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doing the usual background research I found that one of my favourite low rent Canadian rums – the Youngs Old Sam – was originally made by the same company, and the current iteration’s label more references this connection more concretely than the original did.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.

 

Edward Young & Co. Blue Mountain Old Liqueur Jamaican Rum (1940s/1950s)

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Oct 302024
 

Rumaniacs Review #R-163 | 1097

A good part of the label is missing, but even without that, this is what we know: it’s a rum branded “Blue Mountain Finest Old Liqueur Jamaica Rum” which popped up on one of the two “old rums” auction-site booths I patronised at the 2024 German Rum Festival (unlike the token system at other commercial brands’ booths, here one had to fork out actual coin for one’s dram). It was hand-dated 1930s / 1940s, and the proof point was not noted (the torn label’s missing portion probably had all that).

Still, using that limited data set I was able to find an almost identical label (minor differences in text layout and colours), which came from a bottle of rum made by a UK company called Edward Young & Co. in the 1940s. Following that company’s filings suggested it existed between 1888-1986, except that other labels and logos made a better case that it had originally been founded in 1797 and officially registered in 1885; by 1936 they were exporting to other parts of the British Empire, including Ceylon and Canada

Unfortunately, there’s nothing deeper – names of founders, 20th century owners, addresses, etc, are all hard to unearth without paying for it, and the company is now inactive. Their blurb does mention they were “distillers and wine, brandy and rum shippers”. The dating of the1940s for this bottle seems about right, but I believe the 1930s is more conjectural.

There remain unknowns: the strength was on the missing part of the label, and other variations of this rum were made, some at 70° proof (40% ABV), others at 35%. Based on my tasting and the label, I’d say 40%. Also, the estate / distillery of origin is never mentioned – in the 1940s there were more distilleries in business than currently, blending multiple sources was common and mentioning a single distillery or estate was not a thing, so for me to say more would be rank speculation – there simply is no information to be going on.

Other points of interest:

The use of the word “liqueur” to denote a more refined and upscale rum was common at one time (the famous Wray & Nephew 17 YO was called a “liqueur rum” for example. If you’re interested, see Matt’s excellent article on the subject) but during the 1960s it appears to have faded into disuse and now the word has a distinct meaning of its own, clearly separated from rum as we understand it.

Edward Young & Co were the originators of one of my favourite low-end mixing staples, the Guyanese / Canadian Young’s Old Sam, which came under the umbrella of the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation in 1999 – to this day the rum’s label sports the date of founding and the name of that original company. However, since there is no Edward Young any longer, and the rum is bulk stock shipped by DDL to Newfoundland for bottling and blending (instead of via the UK as was once the case), one can only assume that the label has all that on it for consistency and as a line to the past – not out of any sense of current commercial reality. But honestly, I sigh when I read stuff like that – I’d love to know more about the connection and its background.

Rum Auctioneer and other auction sites have had the rum or a variant of it for sale a few times. A 1947 edition sold in 2023 for £470, anther for £310 and the Old Spirits Company, in an undated post, advertised another for sale at $2,761 (assumed US$).

Colour – dark brown

Strength – Assumed 40% ABV / 70° proof

Nose – Even taking into account its provenance and relatively mild strength, this is a serious rum. Opens with pungent fleshy fruits – peaches, apricots, range peel, tangerines. Salt, leather, plastic, olives, rubber, and a mild briny solution

Palate – Thin and underpowered, but with many of the same notes. Oranges, candy, flowers, some plastic and rubbing alcohol. Slightly sweet, some leather and smoke, a touch of bitterness and vanilla from the barrel, but nothing untoward.

Finish – as short and brisk and purposeful as a salaryman’s stride.

Thoughts – Little identifies this as one distillery or another, and indeed, I do believe it’s a blend of pot and column still sources. The nose is really good and the palate, for all the brevity of my description above, does present with authority and verve. Really good rum to taste, not least because it shines a light into what taste profiles were eighty years ago, and how they have developed since then.

(#1097 | R-163)(87/100)

Other notes

Don Q Gold Puerto Rican Rum – Review

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Oct 222024
 

Americans know the Puerto Rican company of Don Q quite well (it is named after Don Quixote, which always struck me as odd, but never mind), and are usually quite enthused with it since it’s an alternative to the ubiquitous Bacardi, as well as supplying them with another Cuban-style rum. Europeans on the other hand, know of the brand without being overwhelmed – they do, after all, have access to better tipple than most — and the rest of the world, I would imagine, falls somewhere in between.

Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on companies that at first sight seem to be aping Bacardi’s mass market appeal and rum-making style. Distileria Serrallés, after all, predates Bacardi on the island — the family patriarch was there since 1820 and his son produced Serrallés’s first rum in 1865 — and is considered to be the most popular rum in Puerto Rico. And the stuff they make regularly turns up on many lists of good rums to try, rums to start with, or to always have on the shelf.

Not too long ago I went through a fair bit of the company’s bottlings, so in this upcoming series of reviews, I’ll start low and work my way up. Today’s rum is simply called the Gold and is part of their “traditional” range which also includes the white Cristal and the stern overproof of the 151. After that everything except the flavoured range is lumped into the Serrallés Collection, but pretty much all of what they make is short-fermentation, molasses-based, column-still product. The variations come from post-distillation barrel and wood management, not earlier stages in the production process, which is par for Latin / Spanish style rons.

The Gold is a rum blended from components aged from 1½ to 5 years in ex bourbon barrels, and is bottled at a mild living room strength of 40% – in that sense it’s similar to the (filtered) Cristal, except that they note it’s been distilled to have more flavour (and then filtered). This suggests that they are using the first column of the 1934 Vendome still to producer a heavier aguardiente to blend into the final product, which makes sense.

But does that translate into a profile where this is evident? To some extent, yes – as long as expectations are tempered to begin with. Consider the nose — the website talks about “rummy flavours” (with all the usual additional superlative adjectives) but here, that’s pretty much what you’re getting. The majority of the aromas revolve around notes of caramel, toffee, vanilla, some cinnamon and a touch of oakiness – can a more standard rum profile be described? Even after standing for a while, there’s not a whole lot more, unless it’s some weakly aromatic light flowers and watery fruits…pears, mostly.

The way it tastes follows on from there. It’s similar to the nose perhaps a bit more tobacco and oak forward. The word that occurs to me is “bright” – it has a sort of scintillating sharpness to the way it tastes that is ameliorated by the easy strength, and the flavours are reasonably distinct: vanilla, toffee, salt caramel, not much more, except a very slight and sharp citrus line. And so the finish cannot be expected to provide more, and it doesn’t – it’s quick, light and gone in no time.

As a sipping rum, this is too thin and light to appeal, but of course it’s in a mix that it shines. It’s perhaps too much to expect a very young blended column still rum to wow my socks off – few Gold rums ever have. They tend to be mass-market mid- to low-range efforts: almost always blends, relatively young, very affordable, found just about everywhere. Their job is not to be a sipping agent but a basic bar staple, and their quality varies wildly. In this example, what we have is a rum I wouldn’t drink neat, one that hints at more upscale work elsewhere in the company’s stable: it has the glimmering of a complex nature that for itself, never quite comes to the fore.

(#1095)(78/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

Bayou Louisiana XO “Reserve Select Barrel” Rum – Review

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Oct 112024
 

Rums like this, decent as they may be, always strike me as ultimately deceptive: when you delve right in and start to take apart the claims of the advertising they try to sell you on, all you get is emptiness. The pretty label and website blurbs you are generously provided is rather at odds with the grudging paucity of anything resembling actual information, and for us to be running around trying to understand anything about what’s in the rum in this day and age is, quite simply, an affront to rum lovers.

The mild dissatisfaction you might sense in the comment above derives from a tasting of the Bayou white, the XO “Reserve” and the “Mardi Gras” rums that I did side by side back in January of 2024. I wasn’t impressed by the white and this one didn’t do much for me either. Now, just so you know – I taste first and research later, so whatever issues I have with disclosure and labelling and the company’s information provision don’t impact how I feel about the rum as it samples, or how I score. So let’s just get that out of the way and then I’ll tell you some more about what you’re supposedly drinking

The nose opens with what initially seems an impressive panoply of aromas: caramel, cold wet coffee grounds still in the filter, some toffee, smoke and leather. This is all boilerplate, however, really quiet and light. After some time one can pick out vanilla, sweet green peas in water, and some faint background notes of stewed apples, flambeed bananas, that burnt fruit kind of thing. If you strain you can get some pastries and stale black tea. Quite sweet, with some licorice and marshmallow notes thrown in at the back end.

If this had been about five to ten points stronger it would have made a real statement for itself, I believe, but the standard strength undercuts the promises the nose makes. Tasting the rather thinly sweet bourbon-like rum provides a whole lot of nothing in particular: I strain to taste chocolates, cinnamon, unsweetened black tea long since gone cold, licorice, some vanilla and it’s all rather dampened down, with some indeterminate fruits like apples doing a slow dance in the background. Very little to get enthused about here, very little to get inspired by — at the end, it closes with a lackadaisical indeterminate finish of marshmallows and light fruits one can barely sense before they vanish, and one is left wondering what the point ever was.

So…what is it? According to the website it’s a molasses-based pot still rum, aged for four years or less (the famous words “up to…” are in evidence) in wet ex-bourbon barrels, which implies they couldn’t be bothered to actually try for an actual bourbon but wanted to get the best of both drinking classes enthused with this one drink made on the cheap. The bottle label says it’s a reserve without defining what that is, and the website does nothing better, though it does make a curious comment that suggests that are using a solera system, even if this is mentioned nowhere else on the website or the label itself. On the other hand, we are told this is bottle #003 of 7076, which rather undercuts the special select nature of the release, I would think, but never mind.

“This is a rum for bourbon drinkers” chirps the website — one can only wonder when one reads stuff like that, to what level of bourbon they refer: bottom feeding bathtub-brewed hooch, or something more elevated that’s fallen on hard times, or…what? Me, I’m completely unmoved by it, because it suffers from that most depressing of characteristics, namely, that it has none. It’s a rum, yes, but bland and completely conventional, without anything to set it apart, a slog through, and not really interesting — I could get more of a buzz shuffling the papers on my desk from the “in” to the “out” tray.

(#1093)(74/100) ⭐⭐½

Brief company bio (from Review #1053 of the Bayou white )

The company making the rum is called Louisiana Spirits LLC: it was founded in January 2013 by brothers Tim and Trey Litel and their friend Skip Cortes, with Bayou as their flagship brand in January 2013 (the idea had been floated in a duck blind back in 2011). The chosen name was obvious (and survey-tested for its recognition factor, as if this were necessary), and back then the design had a ‘gator on it. By 2018 in a rebranding exercise it had been renamed “White” and the modern design had snapped into focus. The wag in me suggests that maybe more surveys were done but actually that’s when the SPI Group (the owners of Stoli vodka and headquartered in Luxembourg) who had already bought a majority stake in 2016, acquired all the remaining shares and took over. As far as I know, the original founders are no longer much involved in production.

Other notes

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.

Makazai Gold “Tribute” Rum (Goa, India) – Review

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Aug 192024
 

For those of not actually from India or part of the extended diaspora, the only rums from the subcontinent which most of us ever knew about were the Old Monk, the Amrut Two Indies and Old Port, and maybe a smattering of others like MacDowell’s, Hercules, Contessa, and, more recently, the Camikara. Yet India has been making distilled spirits for centuries, including from sugar cane, and so it comes as no surprise that as the growth of rum as a premium spirit continues around the world, local entrepreneurs would look to establish small craft brands or distilleries of their own. Such spirits would go beyond the doctored mass-market hooch which permeates the local market and adhere to more exacting standards set by small microdistilleries around the world.

Whether the recently established company of Stilldistilling Spirits will be able to mine that vein of perceived quality remains to be seen. I do not hold out much hope when a company tells us little (or nothing) about sourcing methods, production, blending and ageing strategy. We do, on the other hand, get a lot of hagiographies about the founder, and much elevated rhetoric about inspirations, logo selection and mission statements. Which, to me, is less than helpful in assessing the rum itself.

Be that as it may, here is what is known about the Makazai Gold “Tribute” Rum. All ingredients and physical components of the bottle are Indian made. The actual source of the distillate is never disclosed, though it is implied to be Goa or Maharashtra, and is stated in a 2021 Rumporter article to be 2½ year old aged cane spirit from the Punjab (something of a problem since that could mean a neutral spirit or one from cane juice) combined with molasses spirit (ditto, except now we don’t know if there is any ageing involved here as well). Blending and bottling takes place in Goa where the owners have leased a facility to do so, and until recently the rum was only sold there. It’s 42.8% ABV, which is sort of standard strength over there, and equates to 75 proof (or “25 degrees under proof”) under the old Imperial system.

With this background dispensed with, what is the gold rum actually like?

Succinctly put, it’s a bit better than entry level, but not much. There you are. You may cease reading.

The nose is immediately problematic because not much happens and what does happen is lacklustre – which is a shame, because what little one does sense, is at least intriguing. There’s ghee and cooking oil smoking in an overheated cast iron pan, plus turmeric and honey as the primary elements. These are then added to with a slightly sweet aroma of stewed apples, cinnamon, light vanilla, cardamom and tinned peaches. It’s all very delicate and vague, and there’s a thinness to it that doesn’t really work for me.

On the palate it’s no better: “thin and flat” read my terse notes. It’s somewhat akin to the let down of the Camikara 3YO (review coming soon to the unread blog near you) which was also 42.8% and had a similarly scrawny corpus. It is only with some effort that I can pick out honey, figs, biscuits in milky tea, and (oddly enough) some red currants – it’s nice but honestly, not enough either; and the finish, which is short in duration and quite easy, closes things off with something of a whimper: some indeterminate dark fruit, cinnamon, vanilla and a touch of brine and salty caramel chocolate

That there are so many notes to write down is to the rum’s credit, and there is a certain “tawniness” to it that I like – I’ve detected that ghur note in the profile of many Indian rums, suggesting a jaggery based source. The issue is that the various parts don’t play well together – the balance is off and it leans too much to the sweet spices side without a countervailing tart or sour aspect that would make it more interesting. Plus, the whole thing lacks body, heft, a certain force that would make it memorable. If they ever solve that issue – whether by naking it stronger or improving the blend or actually distilling their own rum instead of getting it from elsewhere and cobbling a blend together – then they may really have something to show off. For now, the rum train has limped into the station minus several cars.

(#1087)(79/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • My deepest appreciation to Nikkhil of WhiskyFlu, who provided the bottle gratis. His website and IG feed is always worth a look, and he’s a great guy to boot.
  • My hydrometer tests this out at 43%, so it’s clean from that perspective.
  • The now-usual video review of this rum is here

Company background

Makazai is actually a two word term “Maka Zai” meaning “I want” in Konkani, the language spoken in Goa and Maharashtra (in central-west India). It was made the brand name by the founder of the company, Katsuri Banerjee, who left a career in financial services to take up bartending in a bar named Koko, located in an upscale neighborhood in Mumbai called Lower Parel.

Once she qualified as a bartender she wanted to also become a blender and create her own spirits – whether whisky or rum or gin is not entirely clear, though eventually, as we see here, it was rum that won out perhaps because the competition for premium craft rum space was less. After interning at an (unnamed) Indian distillery and settling on making a rum, Stilldistilling Spirits was incorporated in 2020 with funds raised from friends and family and managed to survive the global COVID shutdown by concentrating initially on branding and packaging, before emerging in 2021 with a white rum (the “Bartender’s Edition” geared to the mixologists) and a gold one (the “Tribute Edition” – it is meant to be a standard celebratory tipple for everyone). There is an aged limited edition called the Mesma with a mere 600 bottles in circulation, about which as little is known as the other two.

What little most non-residents know of alcohol in Goa comes about because they went there on a vacation, or tasted the local liquor called Feni. However it would appear that Goa has, of late, become something of a manufacturing hub for distilled homegrown spirits (Google maps shows around forty distilleries there), not least due to the ease of laws relating to liquor production and marketing which constrain other provinces in a still-conservative India. Whether these are new or old companies, at least some of the blend components of the rums released by the Makazai comes from one or more of these establishments, though it is my personal belief that some is sourced from elsewhere in India (the references to “heritage suppliers” suggests this). The company has leased a blending and bottling plant in Goa to handle the physical production, and has expended from and initial 200 cases of sales back in early 2021, to 2,000 in early 2022, at the time mostly sold in Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra (and expansion to other parts of India ongoing).

Opinion

While I appreciate the sheer guts, blood, sweat and tears that must go into getting an enterprise like this off the ground in India – especially for a female entrepreneur in what is a resolutely male dominated profession and tipple – I am somewhat impatient with Stilldistilling’s website and the press articles I’ve referred to in this article. That stems from an excess of marketing folderol that’s all sound and fury signifying nothing, versus a paucity of facts that might help a consumer get, you know, some real info. This is the sort of thing that annoys me with rums from the Americas, but irrespective of location, for people who should have their fingers on the pulse of current trends in transparency to be pulling this kind of advertising-only crap on us when launching a new brand strikes me as shortsighted, and somewhat indifferent to us as consumers.

I deduct no points for lack of disclosure: however, the lack of details in what makes the rum what it is annoying. We don’t know too many things here. Which distillery (or distilleries) provided the distillate; data about the base source of cane juice, molasses or neutral spirit; what kind of still or stills made it; anything about fermentation; how long it was aged for and where and in what kinds of barrels; or what the outturn was. Not all of these things are necessary – indeed, one could cynically argue that none of them truly are, if all you want to do is drink the thing – but the fact remains that in today’s rum world where the scars of the sugar wars and battles over transparency still run deep, and cause elevated blood pressure to this day, it is ridiculous to not be provided at least some of it. And purported alco-bev veterans are supposed to be behind behind this rum? One wonders if they learned nothing from all the social media bloodletting over the last decade.

Modern consumers and producers who really want rum to be taken to the next level cannot be made or expected to accept a rum on trust, which has zero verifiable background info. Not in this day and age. Trust and reputation for square dealing and disclosure go a long way to establishing a company’s street cred and character. If a new rum producing company claims to want to become a true craft premium rum producer, then it had better start making disclosure a priority – otherwise, like so many other Indian rums, it will remain there and never attain the global heights to which they aspire.

 

Old Monk Gold Reserve 12 YO Rum (India) – Review

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Jul 312024
 

Old Monk is almost a cultural institution in India, the way some distilleries’ brands, in their countries of origin – think J. Wray White Overproof in Jamaica, for example, or XM and El Dorado in Guyana, Angostura in Trinidad, AH Riise in Denmark, Stroh in Austria, Tanduay in the Philippines, Bundie in Australia…well you get the drift. The company that makes it, Mohan Meakin (previously Dyer Meakin), is among the first of the major distilleries set up in colonial India (in 1855), and I have covered it extensively in an enormously detailed post, and won’t rehash it here.

First issued in 1954, the Old Monk line of aged rums deliberately targeted a more affluent middle and upper class tippling audience. Previously — and still now, to a great extent — rum in India had been made as an additive-laden neutral spirit meant to make money on razor thin margins via massive sales to the poorer classes who could only afford a few annas. Predating the wave of premiumization that would crest a half century later, Mohan Meakin (the company was renamed 1966) pursued a strategy of ensuring it was available in luxury hotels and the military officers’ clubs. It rapidly became an institution in the whole country and the diaspora kept sales brisk wherever they emigrated, which is why I can find it all over the world today.

By 2024 the line of Old Monk had been expanded way beyond the original 7 YO blended XXX rum. Among others that were introduced (or withdrawn) over the years, there was the Matured Rum, Very Old Vatted, The Legend, Supreme, Gold Reserve Rum (of various ages), Orange Rum, White Rum and of course the grandaddy of them all, the XXX 7 YO vatted in the dimpled squat bottle, which is what most people have tried (and reviewed).

The rum we are looking at today was manufactured in March 2023, is 12 years old, bottled at 42.8% and we know rather little about it except that it comes from molasses: that’s because, in a bewildering lack of marketing mojo, there does not appear to be a website for the company that is devoted to the product. For now, let’s call it a 12YO because we have nothing better to go on and that’s what they say it is (I have added a few comments below on other bits and pieces I dug up here and there).

Reviewers who have written about Old Monk — including myself — have almost always cast a jaundiced eye at the rums of the company, and suggested they have been adulterated, added to or otherwise messed with. Even with “clean” hydrometer tests, it’s hard not to come to that conclusion. And that’s because of the way it smells, and tastes.

Consider: the nose opens with an aroma of raw honeycombs, sweet peaches in syrup, cardamom, sandalwood, ripe bananas and a touch of brine and olives. There’s no citrus element here to balance things off and what fruits there are of the softer, less acidic kind, and after opening up one can sense some plastic, brown sugar, burnt caramel and smoking oil in a wok.

Tastewise, some of these peculiar notes persist, though much reduced. First of all it seems a little thick with sweetness, honey, cola and cardamom – it is this aspect that most often gives people pause and ask whether there’s an additive in there. Most of the softer points of the nose return for an encore, specifically the caramel, molasses, soft bananas and syrup, with some balance brought in by a touch of brine and olives. The finish is nothing special – short, dry, leather and smoke and some beeswax and honey. That’s about it.

Hydrometer test aside, the rum tastes reasonably okay and the balance is nice: it’s a step up from the regular 7 YO XXX. It displays just enough of an edge and is just different enough to excite curiosity from the tyro, or interest from a pro. I liked it enough to give it the score I do, but am unsure whether it works in the more common cocktails given that it marches to a slightly different beat. But for a 12 YO and for the quality it does have, it’s well worth just taking by itself and that’s how I’d suggest you try it.

(#1084)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • A short video recap is here.
  • Hydrometer tests out at 41.8% ABV, which works out to +/-4 g/L and within the margin of error.
  • Additional comments on (lack of) production data: from various websites we can infer it is a vatted blend, aged in large oak vats or in standard oak casks (but not what kind) and then blended. One source mentions that a bit of the original Old Monk blend that’s more than 50 years old is always added in for consistency, but I chose to doubt that. Some say the source is jaggery, not actually molasses, which I can accept, though there is, as usual, no corroboration. What all this does is cast doubts on the age statement because we simply have no way of checking how truthful the company is about something when they say so little about anything.
  • From MM Company bio: The question of who exactly the Old Monk was, remains a matter of some conjecture and there are three stories [1] it’s a stylized Benedictine monk such as originally inspired V.R. Mohan [2] it represents one of the founders of the company, H.G. Meakin himself, and is an homage to his influence, and [3] it represents a British monk who used to hang around the factory where the rums were made and aged, shadowing the master blender – his advice was so good that when Old Monk was first launched the name and bottle were based on him (this of course implies that aged rum was being made and sold by the company for years before 1954, but I simply have no proof of this and so cannot state it with assurance).

Doorly’s Finest Old Barbados 3YO Rum – Review

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Jul 162024
 

Over the years I’ve somewhat revised my initially indifferent stance towards Doorly’s, which at various times I sniffed at as lacking in seriousness, bereft of real character, a relic of a bygone and more innocent era, or various other rather dismissive comments. To me, Doorly’s always seemed to be a genuflection to the mass market instead of something more exactingly made. The entire line, even with its heritage, paled in taste and significance when rated against the rums that Foursquare became known for: the ECS series, the Velier Collaborations, the pot still aged rums and the occasional Master Distillers releases.

Yet, slowly, quietly, the line got better and began to be more than just a back bar staple that incurious barmen reached for when they needed a cheaper aged Barbados rum. It rose in my estimation over the years. I named the 12YO a key rum of the world, and quite enjoyed the 14YO. But much to my surprise, it was this 3YO which exceeded its expectations so handily that it actually went toe to toe with the 14YO (albeit for different reasons). Now there’s a surprise for you.

Let’s start at the beginning: Doorly’s is the mass market export brand of Foursquare Distillery, which needs no further introduction (and if it does, you’re not really into rum); they had initially acquired the brand in the early 1990s and kept it in place because of its name recognition – it has now grown into one of the most recognizable Barbados brands in the world. The rum is a pot and column still blend, aged three years in ex-Bourbon (older casks), is issued at two strengths, 40% and 47% – this review is based on the stronger one.

Normally a 3YO rum is a cocktail ingredient, and priced to move. Sometimes also called Amber, Gold or Ambre, it’s coloured artificially on occasion, though here, given the pale yellow hue, that’s unlikely and it’s all barrel derived. The initial nose is remarkably crisp, without being sharp or bitchy, which is welcome: it’s buttery, briny and flowery, with coconut shavings and vanilla hogging the scene, accompanied by almonds, coffee grounds, cloves and a touch of black pepper.

On the palate it’s also quite good, firm and well balanced, not at all sharp. It opens with salt butter and Danish cookies, vanilla, hot pastries, licorice, pine tarts, with a gradually discernible background of raisins, citrus, coconut shavings, coffee grounds, charcoal and sour red licorice. It all leads to a decent medium long finish that wraps up the show nicely and sums up the preceding notes without adding new. It’s just…hefty. And quite a tasty dram, let me add.

I would never pick the 40% edition if this was available as an option. The combination of the flavours is all well handled, and there’s a force to it imparted by the higher strength that’s impressive. The other day I tried the Sunshine & Sons Australian rum that was a little over half+- this rum’s age and about the same strength, but had to strain twice as hard to get a fraction of what this rum so effortlessly put out the door without looking like it was even trying. Moreover, it moves between cocktail ingredient and sipper with startling ease – you can use it for either one – and shows that even a 3YO can show flashes of elegance that elevates it over rums years older. This is one hell of a young rum.

(#1081)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

New Norfolk Distillery Dormant Star Single Rum (Batch 2)(Tasmania) – Review

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Jun 102024
 

Now here we’re approaching a distillery that moves away somewhat from the east coast of Australia where so many other rum making outfits are found, and situates itself firmly on the southern island of Tasmania (about which I could tell you plenty historical stuff, but may risk putting you to sleep and so shall desist).

In brief, this distillery, located in New Norfolk (get it?) in the Derwent Valley in southern Tasmania, just NW of Hobart, the capital, is on premises that once housed a hospital and asylum complex. It was established in 2019 by Tarrant Derkson, who decided to make a distillery that focused on rum, after realising there weren’t any such animals around, for reasons rooted in the same history I’ll just touch on here.

Now, from 1839 until 1992, spirit production — primarily whisky, for which there had once been sixteen distilleries — was prohibited in Tasmania, but the ban was eventually repealed. These days there are a few companies making rums, yet, similar to Australia, one gets the impression that in the main they move around gins and whiskies and rum is a sideline. Island Coast, Blackman’s Bay, Deviant Distillery, Knocklofty, Bridport Distilling are examples, making rum as a reflex nod to rounding out the portfolio rather than a prime focus (I make no judgement on this, it’s just economics and wherewithal, that’s all)

New Norfolk has no time for any of newfangled notions like portfolio diversity and resolutely makes rums, pretty much only rums, and amuse themselves by often using some very intriguing names for them. They currently produce various liqueurs, spiced rums and straightforward rums…but it is the 60% Drone Riot Wild Cane Spirit and the Diablo Robotico 66.6% pure single cask rum which really interest me, quite aside from this one, which is called Dormant Star for reasons that are probably related to it being dormant until released by cracking the bottle and quaffing it (something similar to the way Velier called one line of its rums “Liberation” and gave it the year of bottling not the year of laying it down to age.

Photo (c) New Norfolk Distillery

The website production details are spartan at best but from photos and additional notes of the advent calendar we can infer the following: molasses based with some cane sugar for the ferments, which takes 7-14 days and results in a 12-14% wash which gets run through “Riley” their tame copper pot still, after which it is set to age in American oak for 2+ years. Now, according to Mrs and Mrs Rum, there is some minor dosage, but I didn’t get a chance to check it and anyway like I said, I tend to reserve judgement on this until I actually try the final product.

The nose is quite interesting: it opens with an initial aroma of dusty drywall, paint, varnish, rubber tyres and new leather upholstery of a car that sat too long in the sun (so maybe there’s an unsupervised house repairman running around the distillery?). This is balanced off by chocolates, nuts, vanilla, cardboard, rye bread, light fruits (papaya, pears, light green grapes, which is pleasant), and treacle over hot fresh pancakes, so there’s quite a bit to parse here.

The taste is a little less complicated. At 47.5% it’s firm and assertive, not particularly sharp, quite soft, a little sweet, and initial flavours are of honey plus fruits – bananas, pears, grapes, and guavas (the white ones), with some green apples providing that slight tart bite to cut the experience. There are also some light caramel and breakfast spices, vanilla and cinnamon, but one has to strain to pick those out and it’s hardly worth trying, as the finish does provide a summary of that as well, and overall it finishes quietly

This is a really nice, easygoing hot weather rum, the sort that’s quite sippable. If I had an issue with it at all it’s that it is too tame, not particularly complex and could showcase a bit more. It’s pleasant without attempting any exceptionalism, and what it succeeds at is not pissing anyone off – there is absolutely nothing wrong with it that a person who likes easier Spanish style rums would find fault with. For those who want something more brawny and uncompromising, this isn’t for you: for everyone else, it’s fine.

(#1076)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar Day 16
  • More details may be added later about the distillery background and production process, as I have some outstanding queries to them.
  • I was told there was some light dosage here but have not confirmed this
  • The five minute video recap is here.

Beenleigh XO Rare 10YO Rum 2023 (Australia) – Review

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May 312024
 

Although it’s slowly changing, it’s still a good bet that if the average rum drinker were asked to name any Australian rums and the companies that made them, the two most common responses would be Bundaberg and Beenleigh. And whether or not one was a native of Australia, the general consensus would also be that the Bundie (located some distance north of Brisbane in Queensland) is foul hooch for the masses while Beenleigh (just south of Brisbane) aspires to something more highbrow and makes somewhat better regarded rums. Both export a lot and are known around the world, with Beenleigh having an edge in the indie bottling scene where several different expressions have come out in the last few years, as issued by various bottlers like Cadenhead, TBRC and others.

These simple statements are, however, somewhat at odds with the reality on the ground. For sure the downmarket Bundies don’t have a good reputation and often get savagely skewered (including by me), but starter-kit Beenleighs sold locally aren’t exactly hot-snot bees-knees either. Both have — in the last decade or so — diversified their rum portfolios to cater to all price points and issue rums of various ages and strengths, as well as special editions and anniversary releases and just simple experiments that some happy distiller decided to mess with one day and see what happened (if it didn’t detonate in his face first). And these are, in many cases, not half bad, no matter which outfit releases them

Take this one for example, which is one of the best rum from Beenleigh I’ve ever tried. It’s a ten year old rum, molasses from Queensland, and pot distilled according to the company website but both the label and the advent calendar notes say pot-column blend and so confirmed by Steve Magarry, so there you have it. The “rare” portion of the title comes from its limited edition status – it came from a blend of only four barrels – and the barrels themselves, which were ex-Australian-brandy, and ex-bourbon American oak. The exact outturn is not stated but I would hazard that it’s around a thousand bottles.

For a 46% ABV rum it noses really well, combining both sweet and sour in an amalgam that presents the best of lychees, ginnips, gooseberries and ice wine. There are also apricots peaches and some very ripe dark cherries, buffeting the nose in solid pungent aromatic waves, accompanied – as the rum opens up later – by honey, freshly buttered hot croissants, and some dusty cardboard that is far from unpleasant. This is seriously one fine nose.

The taste is great stuff. A lot of what one senses when smelling it comes back for an encore here: the sweet solidity of honey, lychees, pineapple slices, cashews, ripe apples and pears, combined with subtler tastes of watermelon and papaya. Into this is mixed cinnamon, vanilla and caramel, some olive oil (!!) and a last flirt of ripe red grapes and cardamom helps make the finish an easy and memorable one.

The achievement of being able to represent so many flavors considerable when one considers the 46%, and I wonder whether it was the same 2013 batch of juice that La Maison & Velier released last year. It is soft yet firm, tasty without being threatening, and its only drawback may be the price (AUS$160 / about US$110) which is somewhat high for a ten year old…but maybe not, given the hoops we’d have to jump through to get any.

I have not tasted a whole lot of Bundabergs recently, yet looking at their portfolio these days, I’m not seeing a whole lot they’re making that can catch up with this one. Be that as it may let’s just give Beenleigh the plaudits they deserve here. I think the rum is great, really well assembled, tastes wonderful and isn’t bottled at some stratospheric proof that leaves you gasping, or with so few bottles you’ll never see any. It’s something to drink sparingly and with great enjoyment, if one turns up on your doorstep.

(#1074)(87/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • From the 2023 advent calendar Day 18

Karu Distillery Outcask Rum (Batch 1)(Australia) – Review

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May 212024
 

It would be easy to think that the Karu Distillery in New South Wales has some connection to South Africa’s karoo, given the gin with the cheetah on the label which the founding Australian couple – Nick and Ally Ayres – have added to their lineup. You’d be wrong – in point of fact the word karu is of Estonian origin, like Ally Ayres herself, and means “bear,” and was a concept they wanted to embody (it also means “Eye” in Maori).

The distillery is of relatively recent vintage, having been established in 2017: and while in parts of SE Asia it’s almost a cliche that micro distilleries are established by itinerant Frenchmen with a love of wine or cognac, well, in the antipodes one could argue that the equivalent is the husband and wife team, of which he have met several in our sojourns around Australian distilleries.

Nick Ayres (who was in the movie business — he was a grip/ camera rigger/ crane operator, among other hats) and his wife Ally (who hailed from a company accounting background) initially intended to open a bar, but by 2014 they knew that they were more interested in distillation. They spent the next three years puttering around gathering experience and putting together funds and equipment: in 2017 the opened up the Karu distillery and issued their popular Affinity Gin a year later, followed quickly by the full proof Lightning, after which, in 2019 — following a masterclass held by none other than Richard Seale, because of course, it had to be him — they turned their attentions to rum. Needless to say, there were a lot of messy experiments in the skunkworks Ally ran, before the kinks started to be ironed out: this rum is the result.

Using the same Australian-made 600L pot still they call “Calcifer” (which we can only hope is named after Miyazaki’s film) as they do for the gins, but without the reflux (fermentation is two weeks in summer four weeks in winter, using a Caribbean yeast in ex olive and pickle barrels), they set their first rum to age in 2021, in ex-Australian-whisky barrels fragrantly (and with puns fully intended) named Bungholio, Barilyn Monroe, Master Splinter, Barole Caskin, Stavid Attenborough…and, well, you get the point (somebody over there is just full of vim, vinegar and enough sass to stun an elephant, that’s clear – and I want to meet whoever that is). Anyway, what came out in 2023 was the first batch, this one, and they moved so fast that by the end of that year they were already up to Batch #3.

New labelling

Original label. Photo courtesy of Mr. & Mrs. Rum

So there’s the intro, and what we get when all is said and done and distilled and put to sleep with the barrel, is a lightly aged 46% ABV rum that presses some interesting buttons. Take the nose, for example: it’s crisp, medium light, sweet, clean and clear, like the pure water chuckling over the rocks in an outback creek, or a really dry white wine…chardonnay perhaps. Light green grapes, just on this side of sweet, a touch of lemon peel, caramel and chocolate oranges. A dash of coffee grounds, with some vanilla and fruit going off in the background.

The palate is really no slouch either, and sports a good mouthfeel that encourages one to sip it – not always the case for a rum this young. It tastes of honey and a light tequila, mead, with that light salty-sweet cashew note that so distinguishes that drink. Ripe juicy fruits just bursting out of their skins – mangoes, cashes, cherries, with a dusting of nutmeg and cinnamon, vanilla beans and some strawberry marmalade and custard. Quite nice. Finish is short and crisp and ends things with the clear snap of a breaking glass rod, without adding anything to the party we have not sensed before.

With all that assailing the nose and the tongue and wafting back up on the fading close, it suggests not only an undiscovered steal but a veritable diamond in the rough, a sort of “where was this all my life?” vibe. Yeah…but no. Not quite. The youth of the rum is still evident in a slight rough sharpness to the way it initially assails, however well it smoothens out afterwards. The aromas and tastes are there, yet don’t flow smoothly, don’t do the tango together in harmony – stuff gets getting mixed up and the steps falter and it doesn’t all come together in a cohesive whole. On those levels it stumbles and this makes the entire experience less.

Don’t get me wrong, for a first effort — no other rums seem to have ever been made before this one — it’s an impressive release. The swath of prizes it won are a testament to how much judges vibrated to its frequency. Speaking for myself, however, I think it could still do with some tweaking, some strengthening, some more development: and maybe the best is yet to come in one of the subsequent releases, which, hopefully, we will be fortunate to enjoy as well.

(#1072)(83/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • From the 2023 advent calendar Day 12
  • Outturn unknown
  • In six years of operation, the company has been awarded some 100 medals including a Platinum Medal at the Las Vegas Global Spirits Awards 2023 and a High Silver 93 Points in IWSC 2023, as well as an innovation award

Helios Distillery “Teeda” Blended Japanese Rum – Review

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May 142024
 

Although of late I have been unable to source many rums from Japan, one company’s juice does make it over to Calgary, and that’s the Helios Distillery’s “Teeda” brand. So far neither the 5YO nor the white are to be found here (though both have been reviewed in these pages based on their coming out party in Paris a few years ago); however, we have seen the amazing 21 YO, and the rather deceptive, blended “standard strength” rum which we are looking at today.

For the benefit of those who want to know more about Helios, it is arguably the oldest rum making distillery in Japan, having been operational since 1961. Then, it was called Taiyou, and made cheap rum blends from sugar cane, both to sell to the occupying American forces, and to save rice for food and sake production. In the decades since, they’ve branched out — and aside from beers and awamori, for which they are better known in Japan, rums continue to make up a good portion of the portfolio.

The dark-yellow coloured blended rum (it’s just called “Teeda Japanese Rum” on the label) is an interesting piece of work. For one, it doesn’t present as any kind of special, and has no fancy advertising flourishes to hit you over the head with its awesomeness. It’s 40% ABV and doesn’t even bother to tell you how old it is. In the west that would be called indifference: in Japan it’s a marketing strategy. Because the rum is actually an agricole-style rum, made from cane juice. It’s made on a pot still. It’s aged a minimum of three years in American oak. These are not the sort of stats to excite yawns these days.

Nor should they, because the rum is quietly excellent (and this comes from a guy who’s tried the whole range and liked quite a few). Just look at how it opens when you smell it. You get tart fleshy fruits — apricots, ripe mangoes, ginnips and soursop — mixing it up with the sourness of a seriously tasty ashlyan-foo, ripe red grapes, and a touch of rotting oranges. Oh and there’s bananas, lychees, and even (get this!) some freshly peeled potatoes and dark rye bread. One may not recognize all the scents that come wafting out of the glass, but there’s no denying there’s quite a bit of originality here.

And it also develops well on the palate. It does this by never straying too far from what we might call a “rummy” profile. It’s slightly sweet and the ex-bourbon barrels in which it was aged provide the requisite backbone of vanilla, leather, and light molasses and tannins. Here the sour notes from the nose have been dialled down, to be replaced with a mildly funky note, some tart fruits (strawberries, orange peel), honey and a nice mild cane sap of the sort you get when you split a stalk of sugar cane with your teeth (and I should know). The finish isn’t all that long lasting or intense, just flavourful and pleasant and channels most of what has been described above – it’s the most forgettable part of the rum

Overall, I think this is one of the most original and interesting young rums I’ve tried in a long while, excluding the unaged white brawlers with which I wrestle quite often. It shows the benefits of a fermentation- and still-based approach to rum making, as opposed to the Spanish style of light-off-the-column-still, barrel-influenced rons. Those are good for what they are and of course have their adherents (especially in their countries of origin) – I just don’t find them quite as interesting, as representative of their lands.

The fact that the Teeda Blended Rum presents so well even with so few years of ageing, builds a head of steam to finish in such style, suggests there is a sweet spot where the rambunctiousness of youth intersects perfectly with a little of the wisdom of age. Neither aspect is completely eliminated here, and with this rum, I would suggest that Helios found a nice middle in which to showcase both. What a lovely, unassuming and understated rum it is indeed.

(#1071)(85/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other Notes

  • Accompanying 5-Minute Video Review
  • Both this rum and the 21 YO remain available in Canada. For some reason the White and the 5YO never got imported.
  • The colouring of the rum and the printed-on bottle make the label very hard to take pictures of. The back blurb is just marketing stuff and does not say anything useful about the rum itself. The front is pretty minimal.

Boatrocker Brewers & Distillers Double Barrel Australian Rum (Batch #4) – Review

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May 072024
 

We met this distillery before, last time we had an advent calendar: back then they were presenting Batch #3 of their double barrel rum, and now here we have the next iteration, the Batch #4.

You can read a more extended company bio below this review, so let’s skip right to the rum itself, for which the production process is the same as before. A primary ferment uses a yeast originally from Jamaica; a dunder/muck pit (also not mentioned on the site) provides cultured bacteria, and wild yeast is from the local area, all which is continually evolving as they add fresh dunder at the end of each rum run to boost the ester count. How long the fermentation goes on for is unknown, but once this process is complete, the rum distillation is done using the their 450 litre hybrid pot still (with two ten-plate columns) and engaging just the first column and five plates – the juice comes off the still at around 58% ABV, and set to age for about two years in first-use bourbon barrels imported from the USA, with a further year in high-char (#3) American oak barrels. Bottling is done after dilution to 45% ABV, and there you have it. New rum. Made just like the old rum.

Let’s start with the nose. Some of the same richness of aroma attended the first sniff, though here, instead of leading with the wine profile, what I got was more of a spice forward smell: vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom, a trace of nutmeg. It was also slightly more woody, had some sawdust notes, and gradually showed off warm pastries dusted with icing sugar fresh out of the oven. Cherries in sweet syrup, black grapes, raisins, bitter chocolate, and even a touch of ice cream, finished things off, so on that score, it compared well with B#3..except for one thing: somehow, it was not as richly pungent, or as intense as I recalled.

The taste there is something of the same issue I had had before: it was thinner and, in fact, here it almost seemed snide, a trifle bitchy. There were fruits, vanilla, chocolate oranges, some crushed almonds, molasses and touch of citrus. But it was all something of a disorganised mishmash – the nose really had more elegance than what the palate was demonstrating. After trying it a few times I noticed cashews, honey and bitter chocolate (again), and the spiced pungency of a German glühwein on a particularly cold winter day in the Weihnachtsmarkt. And lastly, something that would make Mrs. Caner swoon if she sensed it, the aromatic hint of a brand new soft leather purse (the expensive kind). The finish was short and none too demonstrative, being content to repeat these notes – rather fewer of them, in fact – and letting the whole thing expire without fuss or memory.

(c) Boatrocker Distillery, picture from their website

Surprisingly, I was less impressed this go-around than I had been with the previous iteration, although since my other sample remains in Germany I could not compare them directly (but I have extensive files, so…). Very much like before, I enjoyed the nose the most, with a gradually decreasing appreciation for the stages after that. Part of it is simply the integration, the way the components all came together…or didn’t. It seemed there were a lot of interesting pieces on display – fruits, woody tannins, spices, sweet, a touch of sour – but somehow they had a failure to communicate. With Batch #3 I suggested it was something of a work in progress with room for improvement to realise its potential. The jury remains out on that, especially with respect to this one.

(#1070)(80/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Company notes (from Review #905)

The distillery and brewery called Boatrocker (with what I am sure is representative of a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour shared by many Aussies) is another small family-run outfit located in Melbourne, a mere 50km or so north of JimmyRum. It was officially founded in 2009, and like many other such small enterprises I’ve written about, their genesis is far older: in this case, in the 1980s, when the (then teenaged) founder, Matt Houghton, was enthused by the Michael Jackson (no, not that Michael Jackson) show “The Beer Hunter” – this led to a lifelong love of beer, homebrewing, studies of the subject in University, and even gypsy brewing after graduation, which he and his wife Andrea did while saving pennies for a “real” brewery. In 2012 they acquired property, plant and equipment (as the bean counters like to say), and established their first barrel room and cellar door, all to do with beer.

They soon gained an enthusiastic following and a good reputation for their beers, but where’s the rum, you ask. Well, that’s where things get a little murky and several sources have to be consulted over and above the company webpage. In short, in 2017 Boatrocker merged with a Western Australian gin-and-vodka distillery called Hippocampus — the investing owner of that distillery had taken a 33% share in Boatrocker in 2015 — uprooted that company’s hybrid still “Kylie” and moved lock stock and barrels to Melbourne. This is what is making all the distilled spirits in Boatrocker now, though I get the impression that a separate team is involved. They produce gin (several varieties, of course), whiskey, vodka and two rums (one is spiced). Oddly, there’s no unaged white in the portfolio, but perhaps they made enough money off of existing spirits, so that the need to have a white cane spirit was not seen to be as important. On the other hand, rum may not seem to be the main attraction of the company so perhaps that explains it.

Other notes

  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar, Day 3

Bumbu XO Blended Panamanian Rum – Review

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May 032024
 

Sooner or later, even those rums that many regard as no more than the mangy spirituous curs, the spavined, rice-eating, lice-ridden mongrels of the rum world, need to be acknowledged. We all know who makes them, and who they are. To those who dislike them, they yap at the doorsteps of the rumhouse with an incessant sort of insistence day in and day out, and are dissed and dismissed with sneers and contempt at every turn. And yet there are those who swear by them with truculent blue collar appreciation as well: such rums have always existed, and have always invited disputation. They are part of the Great Rum Tree, and must be acknowledged at some point, if only to demonstrate what they are and why they elicit such strong reactions.

Bumbu, in spite of the suggestive narrative on their website, is not a distillery, it’s a brand owned by Sovereign Spirits which also owns similarly hyped and marketed sparkling wines, gins, liqueurs and three Bumbu products, two of which pass for rums with only the greatest of generosity. They are all aimed squarely at the cocktail crowd and show off slick press, cool looking bottles, celebrity endorsements, and make absolutely no imprint on the minds of those who actually know their drinks. And who is Sovereign? A family owned spirits company from NY founded in 1999 by ex-merchant banker and entrepreneur Brett Berish, with a wide marketing footprint around the world.

To understand exactly what excites the reactions to the brand that it does, one has to go back to the Original (which I’ve tried but never written about). This was a rum that emerged around 2017 or so and was supposedly made from a Barbados distillery in existence “since 1893”, which is to say, WIRD. Serge of WhiskyFun, in a savagely eviscerating review that awarded a contemptuous 15 points to this 35% “rum” (it is now marketed as being spiced, though it was not at the time) remarked that it was blended with other countries’ rums but I’ve seen no other corroboration of this claim. At 35% ABV and testing out at 40g/L of added sugar and tarnished by all the subsequent bad press WIRD’s owners got, and its undisclosed additives, it was no surprise that connoisseurs avoided it like the plague. Yet so popular did the rum prove – let’s face it, easy and non-complex and tarted-up spirits are catnip to those who just want to get hammered on something that tastes ok – that a mere couple of years later, the XO came on the scene.

The XO boasted the same slick marketing. Originating from Panama this time, words like “premium” “craft” “by hand” “artisanal” “120 year old distillery” and “18 years” were tossed around, the presentation was first rate and was competitively priced. No mention has ever been made about a solera style system (which is suspected by many since 18 YO rums do not usually got for €40), but parsing the language finds the usual weasel words of “up to 18 years old” on some websites, which nails it as a blend about which we therefore know nothing — especially the proportions — except that it comes from Don Jose distillery, is columnar still and made from molasses in the Latin/Spanish style. Aged in ex-bourbon and finished in sherry barrels. Being issued at 40% is, I guess, a step up for the producers, who trumpeted it as “full strength.” Right, But in an interesting turnaround, my hydrometer clocks this at 38.25% ABV…or 8g/L of something added, which is not a whole lot – it may be that they’ve been revamping the blend somewhat of later, who knows?

So, with all this introduction out of the way: does it work or not, and is it a “boring” piece of blah, as Wes Burgin remarked in his own 1½ star 2019 review?

Yes and no. It’s way better than the oversweet mess that was the banana confected coconut-tasting Original I recall from a traumatic tasting a few years ago. It’s crisper on the nose, with elements of banana, damp tobacco, ginger, molasses, brown sugar, coffee, vanilla and caramel. All the usual hits are playing, in other words. The additives are there, while fortunately having a less than overwhelming impact in how it smells.

It’s on the palate that it fails, I think. Here there’s much less to enjoy. Tannins, coffee grounds, caramel and vanilla, some molasses and sweet cherries…even the faintest hint of astringency. It’ll bite at the tongue somewhat, sure: what starts to happen as it opens up, however, is that the sugar (or whatever else they added in to smoothen things out) begins to flatten out the peaks and troughs of what could have been a much more interesting rum if left to develop on its own without it. It just starts to feel vaguely one dimensional after a few minutes and adding in “a single ice cube” as the web entry suggests is ludicrously self defeating — it closes up the drink so you get even less than before. The finish is almost nonexistent, whispering of ginger, coffee, tannins and tumeric, but honestly, it’s slim picking by this point.

Summing up, there’s some bite here, quite welcome and as the notes above demonstrate, you can sink your teeth into it and enjoy it…up to a point. I’m not sure making it stronger would help, frankly, there’s simply too little to work with. Moreover, as with many such rums made in this way, there’s no sense of originality or something that would make you sit up and take notice. It could come from anywhere, be made by anyone, and exists to sell not to enjoy.

So: no real information on bottle or website; no age statement that can be trusted; flashy pizzazz and marketing; a profile that’s indifferent; standard strength; not a whole lot to be tasting. It’s the sort of entry-level rum that’s made to move by the cartload, and evidently it does. For those who actually know their rums or care that they are well made, it’s a product that is content to be boring, I guess, and one they would be happy to pass by for that reason. Rightfully so in my view, because there’s too little here to make even that low price seriously attractive.

(#1069)(76/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Hampden Estate 2016 5YO LROK “The Younger” Jamaican Rum – Review

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Feb 232024
 

By now little needs to be said about Hampden Estate, the famed Jamaican distillery that had its coming out party in 2018, a distribution deal with Velier, and a seemingly a new series of rums to collect just about every single year. For all its variety though, their presentation is pretty consistent and you can usually tell one at a glance just by looking at a label. Said labels conforming to all the usual Velier standards, and providing pretty much all the background details you could hope for.

In this case we’re dealing with five year old rum released in 2021 and before you ask, it’s called “The Younger” to distinguish it from the Hampden 2010 11 YO LROK also issued in the same year (which is not named, but which we shall call — obviously — “The Older”). The fermentation time is not mentioned, but we can assume a few weeks, using natural or “wild” yeasts; pot still distillation on double retort stills; aged in ex bourbon barrels with a 34% angel’s share. And diluted down to 47% (as an aside, I’ve seen a label on a 3L jug at 49% but either it’s a misprint or substantially the same as this one) with an ester count for those who like their numbers, of 314.8 g/hLpa. This places the LROK (“Light Rum Owen Kelly”) in the lower levels and the Wedderburn category (only the OWH and LFCH are lower) and also makes the rum extremely approachable without going off the shredding deep end of the higher ester marks.

In spite of the “low” congener count, the rum represents itself well, starting with the open, which sports a serious set of sharp, distinct, funky aromas. Rubber, plastic, kerosene, fusel notes…rough and assertive stuff, which is about what we could expect from a youngish rum, tropically aged or not. It turns a little briny, then channels some citrus, flambeed bananas, yeasty bread, overripe pineapples, cherries, bubble gum. There are even some hints of coffee grounds and the metallic tinge of an ashtray that hasn’t been cleaned.

For 47% that nose isn‘t half bad (if occasionally discombobulated); the palate is in similar territory but here the strength may — surprisingly enough — be a bit too anaemic for finer appreciation. It’s thin and sharpish (not to its benefit, I don’t think), and astringent. It has flavours that in turn are sweet, salt and sour…which is nice, but not always well coordinated, and one has to watch the sharpness. So – bubble gum, strawberries, citrus (red grapefruit), pineapples, vanilla, and some bitter coffee grounds. Once it quietens down – and it does – it gets better because the roughness also smoothens out somewhat, without ever really losing its character. Finish is decent: fruity, funky and some honey, plus cinnamon, cloves and maybe a touch of vanilla and pineapple chunks.

A lot of comments I found about this rum compliment its taste and smell and assure their readers that it’s a true Hampden, representing Jamaica in fine style. Yet almost all have various modifiers and cautions, and many compare it in some way to one of three rums from Hampden: the high-ester versions from the same distillery, the Great House series, and the backbone of the company, the 8 YO standard. Oh, and almost everyone mentions or grumbles about the price.

This is completely understandable since a frame of reference is usually needed to place a rum in context – such comparisons are therefore useful, if ultimately pointless: trying to say one is better or worse than any other is entirely a matter of personal taste, really. And you either like it you don’t, can afford it or can’t, will buy it on that basis or won’t. As a middle of the road ester-level rum, I myself believe it’s a decent young rum, made in quantity with the usual Hampden quality, but not with anything really special tacked on that distinguishes it as superlative for its bracket. I’d buy the first bottle for sure: and would likely pass on a second after I finish sharing it around. I call that a qualified endorsement.

(#1059)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Archie Rose Distilling Co. “White Cane” Batch #2 Unaged Rum (Australia) – Review

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Feb 162024
 

“Oh wow!” I wrote with a sort of delighted and startled surprise when first nosing Archie Rose’s 40% white rum they called White Cane. I had not tried anything from the distillery before – indeed, I knew very little about it — but the rich and oily scent of a mechanic’s shop fumigated with vanilla flavoured acetones was really not what I had expected as an opening salvo. And it didn’t stop there, because the seeming light ‘n’ easy aromas it started out with contained quite a bit more oomph than was initially apparent – once it opened it up it was brine, olives, ripe and watery fruits, lots of pears and papaya, figs and persimmons, even a hint of caramel and some sweet yet tart apple cider. The nose displayed a thickness and depth that was quietly impressive – one does not often see this kind of profile in a standard proof rum very often.

Putting down my glass, I looked curiously at the sample label. Who was is this outfit? What was behind the name? Was it a left-handed nod to WW1 ack-ack fire, maybe, or a hat tip to Riverdale and the comics? An old but forgotten relative, perhaps, or a gone-to-seed second eleven cricket player from the past who nobody except the owners remembered?

Apparently not. Some references suggest that “Archie” was a slang word, a pseudonym for an underground distilling bootlegger at a time in the 1800s when the temperance movement was ascendant in Australia and distillation was illicit, if not quite illegal; and since the founder, Will Edwards established the distillery in its first location in Rosebery, an inner suburb of south Sidney, the name seemed a good fit. A more prosaic alternative is that the neighbourhood itself was named after an uninspiring and obscure 19th century British PM, Archibald Primrose, and the distillery took the contracted form of his name, so take your pick.

Anyway, it was apparently the first new distillery in the city since 1853 (one wonders what the previous one was) and comprised of several Italian made fermentation tanks (named after rappers), and three hand built gas-powered steam-boiler-heated 3600-litre pot stills made by Peter Bailey, who at the time was the country’s only still maker. It was mostly family financed, and sported a very good bar right next to the distillery to help make ends meet.

“White Cane” was and remains the company’s only unaged rum (there are some experimentals coming as well, however), and it’s interesting that they went with that name instead of the near universal “cane spirit” moniker everyone else has been using over there. The source cane came from Condong up in NSW just south of Brisbane, so the molasses likely originated from the Condong Sugar Mill, and the wash blended two kinds of molasses – high test and B-grade — fermented with two different yeasts for 4-16 days, then run through their main and pilot still at least twice, with part being “cold” (or vacuum) distilled.

That fermentation and complex distillation was probably why the taste, as well as the nose, had enough chops to excite some curiosity, if not outright enthusiasm. It presented like a crisp, tangy, citrus-like 7-up, with green apples, pineapples, ripe pears on the edge of going off, red grapes and a subtle bite of ginger. The nose, I felt, was better, but for the taste to be this interesting at 40% did demonstrate that the awards the rum won (three so far) was not mere happenstance or flinging medals at everything that turned up. The palate continued to provide subtle and almost delicate notes: white chocolate, crushed walnuts some mint, fennel, sweet coconut shavings and some faint mustier cardboard notes, leading to a short, easy, sweet and spicy finish redolent of cinnamon and ginger and papaya. Nice.

Names and origins aside, currently the distillery boasts five different rums (and fifteen whiskies, ten gins, four vodkas and various other alcoholic products, lest you err in thinking their focus is on the Noble Spirit). Their origin was, and remains primarily in, whisky, for which they have won oodles of awards, and boosted their cash flow so well that in 2020 they were able to float A$100 million financing to move to Banksmeadow, a few kilometres south of the original location, leaving Rosebery to be a sort of visitor’s area for tours, classes and other events. Two massive new pot stills were also installed allowing production to be significantly increased.

As always, there is the downside that such a wide variety of spirits production dilutes focus on any single one. Not something I can blame a distillery for, since making payroll, paying rent and expanding the business is what it’s about, but lessening the attention that can be paid to developing and improving one product. Clearly whisky is the core business and everything orbits that priority (my opinion); and we must be careful not to over-romanticize the myth of the Great Little Solo Distiller Working in Obscurity, since commercial enterprises do make good juice, and not always by accident or as throwaways. Recent “Heavy Cane,” “Virgin Cane” and other experimental rums Archie Rose is playing with point to a committed and interested distilling team that wants to do more than just make another supermarket rum.

The White Cane, even at 40%, is pretty good and that’s an endorsement I don’t give often. I think the panoply of tastes — admittedly delicate and occasionally too faint and hard to pick apart — play well together, don’t overstay their welcome or allow any one element to hog the show, and provide a nice drinking experience. Sometimes just as much work goes into an unaged spirit as an aged one — perhaps more since there’s no backstop of ageing to improve anything so what comes off the still had better be ready — and it’s clear the distiller paid attention to the entire production process to provide both mixing and sipping chops. One can only hope the distillery expands the range and ups the proof, because then not only would it likely garner even more awards, but I’d be able to bug Steve Magarry yet again…to get me a whole bottle, not just a sample.

(#1058)(83/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar, Day 7. This is Batch #2 from 2023. Batch #1 was introduced in 2022
  • Production notes from company webpage.

Savanna Rhum Traditionnel Vieux 2004 9 YO “Intense” (Porto) – Review

 1 Response »
Feb 122024
 

It’s about time to clear up a backlog of older tasting notes that have been shoved to the back by newer and more exciting releases, and so for the next few weeks we’ll try to push some reviews of older expressions out the door. Today we’re going to go back and look at Savanna, that Reunion based distillery which has had a fair amount of good press over the last five years, though perhaps more remaining more popular and well known in Europe than the Americas.

What distinguishes Savanna is the range of what they make. Many distilleries have ranges that are steps of the quality ladder: some have lightly aged and filtered white rums, and cheaper mass-market blends made for mixing, for the budget-minded cost-conscious proles. The next rung would be rums aged up to maybe five or six years, costing a bit more but still affordable to most, moving slightly away from the cocktail circuit without entirely entering the sipping area. Once they get to double figures, say 10-15 years or so, it’s getting premiumised and more to have without mixing, and after 18 years, say, it’s entering rarefied territory. Around this price point are also found special editions, millesimes, limited blends, single barrel releases, commemoratives and other fancy releases that go north of three figures easy. These days secondary maturations or finishes are pretty much found on all levels (except the unaged whites for obvious reasons).

Savanna stands out in that it makes rums from both molasses and cane juice, instantly doubling the potential variety it makes. Just to keep all the permutations clear is probably why they have all those names for their rums: the “Intense” series are molasses-based and relatively low on esters, hence their being named “starter rums;” the “Lontans” (also called grand arôme rums) which are also from molasses but with longer fermentations and with a high resultant ester count; there are also the “Créol” rhums which are straightforward rhum agricoles, made from fresh sugar cane juice; and the “Métis” rums which are a blend of traditionnelle and agricole. Millesimes, fancy finishes and special editions at all strengths pepper their output as well.

From the above, then, you can get a clear picture of what this rums is: a molasses based low-ester blended rum, laid to rest in 2004, aged for 9 years in ex-cognac casks and then finished in a porto cask, released at 46%. These days that’s the spec for a really decent rum, but in 2014 when this came out, they called it a starter, which shows something of how much the world has moved on, and may be why so few reviews of it exist out there.

Compared to some of the other Savanna rums tried in this lineup, the nose of this 46% rum presents as nuttier and slightly fruitier (strawberries, mild pineapple, cherries); there is a light aroma of acetones and nail polish wafting around and it’s very tart and pleasant…though I’m not sure I could pick it out of a lineup if tried blind. After some time we have caramel and blancmange and toffee, swiss bonbons, vanilla, and a strong Irish coffee (used to love those as a young man). There is a dry wine-y note in the background, and some slightly bitter tannics reminiscent of pencil sharpener leftovers, none of it particularly excessive, more like a soft exclamation point to the main thrust of the nose.

The palate is somewhat of a letdown: I’ve been whinging about the mild inoffensive anonymity of 40% rums lately, so it’s surprising to find a rum six points higher providing so little character on its own account. It’s light, watery and sharp and none too impressive. Honey, nuts, dry pastries, toffee oatmeal cookies – it’s like a breakfast cereal with some extras thrown in. A bit salty and creamy here and there as the tasting goes on, with red grapes, pancakes, caramel, light molasses and some coffee grounds making their appearance, and they all vanish quickly in a short, sharp finish made exceptional only by its brevity.

Overall, this is something of a disappointment, coming as it does from a distillery which makes some really impressive drams. Overall, one must concede that it’s not completely delinquent in taste – it does have aspects that are well done, and the assembly is decent: you will get a reasonable sip out of it. It’s just there isn’t enough on stage for the €90 it goes for, it’s all quite simple and light… and one is left with the question of whether this is a poor man’s sipper or an indifferent high-end rum that got made too fast and issued too early. The fact that Savanna ended up releasing several 12 YO editions from the 2004 distillery outturn (including a grand arome I thought was superlative) suggests the latter may hit closer to the mark.

(#1057)(80/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • This is part of a collection of Savanna rhums Nico Rumlover sent me some time ago when he heard I was interested, long enough back for him to conceivably have forgotten he did so. Well, whether he remembers or not, I’m immensely grateful for the time he took to crate me a great selection of what the distillery can do.
  • There are several 2004 Porto Finish single barrel editions out there: I have found two Lontans from different barrels, one eight and one nine years old, this 9YO Intense and a couple of 12YO editions. I’m sure there a few others.
  • Distilled April 2004, aged 9 years; outturn 1327 bottles. Initially I supposedly the notation of the barrel number (#973) was what it was aged in, but observed there was also a 2004 12YO which also has cask #973 marked on it and that one has an outturn of 1480 bottles. Facebook netizen Jizeus Christ Guitare set me straight by informing me this was the number of the Porto cask, which makes more sense, as it could reasonably be used multiple times. Given the outturn one wonders whether it’s a port pipe or other large cask.
  • For further reading on Savanna, I wrote a too-brief historical backgrounder on the distillery, here. A more recent visit to Reunion with a tour of the distillery was described by Rum Revelations in 2022.

Bayou White Louisiana Rum (USA) – Review

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Jan 282024
 

Consider for a moment the distinctive bottle shape and sleek label design ethos of the Bayou Louisiana white rum. The crystal clear white and green1 motifs (call me an overly-visual imagineer if you will) hints at cane juice, grass, and sunshine and channels thoughts of a clean and tasty white rum in fine style. Just as well that this is all in my head because while the text tells you the usual stats, little of the images and sense of what they represent, is real.

The company making the rum is called Louisiana Spirits LLC: it was founded in 2011 by brothers Tim and Trey Litel and their friend Skip Cortes, with Bayou as their flagship brand in January 2013 (the idea had been floated in a duck blind). The chosen name was obvious (and survey-tested for its recognition factor, as if this were necessary), and back then the design had a ‘gator on it. By 2018 in a rebranding exercise it had been renamed “White” and the modern design had snapped into focus. The wag in me suggests that maybe more surveys were done but actually that’s when the SPI Group (the owners of Stoli vodka and headquartered in Luxembourg) who had already bought a majority stake in 2016, acquired all the remaining shares and took over. Some still tout it as being the largest privately owned rum distillery in the US, which I guess depends on how you look at it and where the private hands are.

Anyway, the production details: those are scanty. The label says it’s made from molasses and “sugar cane” (what does that mean, I wonder?); the company website notes the molasses as being blackstrap, provided by a family-owned sugar mill in Louisiana, M.A. Patout and Sons (whose centuries-old history is quite interesting in its own right), yet don’t seem to have any interest in making cane juice rums in the one state which has oodles of cane fields in close proximity. They have a pot still. They blend. The white rum supposedly rests for forty days before being bottled. That’s it.

Based on how it samples, I wonder at that last bit — because all the solid character of a rum that’s had nothing but “rest” to calm it down off the still, is missing. The rum is a whole lot of standard strength nothing-in-particular. The nose channels a puling sort of weak candied ethanol, vanilla, watered down yoghurt (is there such a thing?) plus a whiff of shoe polish, sugar water and the faintest suggestion of pears and watermelon. This is a glass I poured first thing in the morning when the senses were sharp, kept there for an entire day, and that flaccid set of notes was all that was there the whole time.

There’s a bit more action on the plate, though I confess that this is damning it with faint praise since it started from such a low level already. Some sweet gherkins, a touch of tart fruit, biscuits, more ethanol and sugar water. I thought I spotted a green grape making out with a ripe pear at one stage, but admit this could be my imagination, the whole thing is is so faint and lacklustre. The finish is actually not too bad – it has some sharpness and dry robust character, and here one can get a vague sense of apples, green grapes and vanilla. Overall, however, it’s too little, too faint, too late and simply serves to demonstrate how everything that comes before is sub-par.

The Rumaniacs series boasts many examples of anonymous inflight minis, holiday-resort stalwarts and cruise ship staples exactly like it, and maybe that’s all this is really good for, because it channels the sort of bland, lightly aged, filtered, colourless mixers that Bacardi did with such aplomb in the seventies. Bayou continues this noble tradition, and lures you in with a great presentation bolted on to a taste that’s inoffensively boring and milquetoast, and so devoid of character, that one is, with genuine befuddlement, forced ask what they thought they were doing. If Bayou were trying to make a light vodka-like spirit, or a standard white back-bar mixer without pretensions, then they surely succeeded. If they were trying to make a white that wowed people’s socks off and put the US rum producers on the map, not even close.

(#1053)(72/100) ⭐⭐½

Other Notes

  • From my experience, I would suggest the rum is slightly aged and filtered to white, even if this is not mentioned anywhere.
  • Although taken over by SPD, much of the original staff seem to have remained involved, especially the head distiller, blender and even the owners.
  • Video review can be found here.

Opinion

While for most average rum drinkers or rum buyers the disclosure on production mentioned above is enough, for my money that’s not even basic information. Fermentation is not mentioned; abv off the still is not disclosed; no photo of the still is on the website; and the ageing program is never discussed, which is to say, is the rum treated a la Bacardi with one or two year’s ageing and then filtered to white, or is a true unrefined white such as are increasing in popularity and which actually taste like a rum, not alcoholic water?

None of this is considered important enough to either mention on their website, in any of their many press releases, or interviews in the media. To me, it says a lot for what the rum truly is: a commercially and indifferently distilled product with no pretensions to being anything more. I don’t hold any grudges on this account, but what’s the big deal about mentioning it? Own your sh*t ,and don’t dress it up like something it’s not.

Still, one can only admire their expansion. The company stated it was moving 15,000 cases a year in seven states by the time Stoli approached them at the tail end of 2015, which is an incredible feat to have accomplished in three years, when you think about what the market in the US is like — one can conclude either it’s because of their great product or their great distributor or great marketing.

But I am of the belief that no producer or distiller who is truly proud of the product they make, tells you so little about it while dressing up their bottle so smartly…or disposes of their interest so fast. The fact that they sold out less than five years after they began suggests that money was always the motive, not making a really good white rum that would put Bayou on any list of great American rum producers. And I think that’s something of a shame.

 

Romero Distilling Co. Sherry Finished Amber Rum (Canada) – Review

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Jan 192024
 

Although I tried all three standard expressions of the Romero Distilling Co. at the Rocky Mountain Food and Drink show in Calgary in 2023, I had already bought all of them before, and this came in useful when double checking my quickly scribbled notes on the “Amber.” That was the one which I had almost bypassed in favour of the “Dark” and the extraordinary full proof Sherry Cask edition — which I still think is one of the best Canadian rums I’ve had to date.

A quick recap: the Calgary-based Romero Distilling Company was founded in 2018 by Diego Romero, an engineer who opened the distillery with his son Tomas (it was the latter who was running the booth that day), with a 2000-litre hybrid copper still and three 2000-litre fermenters; they use Crosby molasses from Guatemala (by way of New Brunswick) as its base, together with a commercial yeast. The company only makes rum, and remain very little known outside Alberta…which I’m hoping will change.

This rum derives from molasses, then, and is dialled in from a pot still configuration. We have no information on the duration of the distillation date, fermentation process, or the exact age of the resulting distillate. As far as I know, it’s a couple of years old (aged in ex bourbon Woodford Reserve barrels), with a relatively short time in the ex-Oloroso sherry barrels…a few months, perhaps – neither data point is provided. I am at a loss why such information is not placed front and centre on the label or the web page, since it would seem to be an obvious selling point, but Romero has stated that they want to de-emphasize the number-counting people do when considering ageing as a factor, and focus on the blend as a whole. As before, I think this is not the right course of action in today’s more open world. But that’s Romero, so let’s move on to what it’s actually like.

The nose starts off by being rather thin and uninviting, which is not unusual for a 40% rum, and it does present as somewhat alcohol forward without much that’s redeeming…until it starts to build up a head of steam. Then we get some plastic, plasticine, iodine and licorice, which is nice, and toffee, caramel, vanilla and brown sugar, which is better. As it opens up there are additional hints of new leather shoes, some spicy notes (cinnamon, maybe, and cardamom), and a peculiar, faint combination of fresh sawdust and peaches in syrup, all very delicate.

Much of this comes back on the palate when tasted. There’s some slightly sweet alcohol, glue, fly paper (I swear!), cardboard, hay and a milk-soaked long-standing bowl of weetabix. With some effort — the rum remains faint throughout and one really has to pay attention — there are also red olives and raspberries, but not a whole lot more. The finish, no surprise, is short and thin, but very clean and a little sweet. Not too bad.

Eschewing spices — supposedly it didn’t have any — and going for the sherry finish was probably a good idea, because really, the rum would be thin gruel without it. That finish saves it from being some kind of light 1970s throwback of the kind I’ve learned to endure (but not particularly like), and there’s enough going overall on for those with more sensitive snoots than mine to be able to sip it without undue issues.

For my money, however, the rum is too weak and it’s too faint, and that’s in spite of the sherry finish that provides such an intriguing but hard-to-sense counterpoint to the familiar vanilla and butterscotch notes coming from the ex-bourbon barrels. There’s potential here, and one can sense a better, stronger and more assertive rum waiting to emerge. It’s just not enough, and if we really wanted to see this thing cranked up, well, I guess then we’d call it the full proof edition, wouldn’t we, and it’s already established that that is the better rum. So for those who want to play it safe, save fifteen bucks and have a decent drink, this is the rum that will do the trick. For everyone else, it’ll be slim pickings.

(#1051)(75/100) ⭐⭐½

Island Coast Spirits “Island Coast” Tasmanian Rum – Review

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Jan 152024
 

Once again we start the new year off with a series of rums from the Australian Advent Calendar, 2023 Edition. First issued by the Australian rum-loving couple Mr. & Mrs. Rum in 2021, not in 2022 and now again for 2023, it answers what we out west have been wondering about for years (well…at least I have) – what’s going on with the rums being made in Australia over and beyond Bundaberg, which everyone cheerfully loathes and Beenleigh which everyone likes? Twenty four rums in the calendar, a whole raft of new and old distilleries strutting their stuff, and let me tell you, to get them to Canada was a ripping yarn in itself…not entirely unlike Butch’s father’s watch, you could say.

We begin the series out of order, with a rum from the island of Tasmania, made by a little outfit called Island Coast Spirits, located just south of Hobart, the state capital (Tasmania is an island state of Australia). It is, it should be noted, not a distillery itself since it has no equipment. The owner, Kirk Pinner, runs over to the Observatory Hill Winery (about half an hour to the NE on the other side of Hobart) which (a) is run by a friend (b) makes rum (and brandy, gin, schnapps and wine) and (c) has a still. He rents that still and makes his own rum, so not quite a contract operation like we saw with Mandakini a few weeks ago, yet not entirely a true producer or an indie either. The website is rather scanty on details, so Kirk very kindly answered an email of mine providing some of this info, and a brief company bio is provided below.

For the purposes of this review, what we need to know is the following: the rum is made on a pot still, using a combination of fermented raw cane juice and molasses…so a hybrid rum if there ever was one. Once off the still it is aged in ex-Bourbon barrels with a light char, for something just under three years and bottled at living room strength of 40%.

“[My desire was…] to produce the spirits I wanted,” Kirk wrote to me, and clearly he had something easygoing in mind. Not some backyard snarling ester-sporting beefcake that stomped all over one’s glottis, just a rum that was easy and accessible. The nose confirmed that he did fairly okay with that: it smelled of delicate icing sugar, vanilla, pastries hot from the oven, as well as more standard caramel, swiss bon-bons and a light touch of molasses and brown sugar. Also some cinnamon, eggnog, ice cream, a relatively sweetish aroma, and all over soft and straightforward and simple.

The 40% ABV made for a clean and unaggressive entry; it tasted pleasantly warm and a little sweet and came completely without aggro. Vanilla and caramel and toffee carried over from the nose. A few sweetish fruit – peaches, pears – nothing too acidic or tart. Molasses, a hot caramel macchiato, flambeed bananas, icing sugar on a cake fresh out of the oven, leading serenely to a short, finish that summed up the preceding without adding much that was new.

Picture (c) Island Cost Spirits FB Page

It’s a nice little rumlet without undue pretensions, but that same easy going nature is something of a weak point for those who like their rums more assertive. There are amber Bacardis with more going on than we see here, and I had similar remarks (and reservations) about Killik’s Gold, where I noted that such low ABV hamstrings a rum that could be better a few points higher. But that said, it will work for some, because it’s simply not trying hard to be a game changer…just a soft breezy rum for easy sipping. On that level it succeeds, and the awards it’s racked up in its brief life – a silver medal at the 2022 Australian Rum Awards in Queensland, and another silver at the World Rum Awards in London in 2023 (pot still NAS category) – suggests that others certainly seem to like what the company is offering, my own reservations notwithstanding.

(#1050)(77/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • Fermentation time, barrel size, ratio of sugar cane juice to molasses, outturn, are all unknown
  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar, Day 4

Brief Historical bio

Island Coast Spirits is, as noted, a Tasmanian spirits maker (not a distillery). It was founded in October 2021 and has adhered to the principle of making their spirits on a third party’s distillation apparatus — a pot still — from the beginning. This was a conscious decision made at the inception: Kirk Pinner knew when he began planning, that he did not want the significant overheads and costs/debt associated with setting up his own distillery. He wanted the flexibility to not have all that headache but to be able to concentrate on his own desires and strengths: namely to have the ability to take on projects/new spirits on a whim without worrying about the infrastructure; and to focus more on the business relationships, ingredients, selection of barrels, blending and back end work. To that end he turned to those with some expertise (like Observatory Hill Winery) and used their skills to make his spirits.

In the three years since he began, the company now makes seven different products: Vodka, Rum, Gin and Whisky, and three flavoured vodkas. So far there is just one rum in the portfolio – this one – with another very interesting one in the pipeline waiting to be released sometime in 2024. In the meantime, the distribution within Tasmania and on the mainland is good, and Kirk is building on his success (and awards) to take his juice on the road to various F&B trade expos in Asia to promote the island, the brand and the rum.

 

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