Ruminsky

Diplomacy

Mar 202013

Henry Kissinger is both respected and reviled as one of the most powerful American Secretaries of State ever (he also concurrently held the post of National Security Advisor) but there’s little argument that as an author and analyst the man is in a class by himself. Nowhere, in my not-so-humble opinion, is this more clearly to be seen than in his doorstopper of a book about statecraft, Diplomacy.

Diplomacy is not for the timid, and should be avoided by those whose taste runs into fiction or who have the adult equivalent of ADD. Admittedly, we at the club have ploughed our way through Ayn Rand, and the running joke is always that we’ll get to War & Peace in the next century or so as long as we get enough notice, but we’ll have to really brush up our socks and burn the midnight oil to get through this one if we ever relaxed the non-fiction rule. At 900+ densely-crowded pages and 3lbs, here’s a book for men with hair on their chests.

Starting with the end of WW2, Kissinger jumps backwards to the origins of the European system of international relations which developed after the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and summarizes some three centuries of diplomacy between the western powers, giving generous time to France’s attempts to keep Germany disunited in the 17th and 18th centuries, the results of the post-Napoleonic-wars period, and the massive impact that Wilsonian idealism – so derided by a contemptuous Theodore Roosevelt who was a proponent of realpolitik if there ever was one – had on contemporary American foreign policy. It is a vast and sweeping tapestry of history with characters as recognizable as Metternich, de Richelieu, Bismarck, Stalin, Hitler, Giap, Nasser and the 20th century American Presidents striding across the stage.

In its analysis and readability, it is, in most parts, masterful, I dare say brilliant. Aside from George Kenan’s extraordinary essay “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” (also known as the ‘Long Telegram’) written in 1947, I doubt I’ve ever read its equal in a non fiction work for sheer incisiveness and clarity of prose. I particularly enjoyed Kissinger’s dissection of Metternich and Richelieu’s maneuverings, and how Stalin survived the invasion of his country, as well has the psychological portraits of the many world leaders figured in the book. Kissinger’s recounting and analysis of events in which he himself played a part – the Vietnam War, the Arab-Israeli conflict among others – are somewhat less compelling, listing slightly more towards an apologia or explanation for actions taken by him, than a straightforwardly objective breakdown.

I have read Diplomacy cover to cover at least three times since I obtained it, and my scribbles, highlights and jottings mark many pages. It has informed my world view, shed light on historical events and charges my desire to read more about real events and real people, every time I crack the cover. It is dense, scholarly, long and not a light read, so reader, be warned: this is not a trivial intellectual exercise for the scholastically disadvantaged…a solid grounding in history is almost a prerequisite, and Kissinger makes no concessions to you. But for those who manage to dive in and swim to the other side of this sea of scholarship, I can almost guarantee that you’ll walk away with more than you went in with and possessing a greater respect for diplomats and their efforts worldwide.

NB. This is irrelevant but I wanted to mention it: the book was given to me by Ken Hermann from Vancouver, a good friend and professional colleague from my first overseas job in Central Asia, back in 1995. He lent it to me as he was leaving for his turnaround, and died the very same day, along with ten other Canadian expats and three Russian pilots, when the MI-8 helicopter they were in crashed in the Tien Shan mountains. I keep it and look at his name on the flyleaf every year, and remember him and all the others.

The Great War for Civilization

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Mar 202013

What an enormous, sprawling, wide-ranging, dense, tragic, magisterial narrative has Robert Fisk spun out of his journalistic experiences. I have read Edward Said’s works on the Middle East, Huntigndon’s “Clash of Civilizations,” and passed through many histories of that troubled part of the world, but it is my considered opinion that this outcome of thirty years’ reporting there is in a class by itself. Personal, compelling, well-researched and passionately written, it is on a par with “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” for unbridled emotional and intellectual impact.

Fisk’s writing is a tour of the modern history of the middle east (although he digresses to other points from time to time). He writes about his interviews with Osama bin Laden, the Armenian genocide (it was the Congressional recognition of this in 2010 that made me go back to the book), the Algerian civil war, and 20th century histories of Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Through it all you get the sense of his outrage at how, as the British Empire waned and shrank and the American one rose, whole populations were manipulated, used, killed and moved as pawns across a strategic board, with fear and hysteria as coercive weapons. Nowhere is this more clear than in the account of the Iraqi invasion and how, by deliberately manipulated intelligence and populations whipped into war frenzies of hatred and revenge, the Western Powers commandeered the oil in Iraq, and labelled anyone who disagreed as being on the side of the “terrorists.”

This brief account of the book does little justice to the sweeping arc of Fisk’s accounts of the Middle East. Yes it’s a weighty read, and yes, it’s long – a book covering this much history can hardly be anything else. But his personalized writing style and in-place observations of the events that shaped the region for over a century are a valuable counterpoint to the drier historical tomes written by more erudite historians, and there’s no denying is research, or his passion for the innocent dead. Indeed, it is these accounts that inflate the book (a fact bemoaned by many). Fisks acts as a speaker for the dead, presuming to ask why. And if he writes stridently and with too many words, I can only recall the Emperor’s whine to Mozart about too many notes. And Mozart’s reply…”Which ones should I cut?”

I reiterate that if history is not your thing, this book won’t do much for you. But as year passes year and we are no closer to a Middle East peace, and nations continue to go to war in that region, then perhaps a book like this, unashamedly partisan and mourning the waste, is in itself, perhaps, a good thing to take hold of and read through, if only just once.

The Fifties

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Mar 202013

The Pulitzer-prize winning author David Halberstam’s study of the 1950s remains, after three readings, one of the most enjoyable works of history I ever picked up by accident. I was in a small bookstore on Yonge Street in Toronto and needed two more books to round out the $25 I was spending. The other one has long since been relegated to a shelf somewhere, but I keep picking this one up every year or two to go through it again.

Halberstam’s central thesis is that while the sixties was a seminal decade in American life – Vietnam, the counterculture, birth control, rock and roll, peace, love and what have you, all rocked the nation – the germination for many of the events that defined that decade actually originated before that, in the immediate post-war years. More, many smaller, less visible, but not less impactful occurrences also happened during the fifties which arguably had more far-reaching effects: Levittowns, the Cold War, discount stores, the beginning of the black migration from the south to the northern industrial centres, the origins of the Beat generation, the changes in cinema, decline in radio, advertising, research on contraception, fast food (the chapter on MacDonalds’s is brilliant)…I can go on and on.

Halberstam’s masterstroke is to make his chapters short and tightly focussed instead of droning on for hundreds of pages on grand themes that would inevitably try the patience of a scholar. Starting with the late 1940s, he sketches the main events from a political perspective. Truman, MacArthur, the origins of the Cold War, atomic reasearch, the return of GIs from service, the nascent middle class, are all touched on briefly. After that he ranges more widely, and not always chronologically, because his chapters tend to focus on one thing at a time. In a book this large – okay, okay, it’s 800 pages long — I’m amazed that it contains as much as it does in 46 succint chapters. And if the book has a weakness, it’s that the chapters are not labelled, only numbered, so one is not sure what one is getting into until halfway through a section (this is why my edition has my chapter titles inked in – “Rosa Parks and the advent of Civil Rights”, or “the 1952 Presidentials” and “The emerging impact of TV”…and we won’t even discuss the highlighting that is on almost every page).

David Halberstam was a journalist and author who cut his teeth reporting on the Viet Nam war, and wrote a seminal work on US hubris leading to that debacle and the subsequent influence of those policies and decisions called “The Best and the Brightest,” which I also recommend highly. He first came to my attention when I read his book “War in a Time of Peace” which discussed the low intensity conflicts that raged following the end of the cold war and how the US dealt with them…in particular, Haiti, the Balkans and Somalia. He was a Pulitzer prize winner and loved baseball and sports, about which he also wrote several highly regarded books.

This glowingly positive review is probably not going to change anyone’s mind. If you’re not into history or current affairs, well, then I doubt I can convince you to pick up a tome this large in between all your other concerns. I myself usually take about a month to go through it. But if you are at all interested in the history of the 20th century and the forces that shaped American society and culture – and by diffusion, that of much of the western world – then this book is well written, informative and one of the best of its kind.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

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Mar 202013

The Flood Tablet

Then came the flood, sent by gods’ intent…

And Ea [gave] this advice to me:

“Arise and hear my words:

Abandon your home and build a boat

Choose to live and choose to love…

Be moderate as you flee for survival

In a boat that has no place for riches

Take the seed of all you need aboard…”

Tablet XI, Column i, The Epic of Gilgamesh

Aside from historical and biblical scholars, not many people know about The Epic of Gilgamesh, though my research suggests that the character seems to be somewhat of a subterrannean cultural icon and is referenced quite often in the arts; those that do know the epic, came to it not as a classic in its own right but because they heard or read that it provided one of the first independent written records of The Flood (a fact not as startling as it may seem, since many creation myths from around the world have a destruction of man by gods in a titanic cataclysm as one the central theses).

But like Moll Flanders, the Ramayana, Huck Finn or The Tale of Genji, it shares a unique genealogy: it is among the first of its kind, if not the first. It may be the oldest tale ever written, and the earliest work of literature known to man.

The Epic is a Mesopotamian myth; it is a series of short episodic poems from the proto-kingdom of Sumer, which flourished around four thousand years ago (divorce and property rights were developed here, for the trivia nuts reading this). It describes the adventures of the King of Uruk, and his best friend Enkidu (in this it parallels the Kyrgyz hero-myth of Manas and his best friend Almanbet, though the legends are not strictly comparable), and is inscribed on twelve stone tablets found at the city of Nineveh, once part of Babylon, in 1849. Various interpretations suggest that the oldest part of the tale is from Sumer itself, but later Akkaddian additions created the famous 12 cuneiform tablets which form the basis of most modern translations.

In the first part of the Epic, Gilgamesh is a king, two thirds god, one third man, who oppresses the citizens of Uruk by – among other things – indulging himself in the droit de siegneur (the “prima nocte” made famous by Braveheart). They cry out to the gods, whose create a primitive man of the same power as Gilgamesh; he is Enkidu, covered in hair and living in the wild, until found; seduction by a temple prostitute is the first step in his civilization (an interesting twist on Rousseau’s thesis that it is civilization that corrupts the Eden-like state of primitive man). He goes to Uruk to confront Gilgamesh and after a titanic battle, they become friends

The next tablets tell the various adventures the two friends have: the slaying of the demi-god Humbaba; the encounter with the goddess Ishtar after returning to Uruk, and Gilgamesh’s refusal of her advances (Ishtar is part of the the prototypical triumvirate of elder gods, corresponding to the Sumerian Innana, Egyptian Isis, semitic Astarte…and the (downgraded) greek and roman goddess of love); her petulant plea to her father Anu to avenge her humilation by sending the Bull of Heaven to wreak destruction on Uruk. The heroes slay the bull, but the gods decide one must die for this affront to heaven, and after a short illness interspersed with many vividly recounted dreams, Enkidu dies. Mad with grief, Gilgamesh seeks to find a legendary man called Utnapishtim who may be able to to provide him with the secret of immortality and of regenerating life…since he has been alive since the Great Flood.

And here we come to it. Try and imagine the impact such a statement on a four thousand year old tablet must have made on a mostly secular but still religious culture which had not yet been exposed to Darwin. The description Utnapishtim gives Gilgamesh corresponds very closely with the Flood Myth of the bible (and with many other myths in world culture, but I won’t go into that here), most particularly how one family was given advance warning to build a boat to ride out the flood, and then, after the waters began receding, released a bird to see whether it returned.

In the event, Utnapishtim instructed Gilgamesh how to find the sacred flower that provides immortality, but after Gilamesh discovers and picks it, the bloom is stolen while he bathes by….what else? A serpent. (I just love this stuff…even a modern novelist can hardly better this one)

Gilgamesh is one of those stories at the root of our memories and culture, so basic that we can’t see its murky outlines underneath our common notions of storytelling. Much like Robert Johnson’s primitive licks which whisper from under the bedrock of current rock music, Gilgamesh is one of the prototypical tales without which none of the others can be properly understood. He is the first Nietzschean superman, the most basic wandering hero like Rama, Hercules, Manas or Conan. He calls to our unconscious mental picture of a Jungian first man with correspondences in Aboriginal, Lakota, semitic, Hindu, Greek, Inca, Polynesian and shinto mythology. He is the first recorded attempt in world letters to nail down the concept in a permanent form. The epic dealt with sex, religion and flawed beings in a realistic way not found again for literally millenia, questioned dogma and the gods themselves, and told a coherent story that actually had a point (though scholars feel it is still incomplete and not all tablets have been recovered)

And for a legend this old and this dusty, it’s actually still referenced a lot in modern art and historical forms. Consider: Atlantis theorists refer to the Epic constantly as a secondary source for the Flood Myth they claim underlay the sinking of that fabled isle; Phillip Roth wrote a novel abut a baseball player Gil Gamesh, whose story arc followed the epic; it has been translated into Klingon for Star Trek fans (along with Hamlet) and been the focus of at least one episode in The Next Generation; at least three operas of that name have been written in the latter half of the 20th century; perhaps due to its oral backgrund, a variation of the legend has often been performed in theatre; and Japanese anime references it in Sword of Uruk and in Gurren Lagan (there’s this mecha called Enkidu…); even Hercules: The Legendary journeys, an American TV series, had Gilgamesh make an appearance. Think this is all? In the Final Fantasy video games, there is usually a boss called Gilgamesh and his sidekick Enkidu; in Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance, there’s a Viraxo ship named Enkidu; in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword expansion pack, the leader of the Sumerian civ is called Gilgamesh.

Joseph Campbell’s powerful work The Hero With A Thousand Faces (which helped George Lucas fashion Star Wars, by the way) probably comes closest to allowing us to understand the peculiar longevity of a character in myth mostly forgotten and rarely read. The Hero on a Quest holds a fascination for us all because it is embdedded in our subconscious, part of our race memories of a wandering past. We seek the unattainable both within and without our physical selves, seek a state of grace and strength over and beyond the mundane lives we live. Gilgamesh, strong, kingly, flawed, who lost his best friend and gained knowledge if not enlightment, speaks to that part of us that rises above the petty considerations of our world and searches for a more sublime state of mind.

Shogun

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Mar 202013

Book Review: Shogun – James Clavell

James Clavell was the real thing. A prisoner of war in Changi (source of the inspiration of his first novel, King Rat) he somehow managed to rise above his experiences in war to write perhaps the definitive fictional account of pre-Tokugawa Japan in Shogun. Sure Christopher Nicole wrote a truer account in his novel Lord of the Golden Fan, but it lacked the snap and punch of Clavell’s creation, lacked the in-depth research, the feeling, the entire mentality of Japan. Let me put it this way: at the end of Shogun, you spoke some Japanese and had more than an inkling into the entire mindset of the culture. Few novels I’ve ever read have such a sense of verisimilitude, or drew you so deep into the complex inner life of an entire people.

The story follows Jonathan Blackthorne, ship’s navigator, who is blown by a storm into a bay in the Japanese islands in the late 16th century. The story follows him through his initial hostile reception by the local daimyo (feudal lord) and Portuguese priests, through to his secondment to the entourage of the daimyo Toranaga and his gradual assimilation into Japanese ways of life. And what an assimilation it is, because Clavell contrasts the western mind with that of the Japanese, makes us understand the utter foreignness of one to the other, the politics, obligations, dietary practices, and in Blackthorne’s learning, we learn alongside him.

Alongside this is a primer on history and politics of pre-Edo Japan. For those who know nothing of this, there was a period of many years where various powerful families and clans and feudal lords battled for overall supremacy in Japan (the late Warring period); in the late 16th century one general managed to unite most of the four main islands but could not take the title of shogun (regent for the emperor) because of his common birth: after a rash invasion of Korea and China, he died, and one of his regents finally took power and stabilized the empire for over two hundred years until Commodore Perry forced the islands open in the 19th century. Shogun tells the tale of this interregnum and the steps leading up to the decisive battle of Sekigahara in 1600 (with foreshadowing of the taking of Osaka castle later…but I digress).

I know this sounds somewhat dry, but trust me, it is anything but. Strategy, tactics, political maneuvering, great battles, treachery most foul, love all tender, ninjas, samurai, madams, sex, violence, swords, guns, power and command, all wrapped up in a long, delicious serving of a novel that isn’t afraid to go where the story leads, without compromise. And in all that we meet characters not soon forgotten: Blackthorne, Toranaga, Mariko, Tsukku-san, Ishido…the list is long and distinguished.

This is the novel that introduced Japan to the average western reader. From battle ethics and seppukku to hygiene, diet and cha-no-yu, the interwoven narrative lines flow harmonically, like fish in a Zen rock garden pool. Beautiful, economical and seamless, Clavell’s insights on human nature have produced a masterwork of historical fiction, not to be missed by any.

And if that isn’t enough for you, well, there are always those ninjas.

NB The full TV miniseries is faithful to the book and is not a television event to be missed if you can get the entire thing.

On The Road

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Mar 202013

On the Road was the shot across the bow of an older generation, and heralded a new direction in American letters. Jack Kerouac pioneered the ‘stream of consciousness’ narrative style and dream worlds made flesh, flashbacks, flashforwards, plot departures and side trips, meandering soliloquies and sounded the first thrum of the counterculture. It is the Star Trek of the hippie sixties, presaging much of what came later, its uniqueness seen mostly in retrospect

At all times biographical, On the Road is a journey into the mental state and physical surroundings of Sal and his friends, who disdain the middle class existence they have (and about which not much is ever said) and who dare to do more than dream, by heading out on the great freeways and highways of America to discover themselves and sample what there is of life.

In form, On the Road is spare on plot (if one can even said to exist) and long on character. The various individuals who populate Sal’s life and travels are carefully drawn and in the structure of the observations about them – the novel is written in the first person – the only nod to development can be seem…that of Sal and how is growing maturity over a period of years leads to his gradual mental adulthood. Beyond that it’s just a series of vignettes about places visited, people met, things experienced, sights seen.

On the Road is a paean to the great new adventure of America – travel on the highways. The post war generation had no ‘good’ war to fight, no new territories to explore or conquer…what they had was a large sprawling land loosely connected by roads, and Kerouac himself travelled extensively on them (in a way he was like Steinbek), and the experiences he had germinated for years until he put it all down.

What sets On the Road apart is the narrative style. As Bob remarked in our discussion – “Where’s the damned plot?” It has none. Kerouac reputedly wrote the whole novel in three weeks fueled on coffee, and he typed where his thinking led him. Like Catcher he talked frankly – if amorally, distantly – about sex, about drugs, about the lure of the road to the detriment of personal relationships, about women, homosexuality, music (jazz), and anything else that occurred to him as he was putting it all down. This leads to a casual style of writing which almost lets one see what Kerouac is seeing, and offended the purists of the day who labelled it lazy and anti-intellectual.

For the many others who read it – and that seems to have been a great part of the youth of America at one point or another, another similarity it has with Catcher – it was a book that resonated, captured their unease about their lives, its pointlessness now that their surroundings were safe and perhaps even affluent; it encapsulated their idealism about getting away from The System and life spent working for The Man, and living a purer, more innocent life where the rat race had no place. It wrote about people not often written about, the Common Man (much like Peyton Place did). It was a major part of the works of the Beat poets (Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac himself) who were the source of the whole Beat generation of the fifties, which developed into the hippie counterculture of the sixties, what with its characteristics of drug use, easy love, eastern religious sensibilities, and the desire to experience life in all its facets, with all its immediacy.

Seen now, at a remove of over half a century, it’s difficult to clearly grasp the world into which it detonated with such force. Race relations had not yet burst into the great movements of the sixties; it was still deemed safe to hitchhike and travel the highways alone; vast tracts of the continent were still isolated from each other and a large part of the population remained rural, clinging to a more sedate, conservative lifestyle, ignoring the great social changes brewing underneath the deceptively calm exterior and behind the white picket fences. Drugs, sex (even less the seedier aspects of it), violence were seen as distant and never, ever written about.

Kerouac and the Beats changed all that. We live in the inner world they helped make. Cable, always-on computers, porn freely available, TV shows with graphic violence, sex and drug use, the infantilizing and numbing effects of popular culture (“pro” wrestling and reality shows are prime examples of this craziness), the baser side of man’s nature always on display, books written using any kind of language, on any kind of subject — the mental world which surrounds us, and the ability to write and watch and create fiction of this kind, of anything we please or can imagine, can all be traced to those crazies in the post war years who risked obscenity trials, jail time and contempt to realize an inner vision that proved to be more durable, and more freeing, than that of all those member of the Thought Police who sought to stop up the bottle and stuff the genie of free expression back in.

I may not like the writing style – I marked On the Road down savagely – but there’s no question in my mind of the debt modern society owes to the Beat poets like Kerouac and his generation. Every time I use an obscenity in my own writing, or discuss sex frankly, it is to some extent the Beats that I owe my right to do so. They fought the battles we don’t have to, and we eat the apples of the tree they helped water.*

For a discussion of the Beats and their effects, Halberstam’s The Fifties is a good reference, as, of course, is Wikipedia.

Wizard’s First Rule

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Mar 202013

A young woodsman called Richard Cypher (hint hint) is out in the woods, pondering the murder of his father, when he sees a beautiful woman (is there any other kind?) being stalked by four men. He intervenes, and rescues her from death. From this rather quick beginning, Terry Goodkind has spun the tale of “Wizard’s First Rule.” “When writing a short story,” Chekhov supposedly said, “Finish it, then chop the first three paragraphs.” We get dropped into the action so rapidly in “Wizard’s First Rule”, that one suspects Goodkind may have known the quote.

WFR (I’m a little too lazy to be typing the whole thing every time I refer to it), is, at first blush, a groaning retelling of Tolkien. When you think about it, it has all the trappings: innocent youth going on quest to save world – a sylvan northern place, of course – from evil bad guy, aided by friends and (of course), old wizard. It’s a bildungsroman from start to finish – though finish may be the wrong word, since this book is the first one of eleven equally weighty tomes. Why me God?, I groaned as I saw the stat: can these things not be afflicted with the Multiplicate Virus? Was I gonna have to plow through millions of words in order to grasp what amounts to an introduction?

And Terry Goodkind, who published this work in 1997, doesn’t make the going easy either. After a that rather lurching beginning that drops us so disconcertingly into the main events, he tediously sets up character and world and scene in what consists of half of a 900 page novel. It’s like the journey to Rivendell took twice as long. He mixes elements of Middle Earth, the Quest, the numinous object and modern pop culture in a medieval setting in often intriguing ways. It’s quite a read.

This version of Middle Earth is a land divided into three spheres: Westland, without magic, Midland with it, and the more easterly realm of D’Hara, also with magic. The three lands are separated by a now-failing boundary which once prevented passage between them, set there by wizards long ago, but still within memory of the living. The ruler of D’Hara, an evil emperor (aren’t they all?) called Darth Vader – sorry, Darken Rahl – is taking over Midland and possesses magic greater than even that wielded by the great wizards of old. In a nutshell, it becomes Richard’s task to stop him, since Darken Rahl is bent not only on world domination, but actual world destruction. One wonders what he’ll do with the wasteland he ends up with.

WFR is a self-contained story – much to my relief – and to some extent suffers from what I term “First Novel Syndrome” – which is that suspicious effluvium one finds in some first novels: occasional loose plotting, language that doesn’t ring true, motivations and interactions and events that occur just a little too conveniently. In this instance, these matters exist and can be spotted – the sudden appearance of Scarlet is a particularly egregious (and irritating) example of the phenomenon in action – but are fortunately not always that obvious. It’s sad that a novel this ambitious and this taut needs to resort to clumsy plot devices to get our boy out of a corner Goodkind has written him into.

I can go on about the world Goodkind has created, the characters he populated it with, and the backstory and history with which he fleshes things out, even the long narrative and intricate plot: but that would be pointless. In a series of this kind the crucial questions are always the same: is the world a unique one, populating our mental landscape with new images and distinctive characters? and are the old legends of our time woven in new and spellbinding ways?

And so I must be honest: once one gets past the issues I mention, slogs on past the halfway point when all is made clear (more or less), when one finally has a good grasp of the issues, the history and the culture of the world…then things really do take off. And better yet, Goodkind clearly had his multiplicated stretch-limo of a series in mind from the beginning, since it is obvious he is setting things up for future novels (full disclosure: in researching WFR, I peeked at summaries of what comes later), and that gives this book a solid historical and cultural grounding and a richness and depth not always found in fantasy wannabees and pretenders to Tolkien’s throne. Stilted and choppy dialogue aside – too many conversations take place simply to inform the reader – the core relationships between Richard, Zed and Kahlan are solid (if straightforward), and required. And I have to admit: Goodkind enjoys springing surprises on us, he changes direction on a dime, and yet his plot makes good use of all previously supplied information – he does not cheat.

The fantasy books that stick with us are those that have a strong storyline, do not bore and have both environments and characters we care about. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, the worlds of Fionavar, Middle Earth, Earthsea, Discworld and Donaldson’s Land are all places that have colonized our imaginations and enriched our reading with their magic and heroic tales. Now here is the world of WFR – imperfect, intriguing, interesting and powerful. Not all will be enthused by having to read eleven books, and like Jordan’s epos The Wheel of Time, it may fail at the back stretch: but with this one work, Goodkind has created an entry that, if it avoids the pitfalls all too common inn the genre, may rise to share a table with the best of them.

I’d say that for a book I started out disliking, that’s no faint praise.

The Catcher In The Rye

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Mar 202013

“Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger, seems to be one of those books one either loves or hates. Ostensibly the sory of one bored, directionless rich kid’s sojourn in New York, this short novel presaged the counterculture of the 1960s by over a decade, and arguably fired the imagination of an entire generation of post-war Americans like no other novel since. The reclusiveness of the author, and its being found in the effects of two high-profile American assassins, have merely raised public awareness of the book and enhanced the reputation surrounding it. People either despise its antihero or praise its carefully observed portrait of youthful alienation. Whatever your opinion, once you’ve read it, you always *have* an opinion.

***

The first-person narrative of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of “Catcher” begins as he is expelled from Pencey Prep, a fictional preparatory school not unlike the one Salinger himself attended in his youth. He ignores the paternal advice of one of his teachers, gets into a fight with his roommate and departs for New York in the middle of the night. Not wanting to return to his own family he books himself into a cheap hotel, and has varying encounters with three tourists, a prostitute (and her pimp) and generally wanders around for the next few days in a fog of loneliness, self-pity and a drunken haze. He sneaks into his parents’ apartment while they are away, in order to see his little sister Phoebe, for whom he has an idealized affection not unlike that of Travis Bickle for Iris, or Jake la Motta for Vickie (though she seems to have a similarly naive view of him at times). A key sequence takes place when Holden tells her about a fantasy he has in which he saves children running through a rye field — hence the title of the novel — which points up his immaturity and childish view of the world.

After leaving Phoebe, Holden visits a much-admired former teacher of his, Mr. Antolini. Mr. Antolini is another central figure in Holden’s journey, the one who dispels his grandiose fantasies by observing that it is the stronger man who lives humbly, rather than dies nobly, for a cause. This rebukes Holden’s ideas of becoming a godlike figure who symbolically saves children from “falling off a crazy cliff” and being exposed to the evils of adulthood. Holden’s subsequent response to Antolini’s apparent homosexual (“flitty”)advances sunders this relationship also, but it is unclear whether this has in fact occurred the way Holden tells it, and he himself wonders – in the first sign of growing mental maturity – whether his assessment was correct.

In the closing act, Holden decides to move out west, with about as much forethought and consideration as all his other actions, and at first decides to take Phoebe, then changes his mind, taking her to the zoo instead. And while he makes up his mind to go home and “face the music” (whatever that may be in his context), it is unclear what he actually does, since it appears he closes his narration while staying in a mental asylum (or having just emerged from one) and then planning to re-ener school in the fall.

***

Many forests have been cut down to provide paper for the reams of analysis springing from critics’ pens on this novel. Is it as great or as influential as people say it is? Like all art in literature, it boils down to a matter of opinion. What seems clear is that it is one of the best-known, most-referenced, most-quoted books on alienation, childhood’s end, and teenage angst ever written. It was a shot across the bows of the staid early 1950s establishment that lived in a simpler, less complex mental environment where America had not yet taken the cutural centre stage of the world. It was heralded and decried in equal measure, villified often and banned frequently. Its narrative style, profanity and frank discussion of themes like religion, drugs and sexuality — which were still ruled by a more prudish morality in public discourse — ensured its immediate fame (and notoriety), and that of its author.

Salinger found his own, unique voice and went on to inspire a different school of American fiction. He reintroduced an emotional range and unsentimental candour to American writing which had all but disappeared with the terse masculinity of Hemingway’s spare prose. To this day, most American writers find their voices through an apprenticeship to one style or the other. Decades of close reading and analysis in classrooms have placed Salinger’s fiction on the same footing in the American literary canon as The Great Gatsby and Huckleberry Finn. So although he never published a second novel his work exerted an enduring, and wide-ranging influence over the style and content of modern American fiction.”Huckleberry Finn” had a similar impact on the readers of its time, and indeed, the two novels share many thematic elements.

The consensus of Liquoratures’ members is that while we admired the prescience of the author in addressing the aforementioned modern themes, and while we were intrigued by Holden’s progress throughout the book, we despised Caulfield himself: his constant whining, his judgemental behavior, his lack of vision and self-criticism, his uninformed narcissism and baseless opinions on everything. My 17-year old daughter read the book within a week of the Club, and interestingly, came to exactly the same conclusion. The irony of all this is that we decry Holden’s opinions and judging of others, while in order to do so, we do exactly what he did (though hopefully with more knowledge and critical thinking).

Two pieces of insight which came from our discussion are worth mentioning here.

One, we thought that for people possessing a certain mental maturity, achievers who are reasonably confident in who they are, probably don’t hold with Caulfield’s judgements and dislike him. But for the lost, the disconnected, the visionless and pathless, for those who lack a direction in their life – mostly the young, I suspect – “Catcher” would probably hold real meaning.

And two, how far is it to go from making snap judgements and formless, baseless assumptions about people one barely knows (and these judgements are almost always negative, it is interesting and sad to note), how difficult is it to move from saying “This person has an aspect I do not like” to saying “We must do something about him”?

That second point, encapsulating something of the intolerance of our times and the dreadful repercussions of people who take that step, perhaps hints at the enduring appeal of “Catcher in the Rye” and its buried power, which is still there, not dead, awaiting a call.

The Namesake

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Mar 202013

The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake is a family drama that illuminates the author’s signature themes: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the tangled ties between generations. The novel takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of an arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ashoke does his best to adapt while his wife pines for home. When their son, Gogol, is born, the task of naming him betrays their hope of respecting old ways in a new world. And we watch as Gogol stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With empathy and insight, Lahiri explores the expectations bestowed on us by our parents and the means by which we come to define who we are.

What has made this book stand out is the quality of the writing (Lahiri won a Pulitzer for her previous book of short stories “The Interpreter of Maladies”), quite unlike most plot driven books we have read. There is a certain voluptuousness to the prose, something about its elliptical style, that draws you into the mental world of each of the characters; and the evocative descriptions of everyday life, the small details of what it is like to see the western world through eastern eyes, resonates deeply.

To some extent, as an outsider to many cultures, I appreciate this level of storytelling — but on a reread, I found that what moved and interested me most was actually the interplay of relationships between generations, between father and son, child and parent (and indeed it is on this aspect that our discussion focused most intensely). And, as something at right angles to our previous reading, it proved a welcome challenge and stimulating topic by virtue of its difference and change of direction.

Red Mars

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Mar 202013

“Red Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson is probably the best hard science fiction tale of planetary colonization ever written, and is followed by two sequels, neither of which rise to the greatness of this first novel. It harks back to the Golden Age of science fiction in the forties and fifties, when John W. Campbell edited Astounding Stories and pioneered similar types of narrative, where real men and women dealt with the universe in logical, almost engineering-like ways.

“Red Mars” spans a period of some fifty years, and has elements of utopionaism, dystopianism, politics, engineering, technological futurism and interpersonal dynamics and psychology all woven into a dense tapestry. Focusing almost exclusively on certain key members of the First Hundred colonists, it details their initial landing, construction and habitat-building, and then moves off into the exploration of the planet in a search for water and resources. The ethical and ecological impacts of terraforming are not short changed and are discussed at length by these people.

The personal quirks and characters of the colonists is not neglected either. Frank Chalmers, Maya Toitovna, John Boone, Sax Russell form the romantic triage, while Arkady Bogdanov, Sax Russell and Ann Clayborne are the key colonists involved in the debate on terraforming Mars. Many other characters are given weight and time to develop, and we have a keen interest in the way people’s lives turn out. Even relatively minor charcters like Hiroko Ai, Michel Duval or Phyllis Boyle turn out to have subtle but profound impacts on the overall storyline.

Underlying all this is the planet Mars itself: its weather, its geography, its harshness and beauty, its deadliness and uniqueness. The planet is sensed everywhere, on every page, and permeates the background of the book both obviously when needed and inobtrusively when not. It’s one of the most atmospheric books about an utterly foreign and alien environment committed to print.

Not left out are the politics of Mars’s relationship with earth and how the mission was funded, developed and then deteriorates into political bickering and rebellion. As is often the case with colonies, once they reach a critical mass of people, sentiments of independence stir, while the home base, seeing such a place as a wealth generator and resource provider, seeks to hold on to its power and influence. In a time of tensions on earth as resources dwindle and nations are almost on the brink of war for what remains, Mars becomes another piece to be competed for in great power rivalry, and the hope it once held out for being a chance to start over gradually wanes.

For scope and depth and impressive knowledge of geography, engineering, futurism and psychology, it’s hard to top this novel. If it appears dense and packed with information, well, it is, even if that does on occasion detract from the narrative and plotline. Whatever the shortcomings, the fact is that “Red Mars” remains a triumph of science fiction writing and a tough, unsentimental look at the way we, as humans, will one day venture into habitats other than our own.

Film vs Digital

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Mar 132013

Later this year (2010), a milestone in photographic history will be reached: the last produced roll of kodachrome print film and ektachrome slide film – Kodak’s famous workhorse of pro-photographers for three-quarters of a century – will be developed in the last lab still to process its demanding Ex chemistry (for those who are interested, it’s Dwayne’s Photo Service, in Parsons, Kansas). Appropriately enough, that last roll will be shot by veteran National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry, who made that famous “Afghan Girl” photo.

Some herald it as a final nail in digital’s ascendancy over film. As an enthusiastic amateur, it started me thinking: when indulging one’s predilection for photography, which is better, film or digital? (I love these ridiculous what-ifs..they are so uselessly entertaining).

Let’s run through the pros and cons, and I’ll give my opinions at the end.

Pro Digital:

– Can anything beat the instant feedback of reviewing what you thought you shot after taking it? No more messing arounbd with notes on shutter spped, aperture, filters or special film after the fact. No missing the moment. You shoot, you look (“chimping your shot” – isn’t that a great phrase?) you correct, shoot again. There’s a reason amateurs are getting better – they can make corrections on the fly.

— Practically zero running costs once you buy your camera. No more film or development costs. These days, you can even dispense with the computer and edit your work in camera before you output directly to the printer.

— No loss due to accidentally opening the back or not rewinding your film properly. I’m not saying I ever had that happen to em, but once film did stick in my camera and I had an interesting time trying to get it out without losing it. No such issues afflict digital shooters

— No more investment in darkroom equipment or being at the mercy of the dropout Walmart technician who is using a big-ass automatic developer without a clue as to what it does or how it affects the final print. If you know what you are doing with Gimp, Photoshop, Elements or Picasa, you can duplicate real pro effects with very little effort.

— Archive, storage and metadata. We use computers for all digital media, and we can get all our EXIF metadata stored alongside with our pictures in a way that makes retrieval a breeze. Workflow management is quite simply, easier. Add that to the fact you can still print your work for archiving, or simply upload it, burn it or store it, and you should have access as long as our techological age lasts. And instead of being limited to 36 exposures, my current card takes 1300+ 12mp JPEG pictures (about a quarter of that if I add RAW).

My all time favourite walkabout film camera…the light, flawless FM3a

— DSLRs are so good nowadays that the quality of lenses in the limiting factor in determining picture quality, not the sensor or the camera itself. Point and shoots are also getting good real fast, and while I don’t use them, I fully appreciate their utility.

— No problems running through airport x-ray scanners and having your film fogged

Pro-film

— Dynamic range of film is better. Just take a look at this kodachrome shot of Picadilly circus done in the late forties (taken from Wikipedia).

— Older (film) cameras are entirely independent of power sources, and if you doubt me, feel free to review Nikon’s earlier F-series, all of which are brutally hewn blocks of metal with which you could brain an elephant, and entirely manual.

: Nikon F2AS with MB1 motor drive. A big, ugly, heavy brick of a camera – mine still performs like a champ

Your experience and judgement count when using mastodons such as these, so what you gain in independence you lose in gratification of instant feedback. DSLRs have battery packs that make you feel you just added half a kilo to your camera bag, and you cannot function without them, but they are not required on film bodies, where for a generation they were screw-on optional attachments.

— Noise in film is prettier and more artisitc than digital noise. It’s better called grittiness, and is worlds removed from the rainbow speckled hues of digital crap that messes up long exposures or high-ISO pictures. I’ve heard that there are actually programs around that will alter a digital image to add the grain back in.

— Here’s the thing. Film cameras are film cameras until the end of time. I have a Nikon F2, F3, F4 and F5 (you can pick them up for a song nowadays and may even be good investments long term quite aside from the enjoyment of using them) and they work like swiss watches. Their all metal construction and titanium shutters defy today’s use ’em and toss ’em mentality. I’m an unabashed Nikon fan sure, but I started with a Canon A-1 and I tell you, that thing cranked film through for two decades without a single problem. Today’s crop of digital camera will not only be obsolete inside of a decade, but are actually decreasing in value…I bought a Nikon D40x the other day for under a hundred bucks, while my F2 from 1972 may actually be going *up* in value.

— You can scan film negatives or transparencies, and always have the maximum resolution of the scanner – in other words, your digital picture shot at 12mp will remain that way forever, but your 35mm negative can always be scanned at the maximum resolutuion of the technology today. Strictly speaking, 35mm film grain is about the same resolution as a 24mp JPEG, so all along film has been at resolutions which digital cameras areonly now approaching….and for a fraction of the cost.

— Film cameras were finger driven, not menu driven (the F5 excepted). Instead of poking around with ten different menus and submenus and options, you just had to fiddle with two, maybe three knobs, all while peeking through the viewfinder. And let me tell you, full frame film camera viewfinders are huge and bright in comparison to the smaller ones on today’s digitals rather tepid offerings. I won’t even discuss point-and-shoots.

***

If I had a choice, I’d like to use film but have the instant feedback of digital. I like the feeling of a precision mechanical instrument that does what it is supposed to do with no fuss, no bother and no friggin’ around. The D2x I use most often fits well in my hands, but for tactile delight and a sense that the camer is doing what it is engineered (superbly) to do, the F5 and F3 remain my favourites (and my god, the AF on the F5 is staggeringly fast). For any kind of indoor work, I’d say digital is probably better for assessing flash work, but then, I’m not very good at it, so maybe that’s just me.

In the end, it all boils down to your feeling as an artist if you are even remotely serious about photography. Do you do better work with digital in “post” or are you simply a perfectionist of the film world (there may be a generational divide here which I am not addressing – it’s my opinion that younger people are happier with digital because they are more comfortable around the core digital technology). I love film, but concede that digital does offer more flexibility, consistently better-exposed work, and, often, faster on-the-fly shooting. I do in fact do some post-processing work to punch up colours and contrast – mostly in Picasa or GIMP, since my demands are slight and the programs are free – but I stand in awe of what people achieve with true pro-level digital image manipulation.

Be that as it may, there’s no “right” answer. What is a fact is that your equipment does not matter, and neither does your megapixel count. At the end of the day, the best camera in the world is the one that you have on you, and nothing beats your imagination and skill when it comes to making a truly stunning picture. All your camera and technology do is enable what your mind has already decided.

Very much like how a cheap piece of crap rum can enable the best conversation of your life. Or the best…well, you know what I mean.

Wives and the El Dorado Problem

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Mar 132013

The El Dorado Problem is that pitiful state of affairs reached when a truly superior rum appears on the shelf, demurely winking at you to buy it….and you don’t have the cash because it’s just outside (or way outside) your price range. It comes from yours truly, who realized he had such a problem when attempting to buy the El Dorado 25 year old a few years ago.

Many of us netizens and lurkers in the rumiverse are at that stage where young families are the phase of life – children still in the single digits, a wife whose ring still has some sparkle and shine, and who might even still love you a little (instead of treating you with the sort of gentle condescension reserved for congenital defectives). First houses or starter homes (or rentals). Pennies are watched, and we are slowly climbing over the bodies of our contemporaries in the quest to attain that dubious distinction of clerkdom — the corner cubicle.

It is generally at this time in our lives that we cast around for time-wasters and hobbies to take our minds off the daily drag: for me, the club is something like that. Some guys I know are into photography; others moonlight in bands; one friend has a thing for hats (I think he wants to be the Imelda Marcos of headwear, but with less expense and taste), another is into mountaineering, whisky and a book club. And some older folks have grandkids, a country home to maintain and a position in society to uphold in keeping with their dignified geriatricity. Ka-ching.

The thing is, this rum hobby of ours, or the side interests, involves – especially at the inception – a fair amount of expenditure. A good camera body or a guitar is probably close to a thousand bucks or more. Having seen friends’ whisky cabinets, I estimate many have got maybe two or three grand in there. I myself have occasionally been overtaken by bouts of insanity and blown a few hundred on some choice (and not so choice) rums that caught my eye.

Our spouses mostly consider us as half-tamed hobos who, by dint of firm discipline, a smack or two and occasional love, can be tamed and house-broken from the vagabondage of our bachelor years (fifteen years with my significant other has not cured her of this delusion, which I am at pains to foster). And nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the beady-eyed, cold glare with which they double check everything we buy. And given how carefully they monitor our expenditure, it’s a real chore to pass off our toys not as wannabes or spur of the moment expenses we can casually shrug off, but as necessities.

However, my experience and anecdotal evidence suggests a few avenues we can explore to pretend we are doing mankind a service by buying the things we do. And this is the core of my essay that suggests how we poor slobs could possible address the El Dorado Problem

1. First and foremost, we can have a separate bank account. This is frowned upon in more polite circles (my geriatric sire is aghast that my wife and I have our own accounts), but I find it invaluable. Stops long-nosed wives from checking up in things. If you have internet banking with online statements, you can actually have an entirely private transaction record. Spouses being who they are, they will inevitably be curious, but so long as you don’t have to borrow from her (definitely a no-no), all will be fine

2. If discovered, say the purchased object was on sale. And not just any sale, but a sale to end all sales. Make gargantuan (and hopefully unverifiable) claims like “the rum was 50% off, how could I resist, a deal like that will never come up again!”

3. Hint at gift-giving time that you would like a new velvet smoking jacket (or whatever). And be creative about this – don’t limit yourself to standard birthdays and Christmas, but father’s day, valentine’s day, anniversary time, Halloween (“I need the thousand-buck rum to lend gravitas to our picture of Junior at Halloween, hon,” you can just hear someone saying plaintively) and whatever else you can think of.

4. Just shrug and refuse to answer niggling questions on why you had to buy that $500 one-of-a-kind rum (or gold-plated classic Canon F1 film camera you know you’ll never use, but you had to have it because that thing went to space, man), but if you don’t want your bed to turn as cold as my new freezer, I’d recommend against this practice, which is usually only good for new arrivals whose wives haven’t cottoned on to local divorce laws yet.

5. Hide receipts, hide the evidence, and trot your hideously overpriced rum out casually months later with an “Oh this old thing? Always had it, dear…since last December I think.” I actually did this with the English Harbour 25, once. Can’t be tried too often, however…wives get suspicious and no matter what you think, they aren’t stupid.

6. For the wussies out there, run home crying and throw yourself at her mercy and beg forgiveness, saying “I don’t know what made me do it, honey.” Promise never to do it again (until next time). Incompatible with point number 3 or 4 .

7. Give your purchase to her as a present – the trick here is to actually give her something she might want but which you want more. I have given my wife bottles of wine I particularly like (rum would be a dead giveaway and way too obvious), a GPS I get to use, a small digital camera I take along when I don’t feel like schlepping a massive pro model and lens around, and TVs I assured her we absolutely needed for our bedroom. (I like to think I’m fooling her, but truth is, I think she sees through me like I was Saran wrap). This point is a case in plausible deniability – “It was all for you, hon.” And you smile winningly.

8. Make her give it to you. This takes some skill, to be honest, because it is not only a matter of hinting around the edges of “oh I could really use a new Velier rum”, but making her say “Oh, you know, I think you really need a new bottle,” as if it was entirely her idea. For a real touch of subtlety – artistry, really – you can protest a little at the expense and modestly claim you don’t deserve it. (Well, strictly speaking you don’t, but you must take one for the team once in a while and sacrifice your finer feelings for the good of the wife’s happiness). And to add a touch of extravagance, make sure all your relatives with money are in on this so they can all chip in for you and upgrade.

9. Keep her informed. And I really mean that — tell her as far as possible in advance that if Bottle X of Brand Y ever comes on the market, it’s one of those seminal moments in your drinker’s life, and you have to have it. Not only does this dovetail neatly with point 8, but when you do, at some stage, walk into your home cradling this beauty like your newborn child, she may shed a happy tear for you.

These are the best ones, but the ones below are also pretty decent, if pedestrian: I mean, if you actually have to work at getting money together, it sort of defeats the purpose of having it handed to you, right? But in a pinch, these are tried and true, so I have to be fair and list them

— My favourite method is to siphon off a little cash now and then from leftovers. Since I pay all bills online, I can also set up a small savings account without paperwork and transfer a fifty or so every two weeks or so into it. After a few months, I have enough to afford a new lens, a two hundred dollar rum, or any other kind of frippery. “Frippery” is a rather elastic term and fluctuates in quality. Currently, it stands for “Mercedes”. Note that since my bank does not pay me to advertise for them, I won’t tell you which one it is.

— Cut out the crap! It really is amazing how seemingly insignificant steps can net you bucks that turn big in a hurry. Don’t buy coffee at Starbucks but bring a Thermos with your own vintage, don’t buy lunch but make one at home. That can save you maybe ten to fifteen dollars a day. Twice a week, and conservatively, you could ring up over a hundred a month…that’s one of the hippie’s bottles right there. Turn off lights you don’t use, don’t leave the sprinkler running, sell stuff you don’t need or use (Kijiji is great for this), pay off all credit cards on time, don’t have large lines of credit balances….I estimate that on average, I make maybe $350 per quarter or more on insignificant steps which result in no negative cash flow, and then I just siphon it off.

— If you can, bank your overtime instead of getting paid for it immediately. It’s a nice nest egg.

— If you’re single, move back in with your parents. I’m sure they’d be glad to have you. Offer rent below that which you currently pay and throw in some chores for free. The difference is free money. Not really recommended, but it does work.

Now keep one thing in mind: do not spend money you don’t have, no matter how good the deal or the steal. If a cask strength top-of-the-line 25-year-old rum comes up for sale at a price not commonly seen, but you don’t have the money and you know your credit card can just barely be paid off with next week’s paycheque – resist! Don’t do it! You survived for 30+ years without this ambrosia….I know you won’t believe me, but you will and can live without it on your shelf. It’s the fish that got away. On the other hand, if you are connected like a Boss, get samples and maintain relations with people, and maybe they’ll lay it away for you…good luck with that.

There’s very little I can’t get if I save enough, and if I can’t save or don’t have it on hand, then I won’t buy it – it really is that simple. My wife thinks I’m an absolute ass with money (when I absently mumble “I bought what last week? For how much? Oh. Okay.” it drives her bugsh*t), but the truth is, I actually have a really good idea of how much I need from one month to the next, and more importantly, where it’s going. I have zero compunction about spending a few hundred dollars on three bottles of rum (or even more on just one)…but only as long as the needs of my family are met and nothing else is competing for my attention.

Granted, I may not be buying really expensive rums just now…but that’s just because I’m in full saving mode at this point. After all, I can always buy the low-class crap, and review it as part of my commitment to the Single Digit Rums. But I’ll tell you this – the day you see me pulling up to a RumFest somewhere in my spanking-new mid-life-crisis on Potenza tyres, well me boyos, that’s the day you’ll know I’ve solved the El Dorado Problem.

Single Digit Rums

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Mar 132013

(First posted on Liquorature, February 2010)

Are we all a bunch of elitist wannabe snobs?

I occasionally think we are. We can be as snooty as a veteran somelier at the Ritz watching a Hawaiian-shirted redneck walk in, and I say that because it ocurred to me the other day that while we — I!! — pay lip service to the “lesser rums” whose age is measured in single digits (or none at all, as if the maker were too ashamed to say how young the product is), the truth is that we all have a predilection for the older stuff. I confess that sometimes merely the price will get me to take a second look. Just look at the reviews that are up: 12 year, 18 year, 21 year, 25 year. Of the eleven rum reviews that are up right now, only three are of rums less than ten years old, and the Bruichladdich is a marginal call, since it is a limited edition of a very good rum indeed (and its price reflected that).

And yet, that’s unfair. The masses of the unwashed riff-raff and the hordes of the illiterate peasantry such as I, for many years drank nothing but the low-end stuff (and if you doubt me, just look at my nostalgic review of the XM5). We probably know the older stuff is so good precisely because we drank so much backwoods moonshine and low-class hooch in our disreputable and best-forgotten pasts, and therefore appreciate the good rums more by way of simple comparison.

But I don’t mind admitting this: in my pantry reposes, unashamed, a bottle — actually, a massive friggin’ jug — of the regular Appleton 5 year old (at least, I assume it’s a five…I’m not precisely sure) and when I drink on my own or with The Bear, I don’t bring out the velvet smoking jacket, light the candles and call for my hound while the faithful wife lights the fire and brings the slippers; neither do I trot out the expensive vintage, the cigars, mineral water and fancy glasses to taste the good stuff. I just sit my tail down in a pair of mouldy shorts that have seen better days, have a bowl of ice nearby (a bowl’ice in the vernacular) to take a handful from now and then, scratch my behind, and have a damned drink. If the Bear is boozing along, then we simply have a drink together, and not having the pressure to review something top of the line frees us up to actually talk.

My point being that these rums of unstellar vintage and uncertain provenance, are often the ones we turn to when we’re not being overly snooty and revert back to our more proletarian roots, or when we have forty people descending on our houses to imbibe (and we lock up the silverware next to the rarer vintages to prevent pilferage). And more, on occasion these unprepossessing rums surprise, delight and wow us with their quality – the English Harbour 5-year immediately springs to mind.

I think I’ll therefore make it a point to go lowball and make a concerted effort to write reviews of the rums that crowd the shelves of Sobey’s and the backgrounds of us cheapos — and indeed, may even be better known than the high-falutin’ exclusive multi-decade and multi-dollar ambrosias which fill so many of the rum pages on the web. This has nothing to do with economics – this post is being written, after all, by a moron who blew two hundred bucks on a single bottle of rum once – but because I truly believe that not only is it interesting to see how the various blends and ages get more rarefied up the scale, but we develop a better palate for the good stuff when we drink more crap.

Being who I am, I must also confess that it’s a hell of a lot more fun to write about something bad than it is to be effusive about something good. To write about a superlative piece of craft requires no particular talent – everyone knows it’s good and you can’t add much to that. But to vent one’s spleen on a liquid turd that you swear you’ll never touch again, and explain it in flowery prose…well now, that takes skill.

Stills, Stills and More Stills

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Mar 132013

So what exactly are pot stills or columnar stills, batch vs continuous stills, steam distillation, freezing distillation or fractional distillation in the production of rum (or that other scottish drink)? And which one leads to better rum? I mean, I’ve made mention of “used the original pot stills” in my Pusser’s review, and in “Classifying rums” I noted that useage of pot- versus columnar-stills is to some extent geographic in nature and affects the output. And there’s something traditional and evocative about the terms. But what are they?

All stills (the word derives from old middle english ‘distilling’) are descendants of the ancient alembics, which were simple devices to capture vapours and condense them. The word alembic comes from the Arabic, and the supreme richness of the irony that a people opposed to alcohol inventing the first stills is one of those things that makes history worth reading, to me. Those who remember their high school chemistry (or like me, simply like blowing up chem labs with weird concoctions), will recall that alcohols vapourize at a lower temperature than water — all stills are based on this fundamental property . (They also freeze at a lower temperature, which is why freeze distillation can be used in colder climes to produce alcohol by skimming off the unfrozen alcohol settling on the frozen water beneath it).

A pot still is a simple closed container containing the ‘wash’ or ‘wine’ or ‘mash’, to which heat is applied. Most are metal – copper supposedly gives the best results because of chemical interactions that enhance taste and also removes sulphur compounds – but I’ve heard of glass, clay and even wooden ones being used. Vapours arising at the top of the ‘pot’ as the boiling point is approached are drawn off via a tube or coil, which is run through a colder liquid, thereby condensing the alcohol rich mixture. This mixture is about 25-30% alcohol by volume, and all alembics or moonshine stills usually stop here. However, more sophisticated pot stills take this primary result – the so-called ‘low wines’ – and run it into a secondary pot still for a second run, which produces a colourless ~70% ABV resultant. Moonshiners add ‘thumper kegs’ or ‘doublers’ to their stills to get precisely this effect. This is then drained off into casks or barrels for the final maturation period, and the ageing here produces the brown colours associated with rums or the scottish tipple.

A pot still is a good example of batch distillation: the pot is charged with one batch at a time, and when it is done, another one is introduced. It was and remains, therefore, comparatively energy inefficient and time consuming: but its prime disadvantages were its expense and the fact that each batch would taste different, and so quality see-sawed widely.

Several doublers can be added in series, each draining off the high proof alcohol mixture into the next thumper keg, boiling that, creaming off the higher proof vapours and sending that into the next keg in line, and so on. This is, however, very energy inefficient, and it was discovered that putting pots one above the other is more practical, faster and resulted in higher volumes, and a constantly circulating wash that could be recharged without pause. This is the basic principle of a columnar still, in a continuous distillation cycle.

A columnar still is a more complex series of vertically arranged pot stills, where, instead of real pots, there are varying levels filled with packing or ‘bubble plates’ in one of two columns. The wash (sometimes known as ‘distiller’s beer’) is injected into this column, called an analyzer (A) and falls, while hot steam is introduced at the bottom (2), and rises. The rising hot vapour, low in alcohol, starts to condense as it rises to the cooler upper layers; since the temperature of each of the higher layers is successively lower then the one beneath it, the vapour in equilibrium with the falling liquid is successively richer in alcohol (this has to do with partial vapour pressures and is more mathematically complex than I need to discuss: but the physics is sound).The highly enriched vapour is then taken off and drained (4) into the rectifier (B). The more volatile alcohol vapours rise to the top and are drawn off and condensed. The remaining impurities and ‘lower’ alcohols condense by using the cooler wash itself (1) to liquify it. The impurities are removed by filters and other reagents, and the resultant joins the wash at stage 5, and is recycled into the analyzer.Because the vapours may have several different kinds of alcohols at (7), each with its own condensation point, the condensing vapours can be drawn off at any level in the rectifier, each giving a different fraction of alcohol (I have simplified the process for ease of expression), or strength: this is why the process is also called fractional distillation, andexactly the same process is used in petroleum refining to produce differing kinds of products from a single feedstock source (there is of course catalytic cracking as well, but doesn’t apply to likker and so I decline to go further in that direction).

This is the great advantage over pot-stills, because while a typical pot still can get a mixture that is 40-50% alcohol on a first or second pass, the columnar still can have a vapour alcohol content of close to 96% with less energy input. As well, feedstock (the wash) can be introduced continuously since enriched vapour is drawn off automatically on a constant basis. Columnar stills benefited because they offered speed, immense capacity, greater economies of scale, significantly lower unit rate costs and more consistent quality…but they did cost more, and so required a greater capital outlay of the kind only businesses could muster.

All of this is fine and dandy, I can hear the rummies and scotch-lovers grumble, but which one produces the better end product? After all, pot-stills have a long and noble tradition and are still used (Pusser’s, for example). Quality control and chemistry have improved to the point where pot stills can make consistently high-tension hooch that isn’t noticeably different from one batch to the next.

Most light rums are produced from continuous stills, and are highly purified and blended, perhaps even aged for a few months, or charcoal filtered, in order to produce a smoother palate. Heavier, darker rums are traditionally made in industrial-sized pot stills, which are less efficient and have carry-overs from congeners (additives both intended and not, such as caramel, esters, phenols or a “peat taste”). But there’s no hard and fast rule, as far as I can tell.

Most Caribbean islands and the South American mainland use columnar stills, with Guyana, Martinque and Barbados utilizing both kinds. Bundie is distilled in Australia using column stills, as are all Asian rums made in Thailand and the Phillipines.

Speaking for myself, I can honestly say I have no preference. The distillation method, to me, is less important than that of the ageing the end product undergoes, and the additives put in. The older rums have been the best I’ve had so far, with honourable mention going to that famous working class tipple, the EH5. The purpose of this article has not been to rank one method against the other, but simply to explain what they mean, and while some detail has been omitted in the interest of clarity, I hope that’s what I’ve managed to achieve here.

Tintin in Tibet

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Mar 092013

Tintin is becoming a worldwide phenomenon (again) as a result of Jackson & Spielberg’s 2011 film adaptation (long overdue, in my opinion, and thank the Lord they didn’t do it in live action). Me, I’ve been a fan since my childhood, and have had the entire collection at several points in my life (they keep getting pinched by young friends and relatives, who are drawn to the adventures and Herge’s signature drawing style). I wanted to do a review of one of his adventures, even though, to purists, I imagine that it is not necessarily a book per se, but a comic. Well, maybe, but as literary works in their own right, comics have their own pride of place, and we cannot readily ignore them. And who is to say the primarily visual medium of Tintin is in some way less because of it?

Tintin in Tibet is to my mind one of the most straightforward and artistically rendered comic strip of the series, and possesses one of the strongest, simplest story lines. Tintin, after reading about a plane crash in Tibet, has a dream that his young Chinese friend Chang (first encountered in the much more politically aware The Blue Lotus created in 1934/1935) is still alive, and resolves to find him. Drawn in a minimalist style with much empty space and clear renderings of the harsh Himalayan mountains, the story follows Tintin and his two companions to the crash site, to the search in the forbiddingly desolate terrain and there isn’t a moment when you aren’t eagerly turning the pages to see what’s next. Here, for a wonder, supporting characters are minimal – no Calculus, no twins, no Castafiore, no Wagg, Abdullah, Rastapopulous, Alan or any villain. And indeed, none is needed – the story and its clarity of drawing are as as devoid of excess as a haiku. And, it might be added, as strong.

Herge created Tibet as an anodyne to his personal problems of the time: he was in love with a young woman in his office and did not know how to end his relationship with his wife of the past three decades; he had been having nightmares of white (a cartoonist’s writer’s block, maybe?) and wanted to put together something simpler, something starker. After some batting around of ideas he came up with this one, and it ended up being serialized in Le Journal de Tintin in 1958, and published in book form in 1960. For what it’s worth, his nightmares ceased, he chose the path of divorce, and Tibet is considered one of his finest works.

Tintin is a character thought up by the Belgian author in the 1920s. Officially his profession is that of a reporter, though he really looks too young for the role – he’s usually referred to as a “boy reporter” — and doesn’t do much writing throughout the series of his adventures: he often seems more like a boy scout than a professional of any kind. His distinctive shock of upturned hair and his white fox-terrier Snowy first appeared in 1929 when Tintin in the Land of the Soviets appeared. By the time Tintin in Tibet was released thirty years later, the character and his colorful supporting cast was already known the world over…and least recognized in that other great stable of comic book characters, the USA. He had never had a girlfriend, was still the same age, seemed to have no real source of income, was still able to jet off to have adventures in strange places at the drop of a hat…and remains popular to this day (and no, I won’t get into the gay motifs many have commented on).

There are several aspects to the perennial attraction of Tintin’s adventures. First and foremost is the artwork. Herge championed a drawing style from which American comics had long diverged (and continue to diverge) – that of clear lines which presented extraordinary detail in a single frame, without ever actually overcrowding it. Called ligne claire, the characteristics of such artwork are an absence of shading and hatching, which provide all elements within the frame equal importance, defined only by relative perspective. Too, while the characters in the frame are somewhat cartoonish, the background detail is highly realistic. It’s almost tailor-made to capture the young mind, and when you think about it, the early Superman and Batman comics from the thirties also displayed this kind of style, though with less background detailing and gradually increasing shadow and contrast.

Secondly, there is sly wit and humour throughout the entire series, embodied in vivid and memorable characters. The detectives Thompson and Thomson (they are specifically noted as not being twins on the official website), and their “to be precise” gags (note their mustaches, the only way they can be told apart). Cuthbert Calculus, the boffin who is hard of hearing and has that bizarre combination of brilliance and naivetee (and endearingly literal approach to conversation – Sheldon Cooper is his modern-day incarnation) that so characterizes the comic scientific cliché. The cynical (but loveable) near-alcoholic whisky-loving, oath-uttering Captain Haddock, whose name the scatter-brained opera singer Bianca Castafiore can never quite remember. Snowy himself, and his little side comments. And all those other secondary characters who popped up here and there throughout the decades in one adventure or the other: Jolyon Wagg, Chang, General Alcazar, Abdullah and his doting father, Sir Francis Haddock, Red Rackham, Rastapopulous Rex, Olivera de Figuera, Zorrino. It’s a well-populated tapestry and aficionados know them all by heart. Tintin and his sidekicks may be a bit one-dimensional, but there’s no question that the richness of the storytelling and artwork carry you along past such complaints.

Those who are familiar with Tintin will recognize his similarity to a Boy’s Own story – a rip-snorting adventure yarn that takes you along with its young protagonist to exotic locales in order to solve dastardly crimes and make the world a safer place. It’s really not meant to be taken too seriously. Still, for its time it was quite a bit ahead of American comics, and displayed a respect for other cultures which came about as a result of much controversy over previous editions of Tintin’s adventures (most notably Tintin in the Congo) which had embarrassed and affected Herge quite deeply. Herge had often been seen as a collaborator with the Nazis in the post-war years, even though his work of the time was staunchly and deliberately apolitical – probably these experiences and the outcry over negative portrayals of indigenous people made him more sensitive to such perceptions in both his later work and the subsequent revisions of his earlier comic strips.

Tintin’s adventures encompass sci-fi, mystery, adventure, exploration, mysticism, horror, technology, bigotry and humour. I think everyone who likes Tintin has a favourite, not least because of the broadness of its themes. I like them all, and some less than others, but it’s a mark of its strength that the whole canon remains one of those pieces of my literate life which left such a mark that I keep buying and re-buying the series, even as I pass my own sell-by date. Hopefully, one day, my own boy and his in turn, will appreciate it as much as I do.

The 2012 Wrap Up

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Jan 102013

(An abridged form of the Liquorature wrap up, posted January 2013)

2012 is drawing to a close, and many sites are beginning their top-however-many lists. The Hippie has drawn up a list of his favourite drams of the year on ATW, the Rum Howler has got his lists of top rums and whiskies he’s tried, film critics will put out their top ten lists as usual, and here I’ll join in and review how the year went from Liquorature’s perspective, including – of course! – my own discoveries of the year and my own take as a reviewer of rums.

The primus inter pares of all my varied interests. During 2012 I gamely struggled to hold my own in the face of the irredeemably stubborn obstinacy of my fellow Liquorites who insist on giving pride of place to the obscure Scottish drink. Added to that was my day job, my family, photography and other priorities, which led to 2012 seeing less than fifty new rum reviews. Aside from the division of my available time, part of the problem is undoubtedly my writing style, which tends to the lengthy and relates to my desire to tell as complete a story about each rum as I can, adding to that whatever ruminations (no pun intended) cross my mind as I write, and making each more an essay than a review…hopefully a unique one. This is a style that takes real effort and thought and time, and works for me both as a writer and a reviewer; but is, alas, too long for some (most, I would gather), with all the attendant disinterest it creates in people who prefer a McNugget-level synopsis as they stand, i-phone in hand, at a liquor store somewhere wondering what to buy. The important thing is that I enjoy it and it holds my interest – a more abbreviated style would be easier, I could churn out more reviews…but not nearly as much fun.

My tastes have gradually changed (I hesitate to say “improved”) to appreciate higher proof rums — I’m coming to the stated opinion that 40% is a really pronounced limiting factor for top quality rums of any kind. The Panamonte XXV, the Plantation XO 20th Anniversary and many others, would have benefited greatly from having the extra oomph of a few additional proof points. Of course, the two rums that took this to ridiculous extremes were the beefcake SMWS Longpond 81.2% and the Stroh 80 both of which I sneakily kinda enjoyed in spite of their rage.

Another point of development for me is that I have quietly dispensed with three almost unconsciously held assumptions I realized I was harbouring: (a) that older rums are always better than younger ones (they often are, but not every time); (b) younger rums or cheap blends are only for mixing (often true, but certainly not every time) and (c) expensive is equivalent to quality (it often is, but, nope, not always). As I taste more and more rums and go back and forth between the earlier rums and the later ones and cross taste them in my spare time, I appreciate the subtleties that in many cases I missed the first time around, and learn to admire the artistry some makers bring to even their youngest creation. In order to chart my development, I leave my scores the way they were when I wrote them, but I’m thinking of doing a”revisit reviews” of the older ones from 2009/10 which were shorter and not as intense as later work. As a point of interest, I review every rum neat – whether it makes a good cocktail or not is not part of my review process, though I usually mix myself one to test stuff I don’t like, on the assumption that it might fail as a sipping spirit, but not necessarily as a cocktail.

I’m also learning to appreciate the lighter bodies and complex profiles of agricoles and French-island rums more than when I started, and my discovery this year was undoubtedly the Courcelles 1972 58% which the co-manager of the Rum Depot in Berlin trotted out from his private stash and allowed me to share. I still hate the scoring mechanism, which for me results in rums scoring mostly between fifty and seventy, and I dread coming up with something new and having to go back over a hundred rums and recalibrating. However, at least it’s consistent. But readers should always be warned that it’s the words that tell the tale, not the score. Oh yeah, I dropped the chart of the rum profiles…it was useful for a while, but didn’t see it adding any real value so I just shrugged and did away with it.

Kensington Wine Market in Calgary continues to hold two Rum tastings a year, which I faithfully attend and write about in a probably futile effort to raise the profile of the spirit in my obstinately whisky-loving area. A high point for me this year was undoubtedly the cracking of the 58 Year Old Longpond, which snarkily showed the Appleton 50 the door (the latter will be on show for the February 8th 2013 Tasting at KWM). Andrew, the co-owner, maintains his generous habit of alerting me to new and interesting rums coming through the door, even if I can’t afford them all. And though I am aware that in his eyes rum simply doesn’t class with whisky (hence his online moniker which I continually gripe about), he treats me with the courtesy due any autistic, rum-loving mutt who may growl at any moment.

The rums tasted that stood out this year (equivalent to ATW’s “Drams of the Year” post)

Appleton Estate 50 year old: I see that Co-op in Calgary has a bottle for $4500. Too rich. But what a great rum it was, correcting as it did many deficiencies of the 30 year old.
Courcelles 1972 58%: Renewed my interest in agricoles…lovely and rich and tasty. I have the 47% variation to review.
Rum Nation Demerara 1989-2012 23 year old 45% Anyone wants to know why I’m a Rum Nation fanboy, this is it.
Plantation Barbados XO 20th Anniversary: Lovely, coconut-kissed breath of Bajan sunshine from Cognac Ferrand
Rum Nation Panama 21 year old. Best of the Panamanians. This may be considered heresy, but I believe it outclasses the Panamonte XXV by a whisker.
G&M Longpond 1941 58 year old: Grandpappy of all rums I’ve ever tasted, and excellent too. Held on to this for two years before reverently opening it…
Secret Treasures Enmore 1989 14 year old: Secret is right – never even heard about Fassbind until I went to Berlin. But what a lovely rum this was. Finished it neat in two nights with my mother at her dacha in north Germany by a fireside under the stars.

What is evident from this brief listing is that I’m deliberately moving away from the “one size fits all” commercial rums that we can find almost anywhere, towards costlier, rarer, more unique rums that are edging me to an average price of close to a hundred bucks per bottle (yes, with very rare exceptions and to the horror of my wife, I buy everything I review – the exceptions are my friends’ samples which *they* buy). My choices are becoming more finicky, and I seek out older and obscure offerings for the same reason I write the way I do…because it’s more interesting that way, and because there are enough reviews of the commonly available rums out there (does anyone really need me to put up a tenth review of the Mount Gay XO except as a site-hits driver?). This is not to say I don’t look at, say, a Myer’s Planter’s Punch…I just don’t do it as often (though I always will), or as assiduously – it would undoubtedly be cheaper, though, wouldn’t it? To my mind, a person who likes Old Sam’s won’t care in the slightest what I write about it (if he even looks for a review), but anyone seeking to check out the Rum Nation Jamaica 25 Year old probably will, before he drops close to two hundred bucks on it.

***

Summing up, it’s been a slower than expected year for reviews, but both the Hippie with his 2013 Islay tour and myself with the trip to Germany, made discoveries beyond price. The Liquorature meetings are fixtures and high points of our gentlemanly social lives, and look to continue far into the future. And as we bring 2012 to a close, I must say that 2013 promises to be a year full of new books, new spirits, new friends and more rambunctious get-togethers than ever before.

All the very best to all of you who have had the patience to read this far, and have a great New Year.

Raucous Rums Tasting (04 October 2012)

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Oct 042012

As has now become a pleasant routine every six months or so, I attended the second Kensington Wine Market Raucous Rums tasting of 2012 on Thursday 4th October, and as has also become my habit, I brought along a guest. Previously, before my rum-loving friend The Bear bailed for the Maritimes (for his health and a better job he claims, but I think he was just tired of Calgary weather), he and I made it a point to always go together. What has happened since his departure is that I always buy two tickets, and ask someone to come along with me. On this occasion it was Gordon “Pogo-san” Pogue, whom I had converted to the dark side about a year or so ago at a now-legendary rum-soaked jerk-chicken cookoff, when he (to his own everlasting astonishment I’m sure) realized that top end rums were…well, utterly fantastic.

There’s a sort of comforting routine to these tastings, which vary little from occasion to occasion. The ill-named host “ScotchGuy” (yup, I have to comment on this every time I write about KWM’s Raucous Rums) always has the glasses all poured (not Glencairns, alas), welcomes everyone, has his powerpoint dissertation on the history of rum ready to go (complete with the odd photo from Liquorature), and as always, there are new faces, different faces, all interested and curious and enthusiastic. Last time there was a cheerful crowd of Chileans that caught my eye; on this occasion a group of four beautiful ladies off to the front, a well dressed couple in the middle, and what I later came to know as a father-son tag-team together with Pogo-san and me in the rear. Snacks were low key and tasty and as you can imagine, I nibbled the evening through.

These days, I take a perverse kind of sneaky delight in trying to anticipate what Andrew would present on any given evening. I must confess to being a little ahead of most attendees, since I have been involved in these tastings for three years now (not really as impressive as it sounds given there are two a year versus maybe fifteen or so for whiskies) and since I knew he had some new variations in, I had a sense of what would be on offer. Can’t always bet on that, though: sometimes we get new stocks not yet available, like the Rum Nation series back in 2011; on other occasions it’s older wares that aren’t moving off the shelves and about which we are reminded, like the Santa Teresa Bicentenario. And sometimes Andrew just happily mixes it all up and simply puts out a series he thinks would be interesting (I occasionally get asked for a suggestion). I think he takes delight in pulling a fast one on me.

As before, the six rums were blind. Andrew had us nose and try the first rum right away before launching into the presentation. Gordon sniffed and wrinkled his nose. The light toffee-coloured rum stung the schnozz a little, and had a slight smokiness to it, toffee craminess and some vanilla, perhaps bananas, trending towards the floral. “Caramel and burnt sugar,” he opined “Maybe flowers, some fruitiness.” “Bananas?” I asked, hoping to get a confirmation. He sniffed, tasted and nodded. The two gentleman at our table tried it but didn’t offer an opinion, and with five more to go, I couldn’t blame them. I suspected this was a Bajan rum because of its soft nose and them bananas, but it was also a little more spicy than I recalled from Barbados products…I thought it might be the Mount Gay 1703 (the XO is a shade harsher than this one).

Moving on, Andrew answered a few questions from a more-than-usually vocal audience (I always like that since I’m a firm believer in audience participation), remarked that he would have liked to do a country-specific tasting one of these days (not on this occasion, but maybe soon…) and launched into the presentation, and then we tried the second rum, which was darker, gold, with a shade of red. “Nice,” I said, and it was. “How do you think it compares?” “Oh better than the first for sure,” replied Gordon. “Spices, nuts, fruits on the nose. Chocolate on the taste.” That lined up with what I thought, and mentally added roses and some winey notes, marzipan and molasses as well.

The older gentleman at our table, Michael by name, looked over at us. “You’re obviously an aficionado,” he said. “Me, I couldn’t tell the difference between one rum and the next like that. Love rums, just don’t dabble very much on the farm.” I smiled and said “Yeah, but you could probably tell one cow from the next just by asking its name and checking the pats, right?” We all laughed. “Yup,” he confirmed. “Smell the poop and know its state of health right away.” I liked him on the spot.

“Well, I’m going to suggest this is a Rum Nation product, maybe the Jamaica 25 or the Demerara 23, more than likely the former,” I hazarded, little knowing the hole I just dug for myself. But I did like the rum a lot. It was heated, yes, spicy without doubt, yet also earthy and softly flavoured, with a long finish I enjoyed.

Moving on to rum number three, a dark mahogany coloured lass. Oh this was just fine, I thought, nearly having an attack of the vapours myself. This one was awesome: breakfast toast and chocolate on the nose, a creamy, soft arrival with a balanced taste of fruits, molasses, pecan, apples. Oily finish, deep and long lasting and did this rum ever love me. “Comments?” asked Gordon, wanting to know which one I thought this was. “I honestly don’t know for sure,” I had to admit. “The only rum I know that’s this good at 40% is the St Nicholas Abbey 12 year old.” But would Andrew trot this $200 baby out, having already done so in a previous tasting? Maybe. “I guess I’ll hang my hat there,” I concluded, however doubtfully.

If I thought #3 was good, #4 ratcheted the ante up a shade. Rusty, dark rum, almost El Dorado-like. A nose of licorice, plums, dark dried fruit, and a lovely winey background on arrival. Smooth, heated, warm, with an arrival redolent of freshly sawn lumber, biscuits and a shade of cinnamon. “You know,” I whispered to Michael and Gordon and the other younger gentleman with a magnificent King George beard I secretly envied (his name was Colin and he turned out to be Michael’s son), “I honestly think this is the 25 year old Jamaican Rum Nation, but that cedar hint makes me wonder whether it isn’t the Longpond 58 year old.” “How can you tell?” asked Michael. “It’s those cedar notes that are the problem…that’s what I get from the Longpond, but if this is the J25, then Rum #2 has to be something else,” I grumbled in confusion – the others were enjoying my discomfiture.

The deep gold of Rum #5 concealed a nose of real power. Man, this sucker stood up and biffed me on the hooter with rubber, plasticine and wood, big time, devolving into floral notes as it settled, and a slight minty background. The arrival was strong and powerful: brown sugar, caramel, toffee, soggy biscuits, fruity notes…and a strong woodsy scent of cedar. “Okay,” I said, sure at last. “This one is the Longpond 58 year old. The cedar is too clear and the rum is too strong to be anything else.” “You sure? So what does that make #2 and #4?” asked Colin. “Still on the fence about #2,” I was forced to admit, “But #4 should be the Jamaican 25.” “Why are you so sure of this one?” asked Pogo-san. “Well, Andrew advertised it would be one of the selections, and I know he has it because I lent him my bottle.” I laughed. “Damn but this is strong. It’s like a porn star on a performance bonus…the finish just won’t stop.” (I was quoting one of my own reviews, to be honest). Colin and Michael could barely contain their laughter, and so did the rest of the crowd when Andrew repeated it.

Andrew had some nice things to say about the Liquorature site – I imagine our table’s relatively talkative crowd was drawing some attention and he wanted to explain why my name occasionally popped up in the presentation – and then we moved on to the last rum of the evening

Well, if I thought #5 had cojones, I was utterly unprepared for Rum #6, which was the lightest rum of the tasting. Holy crap but this was stratospheric. Glue, PVC, plastic, spicy as all hell. And then the flavours started coming: grapes, fruits, wine, mint, acetone. And a finish that simply would not stop. “Porn star?” I gasped, reaching for the water, “This thing is like a rampaging rhino on crack,” and that just dissolved the table. We were certainly having a great time over in our corner. This was like school days, where I constantly “ketch lash” for talking in the back while “Sir” or “Miss” was lecturing. “This, without doubt, is the SMWS Longpond 9 year old 81.3%, guys. Tread lightly or you’ll really get hammered.” And of course I took another sip.

As usual, we were asked to rank our #1 and #2 rum of the evening and the big reveal was as follows:

#1 was the Renegade Rums Barbados 2003 6 year old, bottled at 46%. Nobody picked this as either their #1 or #2. Hey, I got the country right, didn’t I?

#2 was (to my extreme embarassment), the Renegade Rums St Lucia (I forget the year). I excuse my inexcusable gaffe here by noting that although I have it, haven’t gotten around to doing the review on it. Yeah, sure. 2 people picked this one

#3 was picked by 13 persons, and it was the Panamonte XXV. Another rousing failure by your not-so-humble reviewer to discern the difference between a superlative Bajan product, and one from Panama. This was my own #3 pick of the evening.

#4 Yeah baby: I thought it might have been the 58 year old but then settled on the J25, and so it was. My #2 pick of the evening

#5 On a roll, I correctly assessed the 1941 Longpond 58 year old for what it was. When I can get around to saying which cask it was (#76 in this case) and what year it was bottled (1995), then I can call myself a true expert, but until then, I’ll take the kudos I can for merely identifying it. My #1 choice of the evening, but only one other person concurred

#6 And yes, this was indeed the behemoth of all rums, the 81.3% Longpond 9. No way I could mistake that. Would you believe that three people were mesmerized enough (or battered into insensibility by its mere prescence) to choose it as their first or second fave? Good for them. “They probably drink cask strength whiskies on the side,” I muttered. “I like whiskies a lot,” noted Colin, breathing a little hard. “But I’ve never had one like this.” Gordon concurred after exhaling gently. I imagine he was searching for his tonsils in Albania.

: Not the most artistic photo of a lineup I ever took…blame it on the Longpond 9

And that was that. I am going to award myself 3½ points out of six – three correct guesses and one half mark for at least figuring the country right, as if this somehow means something.

But you know, it’s all a guessing game, and what of it if I get it wrong? — these things are fun. I always meet interesting people, I always have a good time, always find something new. The evening was given an even better fillip by having such a great vocal, questioning set of participants (not least of which were the four pretty ladies in the front and the well-dressed couple a table over). And I met Michael Monner and his son Colin, who graciously allowed me to use their names in this review, and hailed from a small town called Milo, just SE of Calgary (“Mike Monner from Milo” I said, rolling that around “…that sounds too cool to be true.”). Not surprisingly, given Mike’s appreciation for rums, I think I’m going to have him over or pass by Milo to see him one of these days, and bring some of my own stocks for him to try. I’d like to think my good squaddie Pogo-san enjoyed himself, will come once more if I ask him, and once again, I’ll be waiting for the next one to see what good stuff our host has to surprise us with on that occasion.

Having written this, I have a feeling I may go back to give that Longpond 9 another try: I’m having trouble falling asleep you see…

See you next time.

Raucous Rum Tasting 27 September 2011

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Sep 272012

: The Raucous Rums of the evening

Tuesday 27^th September 2011 was one of those days in which I participated in an event about which, even though absolutely nothing went terrifically wrong, I have mixed feelings: of both appreciation and disappointment. I speak, of course, for the few of us who were there and know whereof I speak, of KWM’s second rum tasting event, rather euphemistically termed “Raucous Rums.”

I suppose by this time I should come to terms with the fact that we Lovers of the Cane are second class citizens n the spirits world. I can’t speak for the vodka lovers, since most are Slavs or flavour-of-the-month-tipplers with all the insecurities and arrogance this implies; and cognac aficionados, brandy sippers and those who drink other relatively marginal spirits all speak to the excellence of their own preferences, however minor the sales of their preferred hooch may be on the world stage. But I can’t help but feel a little aggrieved: the first rum tasting session had had somewhere around 20 people in it, with six very decent rums to be tried; this time, a mere seven months later, though eleven had signed up, only nine attended. And yet the various whisky tastings around the city are doing great guns with loads of people crowding the stores which host them. Like I said, I feel rather, well, second class. An emperor penguin in a sea of elephant seals.

: The “Scotch Guy” makes a point about rums

But there you have it. The world is the way the world is, and having observed this, I shrugged my shoulders, comforted myself with the fact that rums are excellent value for money and no opprobrium is attached to (what to others is a shameful act of) mixing the low-enders; and the lack of appreciation for the extract of cane merely keeps prices down. I should be grateful. Disgruntled, maybe, but gratified nevertheless

As before, the Bear and I attended together, he being the only rum aficionado I know in cowtown who likes them enough to really make appreciating them a hobby (as opposed to buying a few different Bacardis and an Appleton, and saying he’s a “rum lover”). Andrew Ferguson, who for such nights should really drop that inappropriate moniker of “The Scotch Guy,” started matters off at seven pm, and didn’t waste time with a blind testing this time around, but showed us front and center what he had on the table…some eight rums in all, with a possible ninth to come (if we wuz all good pickney and behave weself).

Showing he had polished up his speakers credentials in the intervening nine months, he didn’t give us the whole spiel and presentation of rums first, but a little at a time, interspersed with the rums about which he spoke – which was definitely a good way to go about business.

Much to my pleasure, the first two rums were recent favourites of mine: the St. Nicholas Abbey 8yr old and 12 year old.

: The first 4½ rums

The 8 had a sweet nose of apples, fruit and caramel, light and somewhat floral; on the palate it was spicy at first, but mellowed like a blushing bride, presenting flavours of vanilla, apples and citrus, tempered with oak. Short and smooth finish with just a brush of spice to remind you it was an eight year old, not quite housebroken yet and still had some rambunctiousness and dotishness left in its DNA.

The 12, made from the remains of the highly rated (by me) ten year old, was still a dark, deep, warm rum that only got better as it opened up. Heavy, rich, dark and creamy nose, it mellowed even further into a lush and warm rum about which I simply cannot say enough good things. On the palate you get dark molasses, liquorice, pecan and nary a hint of oak. Smooth as velvet. Every time I taste this thing I feel like a Victorian paramour swooning over his lady love while spouting atrocious verse.

The remainder of the rums came from a relatively young outfit, Rum Nation. Details about the company and its antecedents and modus operandi will have to wait until I can both do more research and snag some of their products for real. Suffice to say, this is the rum division of the Italian whisky bottler Wilson & Morgan, and founded in 1999 as the emergence of independent bottlers of premium rum gathered steam (following on the unheralded success, I suspect, of the El Dorado line of DDL from the early nineties). Rum Nation products have been around for a while, of course – various reviewers have been waxing rhapsodic about them for years – and finally they are coming to Alberta (or so Andrew says).

RN Panama 18 year old. Eighteen year old to start with? Holy age statement, Batman, is this for real? It’s a 40% rum which it was unclear was blended or not – whatever the case, it came from one distillery. Nose assaulted with a Muscatel reek that was somewhat shocking after the soft and genteel gentlemanly sophistication of the St Nick’s 12, and reminded me of the Legendario. Mellowed into tobacco and fruity hints. Palate – nice. Not overly sweet, smooth and fruity, with a slightly salty tang and traces of tobacco and leather. Not entirely sold on this ‘un myself, but it’s so smooth that I want me a bottle.

RN Martinique “Hors D’Age”. A 43% beefcake wannabe agricole, which normally would turn me off since I think most agricoles are simply too lacking in body (my opinion). Light, pale appearance, like a white wine, and a nose to match; presents scents of fennel, liquorice and fruits. Palate of nutneg, cinnamon, orange and liquorice, a tad dry – it really is more like a cognac than a true rum. Short and spicy finish – did not rank high with me overall.

RN 12 year old Anniversario. Shared my Number 1 spot with the St. Nick’s 12 and the Demerara 23 year old. It’s from Martinique, again 43%, and 12 years old, issued to celebrate RN’s 12^th anniversary (duuh). Nose is coganc-like, sweet, smooth, soft and grapy, with traces of dark citrus and tangerine. The taste was phenomenal: soft chocolate, fruity caramel, fruits, nuts and candy and breakfast spices. The texture was clear and light for such seemingly heavy flavours, yet none overwhelmed the other, and all somehow remained in balance. Finish is long and lasting. Awesome product, nicely done, in a box I like a lot.

: ~60% of the audience. Who’s the Bear in this picture?

RN Solera No. 14. An odd nose of musty grapes, ginger and liquorice, soft and billowy and smooth on this one, and it opened up into dusty molasses and brown sugar. Continuing its right turn on the palate, it arrived with a salty tang, caramel and a trace of nutmeg. Very whisky like, smooth and spicy at the same time, with the oak coming forward to assert its prescence firmly. Short and dry fade. It’s instructive to nose this rum and immediately go back to the Panama 18 year old for a wild contrast…the muscatel from that one disappears entirely and is replaced by the sweet tobacco of a good briar pipe.

RN Jamaica 25 year old. I must admit this was in many ways the most original (I don’t say the best) rums of the night, not merely because of its age. I inhaled the scents of (seriously) tire rubber at the start (wtf?) which faded and were replaced with the smells of autumn that remind me of the leisurely walks I used to take in Berlin and London when the days grew cool and sharp, and ravens perched on fences to preside like mourners of the demise of summer. Fallen leaves, damp earth and a cooling nip in the air that always makes me vaguely sad. Fleshy fruits and heavier floral hints round out a soft nose. Yet the palate is caramel and lighter fruits (apples and green grapes), merging with a delicate hint of tobacco. Fade was smooth and long lasting, and while this wasn’t the best rum of the evening, I think I’m going to try and get this one also when it arrives.

RN Demerara 23 Year Old. Yup, I have a soft spot for the old country. So what? When a rum like this arrives, you have to give it kudos, and with it, it’s clear that Rum Nation is looking to do what Bruichladdich is – to take rums in a direction, and along avenues, not previously considered. A 23 year old 43% with a surprisingly pleasant nose made up of notes you wouldn’t think could come together well – baked biscuits a bit soggy in rain, musty tobacco and aged leather, like a laird’s stable, perhaps…a weird hint of of rubber. It arrived as a solid, dark, just-sweet-enough savoury rum, carrying traces of caramel and orange peel. It was so well constructed and balanced that it was hard to pick out anything else. Brooding, dark and slow finish that just didn’t want to go. What a great rum this was. It shared the pedestal for the number one spot in my estimation, and yes, I’m gonna get me one of those as well.

Lastly, to approve of the fact that we were all such a spiffing bunch of chaps, liked what he had offered and hadn’t burdened him with any snarky questions he couldn’t answer, Andrew came out with the ninth rum: a Juan Millenario Reserva Especial from Peru, and the second solera of the night. Sweet, light and fruity nose on a amber coloured rum. Surprisingly thick and shade too sweet on arrival, I would judge, but nevertheless a pretty good rum with a reasonably long lasting finish. I didn’t jot down the details of what years make up the backbone alas. I thought it was a pretty decent mid-level rum nevertheless.

Let’s just review this line up as a whole. Three makers and six countries were represented (that might be more variety than the audience composition). Leaving aside the first two and the last one, it was clear that the core of it all was the aged Rum Nation products. I’m not altogether sold on making a rum tasting comprise of rums to come so that marketing and word-of-mouth can be drummed up for future sales – but then, I’m a reviewer and a buyer, not a business, and so my focus on such matters would have been to introduce others to the variety of the top enders — to make them appreciate the quality and effort that goes into rums that are out there. And indeed, this is what I do in my own house when friends express curiosity (and on every Liquorature night that was ever mine to host). If I had to make any kind of generalized comments beyond that, it would be to note the odd sulphury notes in some of the RN rums (which comes out as a rubbery aspect of the nose), as well as the feinty and woody/tobacco scents. This is somewhat unusual and may turn some people off – myself I found them intriguing. St Nicholas Abbey, of course, I had tried already and perhaps I learned to appreciate the 8 yr old a bit more than formerly.

: Dale’s excellent snacks didn’t last long

So there you have both my appreciation and my disappointment. I mourn the lack of rum lovers in my city, when so many great brands are available (and I honestly believe this province may have the best selection in the country). And I’m a shade miffed that we basically only had three makers’ selections (two, really) on display when we could have gone with more variety. A Renegade or Cadenhead or AD Rattray selection to leaven the crowd might have been nice. But then, I’ve tasted a fair bit of rums on my own, and so I may be just a bit elitist in arguing for breadth. For the crowd that was there, for the rums that we had, all I can say is thanks to KWM for not only putting on a show with some real top end rums, but for having the second one in one year – and they didn’t stint on what they put out. Oh yeah – and thanks to Dale whose catering of the snacks was first rate and (as with all good stuff) not enough.

Now if only The Scotch Guy could turn into the Rum Dude in the future (at least until midnight, when he turns back into the pumpkin of the malts) then my Glencairn runneth over, so to speak. But then, I’ve been known to let optimism get the better of me, so I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, I’m gonna look forward to the next one.

Update 2013: by now, all the rums tasted here reviewed and on the site. It was on the basis of this tasting that I bought the entire line of Rum Nation which Andrew had, and I think it was a good buy.

A Tale of Four Fives

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Jul 232012

Inspired by the amazingly refreshing (and original) website andabattleofrum which has a world cup of rums – well worth a look for sheer inventiveness and style – I decided to implement an idea that both that site and the ongoing whisky range tastings on allthingswhisky.com have done so well.

Having sampled the Flor de Cana 5 and the Juan Santos 5 at the same time, I resolved to make a go of two other five year olds in the larder, and run all four through their paces to see how they stacked up against each other: after all, trying them individually was one thing, but if I rated them all at the same time, would the scores change? Now there was a challenge to the scoring system. And anyone who has associated with me and my rum work for any length of time knows the despite in which I hold the whole business of scores to begin with, so perhaps I should try and see whether it was as consistent as I claimed it was.

Flor de Cana 5 year old

Nose: Faint rubbery notes coil among the darker flavours of caramel and burnt sugar and fleshy fruit. Spicy, yet not overpoweringly so.
Palate: Heavy bodied (competes manfully with the El Dorado), dark sugar notes with pineapple and peaches. Quite dry and medium sweet. A shade harsh
Finish: Medium, heated finish with some softer billowing caramel and nutty flavours.
Assessment: Overall, it failed somehow. On its own I ranked it at 76 points…here I didn’t think it did all that well.

El Dorado 5 year old

Nose: Dark, rich brown sugar. White flower notes, caramel, slight molasses. Became almost creamy as it opened up.
Palate: Yummy. Heated, a shade sharp. Arrived with burnt sugar and caramel nuttiness, just enough sweet. Deep, dark, unashamedly rough bushman of a rum, yet quite excellent for all that.
Finish: Long and lasting, with faint closing notes of almonds.
Assessment: The epitome of younger Demerara style rums, and a credit to DDL. This is like the rambunctious first born in your family, an A-type for sure.

Angostura 5 year old

Nose: Grapes, fleshy fruits, peaches. Strong heated nose redolent of burning canefields
Palate: A medium bodied melange of vanilla, burnt brown sugar, caramel. Thick and almost chewy, yet spicy and containing a certain grace as well.
Finish: long and lasting with a closing aroma of caramel
Assessment: Aggressive, forceful and straightforward, yet lacking some of the uncouth brawny cheeriness of the El Dorado.

Juan Santos 5 year old

Nose: Light and delicate, yet heated spirits tickle your nose. Fruit and vanilla notes so well balanced it’s almost impossible to pick apart.
Palate: Gently assertive, extremely mild…barely passes the “is this a rum?” test at all, since none of the notes one would expect out of an entry-level rum – the molasses, brown sugar, toffee etc – are present.
Finish: long, a shade brny, and quite dry, with almost no flavours poushing past to provide closure.
Assessment: passive aggressive problem child who prefers never to speak up in class

General conclusions

Having gone through this exercise and gotten quite high doing it, what were the results and how did they stack up against my posted scores?

Well, not too bad. Side to side rankings came up with this result:

Last was was the Juan Santos,third came the Flor, second the Angostura, and first (somewhat to my surprise) came the El Dorado 5. Scores in my reviews bore this out: in order, 74, 76, 77 and 78, and all variations came in nose, the palate and finish, with little difference in the intangibles. So all in all, I see this as an initial vindication of the system, if you could call it that and however miserly it might be. Other rankings of this nature will inevitably follow because I feel (as others do) that tasting single rums in isolation can be a sterile exercise, and gives no reference baseline which a multiple sampling would enhance.

Just as a side note, I really am impressed with Angostura’s product. It has real character and a certain elemental brutality about it that I liked a lot…two point separation or not, it is in many respects on par with the El Dorado, which perhaps supercedes it in just that slight smidgen of smoothness and depth that pulled it ahead.

Anyway, please note that (of course) these scores reflect my tastes, not necessarily yours. You will undoubtedly have your favourites, as I have mine, and concordance is unlikely. And this is without even considering how many five year old rums out there, of which this is a miniscule sampling at best. That said, have fun trying them out anyway. I know I did.

Raucous Rum Tasting (05 June 2012)

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Jun 052012

The latest KWM’s Raucous Rums tasting was held in the KWM shop tasting room in Calgary on June 5th, and as usual I squirreled myself (and on this occasion, my grown-up daughter) off into a back corner – she had evinced an interest in the tasting process and I wanted to show her what it was I was interested in and why (though my own feeling is she might have more wanted to cross something off her personal bucket list or something). We nibbled a bit and watched the Scotchguy do his intro. Note that I have given up — after two years of concerted and fruitless effort — trying to convince him that he should rename himself for such occasions and it’s become a running gag that I always mention it in my subsequent write up.

I have few romantic illusions about the nature of tastings: while I use sessions in my house to illustrate to the dabblers and the curious about the sheer variety and scope of top ended rums (and to show that they can hold their own against any other drink, a claim which my malty friends would dispute to their dying shot), a commercial establishment wants to show what they have for sale that’s worthy of the buck. And I don’t fault that for a moment – that’s the nature of capitalism and salesmanship. I just wish there were more. But as I have been informed on more than one occasion, high end rums not only lack cachet (except among the cognoscenti) – they simply don’t sell as well as equally priced or similarly aged cognacs, brandies or scotches. Which is why good hooch all too often remains on the shelves forever, unsold and gathering cobwebs…a loss leader. The battle continues – and perhaps I should be grateful: RumVictoria down in BC, run by a Calgary exile I wish I knew better, was shocked to find that there were no tastings at all down there, and the selections he could get were shabby at best. I can only imagine how bad the situation is elsewhere in Canada.

But I digress.

As before, Andrew kept things down to six blind choices. I had a suspicion Rum Nation’s products would be one or two of them, but beyond that, I was in the dark (as it should be). As is standard for him, our host had his slideshow presentation detailing something of the history of rum and its production, for the benefit of the audience who came for a combination of curiosity and interest (there was a small tribe of cheerful Chileans on this occasion) – it’s an odd thing, but aside from myself, I never see the same people twice in a row at these tastings. Too bad, because since KWM is a relatively boutique kind of store, they never put cheap stuff in front of you, so what better place to start?

Rum #1

A light golden rum whose nose darkened a shade as it opened up. The initial scents were light honey, licorice and a very slight dark sugar tang, attended by a certain n spiciness. On the palate we noted a medium body, some molasses and vanilla, and the continuation of sharp heat that was not all that warmly received. Later the rum evinced a smokiness which was quite appealing, and overall smoothness was okay without being exceptional – the lighter body mitigated against that. Finish was medium, light and heated, but far from unpleasant. I hazarded a guess it was an agricole just because of the overall delicacy (but also clarity of flavours – a Doorly’s this was not).

Rum #2

In comparison with #1, Rum #2 was more assertive in announcing itself. A dark gold rum, it presented a nose of some strength, quite fruity with green apples, grapes, raisins and a hint of molasses. As for the arrival, it came over as quite spicy (though not nastily so – this rum liked you), heavier in body, and dry; as it opened up there were some light floral notes which carried over into the finish in a mélange of flavours so subtle I was quite at a loss as to what this baby really was. What I’m saying was that I sensed a good blend of tastes…I just couldn’t pick anything out individually. A pretty good aged rum, smooth and warm to the embrace.

Rum #3

This gold rum was an excellent piece of work, and from the faint rubbery notes on the snoot, I pegged it squarely as a Rum Nation product (but nothing beyond that), whose characteristics it seemed to embody. Smoky scents, followed by fleshy fruits (peaches, apricots, a ripe mango) and red roses (no, seriously). On the palate, excellent all round: deep, intense, warm, yet soft as well; fennel, licorice and some oak, faint molasses. The finish was lasting and darkly spicy, and carried the flavours to a long completion. Mouthfeel on this one was silky as a baby’s cheek. Me likee, seriously.

Rum #4

Another confusing problem child I couldn’t place. Dark amber rum with a nose redolent of toffee, caramel, light flowers and yet the heavier touch of bananas was there too. Smooth, medium body which somehow failed to be assertive enough, tasting of caramel, raisins and perhaps dark chocolate. It heated up a bit on the fade, which was short and intense, yet overall the rum seemed just a bit too wussy for my taste – I wasn’t sure that was because it was it was a tad underproofed, or because the blending lacked something. This didn’t stop others from smacking their lips, I should note. I thought it was a Mount Gay because of the bananas in the nose.

Rum #5

Oh, well now, here was one I knew right off the bat: the dark sweetness, the fruity vanilla, and coconut shavings on the nose gave it away, as did the smooth sweet passage across the tongue, what with the touch of candy and licorice and molasses. Smooth as all get out, sweet and soft, and the Zacapa 23 for sure. Not the best of the soleras in the world, but one of the touchstones of the genre, as I remarked in my original review…and one of the best known, of course.

Rum #6

Where had this one been all my life? Dark gold medium bodied rum trending towards the heaviness of a middle aged athlete gone to seed. Soft shades of brandy on the bouquet, slight rubbery notes, cherries, citrus and maybe a hint of dustiness as well (and I mean that in a good way). The arrival was soft and irresistible, with chopped dark fruits of Guyanese Christmas black cake, peaches and aromatic pipe tobacco. Leather and driness on the fade, accompanied by a hint of bad boy oak and an overall smoothness that was simply delectable. Aged product for sure — I once again suspected Rum Nation, and from the medium body and sweetness, I initially considered it the Panama 18 (just because I knew Andrew and what he had in stock)…but not enough to bet the farm on it.

So what were the scores and the rums?

Well, the system in use here is that people were asked to select which of the six rums were their #1 and #2 favourites.

Rum #1 – Haitian Barbancourt 15 Agricole. Didn’t get any votes. No-one liked it enough to give it the top spot. About all I got right on this one was that it was an agricole

Rum #2 – Juan Santos 21 year old, and it got five votes. I felt humiliated: I loved the brand and yet I missed it entirely, though it was my #3 pick.

Rum #3 – Rum Nation Martinique hors d’age (which supposedly means aged for around 4-6 years) – 6 votes, and it was my #2 pick of the evening.

Rum #4 – Ron Barcelo 10 year old Imperial. Note the rum is 38% so I was right about the possible underproof nature of it…but was I ever wrong about the brand. 9 votes.

Rum #5 – Yup, the Ron Zacapa 23, 8 votes.

Rum #6 – Rum Nation: yes it was a Panama, but not the 18 – it was the 21 year old. My best of the evening, and nine others thought so too, and so this was the undisputed champion.

So what did I take away from this, aside from my daughter’s snickering at my inability to separate the brands, four of which I had tried already and should have known?

Well, I’m nowhere near good enough to blind taste a rum and instantly know which country it comes from – I have to bone up on my regional characteristics. On the other hand, my preferences seem to be very stable: I loved Juan Santos and Rum Nation products when I reviewed them, prefer slightly darker rums with good body, have noted that excess sweet is off-putting (Zacapa is too much of a good thing, I’m coming to realize) and underproofs simply underwhelm me. In fact, if nothing else, I want rums to be stronger, and stop restraining themselves to being a standard 40%.

Another point this leads to is that my personal tastes are not just running towards more heavily proofed offerings that deliver an intensity of flavor which forty per-centers are straining to maintain, but that there aren’t enough new and intriguing outside-the-box thinkers out there. Maltsters will laugh, but the most imaginative expressions I’ve had in a while are those made by Bruichladdich, Cadenhead and AD Rattray, scotch makers all – as well as newer and more aggressively original single-domain makers like Rum Nation. The likes of Appleton, Bacardi, Mount Gay, El Dorado et al seem to be bedding down for the long haul, happy with their aged or general offerings, without trying for something seriously old and unique. Tough for us as drinkers.

Anyway, a good evening, nice snacks (if not by the inimitable Dale) and good rums. Kudos to KWM for doing more than anyone else in this regard, and not cheaping out either. Look forward to the next one later in the year.

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