Old Sam Demerara Rum (Rebranded) – Review

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Nov 152024
 

The other day I did a Rumaniacs retrospective on Edward Young & Co. Blue Mountain Old Liqueur Jamaican Rum dating back to the 1940s, made by an outfit founded in 1797. In doing the usual background research I found that one of my favourite low rent Canadian rums – the Youngs Old Sam – was originally made by the same company, and the current iteration’s label more references this connection more concretely than the original did.

That said, the pickings remain oddly thin. According to those sources I checked, the Newfoundland & Labrador Liquor Corporation (NLLC) picked up the brand in 1999 and have marketed it it as Young’s Old Sam ever since – until, that is, in 2021, when — with increased social consciousness arising from the BLM movement — the stylized drawing of a man on the original yellow label came under fire for being racially insensitive, and was promptly removed…although why they bothered is a mystery, since the “Old Sam 5” has the same drawing on it to this day. Anyway, the current label of this bottle has no graphics of any kind, just text: it says it’s “Old Sam Demerara Rum” (they dropped the “Young” for some reason, and I wonder, do they have permission to use the term “Demerara Rum”?) with additional text stating “Edward Young & Co, London and Liverpool, England.”

But when all is said and done, it’s a blended Guyanese rum aged for 1-2 years, with distillate wholly or partly from the Enmore coffey still, and is bottled at 40%. For now I’ll accept it was aged in Guyana, if only because the NLLC website makes no mention of warehousing and ageing facilities of its own. The rum, by the way, is also quite dark, which means that it’s been coloured to conform to some non-knowledgeable dweeb’s perception that Demerara rums should be deep brown, or to pretend it’s aged more than it has been.

It noses very much like a Demerara rum, and has all the usual notes one would expect where some wooden still action is doing the tango. Initially the deep scents are of coffee grounds, plums, licorice, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Then, after letting it stand for a bit you can smell some bitter chocolate and well polished leather, and later still there are hints of burnt (yes, burnt) pastries, toffee, caramel, red wine and vinegar. But no real wooden still notes of the kind I would have expected from the Enmore still, not really. Certainly nothing along the line of pencil shavings, wet sawdust or freshly sawn timber.

The palate is less in all ways. It’s rather thin, and scratches bitchily at the tongue as if wanting nothing better than to be gone (and it is). It’s a touch salty, has dark fruits, raisins, figs and sweet soya notes. Perhaps with some effort you can find the coffee grounds and unsweetened chocolate again, but overall, it’s just a bunch of scrawny but familiar flavours, held together with string, bailing wire and duct tape. It’s not a sipping rum by any means, as the hasty scramble for the exit demonstrated by the lacklustre finish amply demonstrates – it vanishes fast, with just the faint memory of dates, coffee, sweet soya and vanilla left behind (and that not for long).

All right, so perhaps that’s a bit snarky of me too. After all, it’s a low-priced young rum that is made to be put into a Cuba libre or whatever, and at that it does a decent job. And it does have some nice flavours for those who are (like me) somewhat enamoured of the Demerara style rum profiles. But I have to say that it seems a bit too confected to take at face value, and the taste doesn’t really live up to what the nose implies. The original unscored review I wrote was mildly positive about it (admittedly I was somewhat wet behind the ears at the time), but a decade and a half later I can’t really say that it should rate above 80 points, with the caveat that if you are more into cocktails, you might want to bump it up a notch. That’s about as fair as I can be about it.

(#1099)(78/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • Video Recap is here.
  • The rum tests out at 38.8% ABV, which indicates something else (~8 g/L) is in there besides the rum. That might account for the thick smoothness the nose suggests.
  • The back label says the rum is a “unique blend of rums…distilled on the world’s last operating Wooden Coffey Still…aged for a minimum of two years in oak barrels.” We need to unpack that brief declaration. For one, the company’s own website says that the blend includes “one of the marques […] produced…on the world’s last operating wooden coffee still” (sic) (while the label implies it’s all from that still); and specifically mentions that it’s aged for at least fifteen months, not two years, thought it adds that ageing is done in Guyana. Given that of late I have heard DDL is no longer exporting bulk rum from the heritage stills, one wonders if this situation can continue – though it is likely that for long term favoured clients, the rules may be bent.

Company Bio (summary)

Rock Spirits is the manufacturing arm of the NLLC which is a provincial crown corporation (effectively a government liquor monopoly, like the LCBO in Ontario) and is the only such corporation with its own manufacturing and bottling division. It was founded in 1954 and currently owns some fifteen brands sold across Canada, including rums like Screech, Cabot Tower, London Dock, George Street, Ragged Rock. Almost all of these are from Guyanese stocks, which implies a long standing relationship with DDL.

They also have partnership agreements with other brands, which is why Smuggler’s Cove Rum from Glenora Spirits in Nova Scotia is apparently made in Newfoundland (and this makes sense since they don’t list it, or any other rum, on their own website, as they rather embarrassedly did back in 2010 when I first looked in on them). While it’s not stated outright anywhere, it’s likely that they provide blending services and bottling runs for other companies as well.

 

El Dorado 2012 12YO LBI/DHE High Ester Blended Rum – Review

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Sep 172024
 

More than ever it has become clear that DDL has found a way to fold special editions into its core El Dorado range. I had remarked in the video review of the PM 2009 12 YO that until relatively recently, special limited bottlings did not get much attention from the company, or the public: the Rare Editions which replaced Velier’s iconic Demeraras did not always get serious traction, consumers did not cotton on to the “Colours” quartet, and the 15 YO and 12 YO wine-finished releases were at best modest sellers.

Yet to have cask strength limited editions that showcased the heritage stills had to have been seen as the path forward in the drive to premiumization. And by the early 2020s, we began to see El Dorado rums popping up on the shelves and being touted at rumfests. They were stronger than the norm, remaining in the 12-16 year age range, and showcasing (for the most part) the heritage stills. It did, however, remain the province of the independents to issue truly esoteric marques (not just PM, VSG, EHP or ICBU) like AN, KFM or SWR.

Until, that is, this one came on the scene in 2024.

In one fell swoop DDL tried to marry an almost unknown marque with a high ester rum. Previously high ester spirit had just been pushed into the major aged blends, though any Guyanese would know that the Superior High Wine (which was only sold locally) was mostly from that little-known small still. And LBI (La Bonne Intention – it’s an estate on the East Coast of the Demerara) is enormously obscure, with only a couple of Velier releases from The Age (1985 and 1998 vintages) and a very occasional indie like Nobilis or Nectar of the Daily Drams ever demonstrating the style. As you can imagine, the geek crowd went slightly ape when this came on the scene.

Now for the trivia nuts, permit me a small digression: LBI had a distillery since the 1800s, and a rum from there was judged at the Calcutta International Exhibition back in 1883. Rum continued to be produced until at least 1959, and sometime in the early 1960s distillation was rationalised by Bookers into Uitvlugt (along with several others), with the distillation apparatus that could not be used being mostly scrapped. The distillate in this release must therefore have been put together on a currently existing still, based on stored production records since no still remains in existence from the original estate.

Enough background, then. Quick facts: French Savalle Still for the LBI part, 57% ABV, 12 years old, blended with a high ester rum from Diamond’s John Dore double-retort copper pot still (not the PM, which is of wood). Difford’s notes “in excess of 1500 g/hlpa” for the DHE component, which is unconfirmed elsewhere, but even so…ouch. We are not given details of the proportion of each…not that I expected any, but it would have been nice. Aged in ex bourbon for 12+ years, and that’s all we need. And of course, the question after all that is – what’s it like?

The nose is, in a word, outstanding. It comprises three major components. The first aromas one notices are the esters and congeners, those sweet acidic notes like gooseberries, bubble gum, strawberries and pineapple, with something like attar of roses in the background, and some burnt pimentos, balsamic vinegar and ginger. The second is a more pastry-like smell, of hot croissants daubed with salted butter, fresh from the oven, biscuits and damp sawdust, behind which can be sensed some leather, floor polish, linseed oil and glue. And after all that is said and done and you hang around for a while, you’ll get some sweet spices – cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and vanilla. There is a lot to be unpacked here and it rewards the patient.

The palate is simply strong and very firm, fortunately without any kind of bitchy sharpness. It’s more like a very hot very sweet and very strong black tea. There’s salt, honey, olive oil, brown sugar, salted caramel ice cream, orange peel, sweet soya, and then a repetition of the sweet spices, freshly baked pastries, coffee grounds and unsweetened chocolate…and more of the spices mentioned above. The rum as a whole presents as somewhat dry, but it all leads to a really long, dry, aromatic that sums up the profile quite nicely, but without introducing any new elements.

Well. I must say, I’m happy that this is not a rum which was twisted into some semblance of conformity by some moron’s idea of a formula. It’s quite original, while still hewing to a profile that is recognizably Demerara. To do so was probably the right decision, since, overall, the rum works extremely well. The high ester component is less assertive than the Jamaicans have led us to expect (that’s not a criticism, just an observation), yet it does well to balance off the more traditional flavours provided by the LBI, which, even back then, always seemed to be somewhat indeterminate. Honestly, because of the obscurity of the LBI marque and my interest in any DDL high ester rum, I would have preferred to see each released as an individual bottling. However, it is possible that the LBI distillate didn’t turn out to be anything spectacular, so a blending choice was made to marry the two and create something (possibly) better than either on its own.

I can only say that the final product is really quite good. It costs about a hundred dollars in Canada, so it won’t break the bank; and seems to have distribution in both Europe and the US, although unfortunately the outturn is unknown. For that strength, that nose, those tastes and the overall quality, there’s nothing here that I don’t like. My suggestion would be to park the high ester expectations, enjoy the complexity of the blend, appreciate the strength, and maybe even drop the coin to get one for yourself.

(#1089)(88/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • Video recap can be found here.
  • Historical notes come from Marco Freyr’s seminal historical work on the Guyanese distilleries, used with permission and thanks.
  • Not tested for sugar, but will add the statistic here when I get the bottle home and test it.

El Dorado Cask Strength, Single Still 2009 12 YO (PM) Guyana Rum – Review

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Aug 142024
 

Today’s review is all about an El Dorado rum from Guyana’s famed (and only remaining) distillery, DDL. The backstory is quite fascinating because it shines a light into how large companies which lack the nimble footwork and quick reaction time of small upstart independents, can — once they get going and commit their resources to the job — produce something really good. However, I’ll add that as a note below the main review so you don’t expire of boredom before discovering how the rum actually is.

The 12YO 2009 El Dorado rum, is one of the single still expressions which began to surface around 2018 or so with a surprising lack of fanfare. Most of these new products were from the three wooden stills, issued at 40%, with occasional outliers popping to the surface now and then – like store specialty bottlings, or the recent LBI edition, for example. However, there were attempts to muscle in on the high end market by providing some cask strength editions as well – this is one of them, bottled at 56.7% and from the Port Mourant double wooden pot still. But with the outturn, alas, not mentioned.

Well, since DDL no longer sells the heritage stills’ distillate for export, we should be grateful. And indeed, here, there is much to be grateful for, because while I must from the outset confess my preference and liking for the PM rums, even those who aren’t familiar with the profile or prefer other countries’ wares can find much to enjoy here.

Consider the nose: it starts off fruity, deep, dark and woody, with strong notes of plums, prunes and licorice: one might almost call that the PM signature scent. To that can be added cinnamon, a dusting of nutmeg and turmeric, well tanned leather and even a touch of smoke, plus some brininess and olives, but never so much as to overwhelm the core aromas. The strength really helps those pop, let me tell you – this is on par with any good independently bottled PM I’ve ever tried, and actually exceeds quite a few.

Does the palate hold up its end? Indeed it does – it’s lovely. Not too strong, not too sharp, just solid workmanship landing like a stone hammer on the tongue. Most of what is immediately discernible is fruit: lots of dark fruit, a smorgasbord of fruit, black cake levels of the stuff. There are prunes, plums, apricots, orange slices, blackcurrants, ripe purple cherries, dragon fruit, lychees…the list goes on. In a lesser rum these might have been too tart, but they are anchored by duskier tastes of licorice, cardamom, cinnamon, honey, caramel and a kind of freshly planed cedar plank that makes a powerful statement all by itself. The finish dials things back a notch and exits the scene with a soft summing up of the preceding: honey-caramel, fruit-infused black cake, anise, vague tannins and some citrus to tie the lot up in a bow.

Honesty compels to me to admit that my tastes bend towards the PM profile, and I’ve had a lot of experience with rums from that still; and so I tend to be a bit more enthusiastic than others whose preferences are understandably elsewhere. The woodiness and anise notes of a PM (of any age) aren’t necessarily for everyone.

But I acknowledge the achievement of DDL here, and sing the praises of this rum, because while indies nowadays get the lion’s share of the encomiums and hosannas for presenting a new Guyanese rum they got from Scheer or some broker, the original distillery, with all those magical stills, isn’t sitting on its ass and waiting around for sales to happen. However slowly, the company is trying to take note of the market and make some hi-test hooch that some people – a sliver of the rum-swilling population to be sure – might actually want to drink and collect and pay real money for.

In other words, DDL is not going gently into that good night or resting on past achievements, but moving, developing, adapting. With this 12 YO from 2009, they show they’ve lost nothing, forgotten nothing, and can still do serious work….and here, have produced a scintillating gem of a rum, one that I’d be happy to buy again.

(#1086)(87/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

Background

It is interesting to witness the evolution of DDL and the rums coming off of those famed heritage stills. The best known of these are the wooden stills commonly named Versailles (single pot), Port Mourant (double pot) and Enmore (coffey), with the French Savalle right alongside, and the somewhat less known high ester still lurking in the background.

Back in 1992 (when the ground-breaking 15 YO made its debut) and until around 2014 or so, the various stills’ outputs were blended in varying proportions to make up the standard line of the company’s El Dorado rums (including the local versions such as the King of Diamonds). These were the 3YO, 5YO, 8YO, 12YO, 15YO, 21YO and the occasionally-issued 25YO. No one outside the company knew, let alone much cared, about those stills, and they were not seen as selling points. Until, that is, Velier started issuing rums and showcasing the stills specifically and creating an enormous swell of interest in them.

Seeing the popularity of these limited edition single-still full-proof bottlings, DDL stopped issuing rums to Velier in 2014 and launched their own “independent-style” rums that showcased the stills – they were called the “Rare Editions” and three series over three years were issued. However, they did not always sell well for various reasons — and for a company which was used to selling hundreds of thousands of bottles at a marginal price point, it could not have been that interesting to have a few hundred or a few thousand expensive bottlings not contributing to the bottom line…and so the Rares were eventually pulled. DDL experimented with other versions like the 12YO and 15YO wine aged editions, the quartet of blended-in-the barrel rums called “Four Colours,” the occasional high end vanity releases like the 50th Independence Edition, or occasional new 25YOs. None really took off.

However, starting in 2018 or so, they took a new tack: they started issuing various aged rums that showcased the stills directly, and instead of making them special editions, they simply added them to the standard El Dorado lineup, using the same bottle shapes, and only slightly varying the labels. There were three main types: one was a series of vintage 40% rums from the three individual wooden stills, which have a broader consumer appeal (not the least because of the unthreatening strength); then a series of full-proof bottlings of varying ages, sometimes single still, sometime single barrel, sometimes for third parties (like Wine & Beyond’s 2006 and 2012 releases); and lastly the cask strength single-still releases that are the grown-up versions of the forty percenters mentioned above.

What distinguishes such specialty releases (which is what they are) is that they are folded into the same visual ethos of the “regular” line of 12-15-21 year old rums, so there is instant recognizability – indeed, in some cases the look is so similar that they are in danger of being overlooked/ But they are distinct and they are DDL rums and while there is, as there must be, some variation in quality, overall I believe that such series of rums are now firmly part of DDL’s portfolio, and that’s a good thing for all of us.

 

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

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Dec 112023
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(#1045)(68/100) ⭐⭐

Other Notes

Company background

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

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

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

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

 

Highwood Distillers Aged White Caribbean Rum – Review

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Oct 062023
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(#1030)(72/100) ⭐⭐½

Company background

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

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

 

Bristol Spirits Guyana-Guadeloupe Overproof Rum – Review

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Sep 062023
 

Bristol Spirits – also known as Bristol Classic Rum — holds the distinction of being one of the earlier independent UK bottlers who was and remains specifically not a distillery or a whisky bottler, such as the ones which held sway in the 1980s and 1990s. While Gordon & MacPhail, A.D. Rattray, Cadenhead and a few other companies from Scotland occasionally amused themselves by issuing a rum, few took it seriously, and even the indie Italians like Samaroli and Moon Imports and Rum Nation took a while to get in on the act. Of course, the worm is turning and the situation is changing now with the rise of the New Brits, but that’s another story.

Bristol Spirits, unlike those old houses, focused on rum almost immediately as they were founded in 1993, and while their earlier bottlings are now the stuff of misty legend and tall tales, I can tell you of some releases which are now considered near-classics of the genre: the 1980 30YO Port Mourant, the 1974 34 YO Caroni, and the pair of Very Old Rums from 1974 (Jamaica, 30YO) and 1975 (Demerara, 35YO); plus, some would likely add the Rockley Still 26YO 1986 Sherry Finish. Gradually as the years wore on, John Barrett – who remains the managing director of the company and runs it personally with his son in law Simon Askey – branched off into barrel selection and ageing and does a brisk sideline in trading aged rums or laying down new stocks with other small indies or private clients, and occasionally dabbles in the blending game…more to assuage a creative itch and see what will happen, I sometimes think, than to make the final sale (Florent Beuchet of Compagnie des Indes has also gone down this path).

One of these blends which Bristol came up with is this interesting overproof bottled at 59% – unfortunately there’s very little I can tell you about the off-white product, since there is literally nothing online anywhere that speaks to it. The strength and that it comes from Guyana and Guadeloupe is all I know, though Simon tells me it was released around the late 1990s / 2000 (after which, in an interesting bit of trivia, JB soured on doing miniatures such as I had scored for this review) and the Guadeloupe component was likely Damoiseau (to be confirmed) – other than that, the still of the former, the distillery in the latter, the proportions, the ageing, the source material, the actual release date…all the usual stuff we now almost take for granted is missing from official records.

Well, that makes it a really blind tasting, so let’s get to it. Nose first, and it’s an odd one: charcoal, ashes and iodine, balanced by some brine, olives, figs and dates. The fruits take their time arriving, and when they do one can smell green apples and grapes, tart apricots, but little of the crisp grassiness of any kind of agricole influence. The Little Big Caner, who was lending his snoot, remarks on smells of old bubbling oil leaking from a hot engine block, a sort of black and treacly background which I interpret as thick blackstrap molasses, but more than that is hard to pin down, and there’s a kind of subtle bitterness permeating the nose which is a little disconcerting to say the least.

The taste is more forgiving and if it’s on the sharp and spicy side, at least there’s some flavour to go with it. Here there is a clean and briny texture, that channels some very ripe white fruits (pears, guavas, that kind of thing), with some lemon zest and green grapes hamming it up with watermelon and papaya and just a touch of peppermint. There some herbaceousness to the experience, yet all this dissipates to nothing at the close, which is briny, spicy, sweet and has sweet bell peppers as a closing note of grace.

In assessing what it all comes down to, I must start with my observation that so far I have not found an agricole-molasses British-French-island-style blend that seriously enthuses me (and I remember Ocean’s Atlantic). The styles are too disparate to mesh properly (for my palate, anyway, though admittedly your mileage and mine will vary on this one) and the warm tawny wooden muskiness of Guyanese rum doesn’t do the ragtime real well with the bright clean grassy profiles of the French island cane juice agricoles.

And that is the case here. There are individual bits and pieces that are interesting and tasty – it’s just that they don’t come together and cohere well enough to make a statement. At the end, while this makes for a really good mixing rum (try it in a daiquiri, it’s quite decent there), as a rum to be tried on its own, I think you’ll find that the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

(#1023)(79/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • The rum is a slightly pale yellow, almost white. The label blurb calls it a blend of white rums (on the left side) but below the logo of two intertwined Gs is a remark that they are “selected and bottled from the wood”, which implies at least some ageing. More cannot be said at this time.
  • It was confirmed that John Barrett blended this himself. As soon as I get more information on the sources, I’ll update the post. Many thanks to Simon, who helped out a lot on short notice.

DDL Diamond Reserve 151 Overproof White Rum – Review

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Jul 252023
 

Sometimes I get the uneasy impression that slowly the 151s are fading from common collective rumconsciousness. These long-lived, much-used and oft-feared high proof rums – bottled at what was for years almost the standard for really strong rums (75.5%) and outdone only by a few – were once the kings of the stronger drinks mixes (like the B-52 and the Zombie for example), and many cocktails called for them by number, not name or brand. Yet in my lifetime, we have seen more and more strong rums at high proof invading the market, and even some regular blends are inching closer to – if not past – 70% (and if you doubt this, feel free to consult the list of Strongest Rums in the World), so it’s no surprise that it’s been occasionally bruited about that 151s have lost some shine and may be on their way out.

Yet the 151s cheerfully persist and continue to get made, and one of the reasons why is probably the amount of cocktails that call for them (as ingredients or floats), which traditionalists are loath to mess with. Many companies around the world continue to make them, and one of the brands that has stuck with it is Diamond Distillers out of Guyana — the source of many other brands’ stocks for their 151s — which has something of a love-hate relationship with the spirit: sometimes years it’s easy to find and sometimes you’ll search long and hard without success. Fortunately, it always comes back.

The Diamond range of rums from DDL is their entry level blended rum collection: rubbing shoulders with the standard white, gold and dark are three additional variations at 75.5% – the puncheon, the dark overproof and the white overproof. The puncheon and the white seem to be the same product (French savalle still, 6 months’ ageing and filtration to white) and possibly named for differing markets; while the dark is somewhat more interesting, sporting 1-2 years’ age on a blend of Enmore, PM and French savalle distillate.

My own preference for the dark’s intriguing makeup aside, it was the white that I was handed, and that’s what we’re looking at. And indeed, it’s not a bad rum, at first blush. Nosing it reveals a profile nowhere near as “throwaway cheap” as many other brands are wont to make – it starts off with hot notes of alcohol, quickly burning off, leaving clean aromas of nuts, almonds, flowers and strawberries, with vanilla and coconut shavings, and a weird faint background of earth and wet leaves. Nothing too complex, but nothing to throw down the sink either. Like with the Sunset Very Strong, there’s more here than initially seems to be the case.

This is also evident when (very carefully) tasting it. It has a sharp yet very solid series of simple and quite powerful tastes: cherries, unripe mangoes, light flowers, icing sugar, vanilla and not a whole lot else. Very strong on the attack, of course, but bearable, with a long and epic finish that unfortunately doesn’t present a whole lot but is content to just recap the preceding without adding any flourishes of its own. Like I said – nothing spectacular here, just solid workmanship.

Since there are several affordable rums we all have access to these days which are more emphatic, individualistic and close to this in strength (the Jamaicans come to mind, no surprise), the question arises whether a 151 with a profile so relatively straightforward serves any real purpose any longer, outside its core cocktail making base (and brainless college students who want to get loaded fast). They are not all that easy to make well at scale, lots of competition is out there, and getting them on board a flight (especially in the US) is a real pain. It’s no surprise they are not as common as they once were, and while they’re not impossible to find, it is becoming difficult to locate them on physical store shelves. Bacardi got out of the game in 2016 entirely (too many lawsuits), yet one can still find DDL, Lamb’s, Goslings, Don Q, Lemon Hart, Cruzan, Tilambic, Takamaka Bay and several others with a little searching (mostly from online shops), and even Habitation Velier paid tribute to the type by issuing one of its own. So not quite ready to be counted out just yet.

Where does this one land, then?

All in all, it’s very much like a full proof entry level rum with some rough edges and too little ageing, which I say from the perspective of one who tastes many cask strength rums on a regular basis and therefore has no particular issue nowadays with the proof point when trying it neat. There are more tastes than one initially expects, which is welcome, and if it is too simple and uncomplicated for serious appreciation, well, at least it leaves its heart out there on the table and doesn’t hold anything back. What you are getting is a very young, uncomplicated, filtered, high proof white rum which can’t class with an equivalent agricole (for how could it?) but which nevertheless gives a good account of itself and seeks only to do what it was made for: to spruce up some dynamite cocktails and to give you a seriously good drunk, seriously fast, and maybe both at the same time. Fine by me.

(#1012)(76/100)

Other notes

  • For those with a historical bent, there’s a small history of the 151s available to provide more backstory and detail than this review would allow for.
  • This rum intrigued me enough that I’m scouting out the Dark Overproof now.
  • My sincere appreciation to Indy Anand of Skylark and Ben Booth of Tamosi, in whose pleasant, ribald and laughter-filled company I sampled this one (it came from Indy’s stocks, which meant it was fair game for all of us).
  • It’s interesting how things change: back in 2010 when I wrote the humorous Bacardi 151 review, 75.5% was a breathtaking and titanic proof point, and a rum issued like that was regarded with near awe, sipped with trembling care. Nowadays a rum sporting such an ABV is regarded with caution, yes, but it would not be considered strange, or even particularly unusual.

Ian Macleod No. 34 “Diamond of Frederiksberg” Demerara Rum (2003)

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Mar 302023
 

Rumaniacs Review #146 | R-0985

This is one of those rare instances where the subject is not some dusty old find from Ago with dust flaking from its shoulders, but a relatively recent bottling; and rather more than less is known about the rum, because in this instance, not only did I have the bottle in my grubby little paws, but happily it was also sporting a quite informative label. Oh, and it was a great Guyanese rum to boot. Those who bought one are surely happy they did so, or should be.

This was an independent bottling done for the Danish spirits shop Juuls (an establishment I heartily recommend for its selections and expertise, though I’ve not been fortunate enough to set foot inside it myself) by the Scottish distiller and blender Ian Macleod. IM is a small company set up in 1933 in the small town of Broxburn, just slightly west of Edinburgh, and they were pretty much in the whisky blending game. This changed in 1993, when they acquired a gin making concern, but the real forays into rum came in 1996 with the acquisition of Trawlers and Watson’s rum brands (Watson’s being primarily Guyana rum, while Trawlers being a blend of Guyana and Barbados).

Occasionally the company indulged itself with some special rum bottlings, though you would be hard pressed to find out much about any of them, and even Rum-X only has a couple. This one was a special order for Juuls, bottled in 2015 from a single cask yielding 241 bottles at 57.8%. What does the “No. 34” mean? It’s the cask number (not the series number, so those looking for Nos. 1-33 can stop their search), and the “Diamond of Frederiksberg” is a nod to the city where Juuls is found and the Guyanese distillery of origin. Rums of this kind were not and are not a staple of Ian Macleod’s output – when doing rums at all they stick with Trawler and Watsons, or make cheap underproof Jamaican’s via the Lang’s brand or undisclosed cheaper blends under the King Robert II label. Single casks like this are a very occasional one-off or special order which is why I feel ok placing it in the Rumaniacs section.

Strength – 57.8%

Colour – Red-amber

Nose – Light and sweet, with wax and brine and esters. The fruits that emerge are mostly from the dark and lush side: plums, dates, prunes for the most part. Also brown sugar, molasses, coffee, unsweetened chocolate and vanilla; with water and after opening up it becomes rather more tannic and oak-forward with a few background licorice notes, and the whole remains quite well done and inviting.

Palate – Sharp and hot, yet well controlled. Medium sweet with molasses, stewed apples, toffee, vanilla, sweet cardamom rice drizzled with hot caramel. Not precisely a riot of complexity, just sure footed and really tasty. Some raisins, more dark fruits, licorice, coffee, and this is where I would suggest there’s definitely some Port Mourant pot still juice in here.

Finish – Medium, warm, sweetish and spicy with vanilla, cinnamon, cumin, cardamom and caramel. The molasses and licorice take a back seat, and it’s actually something of a shame the experience is over so quickly.

Thoughts – Although the label says “Diamond,” any reasonably knowledgeable rum guy knows this is kind of meaningless since all the stills in Guyana are now located at the estate of that name, and especially with the older rums, care has to be taken assigning a rum just to “Diamond”. I think this is probably a Port Mourant rum, though it could as easily be from Versailles – the richness bends me more to the former, however.

Whichever still made it, it’s a quiet stunner of a rum and it’s a shame Ian Macleod never continued mining this vein and instead went mass market. Rums like this from so recent a time are a rarity (most of this quality are from further back in time, or much older) and its my regret that although I had a great time trying it with my Danish friends and even have a sample squirrelled away, there aren’t more bottles in circulation for others to enjoy as well.

(89/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • Gregers, who pretends he owns our bottle, gave me the details on the label naming convention, as well as trotting the rum out of his stash for me to try. Thanks!
  • Only one bottle ever came up for auction of late and that was here for £112 in May 2022; another Diamond, the No. 33, was also on sale that month, and sold for £143, though I’ve heard people opine that it’s not as good as this one. These are the only ones aside from the three on Rum-X (which are not from this series) which I’ve been able to trace.

Merchant Shipping Co. White Rum (Highwood Distillers) – Review

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Mar 102023
 

The last two reviews were of products from a Scottish rum maker called Sugar House, who bootstrapped a hybrid pot still, a batsh*t crazy production ethos and somehow came out with two unaged rums that should not have succeeded as well as they did…but did; and blew my socks off. This is what happens when a producer, no matter how small or how new, takes their rum seriously, really loves the subject, and isn’t averse to tinkering around a bit, dispenses with the training wheels, and simply blasts off. Juice like this is the high point of the reviewing game, where you see something original, something good, not terribly well known outside its place of origin, and aren’t afraid to champion it.

Consider then the polar opposite, the yin to Sugar House’s yang, a contrasting product which sports a faux-nautical title (we can be grateful that it omits any mentions or pictures of pirates), a strength of 40% and not a whole lot else. Merchant Shipping Co.’s branded product is in fact, a third party rum — “imported Caribbean white rum” — put together by Highwood Distillery in Alberta (in Canada), which is probably better known for the surprisingly robust Potter’s (gained when they bought out that lonely distillery from BC in 2005) and the eminently forgettable Momento, which may be the single most unread post on this entire site. Here they didn’t make the rum, but imported it, (the AGLC website suggests it’s probably from Guyana, which Highwood deals in for its own stable), and made it on contract for exclusive sale in Liquor Depot and Wine & Beyond stores in western Canada.

Let me spare you some reading: it’s barely worth sticking into a cocktail, and I wouldn’t stir it with the ferrule of my umbrella. Merchant Shipping white rum is a colourless spirit tucked into a cheap plastic bottle, sold for twenty five bucks, and somehow has the effrontery (please God, let it not be pride) to label itself as rum. I don’t really blame Highwood for this – it’s a contract rum after all – but I’m truly amazed that a liquor store as large and well stocked as Wine & Beyond could put their name behind abominable bottom feeder stuff like this.

Because it’s just so pointless. So completely unnecessary. It smells on first opening and resting and nosing, like mothballs left too long in an overstuffed and rarely-opened clothes closet, where everything is old, long-disused, and shedding. It smells like rubbing alcohol and faint gasoline, and my disbelieving notes right out of the gate ask “Wtf is this?? My grandmother’s arthritis cream?” It is a 40% spirit, but I swear to you there’s not much in here that says rum to anyone – it’s seems like denatured, filtered, diluted neutral spirit…that’s then dumbed down just in case somebody might mistake it for a real drink.

The palate continues this disappointment (although I’m an optimist, and had hopes); it tastes thin and harsh, oily, medicinal, all of it faint and barely there – even for living room strength there’s little to write home about: a lingering unpleasant back-taste of sardines and olive oil, offset by a single overripe pear garnished with a sodden slice of watery melon and a squished banana, and if there is more I’d have to imagine it. Finish is gone so fast you’d think it was the road runner’s fumes, minus the comedy.

I can’t begin to tell you how this tasteless, useless, graceless, hopeless, classless, legless rum annoys me. Everything that could have given the spirit real character has been stripped away and left for dead. I said it was unnecessary and meant it: because you could pour the whole bottle down the drain and go to sleep knowing you’d never missed a thing — yet it’s made, it’s on shelves, it sells, and a whole generation of young Canadians who can afford nothing else will go to their graves thinking this is what rum is and avoid it forever after. That’s what the implication of this thing is, and that’s the one thing it’s good at.

(#979)(65/100) ⭐½

Opinion

It gives me no pleasure to write reviews that slam a homegrown product — because homegrown products are what give a country or an island or a territory or an acreage its unique selling point, its mental and physical terroire. That’s what’s wrong with this faux, ersatz “Caribbean” rum, because there’s absolutely nothing that says Canada here at all (let alone rum, and certainly not the Caribbean) and as noted above, it’s an import (a near neutral spirit import at that, apparently).

Yet, as I’ve tried to make clear, one of those areas where there is serious potential for putting one’s country on the map lies in rums that don’t go for the least common denominator, don’t go for the mass-market miscellaneous dronish supermarket shelves, and certainly don’t go for the profit-maximizing-at-all-costs uber-capitalist ethos of the provincial liquor monopolies who could give a damn about terroire or real taste chops. It’s the blinkered mentality of them and the stores who follow it that allows rum like this to be made, as if the French rhum makers, global cane juice distillers, and the UK New Wave haven’t shown us, time and again, that better could be done, has been done…and indeed, should be done.

Other notes

  • There’s no tech sheet to go with the rum and nothing on the label, but I think it’s fair to say no self-respecting pot still ever made a rum like this, so, column still. Also, molassess based. It is probably aged a bit and then filtered, and my guess is less than a year.
  • Five minute video summary is here

L’Esprit Diamond 2017 “Still Strength” White Rum (1º Ed.) – Review

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Feb 242023
 

When it comes to Guyanese rum, I’m afraid that much as I enjoy DDL’s wares from time to time – more so of late, since they took the bull by the horns and released rums with less additions – the really good stuff, the best stuff, to me, still comes from the indies. Alas, Velier has moved away from the Demerara rums and I can’t afford the ones that remain on the secondary market, but fortunately for us all, there is no shortage of other independent bottlers out there to satisfy our thirst for the output of those lovely wooden heritage stills.

And one of the more intriguing developments in the Demerara rumisphere by these indies, is the (occasional) release of high proof unaged white rums which were previously deemed the province of the French island rhum makers, and the Jamaicans. We’ve seen a few of these hefty molasses-based whites before, of course, whether aged a little or not at all – any list of bartenders’ favourites can’t be complete without the J Wray 63%, Hampden’s Rum Fire and Worthy Park’s Rum Bar rums, and to be sure there are others from St. Vincent, Grenada, Suriname and even Guyana (where the DDL Superior High Wine is a sort of local classic to this day).

For the most part, however, something like the L’Esprit MPM is a rare thing. A one-off unaged white from the Port Mourant pot still, we’ve actually seen its near-twin before – the “Cuvee Edgar” 2º Edition, which shared much of the DNA of the rum we’re hear to discuss today – the First Edition. Both are Port Mourant wooden pot still rums (the label is a misprint where it says “single pot still”), both were issued to celebrate the birth of Tristan Prodhomme’s son Edgar, both are rested and not aged for about a year in inert steel tanks, and both jacked up to a strength that would have your nether regions puckering (85%), and frankly, when tasting it I wondered if it wasn’t just a bit too much for us mere mortals.

Because think about it: 40% ABV is standard strength and if taken too quickly is still a bit of a bash to the snoot when sniffed and a quick stab to the glottis when sampled. This rum is more than twice that strength, and believe me, it shows, it’s not afraid to say it, and looking at it, remembering the last time, I morbidly wondered what it had had for breakfast that day: diced and fried reviewers, maybe?

A deeper inhale than a delicate little somelier-taking-a-toot sniff I took of this clear popskull might have caused my DNA to unravel, so I took my time. Which was a good idea, as the fierce power of the aromas was off the charts; on the flip side, it allowed a lot to come through over the ten minutes I initially spent with it (the glass ended up going for two days). First, there was a near-rank orange juice past the sell-by date; then dry, fruity, meaty, briny notes all at once, savage and hard hitting. It had the soft dampness of dew on a cool misty morning in trees nestled in mountain foothills; the gasoline stink of an open jerry-can, and yet all that was offset by hot samosas and a badly made currywurst in an cheap imbiss down in Steglitz. It was dirty and aromatic and not even halfway done yet, because the aromas kept pouring out of the glass: anise and lemongrass, a touch of bitters, mauby, sorrel, unsweetened bitter chocolate and just a ton of overripe prunes, before doing a segue into a garbage pile in hot weather mixed up with the musky pungency of an untended outhouse. Yeah I know, it’s a lot and sounds this side of awful, but damn, this thing was intense, it was fun to try, and fending off the strength became a kind of game to see who would win, me or the rum.

Thankfully the palate calmed down; it was still a massive gut punch, yet it was somehow not as intent on causing damage as it was proving it was the biggest and baddest thing in the room that day. First off was rubber, plastic and lots of furniture polish Then it got sweet and creamy, channelled some Danish cookies and whipped cream, and added anise and a light fruit jam spread over salt crackers; and just to prove it had more up its sleeves than just its arms, there was a whiff of some olive oil spread over toasted black bread. It sure wasn’t your standard profile, but it the same time it was pungent, riotous, brutal and expressive to a fault.

And the finish, well that was epically long – briny, dry, deep, reeking of toasted bread, crackers, fish in olive oil (!!), smoke from a kero stove, licorice and damp sawdust, yet not sharp or damage inducing at all. It was more like a massive teutonic monument, solidly implacable, demanding you respect its awesomeness. Or something like that. As you can tell, I was quite enthused.

In a recent virtual tasting I was part of, an O Reizinho Madeira 9 month old near-white agricole rhum from Boutique-y was one of my favourites of the evening, but it confused the hell out of the whisky guys in attendance, who grudgingly admitted it had some chops (then crossed themselves while looking furtively around to see if anyone had heard), but struggled to put into words exactly what made it so good – perhaps it was because unaged whisky has never been a thing in the malty world except maybe among moonshiners the way unaged rum has been for us. Given their perplexity, I’m not sure I would dare give them this one to try — if the O Reiz made them scratch their sporrans, the L’Esprit might unravel their kilts altogether.

Because to my mind, it’s not just that L’Esprit makes great rums and Tristan knows how to pick ‘em – it’s simply that of all the Guyanese rums made on all those many stills, Port Mourants at any age seem to be the pick of the litter. Here that’s proved once again — I liked it a lot, even more than the 2º Edition, and that was no slouch either. For its pungency, its richness, its depth, the neverending finish, all those insane tastes and yes, even the strength. The rum is fierce, it’s powerful, it jets fire from each nostril and were you to expel a belch and a flatus after a sip of it, seismometers would quiver and the bar would be empty a second later. It’s that kind of experience, and who wouldn’t want to try it for all that, if even just the one time?

(#975)(88/100)

Wild Parrot Uitvlugt 1997-2018 21 YO Rum – Review

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Feb 132023
 

If you have never heard of Wild Parrot, or have but can’t recall their releases, you can relax. You’re not alone. It is one of those recently founded small European indies that has pretty much remained in its own area and does not seek to be like 1423 and expand around the world. For the curious, the company was created in 2017 by two northern Italian rum aficionados: Stefano Cremaschi of The Whisky Roundabout store located just east of Milan, and Andrea Ferrari from the independent whiskey bottler Hidden Spirits in Ferrara, just north of Bologne — the brand’s rums are listed as a subset of Hidden Spirits on their Italian website, and also mentioned as being part of them on their FB page. Strictly speaking, it’s an online shop and brand.

So far there are a three collections out there: the first one, “Art & Animal” (11 expressions bottled in 2017 and 2018), “Black and Gold” (9 bottlings from 2019-2021, all from Jamaica and Guyana). and “Beauty of Nature” (8 bottlings from 2021-2022). The company notes that the titlings and designs of each collection are done in conjunction with, and by, the Italian artist Giulia Ronchetti, and the design and pictures on the boxes and back labels are quite striking.

The subject of today’s review is an expression from that first “Art & Animal” collection, from Guyana: a single cask deriving from the Uitvlugt estate, aged in Europe, which released 150 bottles at 48.9%. Since these gents are probably perfectly aware of the various stills that have passed through that estate distillery in the course of its storied history, I will assume this is not either an Enmore or Port Mourant wooden-still rum, but one from the French Savalle still that was housed there until it too was moved to Diamond (the actual still is nowhere mentioned, so this is in the line of an educated guess).

The reason I make the assumption is because the profile is not at all reminiscent of the wooden stills. The nose starts off with lovely, sweet and rich notes of caramel, molasses, toffee, and even some lightly aromatic spices. There is also glue, varnish and a bouquet of crisply sweet apples and green grapes, followed by ripe peaches, apricots and even a nice red winey background that has no hint of the tannic licorice and pencil shavings we usually associate with a wooden still.

The palate is excellent as well: sweet, light, tinkling,sparkly and playful, like a sunlight dappled brook chuckling over wet rocks; scintillating light fruits – guava, peaches, watermelon, papaya, even some peaches in syrup. The mouthfeel is great, if light, and sharp little stabs drive home the message that there’s still some aggro and attitude left behind after all that ageing, and it shouldn’t be taken too lightly. But one hardly notices this, because the overall experience is so intriguing and tasty, and even the finish – salty, fruity, long lasting, mostly grapes, raisins, apples and fleshy stoned fruits – is absolutely one to savour. How this much finish was wring out of such a modest proof is a mystery, but I assure you…it works, and works well.

In the years since opening for business, Wild Parrot has not garnered any sort of lasting acclaim on the international rum-circuit. That’s not surprising since they don’t attend very many festivals (which in any case had that two year COVID gap to contend with), have small outturns and are marketed primarily in Italy. Yet in an underground sort of way, they are known to the European cognoscenti and if there is any indication that the rums of the line are a good long term bet, it’s the gradual rise in prices on Rum Auctioneer, where any of the range reliably goes for over £500 these days.

So what of this one, this two-decades old Guyanese rum made in the late 1990s? Well, I think that overall, it’s a solid, delicious Uitvlugt rum that any independent would be happy to have in its portfolio. The nose, the tastes, the finish, it all works; and for those who are nervous about cask strength monsters, the armchair strength here may be exactly what the doctor ordered. Even though these days we have become somewhat jaded with the wealth of available Guyanese bottlings, this rum is at pains to show that there is still some originality and quality left in the world for the enterprising barrel selector to ferret out. This is one of them, and it’s a great find for anyone who gets to try it.

(#972)(87/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other Notes

  • Many thanks to Nicolai Wachmann, who provided the sample.

Tamosi “Kanaima” (Versailles) 16 YO Guyanese Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Feb 102023
 

Memories are short in this day and age of always-on ADD infotainment, yet I remember quite clearly the short and sharp social media posts that erupted over the naming of Tamosi’s first rum “Kanaima,” which was considered disrespectful appropriation and misnaming (at the very least) of an Amerindian term by a commercial entity (see backgrounder below this review for an expanded discussion of the matter).

For those who are not familiar with the term “kanaima”, it variously refers to a spiritual force of the jungle which can be tapped into, a spirit being, or (in my own favourite) the name of an Amerindian deity, whose most famous manifestation may be A.J. Seymour’s wonderful narrative poem “The Legend of Kaieteur” which I highly recommend everyone read, and which starts:

Now Makonaima the Great Spirit dwelt
In the huge mountain rock that throbbed and felt
The swift black waters of Potaro’s race
Pause on the lip, commit themselves to space
And dive the half mile to the rocks beneath.
Black were the rocks with sharp and angry teeth
And on those teeth the eager waters died
Lost their black body, and up the mountainside
Above the gorge that seethed and foamed and hissed
Rose, resurrected, as lovely mist.

Well, that’s probably more than what you wanted (the poem is much longer1) You came here for a rum review, not an extended lesson in Guyanese verse or a treatise on amerindian spiritual naming sources. Still it says something about the word, and to this day “kanaima” (small k) is often used when speaking in the bush about spirits, especially shape-shifting were-jaguars, which are expanded on in the about page for the rum.

Introduction and naming aside, here are the bare stats: it’s a continentally aged 16 year old Guyanese Versailles wooden pot still rum from 2004, aged in ex-bourbon casks and bottled at 58.9%. Some caramel was added for colouring, and the company founded by UK-based Guyanese Benjamin Boothe has continued with its releases and naming practises ever since. Like Nobilis or Rum Artesanal, two other small indies founded at about the same time, Tamosi has raised the game of limited releases with high-quality selections that have kept its reputation polished to a shine.

Tasting notes are about what one would expect if one was into Guyanese rums generally, and the wooden heritage stills specifically. The nose, for example, is so Versailles-like, it squeaks; it’s rare that I get an aroma so clearly identifiable with and relatable to that still, because usually there are aspects of the other two stills hovering around that cloud the analysis. Here it is woody, bright, pure, clean, sparkling, tannic, and chock full of sawdust and wet wooden shavings freshly shaved off an uncut piece of lumber. There’s licorice, leather, tannins, cider, grapes, salt, a few dark fruits, cinnamon and bitter black tea leavened with just a smidge of condensed milk and cardamom.

The palate is rich and deep: the proof really helps here – stronger would not work nearly as well. It’s slightly bitter to taste, with mauby, cinnamon and coffee grounds, plus a touch of almonds and molasses. Once it calms down, it gets better, channelling the same bush tea the nose suggested, a little licorice and a few dark fruits. The overwhelming impression one is left with is not fruitiness but rather aromatic tobaccos and newly-sawn lumber, and that it works as well as it does is impressive. One false note, one element more than another and the whole carefully balanced edifice would shatter and collapse. But somehow that never happens, and with a long, crisp, dark finish that closes things off — licorice, salt caramel, black grapes, molasses, hot sweet tea, cider and brine — it ends by being a wonderfully well-assembled VSG rum and one I enjoyed thoroughly.

I’ve often thought that it takes real skill to bring a Versailles-still rum to its full potential, and there are a lot of hit and miss expressions out there. Ten years ago something of this calibre would likely have made a bigger splash than it did, even without the attendant publicity surrounding the name. Because to get a VSG marque rum this good is a rarity – PM and Enmore and Diamond and even Uitvlugt tend to have slightly higher reputations and more easily approachable profiles, while Versailles…well, not so much. And of course, now, a few years on, the Kanaima has faded from sight somewhat as newer indies and newer releases and newer halo rums come to the fore and replace it.

But I think the rum is some kind of wonderful on its own terms, and shouldn’t be overlooked or left to rust. It’s on the far side of raw, still possessing some attitude, complex to a fault and recognizable Guyanese, while being tamed just enough by time and barrel action to be enjoyable. It’s original and deeply rough and tasty as all get out — and while I can’t quite go as far as Marius of Single Cask Rum when he said it was, “the best VSG to come out of DDL to date,” I think it’s for sure one of the top expressions of the marque and from the still to ever make it to the wider public.

(#971)(86/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Background

As noted, Benjamin Boothe, a first generation Guyanese immigrant to Britain (he lives in Amsterdam now), started the indie brand called Tamosi in 2020, named after aspects of Carib and Amerindian cosmology. Because his ethnic and cultural background is also West Indian, he hit on the idea of drawing attention to, and honouring, the names of local deities and spirits from indigenous and imported folklore, and named his first rum “Kanaima” explaining the choice and its background both on the bottle label and on the company website. It is clear that this was no quickie commercial marketing scheme, but something deeply felt – the level of research Mr. Boothe brought to the table was not inconsiderable (which is something a lot of other indies which claim to honour historical heritage don’t really do beyond the superficial).

You will recall that this was at the height of several interlocking and vicious social and cultural rum wars: the Barbados GI, the j’ouvert rum from Michael B. Jordan, Velier’s imbroglio with the extolling of Haiti’s undeveloped pastoralism, the “Plantation” and “Esclavo“ names, BLM, and all sorts of posts coming out almost daily about racism, diversity, gender bias, appropriation and so on.

So it was probably no surprise that almost immediately people came out of the social media woodwork to accuse him of cultural insensitivity towards indigenous religious beliefs (though few if any of the commentators were indigenous themselves). Academics with purportedly years of research into the matter challenged his assertions. Comments came thick and fast, claiming it was historically incorrect, and rank neo-colonialist cultural appropriation if not outright theft by some guy not even from the region and as usual, some of it became quite ugly. Boothe engaged with his detractors and explained his rationale, which boiled down to this: too many historical callouts in the rum world’s marketing were either superficial or limited in focus, and his own very extensive researches had shown there was quite a bit more to early sugar and rum production that involved other ethnic groups and their interactions, and this was one way to provide more information and background to that aspect of things. To my knowledge not one of his interlocutors conceded he had a point, which to my mind says rather more about them than the argument they were trying to make.

Moreover, not only did Boothe have a West Indian heritage himself, his research was no slapdash cut-and-paste shallow excerpt from a primary school text or someone else’s online post, but a close reading of many historical tomes, academic papers and primary sources to which he had dedicated much time and effort. In other words, the naming convention chosen was being done with respect and knowledge, by someone who had a cultural connection to the term much closer than, say, that of Michael B. Jordan, whose tactless trademarking of j’ouvert to name his rum at around the same time, without a smidgen of relationship to the term, also raised hackles.

However, Boothe stuck to his guns; he defended his choices, refused to alter his company’s or his rums’ names, and as usual, memories faded, the world moved on and Tamosi is a fact of life now (as are all other bottles issued under the brand, which continue the theme of being named after local spirits and deities of the country of origin). With one exception, nobody has raised the issue since that time – unlike, say, Plantation or Esclavo business, which reliably pops up for a question and a mention on reddit or Facebook at least once every few months. And there the matter lies.

 

Samaroli Demerara 1990 26YO Guyana Rum – Review

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Jan 122023
 

Samaroli was one of the first of the modern Italian independents, and focused primarily on whiskies, which remains the core of its indie bottling business to this day. The reputation of the company began in 1968 when Sylvano Samaroli began bottling for the Italian market — the first non-UK bottler to deal seriously in that obscure Scottish tipple — and eventually started issuing rums as well. The most famous of all his rum selections, and reputedly his own favourite, was probably also the first: the 1991-bottled unicorn rum of the West Indies Dark Rum from 1948. The next rum bottlings were done around 1998 and there were a few sporadic non-too-regular releases here and there until 2010…and in that year it’s like the hound was let off the leash and releases have come thick and fast ever since. Not just the usual single cask expressions, but blends and NAS rums, and the ship shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.

The rum we’re looking at today is a Guyanese from 1990, bottled 26 years later in 2016 at a reasonable 45% (though admittedly, that’s rather mild for single cask releases) and from a single cask (#68) which decanted 240 bottles. Curiously, the still of origin is never mentioned. Samaroli may have been an early bellwether and trendsetter of the rum scene (as Renegade was in another context), but disclosure was never as big a thing for them as it was for Velier, though far better than Moon Imports, say. The 1990 Guyana vintage, as an aside, seemed to be a favoured year for Samaroli, as they released several expressions from it, in 2007 (two, a PM and a VSG), 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 (also a PM). With a few exceptions, almost none disclosed the still, so clearly this was deliberate; and since by 2016 that was surely a thing for connoisseurs of Demerara rums, one can only assume they did not consider it important for some obscure reason, or that the rum was blended in the barrel from several sources.

So we have to guess, which is always fun with Demeraras, and that all goes to the profile. Which starts, as always, with the nose: here it’s woody, with early notes of licorice and caramel, wet sawdust and dark fruits like prunes, raisins, plums, black grapes. It stays that way for a bit, before one senses soft flowers (lilies, just a touch of lavender), pencil shavings and an odd aroma of freshly baked bread dipped into a mixture of red wine, balsamic vinegar and olive oil (it’s not unpleasant, just unusual), with additional tannins, leather and polished wood bringing up the rear. The fruits are kept secondary for the most part, and stay noticeable, but in the background.

How it tastes is not significantly different, although less satisfying. All the same hits are playing but out of order: caramel, sawdust, licorice, dark grapes, raisins, and dates bitten into and devoured by the bitterness of sawdust, lumber, sharp licorice and gingersnaps. It gets somewhat better over time, just not spectacular, one the fruits – plums and cherries and prunes for the most part – take on more weight. Then the rum starts to taste more robust, and even creamy: one gets yoghurt and sour cream sprinkled over with cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, with the heavier notes of toffee and caramel holding the high ground throughout. Finish is nice, sweetish and muscular, long lasting (for 45% that’s impressive), channelling final notes of prunes, nuts, thyme, blancmange … and even a touch tomatoes on hot bread reminiscent of pizza!

When I think of Samaroli, it always seems like it’s the grand old man of the indie rum scene; admittedly it has only few really phenomenal, well-known must-have unicorns in the pantheon, and the field has gotten way more crowded with new entrants…yet somehow, it has always seemed to be Samaroli that others aspired to beat. Perhaps it’s because in the 1980s and 1990s and even 2000s, Sylvano influenced a whole raft of young up and coming European rum and whisky people – distillers, collectors, distributors, simple anoraks – who went to him for advice or to see how he did things and paid him homage in their subsequent writings. I have my own favourite Samaroli rums, but given that he up and stepped away from the company in 2008 while retaining some influence in selections, it’s hard to know for sure which bear his fingerprints and which don’t.

Circling back: my first guess on the still is that it’s the Enmore wooden coffey — it lacks the slight roughness of the VSG, and doesn’t have the depth of the PM — but for all anyone knows, it could be a blend as well. It’s difficult to classify precisely, because there are so many odd, even discordant, notes at play here, which means it never gels into something one can really appreciate. And while obviously a “real” rum, it’s also something of an odd duck, what with those balsamic and tomato notes I observed: which lead to amusing mental connections, but also some level of confusion. Gregers Nielsen, who was shamelessly (and all-too-generously) pilfering from my bottle in Berlin the day we were trying this thing, opined that the finish was great, which it was, but alas, that was not enough to save the overall experience being somewhat flat and muddled — and at the end, my opinion is simply that it’s rather more miss than hit.

(#965)(81/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

 

Cadenhead’s Green Label Demerara 10 Year Old Rum (Late 1990s)

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Dec 082022
 

Rumaniacs Review #142 | 0957

As noted before (and repeated below for the curious), Cadenhead has three different bottle ranges, each of which has progressively less information than the one before it: the Dated Distillations, the Green Labels and the Caribbean blends.

The Green Label releases are always 46% and issued on no schedule; their labels and the company website provides so little information on past releases that one has to take some stuff on faith — in this case, my friend Sascha Junkert (the sample originator) noted it was a 10 YO bottled in 2000, although even the best resource on Cadenhead’s older bottlings, Marco Freyr, cannot verify the dates in his detailed post on the company and the accompanying bottle list, and Rum-X only mentions one distilled in 1998. There are only a handful of Green Label 10 YO rums from Guyana / Demerara at all, and the 2000 reported date doesn’t line up for any other published resource – when they bother, most mention 1998-2002 as distillation dates. So some caution is in order.

What’s particularly irritating about the label in this instance is that it lacks any information not only about the dates and the still(s), but also the casks – and so here one has to be careful, because there are two types of this 10YO Demerara: one “standard” release, and one matured in Laphroaig casks. How to tell the difference? The Laph aged version is much paler and has a strip taped vertically across the screw top like a tax strip. Hardly the epitome of elegant and complete information provision now, is it.

The Laphroaig aged expression. Note the identifying strip at top.

Colour – Pale yellow

Strength – 46%

Nose – Dry, dusty, with notes of anise and rotting fruits: one can only wonder what still this came off of. Salt butter, licorice, leather, tannins and smoke predominate, but there is little rich dark fruitiness in evidence. Some pencil shavings, sawdust, glue and acetone, and the bite of unsweetened tea that’s too strong.

Palate – Continues the action of the sweet bubble gum, acetones, nail polish and glue, plus some plasticine – not unpleasant, just not very rum-like. Also the pencil shavings, sawdust and varnish keep coming, and after a while, some green fruits: apples, soursop, grapes. At the last, one can sense candied oranges, caramel bon bons, and more very strong and barely-sweetened black tea teetering on the edge of bitterness.

Finish – Reasonably long, reasonably flavourful, quite thin. Mostly licorice, caramel, tannins and a touch of unidentifiable fruit.

Thoughts – It’s not often appreciated how much we pre-judge and line up our expectations for a rum based on what we are told about it, or what’s on the label. Here it’s frustrating to get so little, but it does focus the attention and allow an unblinking, cold-eyed view to be expressed. In fine, it’s an average product: quite drinkable, decent strength, enough flavours not to bore, too few to stand out in any way. It’s issued for the mid range, and there it resolutely stays, seeking not to rise above its station

(82/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other Notes

  • The three ranges of Cadenhead’s releases are:
    • The cask strength, single-barrel Dated Distillation series with a three- or four-letter identifier and lots of detail on source and age; I submit these are probably the best and rightly the most sought-after rums from the company (aside from a 1939-distilled Green Label from Ago). The only question usually remaining when you get one, is what the letters stand for.
    • The Green Label series; these are usually single-country blends, sometimes from multiple distilleries (or stills, or both), mostly from around the Caribbean and Central/South America; a few other countries have been added in the 2020s. Here you get less detail than the DDs, mostly just the country, the age and the strength, which is always 46% ABV. THey had puke yellow labels with green and red accents for a long time, but now they’re green for real, as they had been back in the beginning.
    • Classic Blended Rum; a blend of Caribbean rums, location never identified, age never stated (anywhere), usually bottled at around 50% ABV. You takes your chances with these, and just a single one ever crossed my path.
    • Strictly speaking there is a fourth type sometimes referred to as a “Living Cask” which is a kind of personalized shop-by-shop infinity bottle. I’ve only tried one of these, though several are supposedly in existence.
  • These older Cadenhead’s series with the puke yellow and green labels are a vanishing breed so I think the classification in the Rumaniacs is appropriate.
  • The pot-column still tagging / categorization is an assumption based on the way it tasted. I think it’s an Enmore and Versailles blend, but again, no hard evidence aside from my senses.

 

Four Bells Imported Navy Rum (1970s/1980s)

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Jun 092022
 

Rumaniacs Review #135 | 0914

Disregard – actually, try to forget – the label for a moment, so that the word “Navy” doesn’t send you into conniption fits. It’s an advertising thing, and exists on that label for no other reason than to draw a line between the seafaring traditions of yore, and your mind — as if somehow, by buying and drinking the rum, you are instantly transported to a noble nautical heritage stretching back centuries, with sea spray in your face, snapping sails overhead, and you line up at four bells to get your tot. I guess that’s the rum part – sodomy and the lash go mercifully unexamined (though one does wonder when some courageous Navy-rum-maker wannabe will eventually go the whole tot on the label, so to speak…but I digress).

The rum is of course not a true Navy rum. That’s just marketing garbage; it’s a standard strength blend of unspecified Caribbean components which one website generously referred to originating from “the best sugar cane” and “from the Caribbean islands of Guyana” – the very thing that always soothes my suspicions about a brand and gives me the warm and fuzzies. It’s apparently made by a company called “The Four Bells Fine Navy Rum Co.” out of Glasgow which is almost untraceable. Consider it a contract-made third-party blend, no longer made, probably hailing from the island of Guyana. You can trust that. The label says so.

Colour – Dark gold

Strength – 40%

Nose – All the snark out of the way, I must confess it wasn’t half bad. It’s a dark brown rum, actually quite aromatic. There was molasses, wood, tannins, licorice and brine with a heavy, almost sulky attitude to the nose. Wet sawdust, caramel and honey, well-polished leather boots and some emergent lumber notes that kept getting stronger. Nothing new, nothing too complicated, lots of old faithfuls – this is almost like low-level spirituous comfort food.

Palate – Again, good: warm and simple, Molasses, polished leather, dark cherries, raisins, licorice, a smidgen of sharper tannins and some sour citrus rind. By now I kind of had a bead on the thing, so was not surprised to taste additional notes of bitter chocolate, coffee grounds, toffee and molasses, clearly young, somewhat sharp. It reminded me of cheap Canadian mixers like Young’s Old Sam (a perennial favourite of mine).

Finish – Short, which is to be expected at 40%, a bit sweet and yet also dry, with closing points of pungent licorice, molasses and a very sweet caramel macchiato.

Thoughts – Bells is a rum that doesn’t need to be stronger, because for all its evident youth, it’s also heavy enough and has sufficient flavours to be tried neat. It is, in that respect, completely straightforward, and clearly not looking to break boundaries and redefine genres. It’s fine as it is, within its limits, but those limits are further restricted by the lack of information provided about the rum itself, and the company that makes it. Like it or not, few taste blind, and people do tend to rate a rum based on what they know about it…or not. Here we know nothing about the rum, the blend, or the maker – and if we can’t trust the information that is provided, if only on the label, then it makes us trust what we’re tasting less, much less, and there aren’t many who would buy a rum with that kind of cloud hanging over it.

(#914)(80/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other Notes

  • For what it’s worth, I think the blend is mostly PM out of Guyana. If there’s anything else in there, it’s a very small percentage. The back label notes it as being pot still, but who knows?
  • In British Navy tradition, the strikes of a ship’s bell were not aligned with the hour. Instead, there were eight bells, one for each half-hour of a four-hour watch – four bells is therefore halfway through any one of the Middle, Morning, Forenoon, Afternoon, Dog or First watches (good that someone knew this, because naming it “eight bells” would have been unfortunate, being used as it was to denote end of watch” or a funeral).
  • There are other Four Bells Rums — “Four Bells” as a title does not appear to have any trademark or copyright or owned brand associated with it: several firms have made use of the title — such as one I reviewed for the Rumaniacs (from the 1970s), or another that went up for auction released by Whyte & McKay;
  • There remains no current references to Four Bells as a company, or the rum outside of auction sites and a few obscure online shops. It may just be a one off brand experiment into rum dating back many decades. Rum-X comments that its production ceased in the late 1970s / early 1980s.
  • A stronger 50% version of the rum remarks that W&M have the Four Bells Fine Navy Rum Company as a subsidiary but that can’t be verified. If it is a subsidiary (they have the same address), Four Bells is not mentioned anywhere on its website or company profile, and W&M has so many other minor subsidiaries under its corporate umbrella (59) that it’s unfindable. Even the CEO’s linked in profile doesn’t tell you anything about Four Bells. White & MacKay itself does deal in spirits, and is currently a subsidiary of the Philippines-based Emperador Group which is part of Alliance Global Inc a diversified F&B/Hospitality/Real Estate conglomerate.
  • I’ve sampled this out to some friends over the years, and quite a few really liked it. It’s not a waste of money, if you find it on some dusty store shelf at a cheap price and enjoy a Guyanese style of rum. I’d rate it on par with the ED-8 or -12, though maybe less complex than either.

Navy Neaters 95.5º Proof (Guyana) Rum (1970s)

 2 Responses »
Apr 252022
 

Rumaniacs Review #134 | 0902

Back in 2015 I tasted another one of these older Navy-style rums, also called Navy Neaters and I have no idea why that rum didn’t make the Rumaniacs series. That one was a Guyana-Barbados blend, while this one is Guyana only; both were made by the same company of Charles Kinloch & Co. Kinloch made light white filtered rums and a Jamaican or two, plus various blends, but by the 1980s no rum bearing the Kinloch name were being made any longer.

Four basic background facts are involved here and I’ll just give them to you in point form.

  1. “Neaters” were the full strength (neat) rum served onboard ship to the petty officers (NCOs) and above; ratings (regular sailors), were served with a measure of rum famously known as the tot, which was usually diluted and also called grog, and if you don’t know the terms, well, are you sure you’re into rum?
  2. The rum is bottled at 95.5º proof, and the ABV conversion is not actually half that (47.75%) according to modern measures, but 54.5%. And that’s because originally 100 proof rum was actually ~57% and so the maths works out to true navy strength of 54.5%. You can read a brief explanatory essay on the matter to get the gist of it, or a more involved discussion on the Wonk’s site on strength (here) and Navy rums generally (here)
  3. The spelling of Guyana makes the rum date to post-1966 (independence). The use of degrees (º) proof is a vestige of the British imperial measurement system abandoned for metric in 1980 so 1970s is the best dating for the Neaters we can come up with.
  4. Charles Kinloch & Son were wine and spirits merchants who were in existence since 1861, and formally incorporated as a company in 1891. They eventually joined the Courage Brewery group in 1957 – the Kinloch brand was retained, and they issued several rums from Barbados, Guiana and Jamaica. Courage itself had been around since 1757 and after many mergers and acquisitions was taken over by the Imperial Tobacco Group in 1972, eventually passing to the Foster’s Group in 1990. In 1995 Scottish & Newcastle bought Courage from Foster’s and it changed hands again in 2007 when Wells & Young’s Brewing company bought all the brands under that umbrella. By then Navy Neaters had long been out of production, Kinloch was all but forgotten and the company was formally dissolved in 2008 after having been dormant for decades. The current holding company of the Courage brand name is now is more involved in pubs and beers in the UK than in rums of any kind. (As an aside, Kinloch’s building at 84 Back Church Lane E1 1LX, complete with a sign, is still visible on Google Maps’s street view – it was converted to apartments in 1999, but the sign remains)

Colour – dark mud brown

Strength – 54.5%

Nose – Tree bark, mauby, dark unsweetened chocolate, white grapes, Airy and sweet. Coca cola, raisins, molasses and strong dark licorice.

Palate – Dark licorice, leather, cola; plums and mauby drink. There’s some bitterness of coffee grounds and very powerful unsweetened black tea, plus some prunes and plums. The heaviness suggests some doctoring, but was unable to confirm this at the time.

Finish – Long, thick, tongue-coating, sweetish. Feels longer than it is.

Thoughts – Rums from the past hailing from familiar distilleries which are tasted with modern sensibilities and an experience with modern rums, are a window into the way things were a long time ago: blends, ferments, ageing, stills, all aspects of the production process made for completely different rums. I would peg this as a Demerara rum, sure, and probably PM or VSG distillate. Beyond that, it’s just a pleasure to marvel at how well the familiar Guyanese wooden still profile has held up over the decades.

(85/100)

L’Esprit Port Mourant 12 YO 2005-2018 Guyana Rum – Review

 4 Responses »
Oct 192021
 

Photograph courtesy of reddit user SpicVanDyke,

DDL has, since 2016, capitalized on the worldwide fame of the heritage stills which the independents had forged during and before the current rum renaissance (though it is a peculiarity of the culture that many Guyanese remain completely unaware of the reverence they’re held in around the globe). They have released several editions of the Rare Collection, and also begun to dabble in some interesting experimentals, as well as standard proof editions of the individual wooden still marques (rather than blends). Beginners and Guyanese rum lovers are spoiled for choice these days in a way I can only envy….where was all this juice when I was growing up?

Yet, to my mind, for all of DDL’s effective multi-pronged colonization of the Demerara rum space, it’s not yet time to count out the independent bottlers who did so much to raise the profile of the marques and the stills at the first place. The SMWS, 1423, Tamosi, the Compagnie, Silver Seal and many others are releasing rums edging ever closer to three decades old, from all the major stills. And even if age isn’t the thing, there are always rums released by outfits we barely heard of — like Norse Cask or Kingsbury or L’Esprit — that somehow wow us with their sheer untrammelled excellence.

One rum like that is from what I seriously consider to be one of the most unsung independent bottlers in the rumisphere, L’Esprit. Located in Brittany and run by Tristan Prodhomme, they have bottled few “merely ho-hum” rums in their short history…at least in my opinion. The subject of today’s review, the 2005 12 YO from the Guyanese Port Mourant double wooden pot still, shows why I think that to be the case: it’s among the best they’ve ever done, and one of the best PM rums out there that isn’t from the 1970s, doesn’t have 20+ years of ageing and doesn’t cost multiples of four figures.

Just opening it and taking a deep sniff brings back a lot of memories, not just of Guyana but the ghosts of PM rums past. It smells rich and deep and dark (in spite of the dark hay colour), of chocolate, toffee, nougat, of fresh bread hot from the oven. There’s the aroma of pastries, ginger, marzipan and the fruitiness of rum-soaked, raisin-infused Christmas black cake sprinkled with crushed almonds, and over all of that is the scent, never overbearing but always there, of licorice and anise and lemons.

Tristan bottled this thing at 58%, which was probably the right decision because it has such a rich and intense panoply of tastes that were it stronger, it might conceivably overwhelm your taste buds with a cheerful sensory overload. It’s dry and dusty, hot but not quite sharp, and if the nose restrained the fruits before, it now allows them off the leash: citrus peel, raisins, plums and dark, ripe prunes; oranges and strawberries and, because that clearly wasn’t enough, even stuffed some flambeed bananas in there for good measure. There’s vanilla ice cream sprinkled with nuts, more black cake (a lot of black cake), toblerone, aromatic tobacco, even a touch of salt caramel and Swiss bon bons. It leads to a long, dry, pungent and aromatic finish redolent of citrus, tart fruits, some yoghurt, anise, dark fruits and a final slice of the cake your Granny used to save for you on Boxing Day.

This rum is, in short, really kind of spectacular. It does nothing new, but gives so much and does what it does so well, that it’s like revisiting all one’s favourite Port Mourant rums at once. Do I have a thing for Guyana generally, and for Port Mourant specifically? Sure I do. But it’s more than just liking a rum, any rum, or even this rum. Tasting it is a form of natsukashii — a Japanese term for some small thing that brings back sudden, clear and strongly fond memories — not with a wistful longing for what’s past but with an appreciation of the good times, now gone, always remembered.

Because, sooner or later, my mind always returns to Guyana. Not just for the nameless waterfalls, the South Savanna or the Pakaraimas; not only because I miss pepperpot, cookup, or a clap’ roti wit’ baigan choka, or egg ball ‘n’ sour; and not solely because I remember the cool red waters of its creeks, Stabroek Market, that lovely blue mosque at Crabwood Creek, speedboats across the Essequibo, cricket at Bourda, the regatta at Bartica, running along the seawall, or the dreaming jungle paths ‘in de bush’ where I worked all those years ago.

No, not only for those things, though certainly that’s part of it, and of course, I’ve eaten labba and drunk creekwater, so there’s that. But eventually, always, my mind goes back for the sheer variety of the country’s rums, those amazing rums, in their seemingly inexhaustible variety, that come from all those many stills housed at Diamond. L’Esprit didn’t intend to make a rum that evoked such feelings, of course, but that’s what they did. Every one of us has some object (or some rum) like that. This is one of mine, and even if you disagree and just drink the thing, I believe you’d like and appreciate the rum for what it is too — a superb example of what DDL is capable of and what L’Esprit managed to bottle.

(#859)(91/100)

Other notes

  • A special hat tip to the reddit user SpicVanDyke, who graciously allowed me to use his photograph when mine turned out to be garbage. His (also positive) review, the only other one I could find, is here.
  • 238-bottle outturn

Velier Uitvlugt 1988 17 Year Old Demerara Rum – Review

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Sep 222021
 

€57. Think about that for a minute. That’s how much this rum cost when it was first released in 2005. Good luck finding it anywhere near that, now. By 2019 the bottle price had already climbed past £1800 and as of this writing it is closing in on three grand on the auction listings. And it’s not even the most famed or the best of the Demeraras, because the unicorns most avidly sought after and collected tend to be the PM and Skeldons, and maybe the Albions and UF30E. For some reason, Diamond, LBI, Blairmont and Uitvlugt rums from the canon, even those from pre-1990, are occasionally deemed as “less” — whatever that can possibly mean in this day and age — though of course still appreciating nicely on secondary markets.

Photo (c) Velier

The French Savalle-still Guyanese rum released by Velier may not be one of the top-tier three-decade-old grail quests (unless it’s being sourced by a canny and knowledgeable investor-fan who knows better), but I submit it certainly has the pedigree to be included in the pantheon. Distilled in 1988 and aged in Guyana until 2005, it’s a robust 52.9% 17 year old rum whose origin still was housed at Uitvlugt at the time, and four barrels came together to produce 1091 bottles, which, if they used ex-bourbon American Standard barrels, implies an angel’s share so measly as to be impossible – Luca Gargano got back to me and said it was four 200-liter refilled (i.e. consolidated) barrels.

The aromas of this thing were certainly of that rich thickness that marked out others from that far back. The nose was initially spectacular – plasticine, furniture polish, fresh paint over new wood; briny and olive-y, offset by a wonderful scent of autumn leaves after a rain, damp aromatic tobacco, and the deep smell of ripe, fleshy fruits. As it opened up molasses and salt caramel ice cream came forward and were joined by darker and oversweet prunes, blackberries, red cherries…they teetered right on the edge of going off altogether before pulling back from the brink. Crisp and musky at the same time, the nose had just a trace of tannins at the back end, and was, after some time, even faintly bitter – the fruits were there, but so was the hint of something sour, like an almost spoiled lemon.

The palate was a curious beast, again quite briny, which I thought unusual for an Uitvlugt. Too, there were these peculiar – if faint – notes of tar and petrol, then the sour-sweet taste of freshly-grated ginger. However, after these badasses came, sneered and then departed, we were thankfully in more familiar territory: molasses, caramel, and burnt sugar took over the stage, to be joined by lemons, chocolate oranges, a freshly baked meringue pie, raisins, dates and prunes. You might think that such notes would present as somewhat oversweet, but the rum never quite overstepped the mark and stayed crisp and flavourful without too much excess in any department. I particularly loved the lingering finish, which was a touch sharp, fruity, warm, redolent of breakfast spices and some olives, as warm and welcome and sweet as Mrs. Caner’s kisses when I promise to buy her that Prada purse she’s been after for so long.

It’s become almost conventional wisdom that the Age’s Demeraras are the pinnacle of everything a Demerara rum could ever aspire to be. Few rums from anywhere equal them, fewer surpass them and they are both summit and baseline for any Demeraras ever made. Given the mania to get one, and the aura of near mythical invincibility surrounding the series, it is difficult nowadays to be objective about any of them…though cold reason suggests that statements of their magnificence are unlikely to be true in every single case.

Still, we have to face facts – the early rums distilled in the ’70s and ’80s really were and are a cut above the ordinary, and there are few weaklings in the bunch, which is why a rum like this can now be found only on secondary markets for four figures. Even parking my cynicism and experience, I have to concede that the Uitvlugt 1988 is so good and so tasty and so approachable – and so limited – that in the years to come, it might go the way of the Skeldons and bankrupt a third world nation. It was and remains a rum seething with the richness of a great spirit in any category, and has added luster to the annals of the Demeraras.

(#852)(87/100)

Other Notes

  • Angel’s share calculation: 1,091 bottles x 0.7 liters/bottle ÷ 4 barrels = 191 liters/barrel, which works out to a loss from the maximum 800 liters (4 x 200 liters for the “standard” ASB) of around 5%. Luca Gargano confirmed (a week after this article went up) that several 200 Liter barrels had been consolidated into the four which were mentioned on the label..
  • The marque on the barrels is SP-ICBU. Tech details from Velier’s site.
  • Not many reviews out there. Single Cask Rum was really enthusiastic about this one (96 points), much more so than I was, while Marco, in one of the first such reviews back in 2014, was less positive in his unscored review and as usual, his historical detail is impeccable. Gregers Nielsen, one of my rum chums, was so horrified by my “measly” score that he nearly unfriended me on the spot, since he felt it to be one of the top five Velier Demeraras ever made.

Our Rum & Spirits Enmore MEV 1990 24 YO Guyana Rum – Review

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Sep 022021
 

One of the German independent Our Rum & Spirits’ earlier bottlings is the Guyanese Enmore from 1990 which was bottled in 2015, a year after they released their first one (an 11 YO Diamond). It’s a respectable 24 (European) years old, a solid anvil-dropping 61.2% ABV, 178 bottles, and of course, it’s not from the Enmore coffey but from the Versailles single wooden pot still, which was the still-in-residence at Enmore Estate back then, before everything got shipped off to Diamond around 2000 in The Great Consolidation.

By now I’ve been trying various single-still offerings from Guyana for years, usually made by the indies but also, more recently, by DDL themselves. One thing I’ve observed is that Enmore distillate tends to be a shade more elegant and a touch light, the Port Mourant is dark and rich and rarely bad at any age, while Versailles is somewhat more brutal, is raw and assertive, and takes real skill to bring to its full potential. This may be why there are so many bottlings of the other two in circulation, while Versailles is rather more rare, and used more in Demerara rum blends (along with the PM).

That said, it’s always interesting how a rum made three decades ago and aged for so long holds on to its character. The nose here opens with fresh, damp sawdust and varnished lumber. One would expect a certain mellowness of age, a smoothening out of roughness, yet the rum still noses like a product much younger, retaining a thin crisp vibrancy, with notes of glue, acetones, licorice, smoke, well-polished old leather, faint salted caramel, and a few ripe stoned fruits for some edge. Oh, and some sweet dusting of brown sugar and cinnamon.

The palate is where such forceful strength comes into its own: here that presents as dry, woody and very sharp, like a whole bag of Red Rose loose black tea dumped into a very small pot and then doused with some brown sugar and a tin of evaporated milk (we called it “bush tea” back in the day – I once fed my little brother some when he was doing exams and he stayed up for two days straight on the stuff). Vanilla, molasses, caramel and licorice are the dominant flavours. Subtler hints of acetone, soya and brininess become noticeable after a while, and some very faint floral and fruity hints waft around without ever making a serious statement. Unsurprisingly it concludes with a finish as long as a polar summer sunset, but it’s slim pickin’s: wood and tannins, some salted caramel, anise, and again, a grain or two of cinnamon.

Well, I have to say that for something sporting a jock of such high ABV and age, I did expect something more complex and pungent on the attack. While undeniable strong and hard on the senses, in the flavour department the rum packs all the verve and panache of an eunuch’s underwear. The opening notes are simple, almost lackluster; then the palate overwhelmed with wood and varnish, and I was reminded of the Old Man Spirits’ Uitvlugt, which also showed off a lot of oomph but had little serious sensory action beyond the obvious. It suggests to me that the cask was not very active, and what you got was what the raw distillate brought to the party, not what the barrel itself was able to add.

Be that as it may, I can’t give the final product a completely failing grade, because let’s admit it, at that strength you’re getting a lot, the tastes that are there aren’t bad, and if it takes a bit more effort to tease out more interesting and extra aromatic notes, well, so be it. All the stats – the ABV, the age, the country, the still – are just excuses to get us to engage our senses with the rum itself, a Diamond-based Duke Nukem that’s all action and no reflection, desiring no deeper meaning for itself beyond the test of your ability to cope with it. Speaking for myself, I can’t say that’s entirely a bad thing.

(#847)(84/100)

Background History

Our Rum & Spirits, located in the small town of Hildesheim just south of Hanover in north-central Germany, is among the first of the new wave of modern German independents, however small they might be. Back in 2014 when the company bottled its first release (a Guyanese 2003 11 YO from Diamond), the rum business was a sideshow to Christian Nagel’s restaurant which served rums (and some other spirits) as part of the menu.

The next logical step was to bottle what he himself would like to have – at the very least if he had a barrel, he wouldn’t run out quite so fast. The reception to the initial Diamond was so good that others followed, and two years later he was exhibiting at the Berlin Rum Fest: he’s now a regular and a medal winner there (several times) and has multiple bottlings from Guyana, Barbados, Panama and Jamaica. For me he’s a regular stopping point whenever I’m there, if only to chat and say hello.

By early 2018 he removed his spirits activities to different premises from the restaurant and now acts as both independent and distributor; this aspect of his work became successful enough that in June of 2021, gave up the gastronomy business altogether.

 

Moon Import Guyana “Remember” 2015 Edition – Review

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Jul 012021
 

When I looked at Moon Import’s middling Jamaica rum there was no background information as to which one of the several Jamaican distilleries made it – but here, since Guyana only has the one, we can move on and start complaining about a separate issue unique to the country, namely, which still does it come from? One can only sigh and acknowledge that a reviewer’s job is never done.

The “Remember” series was begun in 2015 by Moon Imports, an Italian independent bottler formed in 1980 by the Genoese Pepi Mongiardino, a sometime disciple of that grand old man, Sylvano Samaroli, whose business he took over in 2008 when Mr. Samaroli found no-one in his own family to continue the enterprise. The two brands continue to be clearly separated, oddly enough. Like several other Italian distributors, Mongiardino began with whiskies and occasionally branched out into other spirits – cognac, gin, wine, and of course, rums. Nothing I’ve read suggests that rum is a major thing with Moon — and while they have been releasing rums since 1990 in various ranges, most of them from Guyana, they tend to be rather hit and miss. The 1974-2004 30 YO Demerara Sherrywood rum was amazingly fine, for example, but a 23 YO Versailles released a year later was nowhere near that good and thus far I’ve been unimpressed by the “Remember” series, older or newer.

In 2015, when this rum was bottled as one of the four inaugural “Remember” rums, Moon imports had still had not caught the wave of popular fan enthusiasm (as attended Velier, say, or Samaroli). Smelling this column (“patent”) still Demerara rum illustrated some of the issues: it was too weak, and altogether too unremarkable – dusty and fruity, dark prunes, blackberries and pomegranates, plus overripe strawberries, watery pears and a few slightly pungent off notes, about which the best that could be said was at least you remembered them. There was a faint lushness to the aromas, just gone too quickly to develop properly and make a serious impression.

The palate started well, it must be conceded. 45% was and is not that strong or rambunctious, just firm, and the rum presented smoothly enough, dry, with tobacco, wet hay and sherry notes. With a touch of water (added more out of curiosity than necessity) some dates, caramel and ginger were noticeable, and a bit of well-oiled leather, anise and brown sugar. Then, it just kind of faded away into a completely indeterminate weak finish that reminded me of a porto infused cigarillo, and vanished like a dream in the sunlight of morning.

The rum was curiously indeterminate and lacked that sense of purpose and clarity that would make it stand out in a crowd, make a drinker sit up and take serious notice, perhaps pour another glass to check. That it was a rum was the best that could be said. There was fair bit of something there, just nothing much of anything, and that was surprising, because as a general rule, independent bottlers of any stripe tend to be rather good at such releases. But here I could barely be bothered to remember a rum so perfectly serviceable which was at the same time so utterly forgettable. Which makes the title kind of unfortunate.

(#833)(80/100)

Other Notes

  • Thanks and a hat tip to Sascha Junkert for both of the Moon Import “Remember” samples.
  • Though not stated, I think the rum comes from the French Savalle still – a “patent” still (as noted on the label) is continuous, but the Enmore wooden coffey still seems a stretch for what I tasted
  • Age is unknown…I’d suggest it’s ten years or so.
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