    • Jun 07-09 Faringdon, Oxfordshire
    • Jun 14-15 Dumfries
    • Jun 15 Bury St. Edmunds
    • Jun 22 Newcastle
    • Jul 05-06 London
    • Jul 13 Salisbury
    • Jul 13 Christchurch
    • Jul 20 Truro
    • Jul 26-27 Cardiff
    • Aug 16-17 Perth
    • Sep 06-07 Swindon
    • Sep 14 Winchester
    • Sep 21 Selby
    • Oct 12 Bristol
    • Oct 12 Bournemouth
    • Oct 25-27 Glasgow
    • Nov 08-10 Aberdeen
    • Nov 30 Brighton
    • Nov 30 Bexhill

AS YET UNCONFIRMED AND UNDATED – Last Checked 13 March 2024

The events listed below are brought forward from 2023, but not yet programmed. Indicated months are from 2023 but there is no guarantee they will be slated for the same month in 2024 so exercise caution when planning them. When dates are posted and locked, entries here will be deleted and moved to the main section above.

  • Feb West Palm Beach Tropical Rum Fest (postponed from 2023)(FB)
  • Feb Guyana Rum Festival (postponed from May and Nov 2023)(FB)(IG)
  • Mar I Hart Rum Festival, Melbourne Australia (FB)
  • Aug Alabama Rum Festival, USA (FB)(IG)
  • Aug Fukuoaka Rum Festival, Japan *no website or social media presence

DORMANT / CANCELLED / NOT HELD IN 2023

(Included for completeness; all will be deleted from this list if no event is held in 2024)

 

English Harbour 2014 6YO Antigua Rum (High Congener Series) – Review

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Dec 052023
 

In less than fifteen years, the entire rumiverse has changed so completely that not only can a not-that-well-known distillery from a not-that-well-known island make a cask strength rum of force and taste, but it is considered normal for them to do so; and that little distillery has become famous enough to be compared with the likes of major Caribbean outfits both older and younger, of far greater visibility. That is what the English Harbour High Congener rum really means, over and above its interesting stats.

The success of the indie bottlers in the last decade and a half in promoting distilleries and marques and whole countries – Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana are favoured expressions for all of them, though this is now changing – has forced many smaller distilleries in the Caribbean to up their game. Some have started exporting bulk to Europe themselves, for use by the IBs; some sell new make spirit to merchant bottlers direct. But most have expanded beyond their standard blends previously only distributed regionally; and begun pushing the edge of the envelope themselves, in an effort to diversify and premiumise, thereby capturing that slice of the market which the IBs helped kickstart. 

And they’re not the only ones: almost all major distilleries in the Caribbean now have entire ranges dedicated to high proof, well-aged and year-specific expressions that comprehensively eclipse their own efforts from ten years ago.  El Dorado, Foursquare, Mount Gay, St. Lucia Distillers, Appleton…the list goes on. They work with all aspects of the production cycle – fermentation, stills and distillation, ageing … and have vaulted rum into a whole different level.

Antigua distillers did the same, and I still remember one of their initial efforts, the Small Batch Sherry Cask finish expression, which I remarked was something of “an essay in the craft,” when it debuted in 2016. Now that’s almost passé, because consider this one from seven years down the line: a 2014-distilled rum based on molasses aged for six years in Antigua, which they call “High-congener” and which is a cousin to the 1423 SBS Antigua 2015 rum I’d had in The Proofing Room bar in London back in 2022. 1200 bottles of this hi-octane 63.8% column-still rum were released in 2020, which makes it a punchy six year old in all the departments that matter.

The nose is suitably big, given the strength: it has a richness that is very welcome, and feels solid and dep with notes of pineapple, strawberries and grapes, leavened with a more creamy lemon cheesecake, vanilla, and coconut shavings. Letting it rest helps things settle down and after a while aromas of cherries and green grapes emerge, a bit of mango juice and a tang of brine and olives, and a touch of salt caramel.

Tasting it shows where the rum shines, because here all the stops are pulled out, bunting unfurls and the brass band comes marching through: it’s smooth, buttery, creamy, all laban and cream cheese, brie, and brine, with soft tastes of olive oil, hummus and citrus. The acidity of the fruits and esters is retained, and a fair amount of spices – vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom – is in evidence. There’s toffee and caramel, tannins and coffee grounds, and a treat to sip even at that strength. If I had a whinge at all it’s that the finish is too short – there’s some brine, caramel, warm pastries and a dash of cumin – but overall, this is a rum that would work even if closer to standard strength and one wishes it was in a more general release than something so limited

So, to sum up, punch it does, if perhaps in too few areas.  I somehow expected it to be more complex, yet those aromas and tastes one gets are great in and of themselves. No congener count is provided, which is a shame – we wouldn’t mind knowing so we could rate it against the Jamaican marques. Still, I’d suggest the level is on par with the LROK (the HLCF at best). It is a pleasant, sippable, forceful, solid drink – the strength is no barrier to enjoying it (however, I would not recommend a quick initial guzzle, because 63.8% is 63.8% and it’ll hurt if you treat it with disrespect).

Beyond that, it exhibits a complexity that exceeds the Coeur de Savalle which was gingerly squeezed into a reinforced bottle at 73% or so, and although occasionally sharp and over-tart in the mouth, you can tell that it has a fair bit of funk in its junk, and that it’s a full proof aged rum of uncommon distinction that is quite clearly not a Jamaican. English Harbour, if it wasn’t there already, takes its place with complete assurance at the table already populated by the likes of esterati like Hampden, Worthy Park, Savanna and others, and without apology demands they all move aside to give it room. On the basis of this rum, I don’t see anyone denying them the right to take a seat.

(#1044)(87/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • Background material on the company can be found in the Coeur de Savalle review. I liked both equally, by the way, though for different reasons.
  • Antigua Distillers have made a virtue out of necessity: because they only have one columnar still, when it goes down for maintenance their tanks continue to ferment and of course develops into a more acid rich wash that provides the higher levels of congeners this rum displays.
  • Some other reviews: as of this writing Rum-X has 106 ratings averaging at 8.2/10. Stuart at Secret Rum Bar gave it an enthusiastic 90 points in December 2022, while Marius from Single Cask Rum awarded it 88 points in 2021, and in March 2022 John Go rated it 6/10, commenting on its lack of funk.

Historical note

Although they are seemingly everywhere now, back in the Aughts and early 2010s, independent bottlers and single cask releases were still not all that common or well known, though their star was rising among the cognoscenti. The main sources of full proof rums from distilleries (or stills) around the world were the whisky makers who occasionally dabbled their toes in this area of rum: Gordon & MacPhail, Samaroli, Silver Seal, Moon Imports, AD Rattray and Cadenhead for example. Aside from their releases, the only chance anyone was going to get to try something packing serious ABV was to buy any of the famed and ubiquitous 151s, and those were very young rums with little to distinguish them. Almost everyone else pretty much wussed out at 46% at best, except the French whose agricoles seemed to take great delight in up-ending expectations.

Fast forward to the close of 2023 and the landscape has undergone a sea change. Rums are being released north of 50% as a matter of course and an increasing number top 70%; Caribbean and other distilleries’ representative bottlings from dozens of small IB companies are so common now as to approach commodity status; the whisky makers are hardly considered special any longer, don’t issue nearly as much as they once did, and have ceased being serious factors in any budding connoisseur’s mental map of rum bottlers. That torch has decisively passed to the new and nimble independents, the new micro distilleries around the world, and the old estates that have invigorated themselves with new talent, new equipment and a desire to innovate.

Capricorn Distilling “High Ester Cane” Unaged White Rum (Australia) – Review

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Dec 022023
 

Almost all of Capricorn Distilling’s current line up of releases are good ones, and they haven’t even started a serious ageing program yet. Whether this is a matter of their desire to tinker and see what happens, or a clearly thought-out distillation philosophy, is unknown to me. What I do know, is that having tried their standard range (not the spiced, infused, gins, liqueurs or anything else) I can honestly state that if you get a white unaged Australian rum this year, you could do worse than buy a case of their juice generally – and the High Ester in particular. Because that thing is damned good: it channels Jamaica by way of Reunion, adds a measure of outback attitude, and sports serious rum making mojo on all levels. 

It’s on par with the overproofs of Black Gate or Killik (especially the latter’s Silver) in my estimation, and indeed it shares some of those rums’ DNA: molasses-based based, a 10-15 day fermentation using a different yeast from the Coastal Cane, some dunder for kick (and maybe a diced dingo or two, who knows? — with Warren, you get the impression that anything is possible). Then there’s a single pass-through on Rocky (the double retort pot still), after which it’s left to rest for a while and diluted down to 51% before bottling. 

If that sounds interesting, wait until you nose it, because while it’s not quite as well rounded as the Pure Single Rum, it’s hot, it’s spicy, it’s clean as new steel, and really crisp. There’s a sense of sparkling wine about it – chianti, Riesling, plus some 7up, and pineapples.  Lemony cumin, ginger, florals, cinnamon, which slowly merges with a damper aroma of rain on hot clay bricks and then softens into coconut shavings, oatmeal cookies and white chocolate crusted with almonds. The clear metallic sweat of someone who’s been exerting themselves in very cold weather after just having had a bath (yeah, I know how barmy that sounds). Juicy and ripe white fruits – papaya, guavas, pears, green apples and a few slices of pineapple. This is clearly a rum that enjoys Christmas.

The palate is somewhat more subdued, while still professing a certain originality. First there’s that clean scent of fresh laundry hot from the drier, followed by a sweet, tart, yoghurt, and citrus-y hints of ripe fruits that have not yet started to go. What distinguishes the taste is the way the sour miso soup or kimchi comes out swinging here, as does a kind of  sweet-salt tartness of, say, pickled tomatoes and bell peppers (with a reaper thrown in for good measure). Added to that are notes of pine, cinnamon, licorice, ginger, wet sawdust, fruits…it just keeps chugging along, one taste after another. This one rum packs a lot in its jock and isn’t afraid to sport it, right down to the aromatic, long, dry, fruity and crisp finish that immediately encourages another pour.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s occasionally hit and miss (that’s why I tried it multiple times), and the crisp sourness mixed with sweet and salt won’t be to everyone’s taste. And indeed, Wally told me that his own team liked the Pure Single Rum best; my friend and tasting chum Logan also felt it lagged (slightly) behind the Pure Single and even the Coastal Cane. 

I completely get that, because they are good rums in their own right, and I’ve reviewed them with genuine affection, scored them well. But for my money, those — while excellent in their own pitch — don’t break new ground with quite the same in-yer-face insouciance, don’t get hit outside the boundary, and remain satisfied with a solid bouncy four into deep fine leg. The High Ester Cane, in contrast, appeals to my love of the original, the offbeat, the new, and has no hesitation going for a powerful, lofty out-of-the-park six. It walks up to your wicket, hits you over the head and drags you off the field, and, love it or like it or hate it, you’ll always know you’ve had something different that day. That’s not a compliment in everyone’s book, but it sure is in mine.

(#1043)(87/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • My fellow Calgarian reviewer, friend and redditor, FarDefinition2, as well as another redditor FrostyThought8591 both felt the High Ester was not quite as good as the Pure Single or the Coastal Cane, but both agreed it would shine in cocktails. This is why sharing samples around and checking for feedback is so useful – it not only gives consumers another opinion, it also forces me to consider other points of view.

Company background (from Review #1029)

Capricorn Distilling’s origins date back to  2015 or so when Warren Brewer began distilling in his backyard with friends, using an 80-litre still from Spain (where he got it from is anyone’s guess). He released his first batch of premium rum in 2016 by which time he and five friends had bought the Saleyards motel in Rockhampton (the distillery was pushed into the pub and the idea was to use each line of business – motel, pub, restaurant, distillery – to provide a fuller experience for patrons), which is 650km north of Brisbane. This establishment is closed now and larger premises acquired in 2020 in the south of Queensland (in Burleigh Head on the Gold Coast, which is south of Brisbane and a mere stone’s thrown from the state border with NSW). Now the Saleyard company website redirects to Capricorn, but for a while in early 2021 both locations operated at the same time. From the beginning, it seems was rum was Brewer’s thing and indeed, his Capricorn Spiced Rum copped the top prize at the 2020 World Rum Awards. 

The distillery doesn’t stray too far away from the standard outputs we have observed in other small and newly-established companies: its stable of releases encompasses spiced and infused and flavoured rums, a liqueur, the unaged Coastal Cane, the High Ester rum and some experimentals we’ll talk about at some point; also Ready To Drink cans, and, of course, the ever-present cash flow generator of gins. The company runs two pot stills: one is a single retort copper pot still called “Burleigh”, the other a double called “Rocky” made in NSW.

Capricorn Distilling 2018 Pure Single Rum 4 YO (Release 2)(Australia) – Review

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Nov 272023
 

Capricorn really is a distillery off in its own zone, and I mean that in a good way. Aged or unaged I’ve rarely seen a producer so young make rums that display such a deft, sure touch – they’re not all world beaters, but I think they’re certainly a cut above the ordinary, even the entry-level standard-strength “Coastal Cane” which I likened to a cross between an agricole and a Jamaican white overproof. In November 2023 they had a sort of coming-out party at the Brisbane Rum Revolution, where there were a number of complimentary comments about the various releases: the Pure Single Rum was one of the ones singled out (no pun intended) for especial attention, and many remarked on how pleased they were to have tried it.

The Pure Single Rum, which is a title deriving from the Gargano Classification system (see other notes below) conforms to its requirements exactly – it is a rum made via batch distillation, on a pot still, from a single distillery.  It’s the extras that elevate it to the next level because few 4YO rums have the distinction of being this good (did someone say “Renaissance”?). The rum is molasses based, a week’s fermentation, aged in ex-Shiraz casks for 2½ before being transferred out to a new American oak barrel (no ex-bourbon here) and then decanted into 221 bottles at 56% in November 2022. The idea is always to have a limited amount of this rum based on a cask that’s deemed ready (Release 3 just hit the shelves a few months ago) and right now there are a couple hundred casks or so slumbering in the warehouse, waiting their moment. Labelling is minimal and states the provenance nicely, and there are no additives, no filtration, no extras.

Tasting notes, then: the nose opens with a hot breath of sweet strawberry-flavoured bubble gum, a salt caramel and vanilla ice cream cone, gummi bears, and white toblerone chocolate. Some very ripe dark grapes, prunes. Honey, waffles and cereal mix well with toffee and brown sugar: overall the aromas is consistently strong without being sharp, well controlled, slightly sweet to inhale and overall seems like a pillow for the nose. It also smells like the most “traditional” rum of the four Capricorn rums I had, because there’s less of the tart and slightly sour tang that characterises the others, and emphasises a profile we similar to that of Barbados, Panama and even Guyana (minus the wooden stills). 

I also enjoy the taste, and in assessing this aspect I can understand why it was so popular at the festival: a good mouthfeel, very warm, with honey, caramel, vanilla, fresh wonderbread toast, and even some salt crackers and brie. It has hints of ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, as well as swiss bonbons, dulce de leche and a few dates, figs and other mild fruits like papaya and watermelon. The finish is unambitious and lets you down easy without introducing anything that isn’t already there – a tawny mix of molasses, caramel, toffee, vanilla and honey with a sprinkling of breakfast spices.

The Pure Single rum is an interesting mix of solidity and delicacy at the same time, and yet it never strays too far from a traditional “rummy” taste: it is the one rum of the distillery that comes closest to being completely recognizable as an aged rum by anyone, and that’s one reason for its easy acceptance and why people liked it. It is not precisely challenging, and introduces little that is new: a trailblazer for a new Australian style it is not (though I would not have objected had it done so). Nor is Capricorn going for a moon shot or a Hail Mary pass — they have other rums for that. What they are trying to do with this one — and have succeeded, I think — is assemble a solid young rum that’s fascinating and tasty and well made, complex and delicious enough for Government work, and simply a really good rum to try on its own and to enjoy. 

(#1042)(86/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • From Release #3 it looks like there is a now a numerical designator on the label.
  • “Pure Single Rum” is a term of relatively recent derivation. It was coined by Luca Gargano of Velier in 2017 as part of his suggested new classification of rum, which he believed was not being well served by older systems based on colour or regions. His idea was to create a new regimen that focused more on production techniques and he came up with four basic classifications: Pure Single rum, Traditional rum, Single Blended rum, and Ordinary rum. These form the basis of the Gargano classification, which is detailed in rather more depth on Velier’s page. It has received some criticism for shortcomings and exclusions, and for not catering to rums which fall outside the clear demarcations – some prefer the Cates System advocated by Martin Cates of Smuggler’s Cove which has more gradations and is easier to understand – but if it has added a single term to our vocabulary of rum, it’s that first category of Pure Single Rum.

Company background (from Review #1029 of the Coastal Cane)

Capricorn Distilling’s origins bean in 2015 or so when Warren Brewer began distilling in his backyard with friends, using an 80-litre still from Spain (where he got it from is anyone’s guess). He released his first batch of premium rum in 2016 by which time he and five friends had bought the Saleyards motel in Rockhampton (the distillery was pushed into the pub and the idea was to use each line of business – motel, pub, restaurant, distillery – to provide a fuller experience for patrons), which is 650km north of Brisbane. This establishment is closed now and larger premises acquired in 2020 in the south of Queensland (in Burleigh Head on the Gold Coast, which is south of Brisbane and a mere stone’s thrown from the state border with NSW). Now the Saleyard company website redirects to Capricorn, but for a while in early 2021 both locations operated at the same time. From the beginning, it seems was rum was Brewer’s thing and indeed, his Capricorn Spiced Rum copped the top prize at the 2020 World Rum Awards. 

The distillery doesn’t stray too far away from the standard outputs we have observed in other small and newly-established companies: its stable of releases encompasses spiced and infused and flavoured rums, a liqueur, the unaged Coastal Cane, the High Ester rum and some experimentals we’ll talk about at some point; also Ready To Drink cans, and, of course, the everpresent cash flow generator of gins. The company runs two pot stills: one is a single retort copper pot still called “Burleigh”, the other a double called “Rocky” made in NSW.

Don Q “Cristal” Puerto Rican Rum (1980s/1990s)

 1 Response »
Nov 252023
 

Rumaniacs Review R-160 | #1041

Few rum aficionados need me to elaborate either on Don Q, the “other” major distillery on the island of Puerto Rico which makes it, Puerto Rico itself and it’s peculiar status vis-a-vis the USA, or indeed, this rum. Any one of them is an essay in itself and can lead to any number of rabbit holes,

Let’s just stick to the basics, then. In brief: like Bacardi, Destilería Serrallés was founded by a Catalan emigre in the 1860s (the sugar plantation the Serrallés family first bought goes back three decades before that), though they lacked the global ambitions of the larger company’s operations and have stayed within Puerto Rico.  Don Q, named after Sancho Panza’s elderly sidekick, is the flagship brand of Destilería Serrallés with several expressions dating back to 1932 when it was launched to compete with Bacardi: however, let’s be clear – the Cristal was first released in 1978, when it was specifically designed to compete with the rising popularity of vodka. Before that, I think white rums were just called “Don Q” and had a distinguishing white label (my assumption), since I can’t find any reference to a specific one predating the Cristal.

The Cristal itself is a white rum, adhering to the Latin style of light ‘n’ easy rum making, and is the result of distillation on a multi-column still, aged in ex-bourbon barrels for between one and five years, filtered to colourlessness, blended, and then bottled at standard strength (40%). The review of the modern equivalent gives you some more details of the version you’re likely to find on store shelves these days – this one, as far as I can  tell, is from the mid to late 1980s, perhaps the 1990s (the label has undergone several revisions over the years and for different countries, so dating is imprecise at best).

Colour – white

Strength – 40%

Nose – Has a sort of light and creamy aroma, like custard drizzled with vanilla syrup.  Acetones and nail polish. Slightly sweet, somewhat warm. A few faint fruity notes – nothing really identifiable leaps out – which are just trembling on the edge of a flat cream soda.

Palate – Sharpish, mostly pineapple, vanilla and flavoured yoghurt, iodine. Not a whole lot going on here and while not really unpleasant, there are too many discernible medicinal and ethanol notes to make to a drink worth having.

Finish – Decently long, sweet vanilla milkshake and an apricot slice or two. Unremarkable, but at least there’s something here, which is already better than most of these bland, anonymous filtered blancos from the era.

Thoughts – My remarks about when it was issued and why, is the key to unlocking why the profile is what it is: inoffensive, bland, easy, vodka-like…and by today’s standards, rather uninteresting.  It remains what it has always been, a cheap bar mixer, without much of an edge to wake up a mixed drink. Older versions like this one seem even blander than the modern ones, and so my recommendation is to get one if you like to drink some rums from Ago, but don’t expect too much, and keep mixing your mojito with what’s on the shelves today.

(73/100) ⭐⭐½

Clement 2002 9 YO Trés Vieux Rhum Agricole – Review

 1 Response »
Nov 202023
 

Photo (c) MasterQuill.com

The Martinique distillery Clement has, since 1989, ceased making rhum — the brand’s juice has been distilled up the road at the facilities of Distillerie Simon, and from 2017 also and increasingly from Fonds-Preville (both are owned by the Hayot Group). The original premises, however, are still used for ageing, blending and bottling Clement rhums, and they still maintain the AOC designation. Depending on who you speak to then, it supposedly has at least some terroire harkening back to what old Homere Clement made on his plantation of Domaine de l’Acajou, the progenitor of the brand.

Clement was among the first agricole rhums I ever tried, and initially their precise and fussy and clearly-defined tastes weren’t entirely to my liking; over the years, of course, I “ketch sense” and learned to appreciate them for what they were — nowadays I consider my (third) bottle of the Clement XO one of the best rhums I have to show people what an aged agricole is capable of. Over the years other Clement rhums showed their expertise: the release of the trio of 1952, 1970 and 1976 rhums, the special edition Cuvée Homère Clément Hors d’Âge, and an increasing amount of experimentals, single barrel expressions, millesimes and unaged blancs — even a canne bleue of its own.

The subject of today’s review is an ostensibly simple 9 YO expression from 2002 – a Trés Vieux Rhum Agricole, all from 100% canne bleue, aged in a single cask of ex-bourbon, 587 bottle outturn (of 50cl bottles) and a nice and firm 46.8% strength. I suppose the “cask” must have been a big one to provide that many bottles after nine years, even if they were only 500ml – I think we can assume either it was a slightly more sizeable container, rather than an American Standard Barrel 1, or the single barrel moniker is in error and it’s a blend of a couple or a few.

Whatever the ultimate provenance and barrel(s), this is a solid rhum that represents itself and its distillery very nicely indeed. It smells as fresh and bright and sparkly as bedewed sunlit grass and sheets fresh and clean from the laundry, with just a hint of citrus to the whole thing. Herbs, sugar cane sap, pears and white guavas take their turn, and It has additional notes of sweet caramel drizzled over vanilla ice cream, plus prunes, raisins, stewed apples and even a touch of coffee. An espresso of course, with a background chorus of leather, smoke and light tannins becoming evident with some water (though the rhum really doesn’t need that, honestly).

The pleasure here is in how pleasantly light it is to taste. It doesn’t sting, doesn’t bite, it’s not so heavy as to dissolve your tongue or so strong as to cause damage – it’s clean and crisp and no-nonsense, briny with olives and gherkins and some musky sweet spices (cinnamon, fenugreek, rosemary, smoky paprika, masala and even a trace of Kashmiri chilli powder, I kid you not. The same fruits as on the nose reappear to balance this all off, and there’s remarkably little sour in the way this presents: just a nice, easy, almost light crisp white wine-type sensation, culminating in a finish of berries, burnt sugar, toffee and breakfast spices. It’s completely unthreatening and completely pleasurable to drink, and never once seems like it’s straining to make the case.

Honestly, without trying to oversell the rhum, I think it’s a minor treasure: not an undiscovered steal, precisely, more a rum whose qualities seem initially subdued, and so gets somewhat overlooked, and is now mostly forgotten. It grows in the memory over time, however; it gets better and holds up well not only against other brands, but one’s own evolving palate. And each subsequent tasting expands in the appreciation a bit more until you can’t quite put your finger on it, but somehow it has become a quiet personal favourite on its own terms, and a more valued bottle in the collection than those with seemingly stronger credentials. My sample is now gone after four tries to pin down its elusive and ephemeral impact, but these notes will help me remember its unpretentious quality and the enjoyment I took from it, for a long time to come.

(#1040)(85/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • A second 2002 vintage bottling of 582 bottles at 41.6% and barrel #20070079 was done in September 2012 and is sometimes labelled as a 10 YO.
  • If your interest has been piqued and you’re googling for this thing, I’m sorry to report that you’ll find thin pickings. Rum-X doesn’t list it, neither does Rum Ratings — even Whiskyfun, which has more Clement reviews than anyone, hasn’t got this one. And whatever shops you turn up in the search will likely be pointing to a 10YO, a 15YO or some other variant with a different strength or year of make, so no luck there.  In fact, the only unambiguous reference you will find is a 2015 review on the site of Master Quill (mostly whiskies to be sure, but quite a lot of rums as well), and that’s no surprise at all since he was the source of this sample, more than five years ago (so a big thank you to the man, even if it’s late in coming).
  • My photo of the sample didn’t work out and so I copied the one from Master Quill’s review.

Capricorn Distilling “Dumpster Diver” Unaged White Rum (Australia) – Review

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Nov 152023
 

Brisbane’s Rum Revolution in Down Under has just ended last weekend, and among the many excited questions of “were you there?” and “did you drink this?” posted on social media, were a surprising number of accolades given to Capricorn, the little distillery run by Warren Brewer (also and variously called Walter, Wal, Wally, Warren and Wally Walter, depending on how he’s feeling on the day), south of Brisbane. People were getting all gobsmacked over the High Ester rum (rightfully so methinks) and I’m hoping we’ll see it at a rumfest in Europe next year, so we can see how others feel about it.

Alas, today I’m not reviewing that one (although I want to) but will instead focus on another very interesting experimental rum the distillery makes, the Dumpster Diver, which among other things, demonstrates that West Indians are not the only people out there with a sharp and obscure sense of humour. Now, this is an unaged rum, white, molasses-based, jacked up to the nines by using a cane juice acid, muck, and natural ferment to supercharge the thing; it was fermented for about thirty days, distilled in a single pass through the double retort pot still (that’s the one named Rocky), then left to snooze in a stainless steel vat for a couple of months. I’d like to think Warren then chucked it into a dumpster out back behind the shed for people to fish out when they wanted some, but naaah, he just bottled it…at 62%. It is not currently available in shops (it remains something of a trial release and not mentioned on the company website), and Wally tells me it can always be had to buy at the back door of his distillery where they sign waivers before tastings (well…not really: but they are warned what to expect so as to cushion the shock).

Normally at this point I’d tell you about the distillery and its background; however, that’s already available (reprinted below), and the only thing to add to it is that I think Walter deserves the praises, because this rum is really quite a blast to have neat…or, as he reminds me, in a totally awesome martini. This is one rum that’ll cure what ails you.

So, let’s just dive right in. Nose first: it’s redolent of cucumbers and a few pimentos in white vinegar, really hot and sharp. There’s an element of dusty houses, old cupboards, granny’s unused bloomers (best not go there) and a whole lot of dry and expired cereals. The smell is slightly sweet, and also sour, channelling gherkins and diluted balsamic vinegar: there is a sort of kimchi vibe here that’s quite nice, and even some ashlan-foo (which made Mrs. Caner sigh with nostalgia when I passed the glass to her to confirm). The intensity fades after it opens up and remains well controlled and rather quiescent most of the time. Towards the end, things get weird for a while — it could be just me but I thought I nosed some disinfectant, pine sol and even the slight acrid hint of a chlorine bleach, which makes it slip in my estimation, but overall, the nose is really quite something – not one you’ll forget in a hurry, and somewhat reminiscent of an agricole.

Photo (c) and courtesy of Josh Wall

It is also excellent on the palate: strong, firm, solid, and very dry.  Letting it stand to let the harsh alcohol burn off is probably a good idea, or alternatively, some might like to add a little water. This allows a solid taste experience to unfold, starting with an air of clean white laundry flapping in the breeze on a sunny day, white wine and tart fruits, plus unsweetened yoghurt, which presents a sort of crisp fruitness that is very pleasant.  Pomegranates, figs, dragon fruit, soursop and other unusual stuff like that, but also citrus, green apples and grapes, each snapping crisply into focus and then quickly moving aside for the next one. As for the finish, well, pretty damned fine: dry, dusty, fruity, nicely long, with acetones, nail polish remover and bubble gum – plus the usual fruit salad rounding things out.

New rums like this from far-flung locations are why I stay in the game.  It’s such an interesting dram, on so many levels. It shows a lot of rough edges – “like a country bai com’ to town” – and a demonstrable lack of couth is right there, front and centre – you can almost smell it sweating and sweltering in the heat.  And yet it’s a completely solid rum, channelling Hampden by way of Worthy Park with a little TECA thrown in, before adding its own exuberant Queensland twist. It’s rough, it’s brutal, it’s got tastes and to spare, attitude beyond reason and when you’re done you will realise that it’s also an immensely enjoyable drink on its own terms. And yeah, it really does make a seriously sleazy, filthy, barkin’ mad martini.

(#1039)(85/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • Disclosure: although Warren and I agreed I’d send him something from my stocks to pay off for the samples he sent to me in Canada, as of this writing I have not yet done so. Just waiting for my empty sample bottles to arrive, though, and all will be settled.
  • I’ve asked for a photo of the bottle and label, as none appear to be available online, even on the company’s social media pages. My sincere thanks to Josh Wall of the Brisbane Rum Club FB page, who kindly allowed me to use his photograph of the rum bottle and its label. Ta, and a hat tip, mate.

Company background (from Review #1029)

Capricorn Distilling’s origins began in 2015 or so when Warren Brewer began distilling in his backyard with friends, using an 80-litre still from Spain (where he got it from is anyone’s guess). He released his first batch of premium rum in 2016 by which time he and five friends had bought the Saleyards motel in Rockhampton (the distillery was pushed into the pub and the idea was to use each line of business – motel, pub, restaurant, distillery – to provide a fuller experience for patrons), which is 650km north of Brisbane. This establishment is closed now and larger premises acquired in 2020 in the south of Queensland (in Burleigh Head on the Gold Coast, which is south of Brisbane and a mere stone’s thrown from the state border with NSW). Now the Saleyard company website redirects to Capricorn, but for a while in early 2021 both locations operated at the same time. From the beginning, it seems was rum was Brewer’s thing and indeed, his Capricorn Spiced Rum copped the top prize at the 2020 World Rum Awards. 

The distillery doesn’t stray too far away from the standard outputs we have observed in other small and newly-established companies: its stable of releases encompasses spiced and infused and flavoured rums, a liqueur, the unaged Coastal Cane, the High Ester rum and some experimentals we’ll talk about at some point; also Ready To Drink cans, and, of course, the everpresent cash flow generator of gins.The company runs two pot stills: one is a single retort copper pot still called “Burleigh”, the other a double called “Rocky” made in NSW.

 

Key Rums of the World – Plantation OFTD Overproof Rum

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Nov 102023
 

In 2015 an up and coming small rum maker called Plantation wanted to make a bar mixer to go beyond its decently regarded and well-selling Original Dark, which back then was primarily Trinidad distillate. The company had already made a name for itself in the bartending circuit with its blends like the Three Star, and its initial attempts at becoming an indie bottler got some decent reviews (mine among them). People liked them. The secondary maturation abroad and dosage, had not yet become issues. Their rums were deemed pretty good. 

To the end of filling a gap in the overproof dark rum segment of the mixing market, Alexandre Gabriele the owner, repeated the process he had used to make the Three Star – he consulted with people who were in the industry, and brought together six personages of the rum world whose experiences behind the bar and within the cocktail culture were such that their opinions held real weight:  Jeff “Beachbum” Berry from Latitude 29, Martin Cate from Smuggler’s Cove, Paul McFadyen who was then at Trailer Happiness, Paul McGee from Lost Lake, Scotty Schuder from Dirty Dick, and Dave Wondrich, a cocktail historian. Based on lots of samples and lots of tastings (and probably lots of cheerfully inebriated arguments) they set to work to make a mixer that it was hoped would elevate tropical cocktails and Tiki drinks to the next level, take on Lemon Hart and Hamilton’s overproof rums, and carve its own niche in the world.

Products designed by committee rarely succeed, but here may be the exception that proves the rule: from that beginning so many years ago, the OFTD, first released in July 2016, has become one of the most popular mixing drinks ever made, perhaps not quite rivalling Bacardi in ubiquity, but so versatile and affordable and let’s face it, even drinkable, that it has become a commercial and private bar staple. Even as the groundswell of dislike for Plantation has grown into ever more poisonous online discourse, the Old Fashioned Traditional Dark, made from rums deriving from Barbados, Guyana, and Jamaica, has flourished. It eclipses every other rum in the company’s “Bar Classic” series of the line (Stiggins’ Fancy and Xaymaca are popular for other reasons); it is a step above and much more interesting than the overly sweet “Signature” blends and surely easier on the wallet than the Single Cask, Extreme or Vintage editions.

What makes it so popular and so well regarded? To some extent it really is how well the blend works; the strength certainly helps, and for sure so does the lack of any additives – it is one of the few rums Plantation makes which is not dosed. When one looks under the hood, it’s really quite a bit more complex than at first seems to be the case: back in 2018 The ‘Wonk said that the makeup was Guyana (Port Mourant distillate aged 1-2 Years in new and ex-Cognac French oak), Barbados (WIRD distillate, 4 years in new French oak and 2-4 Years in heavy toasted American white oak); and Jamaica (Clarendon MLC 1-2 Years in new French oak, Long Pond TECC 1-2 Years also in new French oak, Long Pond STCE 8½ years in ex-bourbon and ex-Cognac, and lastly some Long Pond TECA 19½ years in ex-bourbon and ex-Cognac). All blended and tied up in a bow at 69% ABV, and while perhaps by 2023 the blend has shifted somewhat, that’s not an inconsiderable amount of taste profiles to be balancing against one other — that anything drinkable comes out at the other end is some kind of minor miracle, because my experience is that blends trying to do so much with so many things, often crash and burn.

Not here, I don’t think. The nose is no slouch and gets going immediately: hot fierce and sharp as befitting the strength, and starting the party off with banana (at one point I got banana bread, at another flambeed), caramel, and brown sugar damp with molasses. Coffee grounds, unsweetened chocolate, anise and allspice are there, leavened with coconut shavings, a touch of anise, brine, and even a mild pinch of citrus. It’s initially quite sharp and alcoholic and it’s recommended to let the glass stand a bit to let that burn off, and once you get there, it’s a nose that sticks around for a long time.

The palate is where one has to make a decision regarding the strength because it is young and it is rough at the inception – many reviews and write ups suggest adding a bit of water to tame it. I don’t think that’s really necessary but then, I have had a lot of rums north of 70% so maybe I’m just used to it. Anyway, the initial palate is all ethanol until it burns off; some rubber and licorice and damp sawdust (that may be the PM talking), molasses and caramel, bitter coffee grounds and chocolate again with traces of ripe mangoes, grapes and even some pineapple (which may be the Jamaican tekkin’ front).  There are some vanilla, bon-bons, citrus notes and black pepper here and there, and a finish that oddly reminded me of chocolate oranges mixing it up with salt caramel ice cream topped with a few strawberries…go figure, right?

Evaluating it after trying it maybe four or five times over a period of a year, I get why it’s popular: once you get past the initial burn, you can sip the thing. It is dark, strong, noses nicely and tastes a treat, and such burn and sharp stabs as it displays are, to me, just products of its relative youth (I doubt that there is a whole lot of the aged Longpond elements in there), and in fairness it is designed to be mixed, not sipped.  It makes a cool rum and coke of course, and does yeoman’s work in both a daiquiri and a mai tai as well as any other libation a creative bartender can come up with. On top of all that, the damned rum is really affordable: I’ve heard that bars are incentivised with huge cash-back enticements, and that the bulk capacity of WIRD helps keep production costs down, but all that is behind the scenes – this is a rum that subjects itself to the Stewart Affordability Conjecture and takes it seriously.

And if the taste doesn’t sway you, consider the popular statistics. It is a fixture on just about every “with what do I start stocking my home cocktail bar?” recommendation list I’ve ever seen, and the reddit comment sections are filled with people remarking that it’s a rum worth having on any shelf. There is almost no negative review on any subreddit that I’ve looked at, and even those that are less than complimentary usually concede that some aspects of it are fine, or that it has its points here and there and that it’s a moral decision for them not to buy it or stock it. Of the 185 consumer ratings on Distiller from 2016 to 2023, 95% are three-star or higher; on Rum Ratings, nearly 90% out of 257 raters gauged it at 7/10 or better and on Rum-X it has an average of 7.5/10 from 194 people who left a score. These are representative of wide cross sections of the rum drinking public and cannot easily be discounted, whatever one might think of the parent company (and nowadays that is almost all negative). Paul Senft, The Fat Rum Pirate and Rum Shop Boy have all written about it and liked it.

Summing up, the Plantation Old Fashioned Traditional Dark is a deserved yet unusual — perhaps even controversial — entry to the Key Rums series. It is a multi-country blend, not something that showcases a certain country.  Yes, it was deliberately created to do only one thing, and therefore its value as an all-round consumer drink is somewhat circumscribed; yes it’s really strong, and sure…in that segment it stays and plays.  Yet as I have suggested here, it has qualities over and above all that.  It supercedes the modest aims of its creators, to the point where it actually can stand by itself. It remains, nearly a decade after its introduction, one of the most reviewed, commented on and widespread rums around and if its shine is less now than it was when first introduced and now that it has stiffer competition, there is no reason to doubt either its many uses or availability.  It remains, for all its parent company’s woes, an incredibly popular and in-use bar staple and drinking adjunct to this day. It demonstrates, if nothing else, how well the Caribbean distillates work with each other in a way that is not often seen. And that’s no mean accomplishment for any rum – especially one made by this outfit – to claim. One can only ask why more of the company’s rums don’t adhere to its philosophy.

(#1038)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other Notes

  • In this essay, I have made a deliberate decision to focus on the rum: not to get into the conflict and bad press Plantation gets (or why they get it), not to express my personal opinion on the issues surrounding the company, and to simply mention that such issues exist. There are sufficient resources around — reddit has some good if heated discussions on the matter — for anyone with an interest to find out what the story is.
  • I am unsure if any part of the ageing takes place in Europe and was unable to confirm it one way or the other.

Piccadily Distillers Camikara 2009 12YO Rum (India) – Review

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Nov 062023
 

A few months ago I posted a picture of what I was tasting that week on Instagram which included the Camikara 12 YO: I was surprised and pleased at the responses which said how much people had liked it — most of these came from those who had sampled it at that year’s UK rum festival. This is an export rum from India which has two younger siblings (a 3YO and an 8YO) and remains a rather unknown quantity to many, perhaps because they have all been issued quietly and without the serious social media fanfare as attends so many other rums these days, and been reviewed by too few.

Yet I think we’d better start paying some attention, because this rum presses a number of buttons that, had they been made in more familiar climes by more familiar names, would have had us checking it out almost by default. Consider: here is a rum from a single cane varietal, made from cane juice (not jaggery or molasses), pot still distilled, aged for twelve years and bottled at a solid 50% ABV. Plus, it’s from India which, while having a great record in whiskies, does not have a stellar reputation for rums, yet which has on occasion surprised us with products of uncommon quality.

Piccadily Distillers made this rum in Haryana, a northern Indian state – it abuts the Punjab, and is just due south of Solan: those with long memories may recall that this is where Mohan Meakin of Old Monk fame started things going back in the 1800s. Piccadily themselves are better known, especially in India, for their malt whiskies Indri and Whistler and it’s never been made clear exactly why they would branch out into rums on an international scale, though my own impression is the market in India is simply too crowded with ersatz rums already, and increasing premiumisation of the spirit in the West suggests an opportunity to break into that market with an unusual product from a near-unknown location.

So that’s the background: what about the rum?

Nosing it suggested that the company has dispensed with most of the subtly and never-quite-proved flavoured profiles of Mohan Meakin’s Old Monk line and (to a lesser extent) Amrut’s own export rums. This stuff is not bad at all – initially quite tart and fruity, with canned peaches and yellow mangoes blending nicely with laban and the faintest whiff of sour cream. This is followed by aromas of red grapes and apples in a pleasantly clean and just-shy-of-light series of smells that feel quite crisp, while at the same time balanced off with caramel, plums, aromatic tobacco, vanilla and green peas. The sweetness that one senses is kept very much under control which stops any one aspect of the nose to predominate.

What is somewhat surprising is the strength – we have not seen a rum from India that clocks in at 50% before (though they have been edging up of late, with the 60+% Habitation Velier Amrut being something of an outlier). This provides the taste with a firm landing on the palate, starting off with flambeed bananas, peaches, red guavas, green peas and those overripe mangoes. What distinguishes this phase of the experience is the spice-forward nature of the rum: one can with some effort make out vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, tumeric and sweet paprika, and it brings back fond memories of the spice markets in middle-eastern soukhs more than anything else. There are some hints of salted chocolate, honey, cardboard, dusty cupboards, cheerios, and the rum presents as heavier than the nose had initially suggested…but it’s pretty good, and the closing notes of damp port-infused tobacco, honey anise, herbs, citrus and (again) spices makes for a fascinating segue away from more familiar profiles.

I say “more familiar profiles” but really, this is a rum through and through and there’s no mistaking what it is. However, it must be stated that its agricole-style cane juice origins are somewhat lost in the middle of such long hot-weather ageing – the barrels do most of the heavy lifting of the profile, rather than the intrinsic nature of the cane juice distillate, which provides so much character to unaged whites from wherever – if Piccadily ever made such a white I’d be clamouring to get some. Moreover, my hydrometer tests this at 47.5% ABV, which works out to about 12g/L of something, so readers should take that into account – my own take is that it still tastes pretty good, but obviously that will not be everyone else’s opinion.

Summing up, then, I must say that as a whole, taking everything into consideration, the Camikara rum is a treat: even in the controlled environment of my study, I admired it (in company even more so) and am now sharing it with everyone I can, because noses well and tastes great with just enough originality and uniqueness to the profile to make one take a second look and maybe a third sip, and it deserves a wider consideration. Like many rums from parts of the world other than the standards, while the DNA is unmistakable, the variation is really kind of fascinating. I think it’s a solid addition to the mostly unknown slate of aged rums from Asia generally and India in particular. 

(#1037)(87/100)

Full disclosure: in early 2023 I was approached about taking a look at the 12YO by the head of Piccadily’s international business. He admitted they had no distribution in Canada and no facilities to get paid for a bottle, as is my practise: he offered to send me one if I could spot him dinner and a pint when next we were in the same area of the world. I consider that a firm deal, but since I have (as of this writing) not been able to make good, you should be aware of the source.

Other notes

  • Camikara means “liquid gold” in Sanskrit
  • The press blurbs talk about 956 barrels being laid to rest in 2009, of which only 6.6% remained twelve years later. Well, that works out to around 14,000 litres, so given its limited edition marketing (3600 bottles total, with 400 bottles to India, 1200 for the US, 400 for the UK and 800 for Europe), some has probably been left behind to age even further, and / or been blended into the younger releases. 
  • I like the whole origin story of barrels being overlooked and fortuitously “rediscovered” but consider the neglect and forgetting of nearly a thousand barrels to be ultimately unrealistic outside a press release, where anything goes.
  • Piccadily Distilleries is part of the Piccadily Group, which has three distilleries in the Northern part of India: Indri, Patiala, and Bawal. The distillery making the rum is unclear: Mr. Siddhartha Sharma in an interview with Rumporter says Indri, while Surrinder Kumar the company’s master distiller, said it was Patiala in an interview with MoneyControl (he notes it was when the Patiala plant was being refurbished that the barrels were rediscovered) – it is the latter that is on the label, but I do wonder at the confusion. 
  • The company’s copper pot stills are Indian made.

Costa y Montserrat Ron Marina Blanco (Spain)(1960s)

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Oct 292023
 

Rumaniacs Review R-159 | #1036

Few references exist to track down this aged bottle with stained yellow label and a description remarkably thin even for the Days of Ago when nobody cared.  There is no distillery of make, no strength, no country of origin we can evaluate, nothing.  It is a white rum, has pictures of several medals on it (or maybe those are those coins, like pieces of eight?) and the implication of the words “The Spanish Town – Jamaica” is that it hails from there. One does not even get the strength, though my hydrometer tested it out at 37.8%, so either it is 40% standard and then dosed down, or it’s clean and maybe 37%-38%. 

As for the dating, the best source is a May 2019 auction listing on Whisky Auctioneer which suggests it’s from the 1960s, and which I have no grounds to seriously dispute – the label fonts and design and lack of provenance tend to support it, however thin that is. However, the auction site’s notation that it was produced in Spanish Town itself is not, I think, credible.

This leaves us with just the company, Costa Y Montserrat, SL from Barcelona in Spain. That most invaluable of resources, Pete’s Rum Labels, doesn’t provide any true data, but it does have another label, which suggests they were into the retailing of Jamaican-style rums which makes them an importer and blender, and the whole Spanish Town thing is just atmosphere and a cool label design but held no real truth (which is a shame, but okay…)

The company hails from the Catalan town of San Fructuosa de Bages (officially named Sant Fruitós de Bages), just to the north of Barcelona and the industrial estate of Manresa immediately to its west; wine has been made there for centuries. The Costa & Montserrat company refers to a famous Benedictine monastery of that name, built on a mountain nearby 1 However, that aside, what we have is the founding of the company in 1840, which made brandy in the early 20th century, and also fruit liqueurs in the late 1970s. I think it still exists, but under some other name I was unable to trace, and if it does, it’s not making rums any longer.

Colour – white

Strength – Tested at 37.8%

Nose – Astringent and sharp. It smells alcoholic (no pun intended), speaking more of raw ethanol than the easy lightness of a finely blended white cocktail rum. The puling strength is partly responsible for that of course.  Also some rubber, minerally notes, green peas from a can, watermelon and a touch of sugar water. 

Palate – Surprisingly there’s some brine here, again those canned peas (or, to be more precise, the water from that can), vague light sweet fruits such as papaya, watermelon and pears, but all very lacklustre, very much in the background.  It’s like a dumbed down, weakly flavoured, underproofed vodka.

Finish – Almost nonexistent, really. Light sugar water, no burn, no tickle, no real taste.

Thoughts – If the intention of the label is to point towards Jamaica, I assure you that sampling it dispels any romantic notions that somehow I had picked up an undreamed-of pot-still Rum from the Cocktail Age. No such luck.  It lacks strength, it lacks taste, it lacks any identifying characteristics of country or terroire, and is best seen as a pre-21st-century-Renaissance historical artefact that sheds light on rum’s development over the decades, rather than some kind of distant classic from a long vanished era. There’s a reason why it only fetched £31 on that auction. It’s a historian’s rum, not one for the bar crowd or connoisseurs of unappreciated rum, or even speculators.

(65/100) ⭐½

Key Rums of the World – Old Monk Vatted 7 YO Blended Rum (India)

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Oct 232023
 

 

Originally published as a standalone review in October 2023; revised and extended to Key Rums series in January 2024

Few rums from India make a splash in the western world, and that’s a peculiar thing since it’s entirely possible they were among the first people to actually make any kind of spirit from sugar cane (although it’s likely the crown goes to the Iranians whose “good wine of sugar” Marco Polo supposedly enjoyed on his travels) and for sure have some of the best selling rum brands on the planet. We may not hear of them very often but McDowell’s No. 1. Contessa, Old Port, Hercules, Two Indies and a few others, have a huge market footprint out east.

Historically, rum in India has always been a down-market tipple for the masses, largely because it lacked the snooty pretensions of whiskies (though they, for decades, laboured under similar perceptions until they changed their game), and was made in large quantities using relatively easily available molasses, panela or cane juice. On a larger scale, rum was popular when made by distilling companies because its method of production was essentially column still near-neutral alcohol plus additives for taste: cheap and easy to make at scale, priced to sell. This made rum do well at the rural level — where the majority of Indians still live — but cut no ice at all in the rest of the world.

Among the first to break this mould was the company of Mohan Meakin (previously Dyer Meakin), which was established in the mid-1800s. They made at least some kind of rum all along, but it was the 1950s that were key: in December 1954 they released the first Old Monk rum to the armed forces in its signature Old Parr-style bottle, aged around seven years. It shattered class barriers by being marketed not just the rank and file jawans but to the officer class, and gave rum as a whole a boost by making it more socially acceptable, even respectable, up the social scale.

From that humble beginning sprang a brand of uncommon durability and popularity. For the next fifty years, anchored by huge sales to the military and canny placement in five-star hotels, Old Monk rum was the most popular brand of rum in India, with increasing sales abroad. It became the spirit of choice among university students for decades, and as these educated young people fanned out and emigrated across the world they brought their nostalgic love for the rum with them, establishing the brand in new countries where the company set up distribution arrangements in many countries to satisfy this demand. For a while, so strong was cultural attachment to Old Monk that the global diaspora regularly requested relatives bring some with them when they came visiting, or brought it back themselves when they did. 

Yet even if its sales were gargantuan (for decades, it was one of the five top selling rums in the world), outside a few major regional, internal and historical markets, it was never a truly global widespread seller; one rarely if ever saw the squat and tubby bottles at international spirits or bar expos, and though I’ve passed the vatted 7YO several times on local shelves in several countries, I’ve never seen it at a single festival. And the general opinion of those modern reviewers who have tried it is somewhat dismissive: adjectives like “crude”, “oversweet”, “rough” and “spiced” are common in most write ups I’ve seen, and it’s often relegated it to mixer status, with grudging compliments occasionally thrown in. The Old Monk series of rums, then – and there are quite a few – attract a curious mix of indifference, scorn and loving nostalgia from rum drinkers, some of which is understandable, some less so.  

It continues to be made, however, and continues to sell and for all intents and purposes remains almost a cultural institution in India, so its importance to understanding rum around the world must be accepted. Unlike Appleton, say, it doesn’t look like they have continually tweaked the recipe, and the bottle we see nowadays is recognizable the same as the original. It remains a vatted 7 year old rum from molasses, or that nutrient rich variant called jaggery, which we’ve met before (opinions vary, and the company isn’t telling).I don’t know what the original strength was back when it was first introduced, but at least for the last decade and a half I’ve only seen it sold at 42.8%. Let’s take it as it is, then, and move on.

As a rum it presses all the right buttons.  You can smell molasses, sandalwood, some tar, and overripe bananas, plus some tannics. That’s the first pass.  After opening up it reaches further and hits the spice jar: ginger, vanilla, cardamom, cumin, I would say, and some sweet paprika, all of which is nice and heavy and almost perfumed, while never losing sight of the fact that it’s a rum.

On the tongue the taste is dark and medium heavy, with strong notes of salted – almost bitter –  caramel and unsweetened chocolate, coffee grounds, molasses and licorice. The strength is just about right for all this smorgasbord of subcontinental notes and doesn’t burn a whole lot going down, so sipping neat is an option.  It’s not that sweet and there’s that vague spice shelf drifting in from the nose even here. The finish is like that as well,  being mild, short, breathy, warm, and again, redolent of licorice, caramel and spices, plus what the Little Big Caner called a mix of pepsi and jerky (go figure).

If pressed for a comparison, I’d suggest that the Old Monk has a fair bit in common with the dusky heaviness of the Demeraras, or perhaps Goslings and other dark molasses-forward rums. You can sense the similarities with the Amrut’s Two Indies or the Old Port as well; except that it has its own vibe and that might be because it is either (wholly or partly) made from jaggery, or because it really does have something added to it. We don’t know. Old Monk has always been looked at slightly askance, because it’s hard to shake the feeling this is not what we’re used to, not a rum that’s made completely “clean” and something’s been sprinkled in. But honestly, it’s not too bad, though it sometimes feels a little unfinished. I like the offbeat and unusual in rum, and in the main the Old Monk is very much like Amrut’s whiskies are: definitely what they’re supposed to be — a rum in this case —  just with a slight kink and twist to mark them out as noticeably different. On its technical merits and how it noses and tastes I can’t say my score is wrong: but since this is a rum from outside our regular area, there are bound to be variations. 

So with all that, does it deserve to be in the pantheon of those rums I deem “key” to understanding  the spirt? I argue that it is. Firstly it remains immensely popular and among more than just expatriate Indians, and needs to be seen for what it is. Secondly, it has a long history, both as a company and a brand, and shows something of how rum developed outside the more comfortingly familiar regions we extol in every other post on the subject. We need to understand and appreciate more than just rums from the Caribbean and Latin America, and have to learn about profiles that are at odds with our perceptions of how rum should be made, or should taste. No rum that has lasted this long without serious change and still sells this well, can be ignored just because it’s not in current fashion. It needs to be acknowledged as a rum from its region, for its people, maybe even of its time. Amrut conquered the whisky world by making whiskies to global standards.  Old Monk becomes a key rum by resolutely adhering to its own.

(#1035)(79/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other Notes

  • I’m unsure how different the Old Monk Supreme XXX is from this one. Perhaps it’s just the bottle as both are supposedly 7 years old.
  • There’s a lot of backstory to the brand in the company profile, which I strongly recommend taking the time to read.

Romero Distilling Co. 4YO Sherry Finish Cask Strength Rum (Canada) – Review

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Oct 212023
 

In the last review we looked at a product from Romero Distilling, a small and relatively new-ish distillery in Calgary which has the distinction of focusing almost exclusively on making rums (of all kinds). At first blush it seems to conform to the standards of many occasionally unfocused local distillers who are still playing around trying to find the perfect groove: their “Dark” rum left me somewhat dissatisfied and mostly indifferent (spiced rums not being my thing for reasons I went into some detail in that review), and while I didn’t mention it, the “Amber” — which I own, opened and tried at home — hasn’t turned my crank much either.

The Sherry Finish Cask Strength Rum, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal, and an order of magnitude better than either of those — it quite literally left me looking happily at my glass, wondering whence this thing had sprung, and completely unwilling to stop trying it. Now, it’s a pot-still 1200-bottle limited edition 57% ABV rum without any spices, colourants or additives, so right away it has a better starting point than the other two; it’s aged for two years or so in ex-Woodford Reserve barrels and then another two-plus in newly emptied ex-Oloroso sherry barrels brought over from Spain – that to my mind makes it a double aged (not a finished) rum, but whatever…the important thing is, what comes out the other end is to my mind, really impressive.

First of all there’s the way the nose opens. Compared to the low strength and rather thin aromas of its spiced sibling, this packs a solid punch: it presents some woody and tannic notes, with solid sweet caramel, chewing gum, toffee, molasses and a delicate hint of a cinnamon-flavoured unsweetened mocha. Not too much fruitiness here – more dates and coconut shavings – but a fair amount of cereals, rye bread, cardboard and crushed almonds. Really great smells, and one that’s worth keeping around for more than just the time it takes to have a sip or three and move on.

When tasted, it continues well: hot fresh pastries like pine tarts or pecan pie start the show, and here some fruit start to make themselves noticeable: ripe and heavier ones like sapodilla, plums, prunes and some apricots, with flashes of molasses and honey (love that). There’s even the slight trace of a good brie, some olive oil, rotten lemons, and something savoury lurking in the background, as if it is trying to channel a raw clairin, or a tequila. The finish is also quite good, lasting a long time and wrapping things up with salt caramel, coffee, some brininess and those fresh baked pastries.

To say I was “merely pleased” is understating matters. I was damned impressed. The rum seemed so good on the first try that not only did I keep the glass going for the next two hours, but as soon as I got home, went straight out and bought a bottle online (I’m told that the rum has just gone into general release in Alberta). What’s also really interesting is that for 57% ABV, double the ageing and no spicing it up, it only costs C$7 more than the C$75 Dark with which I had previously been relatively unenthused.

So, in the final analysis, although I have many more rums from north of 49 to try, so far this is one of the best Canadians I’ve yet come across, the highest scoring to date. It’s not a copy of some Caribbean profile, doesn’t seek to emulate noble sires from hotter climes, but is completely, calmly, resolutely, itself. It adheres to the profile of rum while providing just enough kinks and twists to show that the makers knew exactly what they were doing when they made it.  It shows how something better than the dronish herd of mass produced tipple can be made here, and hopefully sell, and while I’m sure over time other rums will inevitably eclipse it…for now, it remains a high point of the Canadian rum scene and deserves serious attention.

(#1034)(86/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other Notes

  • The rum was awarded “Best in Class” at the 2023 Alberta Beverage awards (in a three way tie).  Given the judges’ primary expertise, what it was rated against, and what else was on the list of candidates and winners, this is not an award to be taken completely seriously, and the scores were, shall we say, somewhat excessively enthusiastic. But it had to be mentioned.
  • Company details can be found in the review of the Romero Dark
  • The rum is a blend of several barrels and an outturn of 2000 bottles.
  • A hydrometer test comes out at 56.8% ABV, so it’s clean from that perspective (and tastes that way, but I checked anyway)
  • The company runs tour, tasting and blending sessions at its facility in Calgary, which I’ve heard from friends of mine who went, are quite good.
  • There’s a fair bit of marketing copy on the website and other promotional materials, about rum running in Canada during Alberta’s own Prohibition era, but this is local colour and has no bearing on Romero directly.

Romero Distilling Co. Dark Rum (Canada) – Review

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Oct 172023
 

So there I was walking around the impressively well organised Rocky Mountain Wine and Food Festival, which had boatloads of beers, wines and spirits and food (and precious few rums), all superbly arranged in terms of space and one’s ability to navigate. For a guy used to the tight confines and crowded booth frontage of European festivals, it was eye opening to be able to walk five abreast in any direction and join ten people in front of a display and not bump elbows. Every now and then I wandered back over to Karl Mudzamba and his compadre Ernie, who were manning the Bira! booth, to apprise him of any new finds, or just hang out and enjoy their company.

One of the few rums partaking this event was Romero Distilling Company, which is located in Calgary: it was founded in 2018 by Diego Romero, an engineer who came to the country from Spain in the 1960s and worked in the mining and mineral processing industries as an adult before moving on to what we can only imagine was a passion project. He opened the distillery with his son Tomas (it was he who was running the booth), bought a 2000-litre hybrid copper still, three 2000-litre fermenters and, if memory serves, uses Crosby molasses from Guatemala (by way of New Brunswick) to get things going.  The company only makes rum, opting not to dilute its focus with other kinds of spirits, as so many others do, and remains very little known outside Alberta.

Now, I’ve actually already bought a bottle of the Dark and the Amber rums, and I’ve written a few quick tasting notes on both, but have not gotten around to trying either one seriously, or doing any real research – so it was good to see a bottle available for tasting at the booth, and Tomas patiently led me through the basic details, which I’ll not discuss until after I give you the tasting notes.

The standard strength (40%) rum is, as its name implies, dark. It’s also got a nose that’s peculiarly tannic in a sweetish kind of way, slightly oaky, and quite crisp. There’s quite a dollop of spices hitting you right away – cardamom and vanilla are the most obvious, with some cinnamon, light licorice, rosemary and black unsweetened tea backing that up. It’s too tame to do any damage and it looks to have been aged a few years – more than that is hard to tease out.

It remains easy and quite soft on the palate, and the crisp cleanliness of the nose is retained. It’s flavourful and the sense of the spices continues: the mouthfeel is really nice, and I suspect that even if the label doesn’t say so, there’s more than just some barrel ageing going on here. There are some red wine and bourbon notes in the background, a touch of ripe peaches in syrup, and overall it’s quite pleasant, even if additional vanilla and cardamom and cinnamon seem insistent on making themselves felt.  Finish is quite short, but at least it’s clean, and repeats most of the spices, slight tannics, ginger and fruit reasonably well.

So, after all this, what is it? Based on the label, you’re not getting much: 40%, molasses based, batch number, aged in ex-bourbon barrels. The website is where you get more: ex-Woodford Reserve barrels, pot still distillation…and additional spices. Which spices? That’s not given. How long is it aged? Not provided either. Year of distillation? Nada.

Tomas on the other hand, was quite informative and outgoing. He confirmed the barrels, and said the Dark is made as a blend, consistently about two-plus years old (hence the lack of a year of make), with all natural ingredients, nothing artificial. And while he called his still a single-column still, the website entry for this rum mentions it’s a pot still, and an article in the Calgary Herald mentions a hybrid, which last makes more sense given its flexibility and the photographs I’ve seen.

Essentially then: the Dark is a spiced rum, even if it doesn’t say so explicitly.  This is a puzzle since the company does make an amber coloured Spiced version, so it’s unclear why the title was left off. Tomas said that they don’t emphasise the ageing because that just leads to preconceptions that young rums can’t be good ones and they wanted it to speak for itself.  Maybe so, but I suggest that in today’s climate of disclosure, nothing is really lost by providing consumers with what they need to make an informed choice when buying a C$75 rum, and if Renaissance proved anything, it’s that rums aged under five years can be pretty damned fine.

So. What did I think? For people like my vlogger friend Steve the Barman in the UK, who likes expounding on the joys of rums like this, it’s right in his wheelhouse. It’s decent enough. It’s tasty, sweetish and as an after dinner drink will work just fine. Those who like rums like the Kraken, Don Papa, AH Riise, Bumbu and Captain Morgan will find much to enjoy. As a rum on its own terms, I myself find it less successful, and the cardamom and vanilla in particular have a disconcertingly powerful impact on the overall profile, shouldering aside other and more delicate aspects. On the basis of these comments you can decide where your own preferences lie, I think.

(#1033)(Unscored)

Other notes

  • It would be remiss not to mention that the Dark has won several awards: a Gold Medal in the Frankfurt International Trophy 2022 as well as the competition’s Best Canadian Spirit that same year; and a gold and silver medal in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2021 and 2022 respectively (both in the Dark Rum category).
  • The company runs tour, tasting and blending sessions at its facility in Calgary, which I’ve heard from friends of mine who went, are quite good.
  • There’s a fair bit of marketing copy on the website and other promotional materials, about rum running in Canada during Alberta’s own Prohibition era, but this is local colour and has no bearing on Romero directly.
  • The crow on the logo reflects the Crowsnest Pass in the south of Alberta, through which moonshine was supposedly transported on its way to the US in the bad old days.

Opinion

It’s no secret that spiced rums hold no particular appeal for me. Though occasionally their taste is nice enough, there is no yardstick by which to judge them —  some sort of baseline by which to assess their profile, the levels of what’s put in, how many different spices, where those come from, and to what spirit exactly such additions are made.  In other words, it becomes impossible to judge value or effectively compare one with the other. Are you paying for what is touted as an all-natural product (always a plus in these organic-everything times)? The hard-to-get (and therefore expensive) spices and flavourings? The exclusivity or age or quality or source of the rum stock it’s put into?  The length of time it all marries in casks, leading to additional price hikes? 

Who knows these things?  Nobody except the producer, that’s who. And therefore, I can’t tell whether a given spiced rum is neutral alcohol gotten on the cheap to which stuff has been added (perhaps to get around the costs of a years-long barrel-ageing program), or a youngish rum topped up with all-natural ingredients that make for a nicely flavoured drink. Both could conceivably be sold at a premium with all sorts of glib explanations.

Years of looking at spiced, flavoured or infused rums (yes, I do try them) have left me with a certain cynicism regarding what goes on a label, and at end, it comes down to this – in the absence of a common, agreed-to standard, no matter how informal, I just don’t trust them. I have no doubt that small and upcoming distilleries like Romero suffer from a lack of regional (let alone global) recognition, but they’re not helping themselves by the lack of proper disclosure here either (though it may be completely inadvertent). It’s not an inconsequential issue for a consumer being asked to pay that price, and hampers a more serious consideration of a distillery that really does make some interesting rums, another of which I’ll tell you about next time.

 

Renaissance Distillery 2018 4 YO Taiwan Rum (Noble Rot) – Review

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Oct 122023
 

This is the fifth and final review in the short series (of six – I have tried one before) where we look at some rums released by the Taiwan based Renaissance Distillery, which were on display in a 2023 TWE Rumshow masterclass dedicated to the company. It should be noted that the company has issued scores of full proof single cask releases already, so at best this scratches the surface.

For all its rather off-putting connotations to those who don’t know the term, noble rot is a controlled fungus infestation of grapes that go on to produce a particularly fine and concentrated sweet wine. Perhaps it is no surprise then, that a wine lover like Olivier Caen, one of the founders of the Taiwan-based Renaissance Distillery, sourced barrels of this kind of wine in which to age some of his rum. I sometimes think it’s his intention to try them every possible kind of cask in existence, but one can’t quibble with the results, because in many cases what comes out the other end is really kind of great.

By now we have come to know a fair bit about the production techniques of the small distillery just by perusing the labels, and this one is no different. The cane is their own, planted by the distillery, sent to a nearby factory to be crushed and turned into molasses which is then fermented with any one of a number of different yeast strains (a French West Indian one in this case, and for just shy of four weeks). There is the double distillation in the Charentais pot still (the second pass is on the lees) and then the distillate is set to age in a first fill noble rot barrel that has been “shaved, toasted and charred”. Four years later and et voilà, we have this rum, bottled to showcase ever percentage point of its 64% strength.

With that kind of potential – local sugar cane molasses, long fermentation, double pot still distillation, first fill charred barrel – one would expect no shortage of aromas and flavours jostling and shoving to get out the gate and strut their stuff, and indeed that’s what we get.  The nose, for example, is delectable – it’s crisp, very clear, and reminds me of a dry Riesling, with notes of red grapefruit, grapes and some tart, sharp ripe fruits – apples, cider, red currants and some laid back light florals. There’s a slight creaminess in the background, like yoghurt; and salt butter spread over hot croissants fresh from the oven. Nice.

The strength does the rum no harm and the four years of ageing has tamped down the excess reasonably well. So it doesn’t hurt or display too much sharpness. It tastes slightly creamy, like salt caramel ice cream minus some sugar; a touch salty, and all the crisp fruits remain available to be enjoyed – apples, grapes, pears, apricots, peaches and even some ginnips and lychees. One can perhaps detect traces of coconut shavings and spices like vanilla and cinnamon, even mauby bark, which is nice, but it’s just a bit, here and gone quickly. Finish is long and epic, as is to be expected, clean and clear, quite spicy, mostly fruits and florals and even a touch of honey.

Overall then, not terribly different from others we’ve tasted, but every bit as good as most and better than some. This is a short review because I want to get to the summation of my observations and there’s nothing much more to add to the company bio or this rum you don’t already know. I should, however, close with the note that for me this was one of the best of the six, and I’d buy it if it ever turned up in my market. We don’t get so many unique and tasty rums at this strength from obscure markets as it is, so we need to treasure the ones we find.

(#1032)(86/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The rums in this short series:

Summing up – some general observations on the rums of the line

As the six reviews I’ve written make clear, I really like the company and its rums – they have placed Taiwan firmly on the map of quality rum making, and hopefully inspire others on the island to try their hand, to the point where it becomes a rum-geek’s destination the way the Caribbean is. It’s one of the most consistently good estate producers out there, the more so because they don’t have a single standard product out there, no blends, no regular five or ten year old that carries the flag, or appeals to the larger crowd. It’s all single barrel releases, like they were an indie bottler with a single client – themselves. I’ve yet to find a dog in the series.

The rums they make are of a uniformly high level of excellence, and while others have scored the various individual expressions lower than I have (or higher) depending on their personal tastes, few fail to concede the power and uniqueness of the overall line. The combination of local cane, different yeast strains, varied fermentation times, a smallish pot still, double distillation, and all those crazy barrels in which the rums are either finished or double matured, constitutes something of a profile enhancer. The rums always have a whole lot bopping around in the foreground while some weird sh*t is dancing the ragtime out back, and as if that wasn’t enough, they are almost always issued at cask strength, with all the intensity of flavour and aromas this implies. 

That said, there are a few issues as well, of which the most important and oft-repeated – from a consumer’s perspective anyway – is the expense. I have zero patience for those in subsidised markets who grouse when a rum from somewhere else is over thirty dollars…but here they have a point. Renaissance’s rums are expensive, and at over a hundred bucks a pop for rums less than five years old, that’s a hard sell and a tough buy when there’s so much older stuff out there, of equally good value. It’s pointless to argue that taxes make up a large part of that, as do freight charges to get the things shipped all the way from the far east: optics are everything and until those prices become more affordable, the company’s excellent rums will remain a niche product for many.

Secondly there’s the unintended consequence of the very qualities that make the company’s name: the lack of a standard product. Consider another two highly-lauded relatively new estate producers: Hampden and Worthy Park.  They gained a following with rums everyone could afford and which were widely available and then started to go upscale with more limited releases that channelled the variations imparted by different barrels and experiments in the production process. Renaissance took the reverse approach and started right away from this point without every going through the “standard product” stage and has issued nothing but premium releases.  This to some extent hampers a broader recognition – oh sure, they have great word of mouth and I hope this small series raises their profile even more (because they deserve it) but how many people have actually tried them, or can?

Moreover, there is a subtler, more important effect of all the variations in releases which so delight the connoisseurs: the lack of a consistent, standard production model (like, oh, Hampden’s 8YO workhorse), and what this means is that there is nothing here that defines Taiwanese terroire specifically.  There’s too much other stuff in the way. Consider how distinctive the traditional Caribbean and Latin American rums are, for their countries – you can tell apart a Jamaican, Guyanese and French island rum quite easily because they channel something intrinsic to their points of origin, such as the stills of Guyana, the fermentation of Jamaica or the cane juice origin of Martinique and Haiti. For all Renaissance’s quality, the short ageing in all those different barrels obscures what might one day help define Taiwanese rum, something that also hampers, say, Nine Leaves out of Japan…but not, in contrast, Cor Cor or Ryomi.

Where I see this is going, then, is that the distillery will continue to make waves in the high end market for the foreseeable future with those entrancing limited single barrel releases, especially if they get better distribution. Who knows, these early essays in the craft may one day be regarded like Velier’s famed Demeraras and Caronis – deemed to pricey at the time, always remarked on for their quality, appreciating astronomically in the years that follow.

At some stage though, as the company expands (and I think they will), I suspect that the scaling up of the distillery will result in the production of a “regular” Taiwanese blend in quantity, without the distraction of other enhancements and embellishments.  Whether aged or unaged, juice or molasses, overproofed or living room strength, if the quality is retained and the taste is as good, their market is all but assured. If and when they ever do that, you can be sure that far more than just obscure bloggers like this one will be hungering for what they have produced.

 

Highwood Distillers Aged White Caribbean Rum – Review

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Oct 062023
 

This is not the first review to be speaking to a rum made or released by the western Canadian outfit Highwood Distillers: I’ve looked at the forgettable Momento, the guilty pleasure of Potters Dark, and a completely indifferent contract throwaway called Merchant Shipping Co. white rum (made for Wine & Beyond, a large local spirits shop chain), which some readers might recall I disliked intensely when I tried it earlier this year. At that same session I sampled their own simply labelled 40% white, and was a little more impressed than with the others…but I’m afraid that’s nothing to make you rush to the nearest store to go buy some.

The rum is a product that channels something of no-great-shakes median-scoring Plantation Three Star — without the character. It’s made from near neutral alcohol from Guyana that’s imported at 95% and aged for a year in ex-bourbon casks before being filtered to white and taken down to 40% (it remains an outstanding query with them as to where the ageing takes place). These facts, then, position it squarely in the cheap mixers’ blends section of the market that has no aspirations to be seen as an artisanal classic, so tempering expectations commensurately is a must.

Back in 2009 when my fellow rum chum The Rum Howler first looked at this product, he commented that he was able to discern its Guyanese nature: I assure you that no such profile attends to the one I tried 14 year later. It is redolent of rubbing alcohol infused with coconut shavings, with some subtle threads of sugar water, overripe white fruit, crackers, salt biscuits …and the musty, dusty scent of abandoned houses. There’s no wooden still action, no dark fruits, or tannins or raisins or licorice or sawdust. It’s really quite easy to smell, smoothly light and inoffensive…and here that means it’s simply bland. 

On the palate it retains a neutral character: tangy, lightly sweet, alcoholic. It tastes, at best, of a few indistinguishable sodden watery fruit in a graceless salad sprinkled with some alcohol and icing sugar. One can sense some pears, swank, a fine line of brine and light citrus (this is being generous), perhaps a touch of melon and coconut shavings, all of which serves to make it better than alcoholic water, but not by a whole lot.  The finish is smooth, light and relatively clean, just ultimately without much of anything.

Which, as has been mentioned to me before, is probably the point: for something made to be a cocktail ingredient, I should not ask for more. Maybe so. Expectations were low going in and the rum met them swimmingly. It is still being made almost two decades after being introduced, so it has to have something to recommend it. The problem for me is, that “something” is only price for purpose. It’s relatively cheap, it gets people buzzed and its blandness make it well suited for cocktails where it’s the other ingredients that shine, not the base rum.

Yet I take umbrage at the casual throwaway nature of the white, because I feel that if we are ever to grow the rum category in western Canada, local distillers have to stop with this “it’s cheap” one-size-fits-all mentality that is solely meant as a vehicle to move cases. Surely it’s possible to do more than just make a forgettable, affordable rum? How about an unforgettable one?

And I say that because I’ve seen what small rum companies in other countries do with lesser facilities and just some gumption and the desire to try making something interesting, something better. They’re making Jamaican wannabes in the UK and Down Under, using wooden pot stills in Japan, dicking around with Swedish oak in Denmark, to name just a few wild and woolly ideas that make rum more interesting: those guys experiment, they go off the reservation, they do it all themselves, and they make rums that sing in cocktails and enthuse aficionados the world over, and yes, they sell too.

In contrast, what do we get here? A Caribbean rum of zero taste and originality that doesn’t even channel its point of origin or advertise its source. It smells anonymous. It does nothing. It tells you nothing. It could be anything, come from anywhere, and be for anyone. Tell me, in what universe does that count as a successful product?

(#1030)(72/100) ⭐⭐½

Company background

The company is a distillery founded in 1974, originally called ‘Sunnyvale’. In 1984, it was renamed Highwood Distillers after the river that flows through the town of High River in which the distillery is located (in Alberta, just south of Calgary). Until 1997, both the distillery and sales offices were located at the distillery but then the sales office moved to town (which is to say, Calgary), while the distillery continues where it started, and where it remains to this day. In 2005 they bought the BC-based Potter’s distillery, as well as the brands they owned which is why Potter’s Light and Dark rums are part of Highwood’s current portfolio. 

The acquisition of Potters and the expansion into general spirits – vodka, rum, whiskey, gin, liqueurs, flavoured spirits – marked the limit of how far Highwood seemed to want to go, and no further purchases, acquisitions or portfolio increases attended the company for the next decade and a half. Interestingly, in 2022 the Nova Scotia based whisky distiller Caldera Distilling, bought out Highwood in a push to expand into western Canada, thereby creating what is touted as the largest family owned distillery in Canada; however so far it does not seem as if much has changed and if the two company websites are anything to go by, with neither company referring to the other, then it suggests a rather hands-off and independent approach to production.

 

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