Europe – Page 13 – The Lone Caner

Samaroli Demerara 1994 12 Year Old Dark Rum – Review

Feb 262016

A very well blended, original melange of traditional Demerara flavours that comes up to the bar without effort, but doesn’t jump over.

It is a curious matter that although Samaroli may well be the first independent bottler to dabble in the issuing of year-specific, country-specific craft rums (they began with whiskies back in 1968), somehow they never seem to quite get the respect or street cred that its inheritors like Velier, RN, CDI and others do. Few of their rums grace the review pages of the blogosphere, and yet, those that show up have all gotten pretty positive words said about them. So why the lack of recognition and raves of the sort that others receive so often?

Part of it is the expense of course; another may be inconsistency in the range (I’ve tried too few to make that claim with assurance – I liked their Nicaragua 1995 and am intrigued by this one, but that’s hardly a huge sample set); still another is perhaps that the company is simply relegated to the status of “another one of the boys” because of their limited outturn. Not for them the thousands of Caronis or Demeraras like Velier, or the more widely disseminated people-pleasers from Rum Nation and Plantation. Samaroli inhabits the undefined space between Luca’s pure cask strength bruisers and the occasionally dosed but usually very pleasant lower-proofed offerings from Rossi and Gabriel. In fact, if you think about it, of all the independent bottlers currently in vogue, it is CDI which more closely adheres to Samaroli’s limited edition geographical spread. Samaroli Dem 1994 2

Be that as it may, that makes them neither more, or less than any of the others, simply themselves. So let’s look at one or two and see how they stack up: in this review, I tried a twelve year old from Guyana, the 1994 edition “dark” rum. It was distilled in 1994, matured in Scotland (why there, I wonder?) and bottled in 2006 at a modest 45% with an outturn of 346 bottles. No information is provided as to the still or blend of stills which comprise the rum (but we can guess right away).

Now, based on the above, it’s not completely certain, but I think the Port Mourant still comprises the dominant portion thereof – just nosing it made that clear. It started off dark, with instant fumes of licorice, molasses and burnt sugar, and the spicy and musky background which denotes that particular still. Almost all sharper and more acidic citrus scents were notable by their absence here, but paying some more attention teased out additional notes of tamarind, brine, clean vegetals and anise…a really nicely done traditional opening. Samaroli Dem 1994 3

I enjoyed the taste of the mahogany coloured twelve year old as well. It presented as warm and soft to the first taste, with well controlled bite: prunes, licorice (of course), and a musky dry taste like dark earth freshly ploughed, after a hard rain. The spicier fruity notes came into their own after a few minutes, with lemon zest leading the charge, together with other vanilla and oaky elements that had missed their turn when I had smelled it the first time – it was a well put together assembly of tastes, occasionally sharp, nothing to complain about, and perhaps could have been somewhat stronger to really make those flavours sing. Closing things off, I liked the finish quite a bit as well: medium long, very solid, adroitly weaving between driness and softness, providing last hints of anise, burnt sugar, vanilla, cherries and some cinnamon.

The Samaroli 12 year old Demerara was very solid, professionally made, competently executed rum, if perhaps lacking that last filip of complexity and power to make it score higher. No matter…what there was, emerged well and was assembled without major blemish. If I score it the way I have, well, it was because I had a surfeit of PMs to use as comparators, and I assure you that the ones in contention were just as excellent.

So: Samaroli’s Demerara dark rum is a good-if-perhaps-not-great rum. It adhered to all the main pointers of the style, was not adulterated in any way, and for its strength provided an excellent sipping rum that took on El Dorado’s own twelve year old and ran it into the ground. DDL has gotten some bad press recently from around the fora of the cognoscenti, for the core El Dorado line which hydrometer tests suggested had been dosed with sugar. Samaroli, as others have done, showed the potential which such Demerara rums have, at any strength, and demonstrated that you don’t need to mess with a winning formula if you don’t want to, can issue as much or as little as you like, and still end up making a damned classy product that the public would enjoy.

(#257. 86.5/100)

Rhum St. Gilles (1960s/1970s)

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Feb 152016

Rumaniacs Review 018 | 0418

This is a tough rhum to track down, so there’s not much I can tell you aside from noting that the brand no longer exists…I don’t even know when they went belly up. If my searches are any good, an ex-Carmelite priest called Reverend St. Gilles opened the small plantation in the 17th century (the company itself published a book about him in 1948). In their time prior to the 1980s, La Compagnie du Rhum Saint Gilles exported several varieties of rhum from Martinique to France and Italy, for distributors like Stock and Raphael. My sample was neither the 45% Reserve Speciale 10 year old, or any of the 44% reserves…this one was much milder.

Colour – Hay yellow

Strength – 40%

Nose – Crisp and light, with light olives in vinegar, brown sugar and some citrus being leavened by softer scents of fried bananas. As it opened it up it exhibited the snap and zest and clarity of a really good Riesling. Really too light, though.

Palate – Light bodied, even thin. Too sharp, really, needs some more ageing. Very precise notes of white flowers, vanillas, some oakiness, leather. It took a while to settle down after which some sugar and light fruits emerged, to be overtaken in their turn by crisp and clear vegetals. I could swear there were some basil leaves in there somewhere. Maybe not.

Finish – Short, dry, indifferent and fast, like an aged shady lady of the night who just wants to be gone after doing what she came for. Last notes of citrus zest (lemon, I’d say), some grass, sweet sugar water and a bit of vanilla.

Thoughts – Not really my speed, this one, it’s too unaggressive and far too thin and meek. It takes too much effort to detect even a good standard agricole profile. We talk a lot about how rhums were made in the good old days of yore (as if they were always better, “back then”) but occasionally we realize that rums in general and agricoles in particular, are also pretty damned good today. This one fails in comparison with its descendants.

(76/100)

Rum Cask Fiji 2003 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Feb 072016

Rum Cask makes a slightly better Fijian rum, of the four I’ve tried.

Rum Cask is another one of the smaller independent bottlers – out of western Germany in this instance, very close to the French border – who do the usual craft bottling thing. They act as both distributors of whisky and rum, and at some point they fell to dabbling in their own marques, issuing cask strength rums from Belize, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Cuba Grenada, and more, including Fiji, which may be something of an afterthought. In what is probably a coincidence, they issued a ten year old rum from South Pacific Distilleries, and it was also made in 2003, and bottled in 2013, just like Duncan Taylor (or they used the same broker, or something). However similar the provenance, in this instance I felt that while they didn’t succeed in making a rum junkie’s must-have, they did succeed in raising the bar…just a bit.

Take for example the nose, which so disappointed me on the Duncan Taylor from last week. That one was 54.8%…this one dialled things up to a filthy-gorgeous growl of 62.9% and its intensity was right there from the get-go. Much of the same kerosene, fusel oil, wax, and turpentine jammed my sensory apparatus – the rum would cure the clogged nose of a sinus infection with no problems – but here there were also nuts, honey, vanilla, some burnt sugar, and switching back and forth between it and the DT (and the clairins), it suggested an overall better balance.

Unfortunately, it also required some taming. Since I have no particular issues with cask strength rums (how the worm has turned from the days when I despised anything stronger than 40%, right?) the ABV was not a factor: it was its unrefined character. The palate was raw and sharp enough to shave with, and exhibited an unrestrained force that seemed to want to scratch your face off. So while I spread the tasting over several hours and wrote about sensed tastes of salt beef in vinegar, cereal, brine, olives, some more vanillas and caramel, nuts and honey, plus a whiff of citrus and fresh paint in hot sunlight — and lots of oak — the fact was that the marriage just wasn’t working as well as it might. Yes the finish was biblically epic, hot and long and lasting, shared more of the flavours of the palate (the citrus and wood really took over here) and made my eyes water and my breath come in gasps – but really, was that what it was all about? The grandiose finish of a taste experience that might have been better?

In its own way this rum is as distinct from the other Fijians I’ve managed to try as they are from the mainstream, inhabiting a space uniquely its own, though still recognizable as being a branch from the same tree. The enormous strength works to its advantage to some extent, though I don’t think it’s enough to elevate it to the front rank of cask strength rums. This may be where the concept barrels slumbering in Europe (as espoused by the Compagnie des Indes) has its problems, because the evolutions are subtle and take place over a much longer period of time than the brutally quick maturation of the tropics. European ageing, when done right, results in something like the Longpond 1941 which survived 58 years in a barrel without the oak eviscerating all other flavours. Here, the reverse was true and ten years didn’t seem to be nearly enough – the rum shared the downfall of the others I tried, displaying sharp and jagged edges of flavour profiles that seemed to be not so much “married well”, but “raging into divorce.”

The Fijian rums (those I’ve tried, at any rate) seem to have problems with the integration of their various components, and they need more work (and ageing) to be taken seriously by, and to find, a mass audience – this might be one of those rare occasions where less strength is called for, not more. So who is this particular rum for? It doesn’t really work as a sipping rum, and at its price point, would it be bought by a barman so as to make cool tiki drinks? Unless one is a cocktail fan, then, that doesn’t leave much, I’m afraid, unless you are, as one commentator remarked on the DT, a lover of whisky. In which case, by all means have at it.

(#254. 82/100)

Other notes

This rum is very much about opinion. Cornelius of BarrelProof liked both of these quite a bit (he was the kind source of my samples, big “thank you” to the man), so keep an eye out for his reviews.

Comments on the Duncan Taylor Fijian rum suggested that the profile was quite Jamaican in nature, if not quite as good. The same applies here. Most Jamaican rum I’ve tried are bit more obviously from molasses, and I didn’t really get that impression from the Fijians. Actually, they remind me more of cachacas and perhaps the clairins.

The outturn is unknown.

Duncan Taylor Fiji 2003 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Feb 042016

Nope, all apologies to the islanders, but Fiji still doesn’t ascend to the heights of a country whose rums we must have. Yet.

Let’s just dispense with two more Fijian products that crossed my path, provided by my friend Cornelius of Barrelproof, who, it should be noted upfront, liked them both a lot more than I did. We don’t see many products from that country anywhere – “Eastern” rums don’t make it west of the iron curtain very often, so it’s mostly in online emporia that we find find rums from Fiji, Australia, Indonesia or even Japan; these are sold primarily in Europe, not in North America. Bundie, Don Papa and Nine Leaves look to buck that trend but they are small potatoes, really, and you’re still gonna look hard to locate a Tanduay, or even the stuff out of India.

Anyway, independent bottlers Duncan Taylor, the Rum Cask, Compagnie des Indes, Berry Brothers and some others do take the single barrel route, and so perhaps we should be grateful that we do get the chance to try these unusual profiles whenever we can. The rum came from the same distillery as the BBR 8 year old and the Compagnie’s 10 year old: the Fijian South Pacific Distillery now owned by Fosters from Australia, and located in the northwest of the small island.

DT Fiji Label

I said “unusual” a moment ago…it was not a word I chose lightly.

I poured the 54.8% hay-blonde, pot-still spirit into my glass, and flinched as if I had found a roach in my soup (oh waiter…!) Sharp, snarling smells of kerosene, sealing wax, floor polish emerged fast, like a pissed of genie out of his lamp, ungentle and clashing with each other in a most unbecoming fashion. I went back to the shelf and checked out the Clairin Sajous to see if it was me…nope, that was still better. Ten minutes rest period didn’t help much – turpentine, acetone, wet paint decided to come out now, joined by candle wax, green grape skins…and I was left thinking, if this was pot-still, unfiltered, and issued “as-was” from the barrel, maybe the barrel needed to be changed; and to be honest, if ever I tried a rum that made a strong case for either more ageing or some dosage, this was it. The smell was simply too raw and unrefined. Most of what it displayed was liquid sandpaper only marginally improved by some ageing.

To my relief, there was some compensation once I tasted the thing. Better, much better. Heated and very spicy, medium bodied in texture, and all this was a welcome change from the initial attack. It tasted of red olives in brine, with a sort of meaty background, like a plastic tub of salt beef just starting to go. Then at last more familiar notes asserted themselves and stopped mucking about, and I sensed some green grapes just starting to go, vanilla and smoke (not much), a very herbal, grassy element, more brine, sweet soya, some citrus, ginger and a good Thai veggie soup. Cornelius felt it displayed something the funky charm of the Jamaican style, so if you ever get around to trying it yourself, there would be something to watch out for. The finish, unsurprisingly for such strength, was long enough, and I couldn’t say it was either good or bad – it existed, it lasted, I got notes of lemongrass, vanilla, citrus and soya and brine again, but very little of a more comforting back end. Colour me unimpressed, sorry.

Although the aromas and tastes suggest a cane juice base distillate, the Ministry of Rum and Fiji Rum Co. pages both say molasses. Which makes the profile I describe even odder, because it was so much like the clairins, but lacking their fierce commingling of the same tastes into a synthesis that worked. The nose was too jagged and too raw, the palate worked (up to a point) and the finish was nothing to write home about. In my opinion, this rum should have been left to sleep some more. The outturn was 284 bottles from a single cask, and it was aged in an oak cask for ten years, yet honestly, you might think it was no more than a three year old (or even younger) from the way it fended off any efforts to come to grips with it.

I’ve now tried four or five Fijian rums, and admittedly, that’s hardly a huge sample set; still they do all exhibit a kind of right turn from reality that takes some getting used to, for those of us more accustomed to Caribbean traditionals or agricoles (which is most of us). They may be proof positive that terroire is no mere subtly abstract concept which is insouciantly bandied about but lacking real meaning, and I believe that rums from other parts of the world do indeed provide their own unique tastes and smells and sensations. The flip side of that, is that I have yet to acquire a real taste for some of them. I’m not going to write Fijians off like yesterday’s fish…but thus far I haven’t met any (out of the few I’ve tried) that blow my socks off either. Certainly this rum doesn’t.

(#253. 81/100)

Other notes

Aged April 2003 to September 2013, location unknown
Yes, if I see more Fijians, I’ll buy. Still really curious about them.
Marco Freyr has put together a short bio of the company (in German)
The tasting notes above are my own. I didn’t see the back label until Cornelius kindly sent me some pictures of the bottle.

Velier Caroni 1982 Heavy 24 YO Rum

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Feb 012016

Rumaniacs Review 017 | 0417

We’re down to the last sample of the old Velier rums I’ve got, this one from Caroni, and like the 1985, also bottled in 2006, though two years older. My background notes say 4600 bottles issued from 15 barrels and handsomely issued at 58.3%. What else can I tell you about Caroni you don’t already know? Probably nothing, so let’s move on.

Colour – Dark amber

Strength – 58.3%

Nose – The 1985 was great, and this one raises the bar a smidgen. With these old, bold rums, sometimes the oak takes charge too aggressively…not here. Toasted nuts, almonds and caramel lead off. Raisins and black grapes shoulder those aside after a while. There’s a chirpy little citrus note coiling in the background, plus more fruits and some tar…but I was oddly reminded of the UF30E, for some reason, as I sampled this rum

Palate – Yeah, here comes the flexing musclebeach of the Caroni profile kicking sand in your face. Warm and pungent and heavy; thick, almost chewy to taste, coats the mouth very well. Caramel, molasses and tar trumpet their arrival. All the hits are playing, loudly. With water, more raisins and grapes, vanilla beans, chopped dark dried fruit, ginger, unripe mangos, that citrus again…and over the half hour or so I spent with this rum, it got slightly crisper, even cleaner, in a way that enhanced, not detracted from, the overall sensation.

Finish – Long, heated, deep, a little dry. Invites savouring. Closing notes of tar, some teriyaki and ginger, vanilla, leather and molasses.

Thoughts – I’ve had quite a few Caronis now, and they are all sprigs off the same tree. These are rums that benefit from higher proofs – the tastes are brought out in a way that diluting down to 40% would harm, rather than improve. Whatever the case, this is one of the better ones for sure, and with that many bottles in issue, it’s likely that it can still be found somewhere. if one searches. At least we can hope so.

(89/100)

Compagnie des Indes 2004 South Pacific (Fiji) 10 Year Old – Review

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Jan 252016

C de I Fiji 1

A well assembled rum made by someone who knows his business, yet, as with the BBR I tried some years ago, not entirely to my taste.

Florent Beuchet, the man behind the independent bottler Compagnie des Indes, really likes to go off the beaten track in his search for proper casks of rum to release: either that or he has access to some broker or other with some cool geographically dispersed stocks. Think about the rums he has in his young portfolio so far – from Guyana, Cuba, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Panama, Jamaica, Trinidad, Belize and Barbados, all the old stalwarts. But show me another maker who in a single two year period can also claim to have added St. Lucia, Haiti, Fiji and Indonesia to the mix. St. Lucia alone should draw nods of approval. But Haiti? Fiji? Indonesia?

Therefore, yes, I’m a little impressed, more than a bit intrigued, and follow his issues closely, though thus far I don’t have that many…yet. I was fortunate enough to try several samples of the Fijian 10 year old bottled at 44% in my ongoing effort to draw attention to obscure corners of the world where rums are made (but receive too little attention), and where unsung treasures may be found to the aspiring, perspiring rum collector.

So, this one: it was one of two 2015 Fijian releases CdeI made (each from a separate barrel), and it’s from the South Pacific Distilleries distillery – Florent didn’t tell me, but come on, it’s right there on the label…and anyway, even if it wasn’t, how many other distilling ops are there on the small island? This in turn is controlled by the Carlton Brewery (Fiji) Ltd, and that itself has the parent company of the Australian group Foster’s. They make the popular Bounty rums (not the same as St. Lucia’s) and so far as I can tell, only BBR, Duncan Taylor and Cadenhead have released any bottlings from there. And full disclosure, I didn’t care much for the BBR Fiji 8 year old.

Still, things started out okay: the yellow rum was spicy and dry to sniff, with sugar water and delicate floral scents. Watery is a good term for the sort of smells it exhibited – and by that I mean watermelon, juicy white pears, diluted syrup from a can of mixed fruit, grass after a rain. This was all to the good. What happened after a while was that waxy notes crept in, black/red olives in too-sour brine, and that C de I Fiji 2 palled my enjoyment somewhat.

The taste of this light bodied, column-still-made rum was the best thing about it. Hot, freshly brewed green tea, no sugar, was my initial thought. Brine again, more white flowers, guavas, sugar cane sap oozing out after you chop a stalk down. Overall the lightness was somewhat illusory, because the rum displayed a good warmth and firm delicacy (if that isn’t a contradiction in terms), and demonstrated why there remains no “perfect” rum strength – a higher proof would have shredded this Fijian, while 44% was exactly right. In fact, it showed off a lot of characteristics of an agricole, more than a rum coming from molasses (it was confirmed that it did indeed derive from molasses, not cane juice). The finish was short, smooth, heated and elegant, but nothing really extra was added to the party over and beyond what I noted above…perhaps some faint vanilla, gherkins in weak vinegar, swank, not much else.

I thought it was a decent rum, made by a company which knew what they was doing when they selected it, and you could sense the assembly was done well – the mouthfeel, for example, was excellent. Where it fell down for me was in the snarly disagreement between the individual sweet versus sour/salt components – they didn’t mesh well, and the wax and turpentine notes kept interrupting like annoyingly plastered gate-crashers at your daughter’s wedding. This is quite a bit better than the BBR 8 Year old I reviewed back in 2013, which had similar issues, just more of them, and there I attributed it less to terroire and more to insufficient ageing.

Now, I’m not so sure – the clear and somewhat jagged profile may be characteristic of the area, and if so, we who love rums should try a few more before rushing to condemn and criticize – it’s not like there’s a historically huge sample set out there to compare with. Suffice to say, for the moment, this isn’t quite my cup of tea. It’s a technically well made rum whose individual components, delicious on their own, aren’t quite cohering the way they should to make the experience a sublime one. Or even a better one.

(#252 / 84/100)

Other notes

Florent advised me the barrel was bought through a broker, and no sugar was added.

Velier Rhum Vieux Guadeloupe 1995 “Basseterre” – Review

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Jan 212016

Photo courtesy of velier.it

Slow, not entirely promising beginning, with a strong development and finish.

In between its major releases from Trinidad, Guyana and Damoiseau where it made its bones, Velier occasionally took time off to travel the more traditional route of the indie bottler, and issue one-offs like this one (and the 1997). I consider it a curious addition to the oevre, and not entirely a rum so good that it rates admittance to the pantheon, though nevertheless deserving of praise.

I call it “curious”: it was distilled in October 1995 and bottled in January 2008…but in between those dates, it was, like Velier’s own Damoiseau 1980, stored in dead vats to cease the ageing, from 2006 on. So it’s up to us to decide whether the resting vat had any residual influence which would make it 12½ years old…or whether it didn’t and it’s just around ten.

(That’s something that seems to be coming up more often in relation to older agricoles I’ve tried – a millesime (the year of distillation) is trumpeted to the heavens, but in some cases the makers aren’t nearly as forthcoming about the date of bottling, and one has to have the sleuthing nose of a Poirot to ferret out these little nuggets. Fortunately, Velier has always been pretty good about providing the info we need on its labels, and now you know what I do, so let’s move on.)

Presentation was the usual bottle, enclosed in a dour blue box with bright abstract art on it. What I liked about it was that it didn’t just say “Guadeloupe,” as most independents would do on their labels, but “Basseterre”, and further along, a notation of Distillerie Carrère in Petit-Bourge – that allowed me to delve more deeply into the history, which is further down for those who are interested in the provenance and background.

Right, tasting notes. The opening aromas were crisp and sharp, even a little uncouth, a little undisciplined – lovers of smooth and easygoing fare are likely to be disappointed here. Both salty with red olives, and sweet at the same time, yet also lightly perfumed with the scent of delicate florals (not much), mixed in with a nice white wine…a good Riesling, perhaps. As the minutes wore on it developed into a light and clear smell, the sharpness wore off and gave over to tree sap, green leaves, wet grass, some vanilla and faint smoke. It was all pleasantly tied off into a bow with additional cherries and hard yellow mangoes.

D3S_3751

The Basseterre was an amber coloured rum, medium bodied, and bottled at 58.2%, and it hesitated not at all before skewering the tongue. I was a little surprised at its unrestrained aggressiveness, to be honest (I was tasting it in conjunction with the Velier Damoiseau 1980, Chantal Comte 1977 and two Neissons, all of which were slightly smoother), and while I immediately tasted honey, walnuts and almonds, I put it away for a while to let it open up some more. This was the right approach, because it gentled out more after five minutes, and the shy flavours of flowers, tree sap and aromatic tobacco emerged, behind which coiled sharper notes of tannins, fresh-sliced unripe peaches, citrus and ginger. In fact, the pendulum swung just a shade too much in the other direction as time wore on, and canned fruit syrup, yoghurt and whipped cream (I kid you not) started to take away from the initial freshness I liked.

The fade was long and spicy and complemented the palate very well. Not much new going on except for some cereal and milk, more honey and nuts (cheerios?), and that lovely aromatic pipe tobacco finished things off with perhaps some ginger and citrus hanging in there.

Looking back and considering the experience dispassionately, I must concede that this might actually be one of the few Veliers that didn’t ascend to the peaks of their other (more popular, better known and higher-scored) rums…y’know, like the UF30E. It feels younger than ten years old, somehow. Still, the Basseterre got better as it glared around and opened up: it is a solid, strong, agricole, which started off a little poorly but came up to the finish line with good credentials. Luca still hasn’t replied to me with what the outturn was, and I paid €190 for mine – for the quality I got, I’d suggest it’s a borderline purchase. If you’re not into agricoles, it’s unlikely this one will turn you into an aficionado…however, if you are, it surely won’t disappoint.

(#251 / 87/100)

History

Guadeloupe is comprised of three main areas: the butterfly shaped conjoined landmasses of Grand Terre and Basseterre making up Guadeloupe proper, with the small island of Marie Galante to the south east. Petit Bourge is on the eastern side of Basseterre, and serves the Montebello distillery — when it was founded by the Dolomite family in 1930 it was called Carrere (named after an even smaller village nearby) but in 1968, after many years of declining revenues it was sold to a Jean Marsolle (whose brother owned the Séverin distillery a little to the north west). He in turn sold it to his sons Alain and Emamanuel in 1974 – they renamed it Montebello in 1975. It remains in the family to this day, and produces 500,000 liters of rum annually. They have the curious practice of not only casking their rums in oak, but then dunking the filled barrels into heated steel containers to accelerate the maturation. Whether that works to enhance the resultant rhum I can’t say, since I never bought or managed to try any.

Other notes

This is not an AOC certified rhum.

Basseterre 1

Velier Caroni 1985 Heavy 21 YO Rum

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Jan 192016

Rumaniacs Review 016 | 0416

Two more Veliers to go before we move onto other old rums, this is the “younger” one, bottled in 2006, from that Port Ellen of the rumworld, Caroni. Here in 2004, legend has it, Luca was (as usual) talking rum, chewing sugar cane and taking pictures, when he literally tripped over (not into) a warehouse of stored casks, probably forgotten, all of which he eventually bought. Talk about a coup de maître – they should make a film about him: Indiana Gargano and the Lost Warehouse, know what I mean? No one in the rumworld, before or since, ever came close to uncovering this kind of treasure. And to his credit, he didn’t blend the lot, but issued them in no less (and probably more) than 31 separate bottlings, which is good for us as buyers, even if we get threatened with divorce quite often when we fork over our pieces of eight.

Colour – Dark amber

Strength – 58.8% (6600 bottle outturn)

Nose – Damn, Caronis get better every time I try them, and this one gets better with every snooting (had enough for three passes at the thing). Beats out the Albion 1986, actually. Wooden tannins and vanilla, tarry and deep and hot, with some of that funkiness of the Jamaicans sneaking around in the background. Vague promises of fruits and licorice were being made, just enough to keep me enthused.

Palate – Dry, furiously oaky and sharp. Some brine and olives, more vanillas, ripe red cherries, a flirt of caramel, and then a barrage of dark fruit, esters and licorice lands on you with the solidity of an Egyptian pyramid block. Gotta be honest though, even with all the fruity stuff, that oak is more dominant than usual here. Water helps, and mutes that oak knife, allowing more tars and some floor wax to take their usual central role.

Finish – Long, pungent, hot. Some coffee, licorice, sweeter fruits, more tannins (better controlled than on the tongue). Not entirely dry, but not lusciously damp either.

Thoughts – Kinda conflicted on this one. Started out great then got hijacked in mid-palate by tenacious oaken flavours which, however tamed, still were too obvious. Not one of the worst Caronis, but not one of the best either. No matter, I still enjoyed what I got.

(87/100)

Velier Blairmont 1982 29 Year Old Rum

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Jan 042016

Rumaniacs Review 015 | 0415

Happy New Year, everyone. 2016 is upon us, I assume everyone is all sobered up, and today we continue our examination of older Veliers…the 1982 Blairmont in this case. I’ve looked at the 1991 edition before and I thought it was exceptional at the time, but that one was half as old as this lovingly aged monster supposedly taken off the French Savalle still in Guyana (the box may be a misprint unless it was referring to a now destroyed pot still). Both are excellent, though.

For those who are interested, Blairmont is a sugar estate on the west bank of the Berbice River in Guyana, founded by Lambert Blair in the early 1800s, and which closed in 1962. I used to pass by the sugar factory in my youth when visiting a cattle ranch nearby. The still from Blairmont — one of them, at any rate — was probably transferred to Uitvlugt and thence to Diamond (see Marco’s magnificent dissertation on the distilleries of Guyana for more information).

Colour – dark amber

Strength – 60.4%

Nose – Intense and thrumming with raw power; deep red winey notes, cherries, prunes, figs. Sweetness is kept under strict control, it’s lightly salty, redolent of dark fruits, coffee, and an odd twist of cream cheese spread over toasted rye bread, dill and some other unidentifiable grassy notes. “Sumptuous” would not be out of place to describe this amazing nose.

Palate – Initially dry and sere, cardboard and pumpernicklel or other dark breads fresh from the oven. At once musky and clear, reminds me a little of the Skeldon. Flowers and lighter white wine notes, raisins, honey, black grapes, really nicely welded together under the torch of well-controlled oaky notes, which, surprising for this kind of age, don’t dominate at all but remain nicely in the background.

Finish – Long and succulent, and an invitation to breathe deep and slow. More grapes, flowers, salt crackers, dark fruit, christmas cake, even a bit of licorice that had gone unnoticed before.

Thoughts – I’m always amazed when a full proof rum manages to rein in its own power and exuberance without scratching your face off, though why I should be surprised with this company after all I’ve tried from their stocks is a mystery. Short version – a fantastic, old, bold rum, of which far too little was ever made. It’s better than the 1991, I think, and one can only sigh with regret that so few remain.

(91/100)

Blairmont 1982 - box crop

Rhum Sant’ Andrea 1939

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Dec 202015

Rumaniacs Review 014 | 0414

The idea was to continue along with Velier’s Caroni 1985 and 1982 this week, but then I figured it was close to Christmas, so let’s go with something a little older. Perhaps a rhum from an age before ours, or even that of our fathers.

Issued by the house of Fratelli Branca, which is akin to Rum Nation, Samaroli or even Velier: an old 19th century Milanese spirits maker (they created a liqueur of their own in 1845 which led to the formation of the company) and distributor, that rode the wave of “Fantasy Rhums” which were popular in Italy in the first half of the 20th century. This may be one of them – except I don’t know where it originates, or how truly aged it is. There are several St. Andrews’s parishes dotted around the Caribbean, and Lo Spirito dei Tempi suggested it was more a brand name than a location, since a variation with similar bottle design was issued as ‘Saint Andrew’s Rhum.’ The Sage thought it was Jamaican, but I dunno, the profile doesn’t really go there. We’ll leave it unsettled for the moment – perhaps it’ll remain lost in the mists of history.

Colour – Dark Mahogany. (Maybe this is like the St. James 1885, and got darker with age, even in the bottle; or maybe in those days they dumped more caramel in there).

Strength – 45%

Nose – Slightly overripe darker fruit; prunes, blackberry jam, ripe blueberries. For all that colour, it presents quite light and easy going. Pears, almonds, rye bread and cream cheese develop over time.

Palate – Sharp and a little thin, settles down to a quiet heat after some minutes. Prunes, dark red grapes, chocolate, vanilla, and the sugar is obvious here. Still, not bad, if thin. A little water brings out molasses, chocolate eclairs, nougat, toffee, and more jammy notes. And some musty background, almost undetectable.

Finish – Warm, sweet, firm, a little dry. Prunes and raisins again, with some last brown sugar.

Thoughts – Relatively simple yet elegant, a little weak on nose and finish but mouthfeel and texture and taste can’t be faulted. If it showcases anything, it’s how differently rhums/rums must have been made just two generations ago…I’ve never had a “modern” rum quite like this. We may have gained rules and regs and consistency and safety measures (and a better idea of how rum is made) – maybe we lost a little something too.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

(83/100)

Berry Bros. & Rudd 1977 Jamaica Rum “Overproof” 36 Year Old Rum – Review

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Dec 162015

BBR 1977 Sepia

BBR have made a rum that has all the fidelity and quality of the rums from times gone by, without compromise….a 60% velociraptor that really does get you and chomp you down.

It’s Christmas, so let’s get another one of the pricier, rarer bottlings out of the way just in case someone sees it and wants one for his grandfather. In all honestly, with just 220 bottles of the Jamaica 1977 in circulation, and at the price point it retails for, one could be forgiven for wondering why I am reviewing a rum that very few people will ever try or buy. And that’s a fair question. Blame it on the fire that The Sage lit under my tail in April 2015 when we founded the Rumaniacs – the opportunity to try (and share) very old, very rare, and yes, rather expensive rums, whose like we shall not see again.

Berry Brothers & Rudd requires no introduction except insofar as to mention that this 36 year old rum is part of their “Exceptional Cask” series which I first heard about last year. Jamaican rums of that age being as rare as hen’s teeth, and having a few quid squirrelled away, I rushed online to buy myself a bottle, prayed it wouldn’t be an expensive misfire, and then waited a year to open the thing. BBR as usual are very tight lipped about the rum and from which plantation it originates, which strikes me as maddeningly and pointlessly obscure. But anyway.

I enjoyed the presentation a lot. A stiff black cardboard box, enclosing the stubby bottle you see in the picture, and a label that takes simplicity to a whole different level…the only extraneous thing about it is the tasting notes. They should have put in the provenance, and left the notes out — because fans and connoisseurs won’t need those, and well-heeled Wall Street derivative traders who buy three or four of these, won’t care.

Let’s begin with how it poured. Rich, dark orange, thick and almost oily in the glass. Scents acted like they were in a hurry to reach the open, and billowed out immediately. I had to be a little cautious with 60.3% so I let it open and then sighed happily: strong, pungent and estery notes led out immediately. It was hot to handle initially until it settled down, yet I detected very little real sharpness – it was powerfully firm to nose. As it developed, vanilla, coconut, some light bananas, aromatic tobacco and a whole lot less oak than I was expecting all came out to join the party, without displacing the sharper citrus and fruity notes that had started things rolling.

BBR 1977 Label

And the taste, well…wow! Amazingly deep and pungent. It didn’t start out with a bang or a tantaraa of trumpets, wasn’t over-oaked, and indeed I thought that the nose was all there was. But observe – it developed from simple initial starting points: spices, esters, light tannins and some vanilla, some dusty cardboard; and these pleasant but almost standard flavours hung around like those shy gawky boys on the dance floor who want to ask the girls to “tek a wine” but can’t…and then, slowly, other richer components evolved. Cumin, hay, tobacco leaves, some tar, caramels, sharper mangos and citrus peel leavened by softer coconut and bananas. It was barely sweet, a little briny and spicy and deep on the tongue, yet it displayed a very rich profile that made it a pleasure to savour and come back to over a very long time. More to the point, these complexities were well balanced and not competing with each other.

And thankfully, the finish carried things away with a flourish too, and the rum didn’t choke at the back end: it was a long, finish, leaving memories of cedar, dust, a heretofore-unnocticed bit of pot-still wax and salt, some more light caramel and cinnamon, and frankly I thought that between the heat and the length, that fade was just short of epic.

I felt that the Jamaica 1977 was extraordinarily well constructed – it shed the extraneous frippery and maintained only the vital…and it pulled off an interesting bait-and-switch by seeming to be a lot less than it actually was. It started out by seeming to be one of the simplest, most straightforward rums out there – full out Jamaican, if you will – and developed into one of the more complex profiles I’ve had from the stables of the island. I think Berry Bros. & Rudd have made an astonishingly brave and great rum here. Trying to come up with precise rationales, I am unable to make my reasons clear without resorting to meaningless generalizations that you’ve read a hundred times before, so let’s see if I can put it another way.

One thing I really admired about my father (without ever telling him so — heaven forbid, an actual compliment between us?) was that trick he had, to shed his cloak of intellectual ability and professional achievement, put on a pair of ratty jeans and sockless flats, and go playing dominos with a cheapass rum and a bowl ‘ice down by the GT ghetto with old squaddies; where he would cuss up and get on and mek plenty plenty noise, his modulated tones giving way to “nuff suck teet” and the objurgatory roughness of loutish street creole. This rum reminded me somewhat of him: tough and uncompromising and not easy to get along with, a paradoxically cultured product that managed to hearken back to brawny working class boys who “get some educatement” without shame or apology; which blended artistry, crudity and power into a cohesive, complex, drinkable whole. When you think about it, that’s actually a rather remarkable feat for anyone or anything to pull off. And if you can follow that line of reasoning, that’s why I thought this rum was a pretty damned good, near-brilliant, piece of work.

(#245. 90/100)

Other notes

No, I don’t think I’ll recommend you drop this much money on a rum, any rum, even this one, unless you really can spare it. Get a taste if you can. If Jamaicans are your thing, you’ll love it.

Bottle #44 of 220

BBR 1977 Colour

A.H. Riise Royal Danish Navy Rum – Review

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Dec 102015

My mission, should I chose to accept it, is to get hammered on this crap. I drank it so you don’t have to.

I can’t imagine what was going through AH Riise’s corporate minds when they made this ersatz faux-Navy-Rum wannabe, but I should point out that the few rum guys I know from Denmark think it’s something of an insult to the spirit. It’s a sweet sugary Nicolas Sparks-level saccharine mess, with a grudging nod given to navy standards by beefing it up some. Unless you’re masochistically into multiple insulin shots, my advice is to smell it and immediately put it back in its box…and then hand it over to all those guys to whom you already presented the Coruba, Whaler’s, the Pyrat and the Kraken. It’s in good company there.

The Royal Danish Navy rum, bottled at 55% is supposedly made according to the same recipe as old AH (see below) developed over a hundred years ago, and then sold to Naval vessels who passed by. It is not a really aged rum – rums “up to” 20 years old comprise the blend, always a warning sign — and which in turn derive from molasses, and distilled in a pot still. According to the product notes on the website, it is neither chill-filtered or coloured (but still we wonders, precious, we wonders….). And that’s about all I can find online and in my scanty library, aside from the company bio, which is below.

Royal Danish Navy 2

The nose started out badly for me, and went downhill from there. The rum presented well, mind you — nice and dark, looked cool in the glass…but that nose. Ugh. Darkly sweet, redolent of peaches, dark sugar, prunes, more dark sugar, some chopped fruits, even more dark sugar. It was, in a nutshell, cloying. Even a few background notes of soggy, rotting wood and cooking sherry, black berries and jam couldn’t elevate the smell of this thing. To be fair, I note that some soy sauce and green olives made an appearance after a bit (a long bit), with perhaps a flowery note coming through…but what good did that do? And, 55%? Where was the power and intensity this should have brought to the table?

Redemption was not to be found when tasting it, alas, even though I often found in the past that nose and palate can be strikingly different…but not here. The rum was hot, thick, creamy, full bodied, syrupy, oversweet, cloying, bubble-gum-like, sticky, vanilla-laden. It was a dentist’s wet dream, a full out cavity attack, with all the strength and all potential flavours beaten into dull defeat and abject submission. What other flavours? Vanilla, more peaches, some molasses, a shade of caramel…and some grudging citrus that comes out when water is added. A short, lackluster finish, warm, tasting of treacle and blackberry jam, paradoxically thick and weak at the same time.

Perhaps it was made for innocent tourists hopping off a cruise ship rather than to attain a high standard in its own right, but there’s all sorts of things wrong with the rum. It is almost drowned in excess sugar, from which the 55% can’t save it, it displays little evidence of the complexity that ageing should have imparted, and I am convinced that some guy in the blending department kinda-sorta accidentally-on-purpose dropped his Mama’s fruit basket into the vat. The “rum bio” on the site is shoddy, and the reality of what it is versus how it’s hawked throws the entire rum into question. I am not going to say outright that the marketing plug on their website is out and out false – but it is misleading to say the least, especially given that Johnny Drejer has already estimated 96 g/L of sugar in it (additives? what additives?).

So, in fine, the AH Riise Navy 55% is not a rum to buy. It wastes your money and your time, unless you are into liqueurs or want to cook with it, and I can’t even imagine what kind of cocktail you could use it in. I’m a lover of Navy rums and vibrant Jamaican/Guyanese profiles – hell, I enjoy strong inexpensive mixers like Pusser’s, the 151s, Young’s Old Sam, Woods 100, Cabot Tower 100 and many others. So I’ve had and enjoyed cheap and not-so-cheap navy rums that had size, staying power, massiveness and strength…but this iteration? It has a nose of no attraction, and struggles with a flaccid palate reminiscent of a coked out John Holmes in his last days. It is, to be brutally frank, a limp dick.

(#244. 68/100) ⭐⭐

AH Riise 2

Background

We haven’t seen this company before, so let me delve into the usual history..

First of all, it should be noted that Denmark did indeed have Caribbean colonies back in the day – St. John, St. Croix and St. Thomas, which are now the US Virgin Islands. The good ole US of A bought them for $25 million in gold back in 1917. Part of the reason for the sale was the high cost of sugar production after slavery was abolished following the 1848 Danish Revolution — certainly mismanagement of the local economy didn’t help. The Skeoch family over in St. Croix and their Diamond Rum Company was doing okay (they would go on to create the Cruzan brand after the repeal of the Volstead Act), but St. Thomas and St. John were in dire straits.

Albert Heinrich Riise, a Danish pharmacist who got a Royal Decree allowing him to open a pharmacy on Charlotte Amallie on St. Thomas in 1838, had a thing for botany and pharmaceuticals (not the recreational kind), and early on created the Riise’s Bay Rum, which was not a rum at all, but a cologne, or after-shave or hair oil, with enough alcohol content to be used as a substitute by those so inclined. This proved to be so popular that by the 1880s (when Riise’s son-in-law had taken over) rums were part of the stable of the company – one even won a medal in 1893. In 1913, the Riise holdings were sold to Olaf Poulsen, a Copenhagen pharmacist, and in 1928 to the Paiewonsky-Cassinelli family, who own the company today. They are retailers and distributors more than rum makers and their website makes no mention of this sideline of their company at all (it’s on a separate website dedicated to just the rums). That alone might explain something.

Several other A.H. Riise rums exist. Maybe one day I’ll try them all to see how much they differ from this one. Hopefully a lot.

Velier Albion 1986 25 Year Old Rum

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Dec 062015

Rumaniacs Review 013 | 0413

Another old bad boy from la Casa Luca, as we continue our sojourn down memory lane with old Veliers. The Albion 1994 17 year old was the first Velier I ever tried and there’s still a soft spot in my heart for it. This one, tried three years later, is perhaps not as good. It’s certainly older, being bottled in 1986 and it’s a weighty, meaty 25 year old…from one barrel. Good luck finding more of this thing. Perhaps only the Albion 1983 is rarer.

Note that its actual provenance from Albion is subject to debate since Albion and its still has been shuttered long before 1983 (Marco went into the matter in some depth in his deep essay here). Carl Kanto told me that the still is dissassembled now, but could offer no pointer as to when this happened. Also, the enclosing white box is inconsistent, speaking about a distilling date of 1994, which Luca assures me is a misprint.

Colour – Dark amber/mahogany

Strength 60.6%

Nose – Rich and robust, very similar to the Blairmont 1982 (coming next week) and a Caroni (wtf?). Caramel nuttiness and blackberries. Not quite as sweet as the 1982, and with solid, deep notes of camphor balls, coffee and bitter chocolate, some molasses and tons of chopped dark fruit. There’s even some weird peatiness winding around the background, and the tarriness of a Caroni is self-evident. Very strange nose here. Good, but unexpected too.

Palate – Much better. Solid, punchy and pungent. Meaty, even. Cinnamon, ginger, more tar and nuts and molasses, anise/licorice, mouthwash and mouldy clothes in an old wardrobe. Oak and leather start to emerge at the tail end…not entirely enthused here. But the rich heaviness of those fruits save it from disaster and lift it back up again, and with the emergence of rich phenols, it parts company with the Blairmont in a big way. Yummy.

Finish – Long and warm, a little dry. Not much new is brought to the party, it’s more of the same spicy fruits and cinnamon and licorice; but what there is, is plenty good and aromatic and lasting. No complaints from me.

Thoughts – A bit conflicted on this one. The quality is there, and it adheres to the high standards of the various Veliers, yet somehow I still liked the younger version better. It may be an academic point given its rarity now. Either way, it is still a very good full proof rum and if it doesn’t ascend to the heights of others, it does no dishonour to the brand either. And that’s a pretty high bar for any contender to beat.

(89/100)

Albion 1986 - box crop

Velier Port Mourant 1974 33 Year Old Rum

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Nov 242015

Rumaniacs Review 012 | 0412

The Velier retrospectives continue. So sad they’re out of production, and that DDL aren’t letting Luca take any more barrels from their old stocks. The dinosaurs like this one continue to be collector’s items…the good Lord only knows where the 1972 is at these days. I last looked at this lovely rum back in 2013, when I was able to get a bottle into Calgary (bought in 2012, don’t get me started on the headaches that took), and its rep has only grown since then.

Colour – mahogany

Strength 54.5%

Nose – Just lovely, so very distinctive. The DDL Single Barrel PM is both younger and less intense, and showcases what they could do if they had the courage Velier displayed here. Cardboard, anise, cherries and prunes lead off. That characteristic dark licorice and raisins emerge over time, even the tang of some balsamic vinegar, and wafting through all that is the smell of musty old books. That may not sound appealing, but trust me on this…it is.

Palate – All we have expected, all we have been led to await, comes straight to the fore here. It’s like all PMs ever made, just a bit boosted and with a character just individual enough to be its own. Heated and a little jagged, smoothening out only after a few minutes. Licorice, tar and the fruity mix inside a dark black cake. Part of what makes this rum so impressive is the overall texture – luscious may under-describe how well the PM melds on the tongue. With water, some sweetness creeps slyly in, caramel and toffee and cinnamon emerge, and though it is somewhat dry, what we are left with is the fruits, the wood, the tar, the magical amalgam that spells Port Mourant.

Finish – less succulent than I recalled…it’s a little bit dry, and very nicely heated. Even at 54.5% (which may be the perfect strength for what has been bottled), the fade goes on for ages, leaving some cinnamon, anise, light brown sugar and almonds to remind you to have some more.

Thoughts – A solid, fantastic old rum, one of those aged offerings that sets its own standards, and against which other PMs are measured. I’d never say no to another bottle, or even another taste. And I’ll never stop complaining to DDL that this is where they should put some effort.

(90/100)

Velier UF30E 1985 27 Year Old Rum

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Nov 082015

Rumaniacs Review 011 | 0411

Time to address the brontosaurii of Velier for a few Rumaniacs write ups, since the samples are there. UF30E is a bit “young” for inclusion into the Rumaniacs pantheon, but it is out of production, so let’s have it. The code stands for Uitvlugt Field #30 East, or some such, which would puzzle even someone from Mudland (like, umm…well, me). Never mind. With an outturn of 814 bottles from three barrels, it remains one of the best rums from Velier I’ve ever sampled. And while I thought had overpraised it back in 2013, it turns out I may have sold it short, given others’ responses to it in the years between then and now.

Colour – darkish amber

Strength – 60.7%

Nose – Nothing changed between then and now…it’s still amazing. Heated, dark, viscous, heavy on the nose, molasses, prunes, dark chopped fruit, blackcurrants, dates, and black cake. After opening somewhat, these opening salvoes were followed by lighter tones of flowers, chocolate, some anise. Rich and powerful and not at all astringent or bitchy.

Palate – The balance of the various components competing for your olfactory and labial attention is extraordinary. The Velier PM 1974 is fantastic too, but for different reasons, and something of a one-trick pony in comparison to the sheer variety that was going on here: sweet and salt, teriyaki chicken (minus the bird but with all the veg), molasses, more fruits, green apples, a little smoke and leather and aromatic cigarillos, and those aromatic hints of what, rosewater? orange juice? Whatever it was, it was great. Even 60.7%, which would normally scare the trees into shedding their autumn leaves, was remarkably well handled. You got hit with the power, sure…you didn’t mind it, is all.

Finish – sums up everything that has come before. Long, lasting and pungent, not dry. Nuts, flowers, some sweet soya, molasses, a shade of caramel. The thing doesn’t want to leave, honestly.

Thoughts – Brilliant all-round rum which pushes all the right buttons for me. Still makes me regret I didn’t buy more when I had the chance. Since it was issued back in 2011 with a reasonable outturn, it’s probably more than likely it’s still available somewhere.

(92/100)

Compagnie des Indes Indonesia 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Nov 052015

C de I Indonesia 1

In Berlin in 2015, I tasted thirty or so rums at the RumFest. But I only bought one. This one.

Why did I get this rum?

Well, occasionally I get bored with rums that seem to go noplace special, don’t venture beyond their own self prescribed limits. I like originality, the whiff of something new. And so I go far afield and back in time, sniffing out old rums — a 30+ year old Demerara, maybe), different ones (clairins anyone?) and those from varied locations like, oh, Madagascar. I’m still looking for Swaziland; was enthralled to know that Ocean’s picked up some rum from Africa for their Indian edition, had to go after Fiji rums when I found them. Indonesia was definitely a cut above the ordinary. So there was that.

Also, when I first reviewed Compagnie des Indes’s Cuban fifteen year old rum a few months ago, I remarked that if they continued making rums like that one, they would be one of the craft makers whose entire line I wanted to try. When Florent Beuchet (the founder of Compagnie des Indes) showed me the green bottle, both my interests intersected and came into play at once – my desire to try a rum made in a country from where I had not seen anything before, and my wanting to try more of the Compagnie’s work.

Some background: sugar cane has long been known to originate in the far east, and the first alcohols made with it supposedly derive from Indonesia itself, so this was what Florent was saying when he told me that it was a variation of rum’s grandfather, Batavia arrack. The fermentation began with yeast of white rice (strange, but I’ve heard weirder things). Five casks produced this 267 bottle outturn and it came from an unnamed, undisclosed distillery – I tried to get Florent drunk enough so he would tell me but no dice. It was aged for three years in Indonesia, and another seven in Europe. Arrack, like clairin, is not usually aged. Florent told me it was a sugar cane distillate from a column still, and untampered-with.

Smelling it was like wallowing in a spring meadow. A great balance of softness and sharpness started things off; delicate flowery notes were immediately evident, with vegetal and citrus scents coming right behind. It didn’t have the dusky heaviness of fleshy fruits, just lighter ones…an Indian mango, half ripe, lebanese grapes (love those). It even evinced some gentle brininess, green olives at the back end. but the overall impression was one of delicacy and a sort of easy-going unaggressive character (maybe it was Canadian).

I liked the taste and mouthfeel a lot (which is why I had three samples of this thing as I badgered poor Florent about his company while trying three others at the same time). Conditioned as I was to somewhat more elemental Demerara and Jamaican rums, I found the graceful texture of well-tempered 43% with its firm and sprightly backbone quite intriguing. So, it was light, sweetish, delicate. The tastes of dill and green tea, and sugar cane juice fresh-pressed came out. It was a little herbal and grassy too (and there was a nice counterpoint of lemongrass winding through the whole thing) but these tastes didn’t overwhelm, just stayed well within the overall construction without trying to elbow anything else out of the way. The fade was a bit short, and quite aromatic, with some unripe peaches and new-mown lemongrass tidying things up.

D3S_3620

The Compagnie des Indies Indonesia 10 year old is no macho body builder of a drink, redolent of anise, power, sweat and dunder – it’s too tidy and well-behaved for that, and not strong enough. Still, if your tastes go in the direction this rum takes, it’s kinda brilliant in its own way. It’s a lovely, tasty, dancer of a rum – not the lead ballerina by any stretch…perhaps somebody in the second row who catches your eye and smiles at you. A rum which I think, after a few sips, you’ll remember with fondness for the rest of your life, and maybe hope that other makers make more of.

(#239 / 86/100)

Other notes

Presentation is standardized across the line. Green bottle, old fashioned label, plastic tipped cork. Not much to find fault with here.
267-bottle outtturn. Distilled December 2004, bottled March 2015. This makes it the second batch, since there are pictures online with an issue date of 2014

L’Esprit Epris 13 Year Old Brazilian Rum – Review

1 Response »

Sep 272015

If originality and straying off the beaten path of the rumworld is your thing, wander no further. The thing is just a few stops short of being stunning.

This is one of the rare occasions where I tasted a rum blind, knowing absolutely nothing at all about it before I started…really, absolutely zilch. Not the country, not the company, not the distillate. I blame this on the pad I crash at in Berlin which has no wi-fi, no internet, no elevator, and what passes for hi-tech is an East-German era rotary dial phone. So the situation when I tasted this rum was kinda interesting, and allowed me to dispense with any preconceived notions and just tell you what it was like to drink. Short version? It isn’t half bad, and just a step removed from superlative.

Before all that, let’s speak briefly about the company. L’Esprit is a French bottler and distributor based in Rennes, in the Brittany province of France. They do all the usual importation and distribution of old favourites from old countries (or islands) which we know better, but have also branched out into independent bottlings from all over the map – Barbados, Guyana, Panama, Guadeloupe, Nicaragua and so on, all uncoloured, unmessed-with, unadded-to. (A more comprehensive biography is available).

This is a column still cane juice product. Bottled at 47.7%, the rum (I’ll call it that, even though, y’know, it confuses me, and it may actually be a rhum….or not) was light yellow, one of 198 from the single cask, and matured between 1999 and 2012 in an ex-bourbon barrel: it’s a hair over thirteen years old. It’s not, strictly speaking, an original – Bruichladdich (Renegade) and Cadenhead have both issued rums from Epris before. Epris, for what it’s worth, is a distillery located just outside São Paolo in Brazil, and they apparently also distill for Bacardi (as usual, their website is massively uninformative on their product lines).

Epris 2

Brazil may be something of an afterthought for L’Esprit (or not). Doesn’t matter. It’s great. There’s very little that’s wrong with the spirit, and much that they got absolutely right. Consider first the aroma: Vegetal, sweet and easy to sniff, quite warm. Initial notes of cardboard, creamy nougat touched with some lemon zest. There was a musty kind of background here, like dried hay in a sunlit field, but also the clean, crisp sweetness of a good Riesling. After a while additional notes of peaches, soft ripe mangos, green grapes and then the slight tartness of soursop, ginnips and green apples came to the fore. Really cool stuff, honestly.

That slight lip-puckering tartness didn’t go away on the taste either, which I think was a good thing. It was oily and pleasant, a little fuller than the light yellow colour might have implied, and was both a little sweet and a little briny at the same time. The vegetal hay-like notes (complete with dusty dry hints) stayed along for the ride, with citrus emerging gradually from the background. Somehow the rum managed to balance both the creamier tastes of brie and toblerone with sharper citrus and soursop into a melange I quite enjoyed. With water these tastes came into fuller focus, but I can’t pretend anything new or more original came out, except perhaps some smokiness and well-oiled leather.

The finish was also quite excellent – somehow L’Esprit managed to dampen down the sharper and more acidic citrus notes, and allow the deeper, fruitier closing aromas (plus a last surprising licorice hint) to take their turn on the stage in a fade of medium length which closed things off just right. All in all, it was just sweet enough, just strong enough, just fruity enough, just salty enough; and displayed a quality to both delight and impress.

Clearing away the dishes, then, the rum had real character and originality, and I enjoyed it a lot – it was one of those samples that has sent me running around looking for more. I think that agricole aficionados would greatly enjoy it, and even traditional molasses rum lovers would have little to complain about here – L’Esprit have found an intersection of heavy and light, warm and sharp, fruity and tart aspects here, that left me admiring as hell, wondering if I shouldn’t get more into Brazilian products. In reviewing the Ron Veroes Anejo, I said of it that it should have had more edge, more oomph, more complexity, more daring. Here’s an example of the rum about which I was thinking.

(#234. 85/100)

Other notes

Sometimes a review is about more than just tasting notes, but illustrates a larger point about the rum universe.
- Since tasting the L’Esprit Epris, I’ve been left with questions that remain unresolved. It was made in Brazil from cane juice, but aged in France, so is it a cachaca? An agricole? An aged red-haired love-child of both? Does ageing it that long make it less than either, or more? When you think about it, what it does, more – and perhaps better – than any rum I’ve tried in the last year, is tell us that we have to take a look at how we classify rum. It’s the exceptions that inform how good our rules are, and this one falls into no clear point in the current system. Perhaps it’s time to seriously examine the system.
Compliments to Cyril of DuRhum, who provided the sample gratis, as well as the photographs from which the crops above were taken

Samaroli Nicaragua 1995 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Sep 072015

Photo (c) LionsWhisky.com

This is a rum that reaffirms my faith in the Nicaraguan rums. Nothing need be added to it, nothing can be taken away. There’s a purity and minimalism of construction here that is almost zen.

The sheer range of flavours emanating from the glass that held the Samaroli Nicaragua 1995 tickled my nose and astonished my mind. Few light coloured rums I’ve tried in the last six years were ever this rich right out of the gate. For a person whose background in Nicaraguan rum trends more to the Flor de Caña range (of which the 21 remains my favourite), this was not only intriguing, but an outright pleasure.

Samaroli is one of the first modern independent bottlers who’s still around (though Veronelli may be older), having opened its doors in 1968. As with many other Italian outfits, they initially specialized in whiskies, but in our subculture, it’s their rum bottlings for which they are more highly esteemed. There’s a certain cachet to Samaroli rums, perhaps because there were among the first to begin issuing limited edition craft bottlings for rum which were more than just by-the-way-we-think-you-might-like-this efforts done by scotch makers. Companies like Secret Treasure, Velier, Rum Nation, Compagnie des Indies are its intellectual heirs. These newer companies seem to grab reviewers’ attention, headlines and market share much more than the old guy on the block, and yet there is Samaroli, still quietly putting out the hits. Maybe it’s Samaroli’s absence from the Facebook or festival circuit. Maybe it’s their comparative rarity – this ten year old 45% rum, for example, only has 378 bottles in existence. Maybe it’s their overall quality – I have not heard a bad thing said about the decades-long rum lines. Still, it ain’t exactly cheap at €160, and that will make a lot of people pause.

All of this crossed my mind as I nosed a more-than-generous sample sent to me by that estimable gentleman from France, Cyril of DuRhum, so a big hat tip to the man.

Usually a light gold rum almost presumes a certain light sparkly diffidence…not here. Smooth thick and slightly heated aromas rose from the glass, firmly providing the initial dusting of citrus and ripe oranges, cinnamon and pepper, around which danced scintillating notes of overripe green grapes. It had a slightly nautical tang to it, of seaspray and brine, black olives…really well put together, not too heated to be unpleasant, not too faint to be unnoticeable. It did take a while to open up, but that wait was worth it – additional scents of caramel and sugar notes sulkily emerged at the tail end, as if doing me a favour. Never mind, still liked it.

Ahh, the taste of this thing….just lovely. It was medium to full bodied in texture, and the various tastes were distinct and separable and came across as sweetly as a series of precise piano notes dropping gently into a pool of silence…something by Mendellsohn, I think, or one of Chopin’s quiet nocturnes. There was absolutely no bombast or fire here, just one pure thing after another…green grapes to begin with, fleshy apricots, followed by a frisson of plums and the zest of tangerines. A little water brought out toblerone, honey and nuts…and oddly, very little brown sugar or caramel. On the other hand, well controlled oak, aromatic tobacco and vanilla rounded things out quite nicely, so no complaints there. The exit was medium long, warm but not sharp, presenting the final tastes of peaches and citrus oil and leather, and you’d better believe I wasted no time in having another sample.

The Nicaragua 1995 is an completely delicious, professionally made rum. Mr. Samaroli has always felt that as flavours increase with age the texture and body fall off, and there’s a sweet spot where age, texture and strength intersect. In this case, ten year ageing and 45% may be just about right for providing a remarkable tasting experience without overreaching. There are some who have no particular liking for Nicaraguan rums (as represented by Flor de Caña, which has gotten some flak in recent years due to its age-statement and labeling philosophy) – to such naysayers, I’d simply say that for depth of flavour and overall profile, for an enjoyable spirit that succeeds on practically every level and can be used for whatever you want, you wouldn’t shortchange yourself by trying this rum if it ever crosses your path.

(#231. 88/100)

Other notes

No additions or inclusions or chill-filtration
Distilled in Nicaragua in 1995, bottled 2005 in Scotland, where it was also aged.

Bristol Spirits Port Mourant 1999 14 Year Old Rum – Review

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Sep 032015

D3S_8920

It’s all a little bit, well, funky. There’s an element of crazy about, it, perhaps deliberately created, perhaps not, which is almost in defiant contrast to more traditional PMs. All things considered, this rum raises my ire and hurts my heart, both at the same time. In it I see all that craft makers aspire to, while somehow failing to realize both its and their own potential.

Last time around I looked at the quietly impressive Bristol Spirits PM 1990 17 YO, which I tasted in conjunction with this younger 1999 iteration. You’d think that with core distillate being the same, and with the same port finishing, the results would differ only in the details. Yeah. No. The 1999, too well made to ignore, turned out so different from its sibling that I spent ages with it just to make sure I wasn’t being taken for a ride. It’s an illustration of how similar origins, combined with some chaos theory, leads to a remarkably divergent outcome

As before, the Port Mourant wooden double pot still supplied the core distillate; it was aged until 2013 in oak, and like the 17 YO from 1990, it was left to rest in port pipes for an extra finish, at that same unadventurous 46% that just makes me shrug my shoulders. When I inquired about the Peru 8 Year Old strength, they responded, “40% suits the rum well, in our opinion,” and I think they have the same opinion here. To their own detriment, maybe. One or two rums at less than cask-strength I can accept, but when the entire range never varies between 40-46%, I have to question the logic (beyond trying to sell as many as possible to more conventional purchasers). If other independent bottlers can take their barrels out for a spin and crank them up a shade just to see where they can take their audience, I see no reason why an outfit that made the magnificent PM 1980 can’t occasionally break out of their own self-imposed corsets.

Anyway, so, we had a reddish bronze rum here, nicely aged, affordably priced. On the pour some of the expected notes came out immediately: what made me retreat a metaphorical step was its unexpected aggressiveness. The thing lunged out of the glass with an attitude, was sharp and unlike its other brothers (and other PMs I’ve been fortunate enough to try)…it did not display heavy, brooding notes of enchanted forests, but instead the harsh spearing glares of desert sunlight. Initial notes of dusty hay, chopped fruits, some mangoes and papayas were there, gone very fast, a little smoke, some tannins from the oak. Leaving the rum to open some more brought out secondary scents of anise, smoke, leather, some dark chocolate, green grapes, and it was all nowhere near as deeply luscious as the 1990…no idea why. There was a shimmering clarity to the rum which was intriguing, yet not entirely appealing. The mix of light and heavy components wasn’t working for me.

The taste moved on from there…not nearly as full bodied as the other PMs in my experience, at all. More of that light sharpness, a rapier compared to the more elemental battleaxes of even the 1990 variation. Some of the richness of the others (even made by Bristol themselves) was missing here, and I really was not that impressed with the result. Tastes were decent, can’t complain too much about that – there were raisins, black grapes, prunes, figs and some dark chocolate to contend with, all interlaced with some sharp bitterness of oak which thankfully was not predominant. With water, the chocolate started to assert some biceps, as did a slightly drier element, plus fresh brewed black tea and vanilla, and even a flirt of feintiness and some other more winey notes from the port finish. I seem to remember reading somewhere that a smidgen of sugar had been added to this rum, but I didn’t really sense any – if true, it couldn’t have been much. On the fade it was dry and spicy, with some crushed walnuts, anise, more fruit and a sly background of molasses and brown sugar: that and the nose were the two best parts of the rum, for me.

My dissatisfaction with this rum stems from what appears to be two differing characteristics marrying uneasily – the dour, anise-led, brown-sugar profile of a PM, and something lighter and sharper, younger, friskier. It’s like an old fart in his Bentley trying to make nice with a coed driving a 370Z. So, is it, or will it be, a successful commercial rum? I think so. It suggests an ironic future for Bristol – they bring a well known, well-loved distillate to the stage, age it decently, make it reasonably, price it well, issue it at an agreeable strength, and I’m sure if it hasn’t already flown off the shelves, it will – and yet, this very success might prevent them from making any more of those genuinely fantastic PM-1980-style rums of which I am convinced they are capable. What a shame.

(#230 / 84/100)

Other notes

For a much more positive review of the 1999, read Marco’s take, with all his usual and remarkable historical detail.
There is another 1999 bottled in 2010 and yet another bottled in 2014 (the latter without the port finish).

Bristol Spirits Port Mourant 1990 17 Year Old Rum – Review

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Aug 272015

D3S_8927

A love note from Bristol to lovers of Guyanese PM-still rums

Bristol Spirits is that independent bottler out of the UK which started life in 1993. Their barrel selection from the various countries around the Caribbean has created an enviable track record of limited bottlings; I’ll always have good memories of the Bristol Spirits PM 1980, and the subsequent editions of the 1990 and 1999 were rums I’ve been keeping an eye out for on the basis of that positive experience.

All of these were made, of course, using the Port Mourant distillate – in this particular instance they didn’t just age it between 1990 and 2007, but allowed it rest for the final two years in matured port pipes for an extra fillip of flavor. It sort of succeeded, it’s a great rum by any standard, and of course, they did continue their happy tradition of a funky, screaming fire-engine-red label slapped on to a standard barroom bottle. I just can’t pass these things by, honestly.

The PM 1990, a dark amber rum with ruby hints to it, derived from the famed wooden PM double pot still now held in DDL’s facilities at Diamond. It poured, sulky and heavy into the glass, and while it was tamed to a very accessible 46% (which is sort of de rigeur for many of the UK craft makers who seem determined not to lose a single sale by I dunno, issuing good rum at cask strength), the initial scents were impressive from the get-go. Wood, sweat, sap, brine, oak and smoke permeated the nose at once in thick waves. These are not always my favourite smells, but I used to say the same thing about plasticine and turpentine, so what do I know? It’s the way they come together and enhance the experience, that matters, anyway. And indeed, things mellowed out after some minutes, and the good stuff came dancing forward – raisins, Christmas cake, soy sauce, molasses, licorice and burnt sugar, all wrapped up in salty caramel and toffee, citrus rind (very faint) and chamomile (even fainter). Just a phenomenally rich nose, generous with promise.

It delivered on that promise very nicely, thank you very much. Warm and strong, some sweetness came forward here, with initial tastes of salt caramel, dulce de leche ice cream, and dark tea leaves. Quite full bodied to taste, no issues there for me at all – this thing was giving the PM 1980 some serious competition at a lesser price. The more familiar tastes of licorice, molasses-soaked brown sugar and musty leather came through, and after adding some water (didn’t really need to, but what the hell) the full cornucopia of everything that came before mushroomed on the tongue. Flowers, orange rind, licorice, smoke and some tannins, together with old polished leather and linseed oil, all full and delicious and not at all over-spicy and sharp. It’s fine rum, very fine indeed. The fade was shortish, not dry, quote smooth and added no new notes of consequences, but simply summarized all the preceding, exiting warmly and easily with caramel and toffee, anise, and then it was all gone and I was hastening to refill my glass.

Here I usually end with a philosophical statement, observations that come to mind, anything that can wrap things up in a neat bow. But truth to tell, in this case I don’t think I need to. Bristol Spirits have simply made a very good rum for the price (about a hundred bucks) and age (seventeen years). As such, it will be more accessible, more available and probably more appreciated than fiercely elemental, higher-proofed offerings costing much more. So in terms of value for money, this is one of those rums that I would recommend to anyone who wants to dip his or her toe into the realm of stronger, more complex, and also more focused high-end spirits. As long as your tastes run into dark and flavorful Guyanese rums, this one won’t disappoint.

(#229. 88/100)

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