Aged Rums – 01-5 YO – Page 11

First posted 30 January 2010 on Liquorature.

(#010)(Unscored)

***

Wow! What a surprisingly mellow, well rounded piece of work this was. English Harbour is aged a minimum of five years in whiskey or bourbon barrels, but there was none of the whiskey taste that so characterizes the Renegade product line, which I have gone on record as not really appreciating. This stuff is good for its age and price.

For the gathering of January 2010, it was the nominated rum alongside two whiskeys, and, to everyone’s surprise, this thing held up against older, more expensive drinks and was the first bottle to be drained. Of course, everyone had heard of my sterling review of the English Harbour 25 year old, but to have the five year compete favourably for its price range was unheard of.

The nose was the faintest bit sharp, and there was the same hint of vanilla, caramel and coconut I recall from its more expensive sibling. I seemed to get a slight trace of cherry. Neat it was unprepossessing, sweet in the way rums are, but the flavour was enhanced on the rocks. There was that slight taste of burnt sugar and sweet molasses and fruitiness on the palate that went down very nicely. Strictly speaking, it’s a bit too harsh to be classified as a really good rum, but it’s a damn sight better and smoother than the XM five year I spent so many of my years drinking, and gives the Appleton 12 some serious competition for flavour.

But the thing is, the real kicker comes from what happens when you dilute it about 2:1 (rum: coke). It was unbelievable: suddenly there was this extraordinary burst of fruitiness and caramel flavour, the cherry and woodsmoke hints went nuts, the nose got vibrant with vanilla and a faint nuttiness, and I just drank that down and poured another to make sure the first time hadn’t been a fluke. I saw Bob having a similar reaction, and indeed, it was between the two of us that we polished off most of the bottle. Neat or on the rocks, the finish is reasonably long lasting and keeps the sweetness running around the back of your throat with a little burn that mars it, for me…but not enough to make it a bad rum, just a five year old.

English Harbour hails from Antigua, and this five year old seems to be real value for money, going from the prizes the rum has won in the last decade (Double Gold – San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2004 and 2005, Gold Medal – Beverage Testing Institute 2005, 2006 and Forbes Magazine – Worlds 10 Most Remarkable Rums 2006). Given that it may even have enticed a few of the peat heads and whiskey lovers in our group to reconsider their prime allegiance, I might almost say it is priceless for its low cost (but that’s just me). Whatever their personal experiences with this unprepossessing five-year was, I can honestly say that for the age and price, this has been one of the most pleasant surprises in the rum world I have had thus far, and it makes me intent on hunting out other specimens from this distillery to try in the future.

First posted 25 January 2010 on Liquorature.

Full disclosure: this review is based on rum made (and drunk) 1995 and earlier and retasted in the 2000s in a social setting. The review is more a nostalgia essay with such memories as I retained and wanted to share, of one of the formative rums of my youth, than a true review

(#006 / Unscored)

***

When I was living in the Old Country, this baby was the rum I drank every Friday for a decade straight (or more) without fail, and on quite a few days in between. My evenings tended towards heading straight for the Palm Court (behind which I lived) with my friend John, finding a seat, calling Prince (our favourite waiter, because he knew us on sight) and ordering “Double five an’ pepsi, glass, bowl’ice and a Bajan pack a’ B&H.” Translated, this means a double shot of the XM rum in a glass, ice on the side, and a Barbadian-manufactured golden pack of Benson & Hedges cigarettes (the English made ones were more expensive, so one had to specify). This squarely pegged my social status, since folk of lesser means ordered the cheaper, locally made Bristol smokes and Demerara Distillers King of Diamonds five year old, while the upper crust went for XM Ten Year Old and the English B&H.

Not surprisingly, my baseline was therefore the XM five year. Now granted, John and I, who always drank together, practically murdered the drink in a bath of pepsi (coke was less available), so one can reasonably ask how the hell I ever got enough notes together for a review, but on occasion we did in fact have it on ice only. Rarely. In fact, vanishingly rarely. All right, almost never. Usually when the pepsi ran out at his place or mine. But there are other good reasons why.

The problem is that this rum was really not for the export market (every Caribbean nation has tipple like this for the masses), and so although one can find it in shops abroad, the quality is not top tier. The rum is light golden brown, and has a sharp, pungent nose, and quite frankly, I think the Whiskey Exchange’s review, describing the nose as “Candied orange peel, brown sugar, buttery oak. Crystallised ginger, creamy, toasty vanilla and sugared almonds. Quite fruity, with baked banana, raisins and hints of blackcurrant jelly developing,” may be just a bit much. The alcohol fumes overpower everything too fast. It’s definitely a mixer rum for this puppy. And a bunch of expats I drank with regularly had exactly the same opinion.

The body is light — thin and sharp — and lacks real character, though one can detect vanilla, caramel, burnt sugar and some light hints of fruit, perhaps citrus; but the rum is not particularly smooth, and it jars going down (lest any think I’m assassinating a former favourite in a bid to disown my past, trust me when I say the 10-year is far better, and though I’ve heard of a mythical 50-year old which is reputedly is in a class of its own, I’ve never seen or tasted it; and the comparative King of Diamonds 5-year is paint remover in comparison – in those days, anyway). Some years later after I had been on a Bacardi kick for a bit, I received a gift of this bottle from John, and I was surprised how thin it seemed, mixed or straight.

To me, this is the first baseline rum I ever had in my life…like a loved one, I played with others but always returned to her. It will always be on my personal pantheon of favourites, not because it’s a stellar example of the craft (it’s competent work and a decent drink, but a star it is not), but because of the memories it brings up of a time in my life that was unique. I know without thinking that when next I taste this rum, I’ll be transported back to the tropics, under warm starlit skies, the breeze will be blowing though Palm Court (where some hopeful young bint with a terribly nasal voice will be wailing to the accompaniment of a karaoke machine), I’ll be young again, and John and I will be hailing Prince, calling for a double-five and B&H, and talking for the next five hours about how we would fix the world, and how Batman could absolutely kick the s**t out of Spiderman, and why there had to be a third Terminator movie.

I’m almost certain there isn’t a man reading this review who doesn’t have at least one drink like that.

Other Notes

For background on the maker, Banks DIH, see the company biography.