Bundaberg Reserve Rum – Review

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Oct 092011
 

First posted October 9th, 2011 on Liquorature

I have a feeling I’m going to catch some flak for this review, of a rum I know many think is the bastard offspring of a low quality formaldehyde mixed with a crazy paint stripper and the stinking armpit of a sweaty canecutter at noon.  Short version – miles better than its low-bred coz from the sticks.

Full disclosure: I absolutely detested the original low end Bundaberg Rum, and even Aussies with whom I’ve occasionally been in contact seem to despise the rum most indelibly linked with their land. It was a raw, nasty, foul tasting morals charge, a rum so way off base it was in Mongolia, with a taste so different you found yourself clutching what remained of your tonsils and crying like a baby after merely one sip. My squaddie the Bear probably still as that original bottle from two years ago in his pantry, never opened or sampled again. Stefan Hartvingson, of that excellent website tastersguide, thought that even the Reserve, a step or two up, was not as good as his wife’s nail polish remover.

Therefore it was with some trepidation that I forked out forty bucks for the Bundaberg Reserve when I saw it. You might reasonably ask why I bothered. Well, partly it was curiosity, and partly it was so I could give it a shot (so to speak) and see what it was all about. It couldn’t really be as bad as the entry level, could it? And how could I call myself a reviewer of rums if all I did was go after what everyone else said was good and never went off the reservation myself…where’s the intellectual honesty in that?

Bundie has been around since 1888 when several small operations in Queensland combined to form the Bundaberg Distilling Company, which has been in operation (more or less) ever since – fires caused a cessation in production in 1907 to 1914, and again in 1936 to 1939. The Polar Bear mascot was introduced in the 1960s to signify Bundie’s ability to ward off the coldest chill, and Diageo bought the entire concern in 2000.

With respect to the 40% rum itself here is not much real information about the Reserve. According to the company website, it’s a blend taken from vats which seem to be maturing very nicely, and are reserved for some ageing in oaken casks and subsequent bottling and marketing as something more high end.  Supposedly released in June 2009, only 5,000 bottles. There’s no age statement to be found anywhere, not any indication of how long the blend remains in the oak casks – from my own observation and experience, I’d hazard a guess it’s around five to seven years. The bottle is the standard slope- shouldered, simply-labelled bottle. Tinfoil cap…utilitarian but effective, so no great fancy cork nonsense for this baby.

There  was an earthy, musty nose of truffles and damp earth when fresh rain hits it, to start one off – immediately you get the picture: this is not the normal rum one is used to, all caramels and burnt sugar.  Behind that initial scent I got pineapple, some fleshy fruits, with a faint nuttiness coiling around it all, and the expected brown sugar notes attending smartly.  Much better. The cloying turpentine and rotting fruit assault of the Bundie I had tried previously was dialled down so far as to make it a mild characteristic rather than the whole show of that variation. For something touted a ‘Reserve’ – usually seen as a cut above the ordinary – the arrival was a bit sharp and peppery, yet I got a clear “rum” taste of sugars and phenols that wasn’t bad – the weird thing is that the musty taste of the nose was nowhere in evidence.  Certainly there’s a piquancy to the Reserve – I couldn’t fault it too much for that, however, since the smoothness of the product was rather pleasant and not raw and raging as I had half-feared.  The finish was utterly unexceptional – short, sweet and spicy, and I can’t say I cared much for that – the taste was the best thing about this entry into the Bundie stable.

Bundaberg rum may be considered Australia’s signature spirit, but it’s a queer thing that Aussies themselves don’t seem to care much for it, unless one counts yobbos whose aggressive demeanour after a fair night’s enthusiastic duelling with the spirit has caused the company much embarrassment. Maybe most antipodean dwellers think they’re too good for it, or some such – it may be held in the sort of genteel contempt that King of Diamonds is in Guyana.

But truth to tell, this ain’t all bad, guys. It can be mixed or taken with water, or even (for those who really like something original) taken by itself, and here I should note that a certain smoky character emerges with a cola, and I really enjoyed that. Sometimes I come to a rum with low expectations and get surprised…this is one of those times. I came to sneer and stayed to write of my tolerable appreciation (and that was not a lightly given accolade, believe me). Bundaberg Rum is not the chippest kid on the block, and it won’t convince anyone who hates the other varieties to give it a try…but it’s better than the bad word of mouth has it. Not by an enormous margin…just enough that you notice it.

(#086. 77.5/100)

Momento Amber Rum – Review

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Oct 012011
 

Photo (c) Highwood Distillers

First posted 01 October 2011 on Liquorature

A strange rum from Alberta’s Highwood Distillery, Momento is aimed at the high end market without having the cojones to put its quality where its marketing leads it.  It’s clean texture and originality of make are its best features, but I can’t say it really works for me.

There are some cases where a distillery looking to go in a different direction begets some kind of bratty, youthful rum that dances on your tonsils and tries out its chubby biceps on your palate. Bruichladdich comes to mind, or the reblenders and rebranders like Gordon & MacPhail and A.D Rattray (whisky makers all, I sigh). Remember the Caroni 13 year old, the Renegade line, or even (bow head here) the Longpond 1941? Rums like those made you laugh with pleasure, and walk out the store clutching your prizes, with a cape, red boots and big friggin’ “S” stamped on your chest.

Highwood Distillers, alas, does not make the cut with this insouciant Momento rum. It aspires to the heights without trying to scale them, and yet, my inquiries with the company brought forth the comment that they really were aiming for the premium segment of the market. Take my word for it: this is not premium. Nice, inoffensive, original, different. But not top of the line by a long shot.

I must concede I liked the appearance of the bottle, with its transparent label and fancy lettering: there is a spartan simplicity to it which I appreciated. Long slender bottle, enveloping a clear, straw yellow rum topped off with a white cork. If nothing else, that certainly is pretty good.

My disappointment started with the nose. It was a sharp skewer though the schnozz, a cannibal’s bone through the septum, redolent of chemicals and paint thinner. Pungent, thin and grassy…almost like fresh hay. It reminded me of the play-doh in a badly maintained day care. The body (hinted at by swift sprinter’s legs that would make Usain Bolt weep with envy) was thin and unimpressive, tangy and medium sweet – I’ve tasted white wines with more body and depth. And the cloying medicinal properties of the nose followed the palate and arrived with the screaming tantara of a badly tuned clarinet, added to by a briny, almost seaweed like taste, a tad spicy and not particular sweet. Perhaps I sensed some caramel and citrus, but I’d be reaching if I said that with assurance. The rum’s one redeeming feature to me was a certain light clarity, a tight, clean texture on the palate which was a real pleasure to feel, if not to taste. The finish was also some consolation, short and smooth: delicate, light fumes caress your throat before bailing in labba time for the backdam.

So, I give it points for originality, but you’re getting my drift – this is definitely not my glass of the good stuff. I’m barely convinced it’s a rum, and I’m not the only online reviewer to make that observation: maybe because it’s a whisky distiller that makes it, it has many properties that would appeal more to a lover of the Scotches than the rums. As a mixer it is without doubt competent; as a sipper, I’m afraid it falls down flat. Thank God it was paid for: I’d feel real bad taking this as a free sample and then have these negative feelings about it. And yet its antecedents stem from Guyana, DDL stock to be exact, and after coming to Alberta, aged in charred oak barrels for an indeterminate time. Highwood remarked in an email to me that they make no age statements on the blend, and the Arctic Wolf thought it was six to eight years old, but my own take is that it’s quite a bit younger than that – it’s too raw, too rough for any kind of serious ageing and the oak makes almost no imprint on the taste buds.

Look, I’m not really in a bad mood or trying to be bitchy ‘cause it’s fun to write a negative review. What I want is rums to be taken seriously, and this one isn’t helping me any. When a distillery with a pretty good pedigree like Highwood Distillers makes a rum this odd and appears not to be taking the blending all that seriously (unlike their startlingly deep-flavoured Potter’s, which may be one of the best mixer’s extant in the bars of Calgary), I get the impression they’re just making this rum so they can round out their portfolio (maybe it’s because they have so many different spirits in their repertoire – 90-plus, according to their rep).

The Momento might, over a period of years, morph into something pretty cool and interesting, but as it stands, all it is is a snazzy bottle encasing a pale coloured, under-distilled rum wannabe without serious taste or body, and about the best thing I can say for it is that it’s original as all get out, has that clean texture, and goes better with a cola than Doorley’s. I didn’t think it was possible to best the Prince Myshkyn of the rum world at its own game, but with the Momento, you’ve got a winner on that score, however much of a loser it is at all the others.

(#079. 71/100)

Other Notes

  • Highwood Distillers was founded in 1974 and originally operated under the name ‘Sunnyvale’. In 1984, it was renamed ‘Highwood Distillers’ after the famous river and region in which it is located in the Canadian province of Alberta. It bought Potters Distillery in British Columbia in November 2005, and so the Potters Dark rum is part of their brand portfolio.
  • The core distillate of the Momento is imported Demerara rum but it is unknown how long it is aged for or which DDL still it comes from.

St. Nicholas Abbey 12 year old rum – Review

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Sep 022011
 

First posted 2nd September 2011 on Liquorature

A worthy successor to the 10 year old which was also expensive and extremely well made.  Succeeds, in my opinion, on just about every level: presentation, nose, taste, finish and aesthetics. This is the point where you start telling yourself maybe two hundred bucks may not really be that much to blow on a single rum…but ensure the spouse concurs.

You’ve got to hand it to the Abbey.  Not being content to rest on their laurels with the very excellent 10 year old I was so taken by, they issued the dark gold 12 year old limited edition rum, and built on all of its predecessor’s strengths.  This is not surprising since it was the remaining stocks of the ten which form the twelve (original barrels of the ten are now exhausted or aged past ten years).  And they have changed nothing except the rum itself: the etched square-shouldered bottle showing the Jacobean plantation house, mahogany tipped cork, the cheap cardboard box which Keenan so applauds, the thin wrapping paper with the company logo…all this remains the same.

St Nick’s, having emerged as a surprising new quality distillery in 2006 after the Warrens bought out the prior landholders, initially had R.L. Seale distil their product and then aged it themselves; though previously they had shopped around for stocks from all over Barbados and other places which to age in their first offerings, these days they are laying down stocks themselves using a newly acquired German distilling unit, and have impressive plans to increase their product line (I made some notes about this in the 8-yr old review if you’re interested).

“It’s not about what the movie is about,” remarked Roger Ebert once, “But how the movie is about it.”  By that standard, how should we discuss this rum?  By its nose, its flavour, its look, the bottle, the colour, how it’s distilled, blended, bottled…what? Having written enough prose about both the eight year old and the ten year old, how can I go on from there?

I could say, for example, that it is a modern day reimagining of Bajan styles of old, or that it originates from both pot and column stills, and is aged for 12 years in white oak barrels. I could add that it is made not from molasses but from concentrated cane syrup subsequently double-distilled to about 92% prior to ageing (unlike agricoles from the French terroires, which generally limit their distillation to 70% before barreling). Then I could go on: that it has a deep, rich, dark rich nose of currants and jam, cherries, peaches and fleshy ripe fruits, redolent of breakfast spices and a touch of caramel, and tastes of jasmine and hibiscus arrangements dusted with cinnamon.  But what does all this really tell you beyond dry facts you’re probably sick of and may not even agree with?  Not much.  What about taste, then? Would it make a difference if I noted its slightly salty-sweet tang, or its heavy body about on par with an ED 15, hints of banana and papaya melding gently into a buttery-soft mélange of fruit and brown sugar? And the long smooth, lasting finish that clutches your tonsils with the tenacity of a junkie clutching a five?

Maybe not.

So let me go off in a different direction for the more poetic among us.  This rum is a hug from your mother when you had a skinned knee and came home holding back tears — in the warm softness of her comfort, all good things came back and the hurt was forgotten.  The taste of this exquisite twelve year old is of a lazy Sunday breakfast with your first real lover after a good night before, and a great kiss after (substitute the word you’re thinking of), with french toast, hot strong coffee and the fixin’s melting in your mouth as you wolf it down in the warm morning sunlight of a great new day.  And the finish is redolent of the smooth feeling of power that envelops you when you win a hard fought battle – in the office or on the field or in the street – and deservedly bask in the accolades.  The world is your oyster.  This rum goes well with it.

The St. Nicholas Abbey 12 year old Limited Reserve is not cheap. At two hundred dollars in Calgary, I have to be honest and concede that I thought long and hard about buying it – I can get the 21 YO El Dorado, or the English Harbour 25 YO, for less, and both are older vintages, proven tastes, made by well established companies for which I have great respect.  I know I’m paying this price because of limited production, not entirely because it’s so good. Honestly, had it not been for the ten that St Nick’s had already won me over with, as well as their instant and honest answering of every question I had when researching this review, I might have held off.

But I must be honest: this is a reminder of what rums can be, in a conformist and lowest-common-denominator culture where blended product and cheaply spiced rums sell by the truckload, and many people have no idea that “top-end” and “rum” can be said in the same breath. And as I’ve observed before, rums are not for any one thing: some take the edge off our anger, some help us forget and take us away from our problems, some are best with which to observe a sunset, some are to toast the great events in one’s life, and still others are to share with one’s best friend over an evening spent playing chess and indulging in a desultory sort of harum scarum conversation.  What is so wonderous about the twelve, and what makes me recommend it, is that in some measure, it is good for, and does, all these things.

(#084. 86/100)

St. Nicholas Abbey 8 year old – Review

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Sep 022011
 

First posted 2nd September 2011 on Liquorature

 

Much as I loved the St Nicholas Abbey 10 year old (and I have yet to meet a soul who doesn’t like it), I must concede that the corresponding 8 year old is not in its league. This is not to say it’s a bad rum…just not as good as its older brother(s). And that’s a shame, because left on its own, had I never tasted any of the Abbey’s other products, I might have given my pen rein, gone to town with loads of colourful metaphors, and in all ways harped on its observed qualities.  However, I had had the others, and in a vertical tasting with all three rums in attendance, the eight simply suffered by comparison. Bummer.

I should note that part of what really sets St. Nicholas apart is stellar marketing. The whole story of the plantation and its lovingly restored Jacobean house; the creation of one of the first new rum-makers in decades (quite aside from massive commercial enterprises who create hollow rums by the containerful); the sand-blasted bottle with its mahogany tipped cork wrapped in soft paper embossed with the company logo, the limited production (they’re up to about 5000 bottles total per year now)…all these envelop the plantation operation and the resultant rums in a sort of enviable cachet of quality and history that many a maker would give his last heels of ten year old for.  And when you consider how good that original ten year old was (quite a debut, I’d say), well, there’s some pretty good street cred right there.

Of course, Madison Avenue b.s. can only carry a rum so far (did I hear someone say Kraken?).  Consider the Young’s Old Sam Demerara Rum, or a very nice (and very cheap) Potter’s rum I have had before – utterly unspectacular, unadvertised low-end hooches the pair of ‘em, and yet I can’t imagine my pantry without either.  Word of mouth and individual tastes will overwhelm a clever campaign…and that other bugbear of the big sellers, real quality.  I thought St. Nicholas really had something going there.

Having waxed rhapsodic over the softness and billowing fumes of the 10, I was somewhat taken aback by a younger, sharper nose of the 8 year old.  Young, boisterous, aggressive, spicy and aromatic, it reminded me of a lady in high school I once asked for a dance, who then grabbed me with quite unnecessary force, and unsmilingly said in a tone that brooked no demur, “I’ll lead.” All kidding aside, it was an interesting scent: apples, a tad of brown sugar crystals…there was a buttery kind of quality to it, yet one that was thin and faintly medicinal at the start: it gradually opened up into something more floral – white roses and hibiscus.

The mouthfeel and taste on the palate continued that odd mix of aggressiveness and restraint. It lacked the smooth wash of tastes of the ten, that was a given; however, I simply cannot express what it was about the 8 that did not permit me to separate out flavours precisely. That there were tastes was undeniable, what I was having trouble with was figuring out what they were, because they ran together so seamlessly. Perhaps it would be better to tell you what this wasn’t:  not very sweet, always a problem for me; not very oily, or lasting; not very, well… rumlike – this thing was more like a decent cognac.  The body was light, gold and clean (it was the lightest colour of the three St. Nick’s offerings I was sampling), bottled at 40% just like the others, and displayed a sharpness I can’t say enthused me overmuch.  And the fade was unexceptional: short, medium smooth, lacking a good long finish — yet to its credit, it did not have a bunch of bitchy fumes leaving their claws on your throat on the exit.

St Nicholas Abbey in Barbados, is currently distilling its own rum from its own sugar, using a German distillation apparatus they brought over from the heimat in 2009 – and unlike all others in the area, they are using sugar cane syrup (concentrated juice) rather than molasses – this may account for the lack of a caramelized brown sugar taste so prevalent in other dark or gold rums.  However Foursquare Distillery (they of the dubious Doorly’s) did initially help produce the first rums here, after the Warren family bought the plantation from its previous owners in 2006.  Currently St Nick’s is setting down rum at the rate of one barrel a week for ageing and they have plans to expand their line to include younger rums (3 yr and 5 yr olds, plus a white), and older ones to come – for example stocks of the ten are now past that age and are being re-issued as the twelve and the 2005 stocks they had are being held for yet older expressions.

Let’s sum up.  Different production methods result in a nose that is excellent, but with a taste and finish less so. At $120 in Calgary, I’d hesitate to buy it a second time, when I can get the sterling ten year old for twenty bucks more. It’ll be interesting to match an eight year old from years hence with the one currently in my possession.

And yet, I should add this.  I was similarly noncommittal and wussy about the El Dorado 12 year old (and to some extent the ED15).  But this eight year old rum really isn’t made to be a high end product, however the price might suggest otherwise: it’s a bridge to the really top-tier product lines, the 10 and the 12 and (coming soon to the rumshop near you) the 15,18 and the 20.  I think St Nicholas’s product strategy is based on the unexpected success of the ten, which I have been told there are no more stocks of — the stocks that went into making this 8 yr old will eventually be the new batch of 10 yr olds to come.  Therefore my take is simply that for what it is, it is an excellent rum, however expensive; you are paying for rarity rather than the intrinsic worth, though – so if you really want quality, then spring the extra twenty bucks for the next one up the line.

(#083. 80.5/100)

Pusser’s 15 Year Old Navy Rum – Review

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Aug 162011
 

First posted 16 August 2011 on Liquorature

A solidly impressive aged product from Pusser’s. Though it’s “only” 40% ABV, you might compare it to a barbarian using a fork – snickering, but all the while appreciating the strength and the quality.

West Indians probably snigger into their shot glasses in every beer garden, corner store or rumshop whenever the name of this Navy-style rum comes up.  In fact, I’m pretty sure of it, and if you don’t get that, find a guy fresh off the boat or the plane and get him to explain it to you.  Like many Caribbean bon mots, it’s about as subtle as a charging rhino.  Yet, there’s no denying either the pedigree or the impact of the rum itself. It’s a powerful strong concoction not overly mucked about with. Rums like this have names like Maxwell, Clarence…or Brutus.

That ambivalent phrasing pretty much sums up my attitude towards Pussers, towards which I have an on-again, off-again relationship (much like I do with Clement XO).  At one moment I appreciate its marketing, its unapologetically and brutally minimalist presentation and its take-no-prisoners if-you-can’t-hack-it-you’re-a-wuss flavor.  At others I simply blow it away as something not subtle enough, not refined enough.  I’m inconsistent that way sometimes. My friend Keenan, who hails from the Maritimes, quite liked it, by the way, and so do a few others I know.

Pusser is a corruption of the word Purser, a name given to that worthy gent on each ship in the Royal Navy whose job it was to hand out the rum ration in the days before Black Friday in July 1970, when rum was officially banished from aboard all vessels of war. The company that makes it, Pusser’s, bought the recipe and stills from the Royal Navy and launched themselves into business, and may reasonably be said to make the rum closest to what navy rums really were back in the old days. Characteristics include overproofing, not very sweet, dark and heavy body and minimal – if any – additives.  In that way, it’s very much like the Cadenhead Green Label or Demerara rums I’ve tried.  Lamb’s Old Navy, Sailor Jerry, London Dock and Wood’s all have claims (some say pretensions) to the title of Navy Rums, but my feeling is that Pusser’s got it.

The rum is aged for 15 years in ex-bourbon barrels, and various sources have suggested that the blend that is aged comprises four rums: portions of Jamaican, Bajan, a bit of Trini, and a hefty dose of a Guyanese rum, which immediately implies (to me), DDL – because they are the only ones left making rum from wooden stills which is a Pusser rum claim to fame as well. Some have said five rums, but I’ve been unable to confirm this: Pusser’s doesn’t give out too much in the way of details, and in any event, the blend of Navy rums never really stayed stable but was often tweaked and recalibrated over the centuries.

All this history is fine, you say, but do you mind? Get to the rum itself.

Well, there’s the bottle above.  Squat, unadorned, in your face (a bit like the much more refined English Harbour 10 year old).  The label is somewhat at odds with its proletarian cachet, what with all those bright red and blue colours, and again you think of that dancer (just sayin’…).

The liquid within was dark, as befits a Navy rum, and poured out like a young El Dorado on steroids. The thing had medium legs, and a pungent nose that almost invited further exploration.  You’d think that something so aimed at the drinking classes would have a straightforward bouquet that didn’t frig around and advertised its forthcoming palate simply and directly, with a minimum of fuss and bother.  But that wasn’t so at all.  I took a sniff, wasn’t too impressed, and was about to make snotty notes and grumbling remarks, when the flavours started coming through the air and I realized that this fifteen year old Jolly Jack Tar had quite a lot under its leotards. A full, rich and earthy scent – quite spicy, let me note right off – redolent of cocoa and a hint of vanilla, and dark brown sugar marinated just enough in oak to get that slight bite.  Maybe some cinnanmon played around in the background there, but whatever it was, it made for a more complex nose than I had started off with.

The arrival on the palate is neither smooth nor harsh: powerful, though, quite impressive for a 40% rum.  You get the sense of strength barely held in check from being rotgut moonshine by the blender’s art. I was tasting dark caramel and chocolate, cinnamon (there it was) and baked apples.  Some citrus and maybe sherry. And, alas, the woodiness and spiciness of ageing not entirely mitigated by skilful blending.  This was not enough for me to seriously mark it down, but it was noticeable, and if your preferences are for more flavourings rather than minimalism, more sweet rather than less, then this may not be the rum for you.  I’m no expert on the obscure Scottish drink, but I thought that here was a rum that actually had more characteristics of an aged whisky or a cognac, though it probably is too sweet for the purists and cognoscenti.

The finish was perhaps the least impressive thing about it – however, given how high a position it started from that’s not to be read as an indictment of what is really quite a unique drink – it was medium long and a little too harsh for me, especially after what I had considered a very good beginning, but of greater than usual richness and warmth. The viscosity of the rum was enough to make the finish last – I just didn’t care too much for what it was that lasted.  But at end, this is a matter of the spiciness rather than any intrinsic quality, and by most standards, I’d say Pusser’s 15 year old rum is a solidly top-of-the-middle-shelf product, to be had either neat or in a cocktail, and enjoyed either way. It’s rich, it’s complex, and only my personal preferences make it slightly less than a winner.  Most reviews I’ve read drool over the product.

Over the years I must concede to being somewhat won over by rums stronger than the standard and near-ubiquitous 40% (this is not one of them, being bottled at the standard forty).  The flavours are stronger, more powerful: even a small shot attacks your palate like a tiny hammer of Thor, and as cocktail mixers they are beyond compare for the same reasons.  Pusser’s great virtue is its complexity of flavour and strength of taste you get for a standard strength rum – you’ll go far to find something quite like this, overproof or not, and again, I can only mention the Cadenheads or the Renegades as comparators. Any time I feel like being smacked around by a spicy, muscled beefcake of a rum which proudly struts its stuff, Pusser’s isn’t far from my mind.

So if pressed – yes, I like it.  Yeah, wrap it up for me – I’ll take it.  And I think I’ll call mine Brutus.

(#082)(Unscored)

Juan Santos 21 Year Old Antigua Reserva Colombian Rum – Review

 3 Responses »
Aug 062011
 

Publicity Photo (c) Casa Santana

First posted 06 August 2011 on Liquorature.

A steal at the price, the 21 holds its own against rums costing twice as much, and might be better known and sell more if the tag was higher.  I think of it like I do a Nissan GT-R – too cheap to be taken seriously as a supercar, but a performer that can give any of the top dogs a run for their money.  If you see it and you have the cash to spare, my recommendation is to get it.

The Juan Santos 21 year old is the epitome of the Casa Santana group’s rum line. It is a poem in a bottle, a liquid symphony of brown and gold, of smell and taste, and quite possibly one of the best aged rums available for under a hundred bucks. Anywhere.

It is made in Colombia, an unappreciated nation in South America better known for narcotics and coffee, violence and political upheaval.  Yet they speak the purest Spanish in the world outside of Iberia. Democratic traditions survive in spite of FARC and narco barons that would derail many another state. Colombia is the world’s largest supplier of emeralds, possesses a dynamic and educated workforce (I know – I worked with four of them and was hugely impressed by each), and, like every country under the sun, claims its beaches are whiter and its women more beautiful than anyplace else on earth.  Now they can add another cachet to their national pride – this rum. The Santana company has been making rums in the Cuban style since 1994 – I’ve heard that it was Cubans who started the enterprise, see below – and yet have made only limited inroads in the Canadian market.  Bacardi, Lamb’s and Screech, together with Cruzan and a few other one-rum-here-one-rum-there variations still dominate liquor shelves here, in spite of both the Arctic Wolf and myself suggesting the product is good value for money.

The 21 is all wrapped up in a look that does a neat jiu-jitsu on the Pyrat Cask 1623 rum, which had a phenomenal aesthetic appeal and little else.   Perhaps the trick is not to let the 21’s presentation put one off – it’s not lackluster, precisely…more like undistinguished.  The label is cluttered and busy with a pattern of muted colours (contrast that against the vivid backdrops of the Appletons, or the simplicity of the Mount Gay labels), and the bottle is, umm, just a bottle.  One might be forgiven for missing the “21” in the title altogether, and tripping over it in some surprise.  Huh?  Veinte-uno? Que es esto?

The rum itself is a light brownish gold.  It poured nicely into the glass and swirling gently showed thinner legs than I would have expected – it evidently lacked the heaviness, the oiliness which would have indicated a deeper flavor profile and a longer fade.  Still, the nose was nothing to sneeze at: it was all soft and silk, no sting and no burn, and held promising notes of toffee, brown sugar, a very delicate hint of flowers…and a bit of coffee.  Given that Juan Santos also makes a very pleasant underproof café, I found this to be no more than appropriate.

The taste was by any standards nothing short of excellent.  Juan Santos 21 arrived unheralded, with no blaring tantara of orange trumpets such as you’d find in the rather obnoxious Pyrat’s XO or 1623.  It slunk onto my palate, and stayed there. What I got was a smooth and soft liquid gold that some master blender may well have put his cojones into hock to the Almighty to produce. There was hardly any bite or burn at all – pretty good for a rum at 40% – with a remarkable depth of flavor for which the initial pour I noted above had done nothing to prepare me.  I was expecting something a tad on the thin side, maybe some citrus hints, a clear sort of taste in line with the lighter colour and clean nose – what I got was a rye-and-rum combo that was deeper, darker and more flavourful than it had any right to be.  Caramel, burnt sugar, yes, of course – but also breakfast spices, some cinnamon, that coffee again (maybe Juan Valdez is a relative?) and nutmeg lending some gentle muskiness it all. I was, to put it mildly, impressed – twenty one years in oak had been mellowed and balanced out and blended so well that it was a smooth balm to the taste buds.

And the finish was no slouch either: thin legs or no, there was enough oil left in the rum to make a lasting impression that did not bail in a hurry with a harsh knock to the tonsils, merely stayed and lingered, like an old friend whose goodbyes can take a few minutes longer than the average, simply because there’s always one last thing to say. The 21 was so smooth and so languorous, that it actually seemed to stay a lot longer than it did. There were no harsh afterburns or tastes or anything, and quite frankly, if my personal preference hadn’t been for darker rums of greater body, I’d rate this one even higher than I do – for those that like a good quality sipping rum that’s right up there, look no further, since this single ~$85 rum will give you just about everything you’re after.

In discussing the Juan Santos with the store manager at Co-op where I bought it, he remarked that for him this absolutely eclipsed the Zaya which had been his go-to tipple of choice up to that point.  I don’t quite agree it should eclipse anything, since I have a pretty good collection of rums I like as much or more than the 21, and each has their place in my life, depending on the crabbiness of my mood (I drink harsh rotgut rums with minimal cola when I’m angry) whether I want to mix it and get a pleasant buzz on (medium-tier five year olds are good for this), get loaded fast (pick any 151, alert the wife and move out) or simply watch the sun go down (any top end sipping rum of your choice). That said, there’s no question in my mind that the Juan Santos 21 year old, for its price, offers a value for money that other top guns costing twice as much (and with only incrementally greater quality) would do well to observe.  Price is no guarantor of quality, I wrote for my negative Pyrat 1623 review, meaning that a high price sometimes nets you a dog.  Here, with this rum, Juan Santos proves that the reverse is also true, and that a reasonably low cost for an aged rum is no indicator of a lack of any kind.

(#081)(Unscored)

Background (Added in 2021)

Juan Santos rums are produced by Santana Liquors out of Baranquilla, a free trade seaport zone in the north of Colombia, on the Caribbean Sea. The company also makes various brands for other markets, like the somewhat better-known La Hechicera and Ron Santero labels (Ron Santero is the US brand name for Juan Santos, the latter of which is only sold in Canada). Their website and Forbes notes that they started operations in 1994 when their founders – assumed to be the Riascos business family – brought over some rum makers from Cuba, and an article in el Tiempo notes they are the only family owned (private) rum company in Colombia — all others are apparently part of the Colombian government monopoly.

However, it does not appear that they are actually in the business of distilling themselves, not are they primary producers of anything. They have no sugar cane fields, nor a refinery nor a distillery – at least not that they promote on their own materials and company websites –  unless it is the winery they also own and operate, which is where their barrels of rum are aged.  What they do, appears to be to act as third party blenders, much as Banks DIH does in Guyana. La Hechicera, their companion brand now distributed by Pernod Ricard who bought a stake in 2021, is often spoken about in rum circles as sourcing barrels and stocks of rum from around South America and then blending and bottling them in Colombia as “Colombian” rums. But they certainly don’t make anything of their own on a distillery.

As an additional note, Juan Santos rums no longer appear to be available in primary markets and online web shops – it has been almost a decade since I sourced mine, so sometime in the mid-2010s I suspect it may have been discontinued.

Pyrat’s Cask 1623 – Review

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Jul 112011
 

First posted 11 July 2011 on Liquorature and the Rum Connection

This review first appeared in two parts on the Rum Connection website, here.  It is reposted here with minor corrections and amendments. It’s a bit of a rant, I’m afraid, and somewhat overlong…it speaks to my disappointment in what has been touted as an ultra-premium, but isn’t.

I enjoy the Pyrat’s XO rum about as much as I do the leisurely explorations of my favourite proctologist: the thing is a perennial dust-gatherer on my shelf, and I finally traded it away to the Arctic Wolf in Edmonton. And when one considers the abysmal regard I have for its enormous tangerine nose, one could reasonably ask what business I had shelling out four times as much to buy the brand’s top-end product, the Cask 1623.  Truth is, it was like a splinter lodged in my mind for over a year, and no matter how many times I passed it squatting smugly there behind a glass case, I could never get rid of the impression it was sneering at me and calling me a puling, whining cheapskate.  So the other day when I had some disposable income, I finally said to hell with it, and got ‘er.

Pyrat’s is a product of the Anguilla Rums company.  This is an establishment with its own origin story (whether true or not, it’s still fun reading) regarding a travelling seaman called CJ Planter who fell in love with an island girl who may have been the illegitimate daughter of a plantation owner and a local lady who dabbled in witchcraft.  CJ eventually began a rum-making concern which, it must be emphasized, did not create rums from scratch, but blended rums from elsewhere (which continues today – I imagine this is because Anguilla, a beautiful but tiny speck in the Caribbean which if you sneezed at the wrong time you’d miss as you flew over it, lacks the resources to have full blown sugar cane plantations on the available land).  Subsequent digging suggests that the Pyrat brand is actually owned by a Nevada outfit called the Patron Spirits Company, and they have a line of spirits products that extends from Patron tequila, to Ultimat vodka, to liqueurs, and rums. So do they own the Anguilla company?  Don’t know…probably they are acting as marketing and distribution agents for the factory, which, as  Ed Hamilton of the Ministry of Rum notes, was shut down in 2010. Note that the rum is now made from DDL’s rum stock from Guyana, and given the shutdown in Anguilla, it’s very likely that the blending takes place in Guyana as well (I was not able to definitely confirm this beyond the anecdotal, but Arctic told me they definitely bottle it there, so it seems reasonable).

Be that as it may, I must commend them for the mere look of the package.  I’m a sucker for a good presentation; it’s part of the overall aesthetic, I argue, much to the disgust of the various maltsters of my acquaintance, who refuse to be sidetracked by such mundane matters and make no bones about chucking wrapper, box and bunting as soon as they buy a bottle of anything. Here, Pyrat’s delivers, and this is as it should be for a self-annointed “ultra-premium” rum costing north of two hundred bucks. The hand blown bottle is encased in a wooden box (the Pyrat homepage says cedar, but I notice one reviewer says walnut, and from the lack of an aroma, walnut is my take also), and around its neck is a medallion with the patron saint of fortune tellers and bartenders, Hoti.  And there’s a hand lettered label signed by the master blender.  Pretty cool.

The rum is a dark amber colour, and has a heavy look to it. The cork is a real cork, no extras or plastic anything. And as soon as I opened the stopper, I knew I’d been had. Well, perhaps not – perhaps I’d allowed myself to be had in my eagerness to try something new at the supposed top end of the scale. The nose wafted out and it was immediately clear that customers of the XO had written in and started a campaign to assure Pyrat’s that the citrus they had sensed in the XO — the very thing I had disliked so much about it – was for wussies and they demanded something with just as much or more orange heft: and Pyrat’s complied.  Open the botle and the waft of an orange grove comes right at you.

There’s a sullen, sulky heaviness to it when it pours into your glass that reminds you of a lighter-coloured El Dorado – and the legs were relatively slow and fat as they slid down the sides, so that part was good. But nosing it was about as subtle as the grapefruit scene with Mae Clark in 1931’s “Public Enemy”.  Yes, I got vanilla (and I had to strain for that); yes there were subtler hints of cherries and flowers here (more strain), under which moved the darker scent of burnt brown sugar – but there was nothing overly dramatic that grabbed my snoot, no I-see-Vishnu moment, no heavenly chorus of angel who should attend the opening of such a purportedly premium product. What was self evident was, as I’ve noted, that damned scent.

The citrus background was more muted than in the XO, but still far too prevalent and bashed the others into a sort of torpid insensibility – it’s like an orange Chuck Norris came through the joint, belted out a roundhouse kick to the face, and all the other smells fell down, twitching feebly.

The palate?  No redemption, I’m afraid, and by now I was wondering – what the hell was going on? Did some disgruntled vet pop a few hundred rinds into the still? The liquid was thicker and oilier than other rums I’ve tried, and coated the tongue like it wanted to be a delivery system for a few fascinating flavours the master blender had pulled out of his hat; there was a sweet and lasting flavor, but what the hell was it? A liqueur?

I was tasting a smoothly sweetish spirit and a commingled taste of various almost impossible-to-discern elements dominated by orange marmalade flavor.  Again I got the annoyingly faint background tastes the nose had hinted at, without any of them having the courage to tek front and show us who was boss. The floral scents dimmed more than shimmered, the caramel-molasses and burnt sugar taste faded almost entirely, and what I was left with was something that wasn’t sure what it wanted to be…too sweet for a rum, not complex enough for a high-end. Excuse me fellas. I thought there was supposed to be rums here. This was what two hundred drops of my sweat had bought?

And don’t believe I was entirely mollified by the excellent fade, the only thing I don’t have a whinge about. The 1623 goes down very well, without serious burn or scratch, and even a non-rum-drinker might like that part: my 72 year old father-in-law took a sniff, smacked his gums, sipped it down and allowed it may even eclipse the standard Russian rotgut he preferred (talk about damning with faint praise there), while observing it had too much sugar, as if I should shoot off to Anguilla immediately and take them to task about the matter. In fact, I did send an email down there (and to Patron) asking about the taste and the sugar, which has thus far remained unanswered.

Pyrat’s Cask 1623, also known as Cask 23 for people who can’t be bothered to write the whole thing, is a blend of rums aged up to 40 years.  Note the careful phrasing on the Pyrat website: “We distill the dark amber spirit in limited quantities, ageing its smooth distinctive blend of premium Caribbean rums in oak barrels for up to 40 years.” What that means to me is that the oldest rum in the blend is 40 years old (not the youngest) and there’s no information regarding what proportion is that old.  About all I’ve read online is that the average age of the blends of pot-still and column-still rums that make the 1623, is 23 years. Even the barrels are a bit dodgy – I’ve heard of the usual bourbon barrels, of course, and rumours of barrels that once held orange liqueur. So maybe that’s what it is. Caveat Emptor.

Honesty compels me to note that Pyrat’s 1623 won the 2007 Ministry of Rum tasting competition, but speaking for this puppy, I can only wonder how on earth that happened. Let me put it to you this way: if you were handing out prizes for distinctiveness, then Bundie, Old Port, Pyrat’s XO and maybe Legendario would come out top – you could taste them blind and know what you were getting because they are so unique in taste, so different: but that difference does not translate into real quality, and frankly, I think Pyrat’s is teetering on the edge of not being a rum at all, what with all that extra stuff they must be chucking into the ageing barrels with such languid insouciance.

So there we have it. Unimpressive.  I know I sound a little miffed, perhaps even a shade snarky. But I’m feeling let down, more than a little annoyed.  Actually, I’m plenty mad.  This rum is such a disappointment – it’s a forty dollar rum in a hundred dollar package, selling for two hundred.  Some might argue that I like the sugar-caramel-molasses taste in my rums, and just as I like that taste, so there are others out there who prefer peats, and others who will like orange or sherry or what have you.  No harm no foul.  Yet, I disagree: the whole selling point of Islay whiskies is that unmistakeable peatiness; with rums it’s the core of caramel and burnt sugar enhanced by the varying notes imparted by climate (Bundie or Old Port spring to mind immediately), distillation techniques, ageing and the barrels used.  In the top end of rums, there is an underlying harmony, a sort of zen marriage of all good things that come together like a Porsche 911 GT3.  Sure it blasts off with you, but in a good way. All is in balance. You don’t mind getting your faced ripped off at 6500 rpm and 200mph because you are utterly ensorcelled by the sheer unbridled harmony of the components meshing together like they were lubricated in distilled angels’ tears.

And that’s not the case here. We’ve been sold on a marketing gimmick. We’ve been fed on rarity, a carefully parsed age statement, and price (and a really odd dearth of online reviews I have difficulty comprehending – what, has no-one tasted this thing?). When I tried the English Harbour 1981, the Appleton 30 and Master’s Blend, the El Dorado 21 and 25, the G&M Longpond 1941, I could taste the underlying structural complexity and efforts to both smoothen and balance off the competing flavours.  Here, we have an inexplicable central taste of citrus that advertises its ego from the get go, practically drowns out all other flavours, and to my mind is only marginally redeemed by an extraordinary smoothness.  Ultra-premium? Yeah, it’s about as ultra-premium as a garage sale with one good item in it.

For a rum this expensive and positioning itself at the top of the rum chain, I’d suggest that they stop messing about with the Hoti medallion…and replace it with one that bears the imprint of the patron saint of shell games and snake oil sellers.

(#080)(Unscored)

Ron Diplomatico Añejo – Review

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May 252011
 

First Published 25 May 2011 on Liquorature

A puzzlingly schizophrenic rum – I can’t quite make up my mind about how good it is: an undistinguished bottle containing a so-so tasting rum with both a lovely nose and a finish to savour. I’m going to go back to this one, for sure, just to nail my opinion down more precisely.

The Diplomatico Añejo I had on the night of the last Liquorature club was one of those weird rums that I couldn’t quite categorize, because it had both good elements I liked and others by which I wasn’t entirely enthralled. However, I had quite a bit of it, so who’s to say that’s a bad thing?

Presented to Liquorature by the same gent who introduced us to the 15 year old Diplomatico Gran Reserva, the Añejo is distilled by the same Venezuelan concern that makes that version – this was merely a younger iteration, having no age statement on the bottle. It also had the rather grandiose statement that it was the Rare Rum of the Caribbean on it, and as a member of the Caribbean diaspora myself, I can tell you that there’s a misnomer if I ever heard one, since not only are there no shortages of rums (rare or otherwise) in the area, but Venezuela, while having a fairly extensive Caribbean beachfront, is not considered culturally a part of De Islands, being more akin to Latin America.  I mean, when was the last time you ever heard of a Venezuelan soca competition, a Veno steel pan band, or their local cricket team?

Bottle appearance?  Utterly average, nothing fancy – solidly seated plastic cap, though, which I liked (at least it wasn’t some cheap tinfoil screw-on). The Hippie stayed silent on this one (remember his childish exuberance with the postage stamp design of the Gran Reserva?) but did partake of a nip or two.

Nose was soft, a little fruity – peaches and soft fleshy types, with a bananas hint emerging reluctantly after a bit; and a vanilla scent which I liked.  Not much in the way of a sting to your snoot, so you’d probably like this one on that level alone. No real complexity there, though.

I said the bottle appearance was utterly average.  The taste, to me, was medium everything. Like Bacardi, it excelled at nothing while being average at everything. It’s almost like the Corolla or Civic of rums. I mean, there was almost nothing out of the ordinary for which to award points or deduct them – the body was medium; the taste was sweet, but not too much so, with neutral smoothness, a taste that lingered on, not too short, not too long, and which had a slightly thicker character that (I swear) tasted of unsweetened chocolate; and there was an odd briny note, a tang of the sea, that I found odd but in no ways unpleasant.

If I was indifferent to the appearance and taste, let me wax somewhat more ebullient on the fade, which was excellent. Soft; smooth, elegant, long lasting. A taste of grapes a little ripe but not as cloying as the Legendario’s muscatel reek, wafted up and stayed in the mind.

On occasion, I’ve been given a hard time by mon pere for not always expressing an unequivocal opinion (he really must love Ebert’s thumb, honestly), and rereading the above I see I’ve done it again. So here goes: I think this is a surprisingly good rum, with elements that make me believe the blender wasn’t too sure what he wanted. I’d mix it or sip it (the latter perhaps with a cube of ice), but what it really makes me want to do is go back to the Gran Reserva: I didn’t have a rating system when I reviewed it back then, but the good and bad of this lower-tiered product from Venezuela makes me want to return and give the other one a more thorough evaluation.

(#078. 79/100)

 

Flor de Caña Centenario 12 Year old – Review

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May 232011
 

Original Review 23 May 2011 on Liquorature

Outclassed by its older siblings as a sipper and given better dollar value by its younger ones for mixing, Flor de Caña 12yr old’s singular characteristic may be its quickness (insert vulgar and raunchy joke here). This isn’t to say you won’t enjoy yourself, or that you’ll have a bad experience – just not a lingering one.

Clint of Liquorature very kindly  allowed me to pilfer his bottle of the Flor 12 in order to write about it, once the March 2011 session wound to a close.  We’ve looked at the 5, 7, 15 and 18 yr old variations here already, and it was time to do one of the last of the aged versions before I seriously began tackling the younger ones.

Flor 12 shares the same brown coloured bottle as the 18 year old, short and blocky, as squat and heavy bottomed as a Bourda fishwife on a Saturday morning. A no-nonsense sort of bottle with the brand etched into the glass, very workmanlike.  Note the plastic cap – the seal it makes is tight fitting and yet easy to remove. Initially I preferred cork, but some experience taught me plastic was probably best, and hang the aesthetics.

The legs of this medium bodied dark-brown rum were strong and slow, reminding me of the gams of an over-the-hill barkeep (of indeterminate gender) in a riverside shack on the Puruni River where I had once panned for gold, whose half-hearted clutches I evaded with nimble footwork.  However, though the dark brown colour of the rum  promised a rich scent, I was unmoved with the nose, which managed to be both soft and sharply assertive – over and above what one would expect – simultaneously.  I smelled burnt sugar, nuts, perhaps a hint of honey, but that was all.  It struck me as being somewhat of a blunt instrument instead of something subtler – it didn’t last at all, but flashed into and out of my nose so fast that whatever quieter or more elegant scents might have existed, were not noticed.

The taste was of burnt sugar and caramel, again nuts and honey (and perhaps baking spices like cinnamon), and some kind of tangy cheese.  For a rum containing such pleasant flavours, the lack of oiliness which would permit a more lasting taste profile, was a disappointment – the experience is just over too damned fast. Just as I was getting a handle on it, it disappeared. And for my money the oaky back end spoiled what could have been an excellent taste there.  The rum trended to a slightly heavier body approaching the el Dorados, and maybe that extra sugar or caramel ingredient was an attempt to mute the sharpness of the oak tannins which were still in evidence here, but with their own effects on overall balance and quality.

And as for the finish, well, it was a good one – smooth and clear, with a few bright notes of caramel and brown sugar coming through – yet over too quickly, gone too fast. I was left with relatively little taste and fumes to savour after a second or so. Made me want to have another shot, real quick, just to try it again and ensure I knew what I was actually experiencing.  And indeed, that’s exactly what I did.

Flor 12 is, like the El Dorado 12 or the El Dorado 15, something of a bridge.  In these variations we see the cheaper, lower-tier rums being left behind and the painstaking care that characterizes the older offerings of the makers coming into prominence, but without actually being complete yet. Flor de Caña 12 year old is an essay in the craft, a wannabe that aspires to the quality in the 18 yr old and the 21 Centenario (which we now know to be a 15 yr old), and both benefits and suffers from that fact.  Is it good?  Yes it is.  It won the 2010 Gold Medal and Best in Class Award at the International Wine and Spirits Competition in London, and has been praised up one hill and down the other (a good reason why you should just take this view here as an informed opinion of my own).

Those of adventurous spirit and love of fine rums won’t have much to quarrel over – except perhaps that peculiar quickness. Quickness of dissipation, of taste, of finish, and, for this writer, quickness of desire to get to the quality of its older brothers – which are promised here, but not (to me) entirely delivered.

(#077. 80/100)

Other notes

2021 Update: Possibly, even in 2011 when I wrote this review, the 12 Year Old was already just a blend of components “up to” 12 years old instead of a meaningful “true age”. At the time, the company still retained a fair degree of trust and it was not often commented on.  By 2013 the questions grew louder and by 2015 the party was well and truly over. In the eyes of deep rum fans, I don’t think Flor ever really recovered its sterling reputation after the hammerblows of the faux age statement and the scandal of the kidney disease affecting its workers.

Juan Santos Añejo 12 Year Old Gran Reserva Colombian Rum – Review

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Apr 252011
 

First posted 25 April 2011 on Liquorature

Smooth, soft and unprepossessing, this may be one of the best 12 year old you never heard about. Coming from a maker formed less than two decades ago, it’s quite an achievement to create a rum of such overall worth. 

It seems that sooner or later one always makes a discovery both unexpected and wholly pleasant. In recent months since I first tried the excellent 9 year old, I’ve realized that Juan Santos rums have been one of mine, and with the exception of the coffee infused underproof, which I do not really regard as a true rum, they have, for each age, been quite and quietly superb. And yet they have a surprisingly low profile – they rarely get mentioned in online fora, reviews of their products are practically nonexistent (aside from web-shop listings with a note or two on flavour), and their rums are to be found intermittently at best. Odd for a rum this good

Here I had the 12 year old to take a look at.  The labelling and bottle shape are consistent with the 21, the 9, and the 5 – the Santana company has been at pains to ensure conformity across their line with only minor differences in the labelling – within a clear etched bottle possessing wide shoulders and a sloping bottom.  Plastic cork – I can’t stand cheap tinfoil, and have recently concluded the plastic corks are pretty good for ensuring a tight seal that doesn’t flake like old cork sometimes does, so this is all to the good.  And, oh yeah – a bunch of the Edmonton Rum Chums around me.  I was tasting this informally, in the company of the Arctic Wolf and some of his compadres, with a follow-up when I got back home two days later to formalize my rather incoherent notes.

There was a smooth and oily consistency to the dark golden liquor (darker then the 9) when poured into the glass; it sheened slowly down the sides and only later separated into fat plump legs. And the nose was like the 9 year old…but better.  No sting and medicinal nasties here, but a softness mixed with spice – faint caramel and sugar entwined with molasses and fruits and burnt sugar.  None of these aromas were in any way assertive or overbearing or dominating: they were each and every one distinct, clear yet subtle, and balanced in a way I had not yet experienced in a rum.

On the palate, the Juan Santos 12 year old  retained some of that clarity and medium bodied nature; and it was soft too – it seemed to be more like a ballet dancer, hiding strength and power behind a pattern of smoothness and elegant moves. The rum coated the tongue so well and was such a smooth spirit that one could easily get lost in the softness and never remember afterwards exactly what had been tasted – though for the record, the arrival was of caramel and burnt sugar, cinnamon and breakfast spices, and just enough sugar to marry these tastes together well.  It reminded me in its cleanliness of taste of nothing so much as very well steeped medium dark tea.

Where I’d have to say the rum fell down was, oddly enough, in the finish.  Not that it was bad.  Far from it. What it was, for me, was that it was cursory. It was too quick, and veiled itself too fast, as if, after all that excellent smell and taste, it suddenly grew shy and with a flirt of flavour it disappeared in a noncommital fade that left almost no taste behind, only a sort of buttery caramel, and a slight and expected alcohol sting. A shame after the overall worth of the beginning, but not enough for me to say it’s bad, merely a tad disappointing.

The Casa Santana company was formed in 1994 in Columbia with the avowed intention of producing the country’s premium rum.  Currently they produce the Ron Santero brand which is what the Juan Santos, relabelled for import to Canada by the Liber Group, actually is. A rose by any other name, is my response to this relabelling, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re doing a good job with their rums no matter what the title, and I want more.  Aged in American bourbon barrels, the aged rums, as per Columbian nomenclature laws, state the age of the youngest rum in the blends, and for this also, I give them full marks.

It is, then, an excellent entry from Juan Santos into the middle aged category, and if perhaps it is not quite on the level of the English Harbour or the St Nicholas Abbey 10 year old rums, it is at the very least on par with the El Dorado 12, is a good rum to sip or mix, and in no way a bad rum, or a lesser one: and once again I’m thinking that we really should agitate to get more of these rums from Columbia on our shelves.

I must concede here that good as it was, the 12 wasn’t solely responsible for the stellar evening I had with the Chums, for sure.  But it didn’t hurt, aided quite a it, and just as some tastes and scents evoke specific memories, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have this unassuming, unpretentious Columbian gem again without remembering a laughter filled evening of jokes and rum talk and the company of new squaddies, pleasantly found, enjoyably experienced and around whose table I felt right at home.

(#076. 81/100)

Background (Added in 2021)

Juan Santos rums are produced by Santana Liquors out of Baranquilla, a free trade seaport zone in the north of Colombia, on the Caribbean Sea. The company also makes various brands for other markets, like the somewhat better-known La Hechicera and Ron Santero labels (Ron Santero is the US brand name for Juan Santos, the latter of which is only sold in Canada). Their website and Forbes notes that they started operations in 1994 when their founders – assumed to be the Riascos business family – brought over some rum makers from Cuba, and an article in el Tiempo notes they are the only family owned (private) rum company in Colombia — all others are apparently part of the Colombian government monopoly.

However, it does not appear that they are actually in the business of distilling themselves, not are they primary producers of anything. They have no sugar cane fields, nor a refinery nor a distillery – at least not that they promote on their own materials and company websites –  unless it is the winery they also own and operate, which is where their barrels of rum are aged.  What they do, appears to be to act as third party blenders, much as Banks DIH does in Guyana. La Hechicera, their companion brand now distributed by Pernod Ricard who bought a stake in 2021, is often spoken about in rum circles as sourcing barrels and stocks of rum from around South America and then blending and bottling them in Colombia as “Colombian” rums. But they certainly don’t make anything of their own on a distillery.

As an additional note, Juan Santos rums no longer appear to be available in primary markets and online web shops – it has been almost a decade since I sourced mine, so sometime in the mid-2010s I suspect it may have been discontinued.

Flor de Caña 4 year old Extra Dry White Rum – Review

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Apr 252011
 

First posted 25 April 2011 on Liquorature

Astringent as a Brit’s sense of humour, shot and sharp and crushing as Mrs. Jagan’s put-downs in primary school when I was being a smartass, this is not a rum to have by itself; but in a mix of any kind, it rises to the occasion and emerges as one of those quiet and unsung stars that one’s bar simply should not be without. It’s that different, and that good at what it is.

Right out of the bottle, Flor de Caña’s white rum bats you with one malicious spirituous paw (is that a real word?). It has a nose and a taste that is so out of line with just about everything else Flor makes, and is so different from the rest of the lineup I’ve tasted, that I’m left wondering whether this isn’t the equivalent of the red haired child.

Even though I always had a soft spot for white rums, I never really paid them much mind…they always seemed to lack some of that yo-ho-ho cachet that gold or brown or black rums had, some of that air of disrepute and feloniousness. There was no cutlass in there, no screaming willies of a drunk bastard out to get you. You never got the impression that such rums, which have been filtered up to wazoo to remove any trace of colour, were, well…real. Like the underproofs, they always seemed more for cocktails, or for the mild and meek. I mean, if it wasn’t an overproof 150 or some such brawny white lightning, it obviously couldn’t be taken seriously. Right?

Flor de Caña out of Nicaragua makes ten rums as of this writing, three of which are white, and all of these are four years old. I was presented with this bottle by the apple of my eye, my daughter, on my birthday, together with the appropriate insults regarding my advanced age, incipient case of the dodders, deleterious aspersions on my antecedents and my utter lack of taste (this is what passes for love between us – I mean, heaven forbid we actually share a compliment).

Let’s get to it, then.

Now, as noted, white rums are ferociously filtered and this usually gives them both a smoothness and a bland taste somewhat at odds with what we might expect a rum to both look like and taste like. In point of fact, there are times when you would be forgiven for thinking you’re tasting a vodka. So, partly because of this youth and filtration, I wouldn’t recommend the Flor 4 as a nosing rum, and indeed, I don’t believe this is what Flor wanted either (some more delicately long-nosed tasters may disagree). The Extra Dry pulled no punches, and after the spirit sting faded, there wasn’t much there beyond some fruit (which I couldn’t identify) a quick flirt of molasses that disappeared faster than a strumpet’s smile after business is over; and for me, that was it.  Others have noted a buttery and vanilla scent – me, I missed it, since I was busy trying to ignore the phenols and medicinals that also pervaded the rather sharp nose.

But it was dry.  Extremely so. In fact that driness allowed strong spiciness and burn to overwhelm what seemed, underneath, to be something quite intriguing and a shade more complex than I had expected. Consider: sure there was the healthy alcohol of a standard 40% rum; and yes, after some time, there was light vanilla and oak (lots of oak), and again, that bit of molasses.  It was just so faint, though.  The medium heavy body of the colourless white, even the slight sweetness (not much, but some) was bludgeoned into insensibility by the fists of the spirit: and that, oddly enough made it less a rum, to me, than a cognac or – as noted above – a vodka. And the fade was astringent, acerbic and not for the faint of heart. A good burn, a shade sharp again, and also somewhat raw.  Others may like it neat – I know some reviewers did – but I wasn’t one of them. So I’ll say it again: Flor de Caña 4 year old Extra Dry is not for sipping.

On balance, would I mix this? Hell yes. The tastes are delicate and so not much addition is needed, and a one to one mix with the old standby is probably just right. The filtration process did smoothen things out somewhat, and ageing is ageing, so it was not something as raw as, say, Coruba, or even an Old Sam’s.

Neither, I must say, was it unpleasant to drink with a little something added. It was simply different. If I wanted a competent base for cocktails of all kinds (and my wife makes some mean ones, as several intoxicated guests of ours over the years have discovered when they suddenly couldn’t find their knee joints), or a simple mixer for the standard stand-by the rum and coke, this non-sipper would not be my last choice. Red haired stepchild or not, blandness and phenols or sharp finish or not, it’s simply too well made, even for its youth, to ignore.

(#075)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • My opinions on unfiltered and sometimes unaged white rums went through some evolution, so much so that nearly seven years later, I was impressed enough and happy enough with the variety out there, to make a list of 21 Great Whites and follow that up a couple of years later with 21 More Great Whites.

Havana Club Añejo Reserva Rum – Review

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Mar 262011
 
An excellent Cuban rum: it starts out low-tier, and then the taste just blows your ears back. I could take it neat or with just a smidgen of something else, but alone or in company, it’s a worthy first step into the products of this company and its older siblings.

First posted 26 March 2011 on Liquorature

I think of this particular iteration of Havana Club as a starter rum.  No, not a starter for your evening, an apertif, or getting the girl (I like your thinking, mind), but as a beginning for the entire line of enormously palatable rums coming out of Cuba.  I’m not entirely won over by styling some rums of a particular kind as Cuban rums, though I understand why the classification exists: I prefer to just take them as they come.  This is the third Havana Club rum I’ve tried, and  I haven’t been let down yet (the Havana Club Barrel Proof in particular is just yummy, believe me).

Some history here. The Havana Club brand was created by José Arechabala y Sainz (no, not by Bacardi) just after Prohibition ended in the USA, in 1934; even then, the conglomerate founded in 1878 by his father-in-law Jose Arechabala y Aldama was one of the largest in Cuba. Havana Club, along with Bacardi, became one of *the* rums of the world and to some extent pioneered a naissance in the recognition of the spirit in the forties and fifties. Alas, this happy state of affairs was not to last, and after a number of personal tragedies, most of the family left for Spain and the US, with the remainder following after the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

By now is there any rum aficionado who doesn’t know that Bacardi has claims to the name of Havana Club? To some extent, this is based on the carelessness of the Arechabala family, who let the trademark name slip into the public domain in 1973 when they failed to pay twenty five bucks and sign some papers to renew it.  Castro, no fool, set up an export company in 1972 and from then until 1993 when Pernod Ricard entered the picture, Havana Club was exported out of Cuba.  Except to the US, of course.  That particular state of affairs is still, half a century later, nowhere near to being settled, which is good for us Canadians, bad for those south of 49.  Anyway, although HC has been registered and trademarked in over 80 countries, it isn’t in the US, and this allowed Bacardi to start its own brand of the same name, which has embroiled the two companies in legal spats ever since, from the US Supreme Court to the WTO (without resolution).

The slim bottle is the same one as the 7 year old, and dark brown.  The Maltmonster remarked the other evening that he hates having bottles which hide the colour of the spirit inside (yes he was referring to whisky, but he and I have both agreed that while the other party in our dispute is sadly miguided, we will accept that one day the light of comprehension will dawn and said prodigal son will be welcomed back into the fold), and I’m beginning to see why.  It’s frustrating not to be able to see on a shelf what colour spirit one is buying.  However, this is a minor point; after I poured into into a glass, it shone that same burnished copper gold as the Barrel Proof I so admired last year.

The nose reminded me a bit of the Legendario – definitely with its own character, however.  It was flowery, with barely any molasses or caramel flavour to be detected at all…that came later once it had opened up a shade. Phenols wound in and around the scent, and so it failed on that level for me, since medicinal tastes aren’t really my thing – but, like the Legendario, it had that intriguing musky sweetness of grapes also.  Much less, however: what was overkill on the Legendario was just right here.  Yes it was sharp as well, and since I have no idea what age of rums went into the blend, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s probably a mix of rums three years and younger.

This does not disqualify it, however, because althugh the nose had its weaknesses, the taste was something else again. It was, for a rum this young: just sweet enough, medium to heavy bodied and smoothly oily beyond my expectations. It lingered on the palate, releasing flavours of coconut, light caramel and cinnamon, perhaps some liquorice, and again, that faint touch of dark grapes. I mean, the thing was voluptuous, quite a different thing from the rather pedestrian schnozz…can you blame me for being enthusiastic?  Wow.  The finish was not overly long, and there was a pleasant heat to linger on, but after a while even that faded, leaving behind a pleasant sweet scent that dissipated more slowly: not the best finish I’ve had, but far from the worst.

The Havana Club Añejo Reserva starts slowly, doesn’t overly impress, then gathers a head of steam and ends the race like a late breaking nag at the five-furlong pole, finishing far ahead of where you might have expected it to.  What a hidden gem this rum is indeed.

(#071. 80.5/100)

Angostura Premium Dark 5 Year old – Review

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Mar 122011
 

First posted 12 March 2011 on Liquorature

Simple, rough, surprisingly tasty….good value, I think. You are going to get hit with a molasses club at the inception, and if you stick with it, it’ll reward your patience.  I’d say mix it, but a brave soul may take it as is.

Like most average folks I grew up watching bartenders mix drinks with Angostura Bitters; and one of the enduring memories of my first years in Georgetown was pouring a couple of drops into a cream soda to make a “rockshandy”.  It was years before I realized that the Angostura company also made a whole lotta rums, one of which, the Premium 5 year old, I’m taking a look at here.  I selected it as one of the three official rums for Liquorature’s February 2011  Gathering, but it was eclipsed in most people’s minds by the Favell’s London Dock, and the Renegade Grenada 1996.  Oh well.

Appearance wise, I’d have to say what I liked most about it was the bottle itself, and the colour: a deep copper bronze. It suggested that here was a rum done more in the demerara style than anything else. Against that, there was the cheap tinfoil cap which did less than enthuse me, as such things usually do, but these days I sort of sigh and move on…it’s ot as if my sniffy opinions are going to change a large company’s capping policy.

I noted above that this was a rum which seemed to have its origins in the Demerara style: this suggests right off the mark that what we would expect is a dark, heavy bodied rum of some sweetness, crammed with molasses and dark sugar flavour.  The initial nose upon breaking the seal confirmed the idea. Soft. Rich.  Molasses like “fuss time,” front and center. It reminded me of nothing so much as Young’s Old Sam’s Demerara rum, just not quite so overpoweringly single minded: I mean, the Premium 5 actually had a few extra notes to it, once it deigned to open up…slightly overripe bananas, and the hint of some fleshy kind of soft fruit – peaches or apricots, perhaps. Was there some sweet behind all that, like a grape?  Not sure.  But yummy nevertheless.  And to confirm this was not some old fuddy-duddy overaged grandfather of rum with hoarfrost in its scraggly whiskers, you could definitely sense its boisterous youth – a sharp, slightly uncouth bite to the shnozz.

Do we ever even remember what it was like to be fifteen?  When the world was young and ripe and came every day with an apple in its mouth?  When we burst with energy and felt everything with a zeal and passion that made all experiences black or white with no subtleties or variations?  When we wore shades all the time because we were so cool that the sun shone twenty four hours a day?  When our bodies ran so smoothly, so well, that we could eat all day long and still come out lean and mean, and we could digest a golf bag with no problems and nary the loss of a single bowel movement?  We paid for that fierce level of energy and blazing radiance of youth by not having much intellectual power, just about zero points of experience, and by pissing people off by making brash and brutal statements without even thinking about it.  This rum was something like that.

That edge of youth, that exuberance and cheerful spring, carried over to the taste and feel on the palate.  And while the legs of the rum on the sides of my glass were the slow, fat and voluptuous gams of a “Biggest Loser” contestant, the arrival of the spirit on the tongue came with a blaring tantarra of molasses trumpets, and a dark and medium-heavy body rescued from liqueur-ishness by having a lack of sugar that was just enough to compensate.  A spicy, heated, entrance betrayed its lack of years (or could be argued to emerge from the oak barrels in which it is matured); it was all mixed in with vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch, bananas, and a faint citrus fork that neatly skewered the sweeter, muskier tastes (while staying firmly in the background).

The fade was a little less…well, shall we say exuberant.  Here the lack of years of the Premium Five was the most apparent, because to be honest, it was a rather crabby finish, a bit rough and ungentle, like the words we said to the first girl we so cruelly dumped in our teenage years. The burn was sharp and scratchy, yet I still gained some burnt sugar flavour in the final exhalation of fumes at that back end, which rescued it from being just a malicious product, out to do you harm and cause you pain.

In summary, I fondly regard the Angostura Premium Dark Five year Old as a canecutter’s rum: it’s hot and hairy, of strong character and not overly blessed with a plethora of sophistication…yet, it’s a rum you’d be glad to have around after a physical day’s work when all you want to do is kick back, have a curry gilbacker with dhal and rice and something to go with it.  Something like this rum, which you can uncork, mix it or not, drink, feel its warm burn, and never have to worry about how to spell “plethora”.

(#070. 77/100)

St. Nicholas Abbey 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Mar 052011
 

First posted 5 March 2011 on Liquorature

This rum is one of the best rums of it’s kind I’ve ever had, and it will dent your wallet to show it’s no accident.  Everything about it works: presentation, nose, taste, finish.  Even the place it’s made has a romantic cachet and youthful exuberance that enhances the aura surrounding it.  You see this, you buy it, and buy it now.

St Nicholas Abbey 10 year old is one of the unsung Jedi Knights of the Universe.  It succeeds without seeming to try.  It embodies a grace and style many rums aim for and fail to attain, and presents it in a bottle by which a rum twice as expensive would be proud to be embraced. For a maker just barely out of the Padawan stage, I’d hazard a definitive statement and say it’s a hell of an achievement. I liked it the first time I sampled it at a tasting held by Kensington Wine Market in Calgary, bought a bottle the same night for ~$150, and have not regretted the purchase for a moment. And given that my wife – notoriously parsimonious and gimlet eyed when it comes to my purchases of the noble spirit – thought it was a really wonderful rum, how can you go wrong?

A lot of bottles are either all good within and have lousy presentation without, or have “all outside and no inside,” but not this one. Now, the Last Hippie has noted how stingy I am when it comes to awarding points (I have similar problems with his generosity), but St Nick’s has come close to acing the presentation sweepstakes. The bottle is a tapering square flagon with a thick lip.  It’s etched with a frieze of the plantation itself (The Great House, actually), and has a  mahogany-tipped, leather covered cork that was simply stunning; bottle and box are both wrapped with soft tissue paper. If it wasn’t for the cheapo thin cardboard box it came in, it would have scored a perfect ten.

The name of the rum represents the name of the plantation in Barbados where the spirit is made. The land and buildings have been in existence at least since the 1630s but the Jacobean Great House on the grounds was only built in 1658, when the plantation was called Yeaman’s; subsequent descendants renamed it the Nicholas Plantation for tangled family issues which makes for interesting reading if you like generational history, but is too long to easily summarize. Various other owners came and went over the centuries; one of them was the man whom Mount Gay was eventually named after, Sir John Gay Alleyne: Sir John was instrumental in introducing rum production to Nicholas in the latter half of the 18th century, diversifying its fortunes from sugar and molasses production. However, it fell into debt and was sold off to new owners in the early 1800s, and was subsequently renamed St. Nicholas Abbey for what could be termed sentimental reasons by the Cumberbatch family, whose descendants held the property until 2006.  Sugar production continued untiul 1947 when economic conditions caused a cessation of sugar and molasses production. but a new mill was brought to St. Nicholas in 1983 and sugar and rum production recommenced. However, the R. L. Seale’s Foursquare distillery is still the final bottler.

Whatever the stops and starts and hiccups of rum production on the island, they sure haven’t forgotten anything in the interim. You open the bottle and sniff and a buttery soft nose billows out to embrace your senses. No sting, no harshness, no fanged assault by a Colo Claw Fish or Sandpeople’s gaffi sticks.  Just gentle caramel notes mixed with molasses, with cherry notes drifitng in and out of the dark sugary smells.  Let it stand for a bit and open up, and you’re left with burnt brown sugar like it was Christmas come early. Others may find more complexity in the rum than I did, but what I discovered was quite enough for my personal enjoyment, believe me – whatever you detect on your own, you will not be disappointed.

As for the taste and body, well, umm…wow. It’s good. It could make C3P0 wish he could drink. It has hints of nutmeg, those cherries again, some well cured leather, all wrapped up inside a molasses and caramel blanket that was – unlike the DDL El Dorado 25 year old at twice the cost – just sweet enough, and dry as the humour you’d get if you mixed Monty Python with Lando Calrissian on a bender. St Nick’s gently and lovingly ravishes your throat all the way down, caresses your taste buds and coats your tongue in a way that carries flavour to every address of your taste buds. And the finish displays similar excellence of quality: it’s long; it’s lasting; it’s gentle – it’s the best kiss Leia ever gave Han, and carries with it no shade of spite or bitchiness or pain. I could sip this lovely ten year old all night long. Actually, I nearly did.

I don’t know what St Nicholas Abbey has done that makes all these pieces come together so well. They do eschew complex mechanical means of mass production and have stuck with pot-still distillation techniques – this may account for the rather high price, it being a function of rarity created by the slow and less efficient batch processing – so that may be part of it. They are right next to their source of cane juice, so maybe that has something to do with it too. Currently, the rum is produced for the plantation by R. L. Seale, initially aged at 65% abv  in oak bourbon casks for 8 years, and then batched and re-barrelled in to the same casks at bottle strength and then aged for a further two years at the Abbey. Just about all rums are aged in bourbon barrels, so I sort of discount that as a factor.

But however and whatever they do, somehow the Abbey makers of this sterling ten year old have combined their accumulated knowledge and a production method of their own that surpasses expectations and have, I dunno, blessed it with the Force.  And created a drink so all-round excellent, that if I was a Hutt, I’d sure as hell hire Han Solo to smuggle a few cases past the Empire.

(#069. 87/100)

Juan Santos Añejo 9 Year Old Rum – Review

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Feb 202011
 

Publicity photo (c) Casa Santana

(First posted 20 February 2011 on Liquorature)

A rum that doesn’t seem to be trying, and yet, when you’re done and you try to analyze your experience, you unexpectedly find yourself admiring it more and more, surprised by its overall quality.

The other day a lady from my department quit: an overseas posting came up, and she’s upping anchor and bailing with her family. I’ve thought of Cecilia often in the days since her resignation.  She took no crap from me, did the work of a full time employee in half the time, and was quiet, efficient and professional. She and I did some really stellar work together, more from her technical expertise than any inherent qualities of mine, and I know she’ll be missed: by me in particular – class acts are tough to replace. I think of her, and have nothing but fond memories and great respect.

It was in this frame of mind that I sampled the Juan Santos Anejo 9 year old, and perhaps because she was on my mind, thinking of one led to the other. Juan Santos hails from Colombia, as does Cecilia, and actually my first introduction to their wares had been a coffe infused liqueur that I still take on the odd occasion when I want some thing with a little less octane than the usual. The distilling company, Santana Liquors is not a very large concern, and it is young (formed in 1994) but they certainly do have a good range of rums: 5, 7, 9 12, and 21 year olds…and I have to note that even though they planned a sort of invasion of Alberta a couple of years ago, their wares remain puzzlingly unavailable…though I did spot the 21 year old the other day at a nearby Co-op. Just one.  What’s up with that?

Chip Dykstyra, who popped down to Calgary a few weeks back to sip rums and speak of affairs with some of the members of Liquorature, gave me this sample and asked me to do a write up , give the thing some visibilty if deserved, pan it if it didn’t.  Having done so, I suggest you agitate gently with your local bar, rumshop, beer garden or pub, , and get them to start stocking this excellent midlevel rum.

All right, enough of this generalization, what was it really like?

Well, first of all, it came in a tall, heavy shouldered bottle reminiscent of , and an excellent, tightly seated plastic cork. The colour was a dark gold, and what I had managed to research suggested this was a rum made in the Cuban style.  I’m not entirely sold on the classification of rums into main “make” styles (Cuban, Demerara, Jamaican, and Cane Juice, with some adding Bajan and Dominican), but here’s one that stated front and centre that this was what it was like: and that would lead you to expect a light, somewhat dry and spicy rum with a not to sweet, cognac-like character.

Indeed, the nose seemed to confirm that.  It swatted me on the snoot with a quick sharp sting which never relented. Caramel and brown sugar came to me, but also rich coffee.  And after a while, the rum did indeed open up and released a delightfully light and floral scent that coiled around the core of the base scents like lone Tie fighters circling the Death Star. And on the back end there came the scent of ripe fruit, perhaps papaya, or mango.

The taste was something else again. A Cuban styled rum is supposed to be light, dry and peppery, but the 40% ABV Juan Santos 9, which is aged in white oak barrels from Kentucky, pleasantly surprised me by having a heavier prescence than its rather thin legs would suggest, coating the tongue quite nicely and delivering a burst of flavour that was a shade arid, yes, but also bringing with it caramel, vanilla, nutmeg – and that coffee again, though fainter – and to my mind, just a bit too much spiciness.  I’m not sure I can blame it for that, though…it adds a shade more character than might otherwise have been the case, and makes the sugar less aggressive.  But the flavours blend well into that spice: a good balance overall. The finish was also pretty good, medium long and fragrant, biting a little yes, and in a good way.  It was that deep burn I like in a decent aged rum, and if I thought it could use a little more ageing, well, that’s me.  I’m sure others will accept it and like it exactly as it is.

This is going to sound funny, but I tasted this thing and thought about it, and it really reminded me of Cecilia (and not just because they share a common geographical point of origin).  It’s something to do with its unpretentious nature, the way it gets the job done without undue fanfare: it’s a really decent rum that way. I don’t mean to compare Cecilia to a rum: that would be indecent, and fair to neither.  It’s more a question of character.  Looking at my numeric score after tallying up the points, I was surprised to see Juan Santos beating out more famous, well-known marques without actually looking like it was excelling at anything or making any great effort.  There are some people like that too, and I meet them all too rarely.  They don’t talk much, they have no bombast or bull in their natures: they are simply and unassumingly good at what they do.

I tasted the Juan Santos 9, appreciated it as both sipper and mixer, and admired Colombia a whole lot more: if they can produce both professionals and rums of this calibre, we should be paying more attention to both.

(#067. 80/100)

 

Background (Added in 2021)

Juan Santos rums are produced by Santana Liquors out of Baranquilla, a free trade seaport zone in the north of Colombia, on the Caribbean Sea. The company also makes various brands for other markets, like the somewhat better-known La Hechicera and Ron Santero labels (Ron Santero is the US brand name for Juan Santos, the latter of which is only sold in Canada). Their website and Forbes notes that they started operations in 1994 when their founders – assumed to be the Riascos business family – brought over some rum makers from Cuba, and an article in el Tiempo notes they are the only family owned (private) rum company in Colombia — all others are apparently part of the Colombian government monopoly.

However, it does not appear that they are actually in the business of distilling themselves, not are they primary producers of anything. They have no sugar cane fields, nor a refinery nor a distillery – at least not that they promote on their own materials and company websites –  unless it is the winery they also own and operate, which is where their barrels of rum are aged.  What they do, appears to be to act as third party blenders, much as Banks DIH does in Guyana. La Hechicera, their companion brand now distributed by Pernod Ricard who bought a stake in 2021, is often spoken about in rum circles as sourcing barrels and stocks of rum from around South America and then blending and bottling them in Colombia as “Colombian” rums. But they certainly don’t make anything of their own on a distillery.

As an additional note, Juan Santos rums no longer appear to be available in primary markets and online web shops – it has been almost a decade since I sourced mine, so sometime in the mid-2010s I suspect it may have been discontinued.

 

Ron Barceló Añejo – Review

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Feb 092011
 

First posted 9th February, 2011 on Liquorature

This is a weaker than usual, unloved product of a distillery that has better products up the food chain, but apparently refused to pay the same attention to this one.  It passes muster as a rum, but barely, and if you have choices and like stronger wares, this one won’t get you to part with your cash. If you want something stronger than a port or liqueur, but weaker than a real spirit, well,  I guess this is for you.

Right out of the bottle you get a sense of the relative weakness of this rum.  Perhaps it’s a measure of the forty percenters or even fifty percenters I’ve been sipping lately, but let’s face facts and concede that it’s also a relatively weak rum at a 37.5%, one which would make any maker of a 151 snicker a little. And that also makes the Ron Barceló weigh in dangerously close to being a liqueur, which this site is not in the business (yet) to review.

Ron Barceló, made in the Dominican Republic (not in Dominica – the two are separate nations), is a product of Barceló Export Import, which has been in business since 1930, has always been a rum producer, and remains to this day a privately held company run by men who bear the name still.  Julian Barceló, the founder, hailed from Spain – the name is actually Catalan –  and arrived in the DR in 1929.  His company soon became a very large and profitable enterprise, expanding his line of products to differing rums starting in 1935. By the 1980s the company became one of the biggest in the country, and expanded its market base by aggressively promoting exports – Spain was and continues to be a prime export market for the rums, of which the anejo reviewed here seems to be somewhat of a mid tier product.  Maybe it’s a sherry thing. Note that this is one of the “Three B’s” – Bermudez, Brugal and Barceló – of the DR, and the youngest.

A golden coloured rum, Barceló poured into the glass and displayed the swiftly moving anorexic legs of a middle distance sprinter, judging from the haste with which the scooted back down into the body. The nose was quietly unimpressive: it had a bit of sting and spice to back up the scents of caramel, burnt sugar, bananas and perhaps a bit of coffee, but beyond that, there was very little, even after I went back to it a few minutes later, and again for a second and third nosing. I really didn’t know what to make of it: against the lack of depth and power imparted by a lower alcohol content is a slightly smoother, less astringent nose imparted by that very same lack. Bit of a schizo product, really.

The downward spiral continued on the palate: thin, a little harsh (if I was unkind I’d say bitchy, but that would be implying a strength the rum does not possess). The flavours are unassertive, though one must concede that you do get unambiguous notes of caramel, molasses and brown sugar, and perhaps a shade of citrus.  But none really “tek front” and either elbowed the others aside, or asserted a pleasing marriage of the lot.  You got these, and…nothing.  You could almost say it was boring.  And the finish?  Well, uninspiring – smooth and short, with no sting worthy of the name (let alone a burn) and some kind apologetic whiff of weak spirit at the back of the throat, a tired reminder that Barcelo had some alcohol content after all. Undistinguished and unremarkable, to me.  The whole product smacks of some kind of “good enough” philosophy in its provenance that I find vaguely affronting.

In sum, I’m completely unimpressed.  With respect to other distillers’ products from the same half of the island, I didn’t care for the Bermudez Ron Añejo Anniversario, to which I gave an indifferent opinion, but that one, at 40%, was marginally better than this anemic offering. The Brugal on the other hand blew both of the other “Three B’s” away on better body, better taste and a phenomenal finish.  Mind you, as I noted in the former review, people who like cognacs and whiskies and drier libations might find lots to favour about the Barceló – I merely suspect that it’s lower proof will alienate those same people.  Who wants an underproof when there’s so much standard 40% or higher out there for the same cost, with a bolder, more assertive profile? I mean, the only reason I don’t classify this as a liqueur right away is because it is not sweet or heavy enough.  But it’s close. No wonder the maker’s website gives so little information on the Barcelo: there’s precious little information to give.

So there we have it.  The indifference of manufacture, coupled with an underproofing of the Barcelo, undoes what could be termed passable work by the blenders — and therefore I must conclude that it appears that it is a throwaway product, something without much care and love lavished upon it.  It’s an also-ran for older, more aged, better blended efforts from the same company.  It tries to walk with the big dogs, but for my money, alas, it just ends up peeing like a puppy.

(#066. 61/100)

Other notes

  • In September 2022 a comment (below) pointed out that Barcelo makes rums only from cane juice, which an immediate check on the website of the company also confirms. I have therefore changed some of the factual elements of this review appropriately (although score and tasting notes stay as they were).  No idea how that slipped past my original vetting process…however, it’s possible that they used both molasses and cane juice, since Latin countries / ex-Spanish colonies did not have a history or tradition of using cane juice.
  • Note that in 2009 a new Barcelo division, Alcoholes Finos Dominicanos, was established with funds from the EU Rum Sector Programme (the same one that funded Clarendon’s new column still / fermenters and Foursuare’s bottling plant), and built a new industrial distillery the following year, which is processing 100% cane juice. This is now the distillery Barcelo is using to make its rums.  It seems reasonable to suppose that this Anejo I tasted in 2011 is from older stocks that were made from molasses.  The taste supports that assumption. (See also this 2020 Barcelo company profile on YouTube).

El Dorado 12 Year Old Rum – Review

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Feb 042011
 

As long as you like a darker, heavier profile of fruity and dark sugar notes, this is a rum that gets better and better as you compare more and more rums to it.

First posted Feb 4, 2011 on Liquorature

The median of the el Dorado range exhibits a schizophrenic character, in line with its uncertain position as neither the entrance level rum (that honour probably belongs to the five year old), or its other bastard brother the single barrel, or any of its two superior sipping cousins, the 15 or 21.  It’s kinda left alone to sink or swim on its own merits.

Those merits aren’t half bad, I should note.  Readers might as well be warned, however: I have a weakness for dark rums of slight sweetness and age, and therefore I regard El Dorado’s as particularly good specimens of the type, never mind that they come from a country I spent many years in and of which I still retain fond memories…and where I was able to pass through many of the sugar plantations – Port Mourant, Diamond and others – where DDL gets its raw materials and stills.

I had the 12 year the same night I meant to sample all the other rums in the range, but as noted in the 15 year old review, I was tired, irritated and feeling crabby after a particularly loathsome day at the office, and therefore limited myself to retrying the 12, and then moving upscale.

The thing is, as a rum in its own right, the 12 isn’t half bad. Made from molasses in the Enmore and Diamond coffey stills and blended with a lead spirit from the Port Mourant double pot still (the only wooden one still in existence, and which also makes the Single Barrel, and several European specialist makers)  and then matured in used bourbon barrels, the 12 is not quite the equal of the 15; however, DDL have taken steps in 2006 to rejig the blend, so that now it seems to be right there on the ladder leading up to the premium sippers above it.

The nose is a bit sharp, but you can see where the progression is leading: molasses, fruit, some toffee, caramel and burnt sugar assail your nose in waves of olfactory harmony. The blend is rich and mellow and it comes out in the smell, in spite of the sharper tannins from the oak barrels making themselves felt early on.

The rum is a dark tawny colour (not as dark as the subsequent older iterations, but getting there), and of a medium heavy body; it hugs the sides of your glass as if reluctant to seep back down, when swirled. On the palate, it reminds me somewhat of an untamed horse: not entirely sure where it’s going, it bucks and kicks you some, scrapes across your tongue, but you sort of forgive that, because the overall blend of flavour and texture is so good.  There is a deep flavour of dark sugar and spice, mixed in with the tang of citrus, softness of toffee, all mixed around with a lush caramel (and I’m a sucker for that, as my purchases of ice cream will attest).

The 12 fails on the backstretch, I judge – it’s a bit too harsh for a good twelve year old rum, and one expects better (the 15 more than makes up for that, I should note).  This does not invalidate is as a sipper, just makes you want to run out and buy the next one up the line, or add ice, maybe a splash of chaser.  But on it’s own terms, with the balance of sweet and spice and burn, with a mellow finish that lasts a pleasantly long time and oils the back of your throat for longer than you have a right to expect…well, what can I say? It’s a success for its age.

Having written all the above, what would I recommend? Truth to tell, I’d use this as a high end mixer for sure, and if looking for a premium sipper, just go up to the 15, or blow a hundred for the 21.  But as a general all rounder for a lower price, this one is hard to beat – it deserves a place on your shelf for all those visitors to your rooms or houses or apartments who want to try something a bit richer than Bacardi, Appleton V/X, Lamb’s or Mount Gay (those standard staples of the young), but don’t want to bust the bank doing it.

(#0098)(83/100)

 

Favell’s London Dock Rum – Review

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Jan 282011
 

First posted 28 January 2011 on Liquorature

An overproof harking back to maritime days of the Empire, Favell’s lacks enough ageing or serious taste to compete with more carefully made and better aged examples of the craft, and will appeal more to whisky drinkers who like cask strength offerings, than those who like lesser strength rums to sip neat. 

Favell’s London Dock Demerara rum plays on the maritime heritage of the British empire’s trading  days: sailing ships, foggy stone wharves, the slow slap of the waves against the wooden hulls of old windjammers and clippers anchored alongside, and West Indian Trade in rum and molasses. Even the labelling reflects a slightly old-fashioned, nautical slant, what with its picture and the interesting notation that it is 100 proof rum…or 57.1% (for a discussion on why 100 proof in Britain is – or used to be – 57.1% alcohol by volume, see my article on proofs here).

Favell’s is, like other rums made in northerly climes, a blend of stock imported from the West Indies (Guyana, in this case) and again, this is stated front and center in the label: Demerara rum, product of Guyana.  In the 19th century the British empire had its largest trading hub in London, and in 1802 an entire new section of the Port of London, the West India Docks, was built to process the vast amounts of sugar and rum arriving from British colonies in the Caribbean. The Rum Dock section gave birth to Lamb’s London Dock and other rums of that period, but whose names have long vanished.  These days, only the term remains, redolent with history.

At 57% ABV, Favell’s is a proof rum (100 proof – anything over that is considered an overproof): we might term it cask strength, if that wasn’t technically incorrect.  There are frustratingly few notations on the distillation methodology available.  About all I can tell you is that the bulk rums come from Guyana, and the blend is made in Canada under license to White Favell, Vintner’s of London, who probably act like Gordon and MacPhail or Bruichladdich, but without the fame. The nice thing is that, like Screech and Old Sam’s, it’s made in Newfoundland, and that probably had something to do with the long maritime tradition of The Rock (or so the romantic in me supposes).

The nose was, as one might expect, not gentle or forgiving.  London Dock rums as a general rule adhere to Navy blending traditions, which is to say they are rough and dark and strong and have tastes are at best unsophisticated.  This one was no exception, and at 57.1%, I wasn’t surprised. It smacked the nose and was redolent of harsh spirit, caramel and some vanilla.  A bit sharper than I personally preferred.  After opening up, however, the alcohol vapours started to recede and a lighter, thinner floral scent stole about the overpowering depth of dark sugar, and I have to acknowledge that if you’re prepared to wait a bit, that almost makes it worthwhile.

However, to my disappointment, the taste failed when compared with either Pusser’s, or the A.D. Rattray’s rather excellent 13 year old Caroni rum, which are the only overproofs I’ve sampled that came close to Favell’s. The sharp taste is not medicinal, precisely (I would have marked it down for that), but it does bite like hell, and not the dark deep burn of a good, mellowed-down, well-aged overproof, but something harsher, less refined: something that required a bit more time in the barrel, I’d say. The rum was decently full-bodied as befits a Demerara rum – the problem was that the taste was not distinct, not particularly complex, or well-defined.  Oh you get the caramel, some faint burnt sugar notes, together with a trace of molasses. That’s all, though.  And the finish , well, it does linger, powerfully so…but one feels that those are mostly the alcohol fumes with some faint hints of the aforementioned standards, and so not particularly distinguished.

That this rum has absolutely nothing to do with the glory days of the British Navy and all its associated traditions is not in dispute.  It’s a pretender to a throne to which Lamb’s Navy rum and Pusser’s stand rather closer in the line of succession and merit. But I wouldn’t exactly mark it down for that either.  These days, I assume marketing swamis and smart people who study people’s tastes and how to sell things to people are usually behind the branding of any rum I review (and if any doubt my statement, feel free to weigh in on the discussion on the Ron de Jeremy slated to be produced this year): and so I don’t really hold it against them.

Favell’s is, to my mind, a success from the perspective of imagination.  I can surely, without effort, think of having a flagon of this at my side as I watch the last of the cargo being loaded onto my old sailing ship bound for Port Georgetown, the hawsers creaking as the tide comes in, the fog swirling around the dimly lamp-lit quay and muting the low conversations of the  sailors as they batten the hatches and make ready to cast off all lines.

Too bad that the taste and overall quality of Favell’s doesn’t quite live up to that promise. Close, but not quite.

(#065. 79.5/100)

Appleton Estate Master Blender’s Legacy Rum – Review

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Jan 212011
 

First posted January 21st, 2011 on Liquorature.  Tasted April 2009 and again December 2010.

Good rum, solid mid-tier sipper, but if you like something a bit more biting and clearly defined my take is for you to stop messing around and get the 21-year old, which is one of the cores of this one. It’s like buying a Boxster just because you’re too cheap to get the 911, and hoping the ladies don’t notice. Watch for the twitchy ride in either case.

The heart of this Jamaican rum produced by J. Wray and Nephew is a 21 year old rum blended with an 18, 15 and 12 year old (according to that valuable source, Michael from Willow Park – and here I need to post an addendum, that Chip Dykstra of the Rumhowler blog told me in late 2010 that Appleton reps had told him the 30-year old is also part of final blend), and the resultant is aged in oak barrels once used for Jack Daniels. For a rum that is this old and at almost at the top of its price range (~$100, compared to ~$135 for the 21 year old, and ~$320 for the 30 year old), I have to admit to being somewhat let down by its presentation: a cheaply made tin concealing the same old bottle with just a different coloured label is not my way of advertising one of the premium products of my line. Don’t get me wrong, I’m aware that presentation isn’t everything (just observing the way I dress should disabuse anyone of the notion that I have to have the outside match the inside) – it’s just that for the price of this baby, one expects…a little more. And in my review of rums, I find this issue across all of Appleton’s wares.

That said, I admired the deep bronze colour of the decanted liquid in a clear glass, and the aroma hinted enticingly of burnt sugar and (oddly enough), of maple syrup — not something I associate with the Caribbean, really. Perhaps a little pear. A sip and a taste revealed no major disappointment: mellow, smooth, rich on the tongue, with some nip from citrus peelings, and an odd sharpness on the backend . If one looks, one can discern the hints of oak, and vanilla, even some honey. It was a good rum: you could almost taste the way the younger rums enhance the central older one.

The finish is long and smooth, and then, somehow, it just falls short of being a really top rum by having the body fail and thin out (I can think of no other way to express this feeling) and turn bitchy on the way down, like an expensive courtesan who resents what she is and scratches you for your trouble after you’ve forked over and put out. Honestly, the finish ends on a whiskey note that is totally unexpected and not entirely welcome. I appreciate the craft that went into making this blend, and look forward to one day trying the Limited Edition 30-year old, but for something this close to being excellent, it’s a cruel letdown. It goes all the way to 99%, and then quits. Aaargh.

And this isn’t just me. This is the second of three really superior rums I had on hand for the April 2009 session, and yet it was pipped in the opinions of the participants by not only the Flor de Cana 18 year old, but the 12 year old Zaya (which may be a poke in the eye for those who believe age confers quality so far as the good stuff is concerned)

Maybe the packaging wasn’t lying after all.

(#064)(Unscored)

 

Flor de Caña Centenario “21” 15 Year Old Rum

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Jan 182011
 

First posted 18 January 2011 on Liquorature.

A better than average presentation, for a rum that supercedes its age 

The Flor de Caña 21 is a good example of ensuring you know what you’re buying before you fork out your hard earned pieces of eight.  I’m being redundant here (most other online reviews make mention of this), but I note the matter because all other Caña products have their age statement clearly and unambiguously front and center: 4 yr old, 5 yr old, 7 yr old, 12 yr old, 18 yr old.  You can hardly avoid that: it’s on the front of the bottle and if you miss it, you aren’t paying attention in your hurry to peruse the price information.  But the veinte uno doesn’t habla in this manner. The 21 doesn’t refer to the age, but the century for which it was bottled, and it’s actually a fifteen year old, which is noted in small gold lettering on the back. And this may in fact be reflected in the price: I paid ~$70 for it, and one would expect a 21 year old to be closer to, if not exceeding, a hundred.

Presentation was first rate – while I would have preferred a box or a tin for something this aged, I could live with the blue bag and the matching opaque blue bottle, since I’m a sucker for originality (and recall, the brilliant 18 year old doesn’t even have the bag, let alone a box). The rum itself pours into the glass in a tawny amber colour; it presents slow fat legs, for which I’m beginning to run out of amusing metaphors to describe: let’s liken it on this occasion to a Bourda fishwife’s plump gams.

The nose in this thing is, quite frankly, outstanding.  It’s deceptive as well, because it starts out as a caramel-molasses scent, very smooth and hardly stinging your schnozz at all…and then morphs into a clear, clean floral and herbal scent that is delicate and assertive at the same time (I know no other way to express this lovely nose – most dark rums are either medicinal or overwhelm with burnt sugar and molasses, but not this one).  In fact, I liked this so much that I spent an inordinate amount of time dipping my beak into it just to revel in its pleasures.

The body is medium (the bottle says full-bodied, but I’m not entirely convinced of that), just enough sweet mixed with just enough flavour and alcohol.  The profile on the tongue is something else again: rich, caramel and sugar undertones, bound together by molasses and – once more – that unique hint of clean flowers, just faint enough to draw attention and balance out the muskier sugars, yet not so much as to overwhelm.  The balance really is quite good. The 21 exits in a smooth and gentlemanly fashion, with barely a sting, and yet here’s a bit of a letdown: the finish is shorter than one might expect. An excellent nose and taste and coating on the tongue and throat, you understand: just short, as if the gentleman was visiting a house of ill repute, and now, having completed his business, wishes only to put on his hat and depart the premises with all due dispatch.

Flor de Caña (flower of the cane) rum is made in Nicaragua, and is one of the most consistently good dark rums I’ve ever had, at any age (I simply adored the 18 year old). The Compañía Licorera de Nicaragua was founded in 1937, though workers of the San Antonio sugar refinery had been distilling their own festive hooch for local celebrations for maybe half a century before that. The success of the distilling company led to expansion and to exporting rums to other countries in Central and South America by the late 1950s. Following on the heels of the trend established by DDL in 1992, they began to issue aged premium rums (though stocks were surely laid down before that…after all, when was the 18 year old I had in 2009 put into a barrel?). And since 2000, these rums have been recipients of numerous awards for excellence. No argument from me on that score.

It’s an overworked and abused cliche that 20% of Americans can’t find their own country on a map, but this is surely not an issue with anyone who knows his rums.  Within the subculture, the great spirits of the small nations in the Caribbean and South America stand out as beacons of light and pride for their makers…and none of us who ever taste one of these great drinks is any doubt where Venezuela, Guatemala, Guyana or Nicaragua is.  We know the nations, we know the geography and we know the history.  We know of and care about, above all, the premium products of these small states, and what makes them special.  In increasingly disconnected, fragmented world, rums like the Flor de Caña 21 are almost like national symbols in and of themselves: they have the power to bring us together and educate us beyond their fleeting, ephemeral tastes.

(#062. 85/100). ⭐⭐⭐½

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