Captain Morgan Private Stock – Review

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May 252010
 

First posted May 25th, 2010 on Liquorature.

Surprisingly mellow sipper from a purveyor not noted for such drinks; not overly complex, but warm, buxom, heavy and with a rich nose and body. This is the Mother Hubbard of rums, to keep in the cupboard.

Right from the get go I must mention that I’ve given Captain Morgan a wide berth thus far, simply because it always had a reputation as a low- to mid-level mixer.  The fact that it was a spiced rum – whether or not it says it is – also added somewhat to its plebian cachet.  Not that I have a real issue with that, but there’s so much other good stuff out there that I don’t need to go to Puerto Rico for my rums. Without trying to be insulting, the fact is that Puerto Rico, which enjoys a favourable import tax regime with the US, makes the Budweiser and Coors of rums, with all the negative connotations this implies.  In making common hooch to appeal to the widest possible audience and lowest common denominator (the US consumer), some of the quality is lost in the quest for sales.

The Captain Morgan brand actually originated in Jamaica, where Seagrams bought the Long Pond distillery in the 1944. Tax incentives favouring Puerto Rico caused them to transfer manufacturing to a factory outside San Juan (close to where the Bacardi family was setting up a factory at the same time); in 2001 they sold the rights and brand to Diageo, a British concern which by 2010 was the largest spirits company in the world.  Diageo noted that they will transfer the production facilities from Puerto Rico to St Croix in 2011 or thereabouts.

Having bored you to tears with all of this tedious history and trivia, the question remains, is it any good?

Going in, I wasn’t sure: my experience with Puerto Rico was previously with Bacardi – the bestselling rum in the world and the choice of expatriates in far flung and remote corners of the world such as where I used to be – and Bacardi is a well-meaning, reasonably tasty but generally boring mixer — I tarred Captain Morgan with the same broad brush. Surprisingly enough, however, it really is quite a decent rum.  In fact, it’s a really nice sipper for the newbie who wants to get away from mixers without losing the body and taste. But I should add this was largely because of the inclusions and additions (primarily sugar and vanillas), not because of brilliant ageing and blending skills.

The nose is candied and overwhelms right out of the gate with vanilla and caramel. The dark undertones of molasses are clearly in evidence. The dark body has some strong legs, yet they don’t kick you in face with harsh spirit notes either.  This is why as an intro to a sipper, Captain Morgan is a pretty good way to start. The sweetness usually imparted by coke or other mixers that cut the spirit burn is essentially taken over by the spices added to the rum itself. And clearly effort has been taken to mute and smoothen out the palate.  The downside of this is that beyond the candy of these spices, it takes a real expert to taste anything else: try as I might, I could not discern more than butterscotch, vanilla and caramel and some very faint traces of what may have been orange.

The finish is also surprisingly smooth and even, and lasts quite a bit.  This may be attributable to the spices, but even so, for a three-year-old rum, I’m quite impressed. It ranks right up there, though its lack of complexity and deeper rum notes render it unsuitable for more discerning (and choosier) palates.

Speaking for myself, I’d buy this again, sure.  It may not be top tier (I paid just under $30 for it), but I have a sweet tooth and enjoy a decently crafted rum that is at home either by itself or in company with a cola. As a man who has spent triple digits searching for the best of the best (and been disappointed more than once with expensive losers that fail on the finish), I cannot fault the Captain Morgan for not aspiring to great pretentiousness.

So, unlike a Coruba, which I’d feed to favoured enemies in quantity, this one I’d gladly share on a warm sunset or cold winter night with my friends – for a low end rum, from me, that’s high praise indeed.

(#021)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • In the mid-2010s the bottle label was changed to replace the Captain Morgan portrait  (head only) with the full picture of “The Captain” standing with one leg resting a barrel.  Bottle shape and contents remain the same, though.
  • 2021 Update: The rum has now been reclassified (by me) as a spiced rum due to the overwhelming vanilla profile…and the fact that it’s now acknowledged as being added-to. It’s therefore unsurprising that I don’t much care for it these days.

El Dorado Single Barrel ICBU Demerara Rum – Review

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May 242010
 

 

First posted 24 May 2010 on Liquorature.

I always admire some level of originality, whether it is in food, drink, a book, movies or simply the way something looks. In an era of mass production and conformity, too much of what we buy or see is an exact copy of the same thing we bought or saw somewhere else. On that basis, I was quite happy to see Demerara Distillers’ square, tall bottle of the El Dorado Single Barrel ICBU when it was presented at the April 2010 session of the club, and since it was not only a rum,  but from Guyana, I knew I was in for something interesting.  Maybe the review would not be positive, but at least I would not have been bored during the sampling.

The El Dorado rum is made with the French Savalle Heritage Still from Plantation Uitvlugt (hence the ICBU marque), where a sugar factory has been functioning since 1753. It appears to be a blend as opposed to something specific and aged on its own, which is why once again there is no official age on the bottle – regular readers of my rum commentary will know this to be a personal bugbear of mine, though admittedly DDL is better than most in identifying senior blends with the age of the youngest component. Still, as it is somewhat lighter than the Special Reserve 15 year old – this may come from the fact that it does originate from a single barrel –  I venture a guess that the main component of the blend is a ten or twelve year old (see other notes below this review). It is a curious matter that the DDL site makes no mention of this rum at all, at this time (2010).

The rum is a deep bronze redolent of burnt Demerara sugar, with nice legs hinting at a full, dark body. A certain woodiness attends the nose along with the faint toffee and sugar…it’s like a faint smell of new rain on sun-warmed wood chips, and nicely enhanced by the attendant caramel. In a way it reminded me of the aftersmell of burning cane fields at harvest time on the East Bank of the Demerara, where I once lived.

Neat it was a pleasant sipper; to my mind the smoothness of the taste was defeated by the somewhat harsher tannins and woodsy tastes the nose had hinted at. In recent years, the only DDL offering I have had was the stellar 21 year old (also reviewed on this site), and there the sharp tang of wood (I’m not yet so refined as to tell you what kind) was quite muted and blended well into the overall flavour profile.  Here, less effort had been put in and the taste was therefore more pronounced.  Not really in a bad way, but it did put off the sweetness of the rum quite a bit, and made it somewhat drier. Nutmeg and cinnamon came through clearly on the palate, along with coconut and vanilla, all somewhat overwhelmed by the pungency of the wood bite.  I liked it better on ice, all things considered, and yes, as a mixer it’s excellent.  The finish is long, and the burn lingers and that is not necessarily pleasant for all: it was not for me.

I hesitate to pronounce any kind of definitive judgement on this rum. As a reviewer who looks for certain things to describe, I must concede its taste and body. It’s intriguing, flavourful and while not as unique as the Bundy, quite forceful in its own way: and as I said at the beginning of this rum review, I am always appreciative of efforts at originality – it hints at a blender who is willing to go outside the box. As a man who has friends over, it would not be the first thing I trot out for my guests, however, since it goes a bit over the trench and off the plantation, so to speak.  Oh, it’s a rum all right, and quite a good one: just a shade different…enough so that most people might take a glass or two out of curiosity, but then shrug and move on to more convivial and comfortingly familiar fare.

(#020)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • 2025 Video Recap
  • The rum is a blend of French Savalle still barrels aged between 12-13 years, according to a clarification on El Dorado’s FB page.  Cark Kanto, who worked with DDL as a Production Manager, told me that it was a blend of rums around 13-16 years old.
  • The rum was released in 2007 to commemorate the cricket World Cup, some matches of which were held in Guyana – the shape of the bottle to resemble a cricket bat is therefore not an accident.
  • In tandem with this Uitvlugt ICBU, two other rums from the wooden heritage stills were released: a Port Mourant PM, and an Enmore EHP.  I wrote about the trio together in a single post in 2015.
  • In my original review, I wrote that Ignatius Christian Bonner of Uitvlugt was once the owner of the estate, though I no longer have the source for this. Other sources give the name as Ignatius Charles Bourda” (Bourda is also a neighborhood of Georgetown, the capital, and has a famous market of that name located there. The best resource remains Mark Freyer’s work on the Plantations of British Guiana, which notes one of the original owners as being Iohann Christian Boode. I’d go with his work since his research is always top notch. It’s entirely possible that all names are the same person, forgotten, changed and corrupted through the centuries.

Cruzan Single Barrel Dark Rum – Review

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Apr 132010
 

 

Publicity Photo (c) Cruzan

First posted 13 April 2010 on Liquorature.

Completely solid rum, that succeeds on many levels.  Strong taste, well defined flavour profile, just enough sweet and a lovely dark body that doesn’t quit. Wow. A worthy addition to the shelf, to be doled out to real friends. 

Against the constant whine I make about rums not stating their proper age on the bottle (like some sly strumpet misrepresenting her quality), I have to concede that having a friend to not only help drink it but who’ll trot out his own cherished stocks to stretch out the binge is some small way a decent compensation.

The not-so-mythical Bear, who very thoughtfully helped me change my winter tyres, suggested one or two vintages from his pantry (a Santa Teresa 1796 for one), but I had bought this intriguing new as-yet-unsampled dark rum hailing from St Croix for ~$35 from the much lauded Western Cellars store in Midnapore (I was disappointed yet again with the paucity of the rums which contrasted badly against the groaning and crowded shelves filled with expensive twelve year old or greater scotches), and since this is a tad more expensive than the normal hooch that goes for $25, I thought it was time to try it.

Keenan’s hurt look of reproach (he has spaniel eyes that really work well for this), that I could find the contents of his private cellar somehow less than adequate, mellowed quite markedly as soon as he saw the bottle. For all his talk about not wanting his bottlers to waste time dandifying their wares and thereby jacking up the price for nothing but cosmetic upgrades unrelated to true quality, Keenan is a bit of a sucker for a real cork. St Croix had a suitably exotic ring to it.  And the little label at the top, where real ink noted this was bottle X from barrel Y, impressed us both even as we snorted our skepticism.

Still, Cruzan’s single barrel rum is not bad at all, for a rum that is blended from a series of 5 year to 12 year old rums. It has a pungently sweet nose that states its origin in molasses quite clearly.  The original rums that create the blend are aged in white oak whiskey and bourbon barrels, but the resultant is then itself aged in yet another charred barrel for a further period about a year, and I’ll tell you, that thing creates a deep amber colour and a striking nose that a single ageing would not produce.  You can taste hints of  caramel, vanilla, butterscotch, dark fruit and faint nuttiness, and the finish, while not quite as smooth as I would like, is not unpleasant at all, and lasts for a good bit.  It’s reminiscent of a good cognac. It’s dry and clean and the burn is quite mellow, really.  And I have to say it: it pleased my sweet tooth, and the body is decent, so while I might not drink it neat, over ice it’s perfectly drinkable, and with a coke I’d say it’s just veddy veddy good.

Honesty compels me to admit that I had to do a second taste at home, after departing Keenan’s porch somewhat worse for wear.  Sampling the Santa Teresa (it’s quite good, but I have to write the review) and then the re-tasting the Appleton Master Blender’s Legacy (which is about as poor on the finish line as I recall), then following that up with 3/4 of the bottle of this exemplary Cruzan had me seeing three Keenans as I departed.  My mother raising me as she did, I said goodbye three times, and assured each one of the three that when it comes to a good mixing rum, or just a damned decent drink for a reasonable price, this Cruzan is definitely a good buy.

Hopefully the Bear was in better shape than I and can remember what a good drink it was:  I guess I’ll see the next time I raid his stocks or he comes over to pilfer mine.

(#016)(Unscored)

Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva 15 Year Solera Rum – Review

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Feb 272010
 

17141

First posted 27th February, 2010 on Liquorature.

Having friends who will trot out cherished stocks of the good stuff for me to taste and comment on is always a plus.  Having those who share my interests in rum, and pick up obscure bottles from odd distilleries in faraway places is even better.  Granted every now and then one runs across paint thinner or liquified rat turds masquerading as rum, but in the main, the odds work in my favour. Still, though, I’ve had to take a leaf out of the Last Hippie’s book and always have a notebook on hand.  I may be fairly clever, but I’m somewhat prone to losing a few IQ points when having my sixth or seventh…or shev’nt’nth shot of…whu’ever. And that impacts on my note-taking, so I have to watch it.

Anyway it was with real delight that I saw this intriguing 15 year old rum from the Dominican Republic  joining its cousins the English Harbour 5, the Bundie, the El Dorado 21 and the Angostura Royal Oak on the table.  Now some might shake their heads and question my liver, my sanity or my ability to have so many competing rums swirling around my palate and still maintain my sobriety or sense of taste (which would be much degraded by the Bundie), but I exist to rise to challenges such as these, and sacrifice my finer feelings for the good of The Club.

A Super-Premium rum (whatever that might mean), this french-oak-barrel matured rum is the top of the line for the Ron Matusalem distillery which originated in Cuba in the 1800s, and which captured a fair share of the market right up to the point where some upstart johnny-come-lately called Fiddle…Fidelity…Fido…whatever (he had a beard and dressed in fatigues) took over from the US-backed dictatorship in 1959. The company was re-established in the USA and removed to the Dominican Republic in 2002 after one of the descendants of the founders gained full control of the company (the family branches had been feuding, leading to the brand’s decline). Interestingly, Matusalem’s master blenders are all descendants of the original founders as well, and are supposedly masters in the technique of solera blending originally developed for sherry and brandy, where barrels of rums from different stages in the maturation process are blended to produce the desired, unique blend. And while my bottle never noted it, this is a solera, which means the “15” on the label does not mean the youngest in the blend, but the average.

The Gran Reserva is a deep gold colour, though not quite dark; it looks like burnt honey. Not light either in body or colour or density. The nose contains strong indications of oak which, to my mind, drown out the subtler vanillas and toffee that linger better on the taste buds; and it is not as sweet as other offerings…they may have stinted on the sugar or caramel.  In my opinion, then, it does not impress when drunk neat or on ice – it is too much like a whiskey, in smell and body and taste (this may be a deliberate attempt to distinguish the product from other rums of equal vintage), and it burns going down, with a short and smoky finish, the way no good 15 year old should.  If I wanted whiskey I’d cross to the dark side and genuflect to the Scots, so on that level it fails.  However, I liked the taste and feel on the palate – the slightly higher density and long maturation period helps give it a really good, silky feel – I just don’t appreciate the taste that much.

That said, as a mixer with coke, whatever screams of outrage from purists, the thing is stellar. It has no such explosion of flavour as the EH5 did, but it develops a very solid, multi-layered and robust taste where the coke provides exactly the level of sugar that enhances the taste of the rum, to produce an excellent butterscotch taste that the silky texture of the rum goes with beautifully.

And that makes me conflicted, not least because I generally like soleras.  It seems that an aged sipping rum like this should not have to be mixed to enhance it to the level I rate so highly. I concede that this may partly be my sweet tooth and love of vanilla and caramel and butterscotch (that’s not butter made in Scotland, Curt, just in case you wondered), and partly my own preconceived notion of what a good sipping rum should be like.

Be that as it may, I believe a whiskey connoisseur, or someone with a different palate from mine, will love this rum.  As a mixer, I think it’s great — but why pay more for this when so many able, younger, cheaper mixers exist? The test of a good aged rum is whether it can stand on its own without adornment or enhancement. On that level, much as I like what comes out of this baby when coke is added to it, I must sadly state that it doesn’t measure up to its hype or pedigree when taken neat.

(#102)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • My sources for the solera comment are the company’s own website, and additional references here and here.
  • Matusalem does not own a distillery and is therefore a third party rum made, as noted, in the Dominican Republic. In 2015 they established their own new distillery there.

Renegade Trinidad 1991 16 Year Old Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
Jan 252010
 

 

First posted 25 January 2010 on Liquorature.

(#009)(Unscored)

***

I’m not always and entirely a fan of Renegade Rum, but will unhesitatingly concede that they are among the most interesting ones currently available, and deserve to be sampled. Un-chill filtered at the Bruichladdich Distillery on the Isle of Islay in Scotland, these limited editions have the potential to popularize single-vintage rum if one can get past the whiskey-like finish that jars somewhat with what I expect a rum to be.

My research notes that Renegade Rums trawls the Caribbean estates for traditional single distilleries that are no longer in operation or have some stock to sell, and purchases supplies from places like Guyana, Panama, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, and Trinidad — then completes the maturation in oak bourbon barrels, or those which have held madeira, port or wine. This impacts the taste quite significantly, I’ve found, but more than that, it makes the release extraordinarily limited: this one from 1991 was only 1380 bottles.

I’m unclear how old the 1991 Trinidad rum actually is, since it is advertised as 17, but 16 is printed on the bottle. Whatever the true age, the palate on this 46% (92 proof rum) is uniformly excellent, with notes of port and oak and a very subtle taste of caramel. The finish is not as sweet as I would expect, and does not last as long or as smoothly as a 16 year old rum perhaps should, though hints of burnt sugar and apples can be discerned (this is probably from the French port barrels used for the final ageing). What stops this from being a stellar review is simply the way the somewhat harsh and short finish takes some getting used to – when I first tasted this, I grumblingly compared it to a whisky. See, I’ve been getting sotted on the grog for more than half my life, and us West Indian hicks don’t particularly care to have our national drink turned into a Scottish home brew.

Ok, so that is snooty. Don’t get me wrong, however: I liked it precisely because it’s different, had character, texture, body and a good strong flavour. I wouldn’t drink it neat, though, or with ice (though I did both to write this review). This one, for all its rich provenance and comparative rarity, will be drunk rarely.*

* My good friend Keenan, horrified at my cautiously tempering the good stuff with coke (I was just checking, honest), snatched it away, proceeded to drink it with bowed head and misty eyes on the rocks, complimented it most fulsomely on its character, and disdained the cheap Lambs spiced rum (3rd tier, really) I was happily getting smacked on. I may not compliment Renegade’s creation as much as he did — he had to be dragged off, screaming “Leh we tek wan moh shot, bai” when the evening was over — but at least one person really really appreciated it, and the bottle I have will be kept for his use when next he is let out to play.

Flor de Caña Centenario 18 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jan 252010
 

First posted 25 January 2010 on Liquorature.

(#007)(Unscored)

***

Memory fails as to who introduced me to this Nicaraguan gem. I have a feeling it was Dougie from the office when he went down there. I was initially a bit doubtful, but since I was trying to scare up some good stuff for the first non-whiskey night of Liquorature, which thus far had been exclusively a Scottish binge, I felt it was necessary to pull out the stops: I had already bought the Appleton Master’s Blend and the Zaya, and this one’s price point fell somewhere in between.

The oldest of the Flor de Cana rums made from molasses, this sweeter than average dark brown rum is aged for eighteen years in used whiskey or bourbon barrels, yet somehow avoids that harsh bite so characteristic of rums aged in whiskey casks (like Renegade’s offerings). Because it is younger than the Appleton Master’s Blend, it isn’t quite as pretentious either, and so I deplored the similarity of the bottle with the 12 year version somewhat less. This is also the darkest of the rums we had that night, a rich clear brown with a slightly red tint; and, poured, it releases a nutty, smoky aroma, with hints of burnt sugar.

The taste in the mouth is superb (but note that my own predilections run slightly more to sweet than the average, so I won’t pretend this will work for others), sweet and spicy – those caramel notes really start to come out if you can hold it on the tongue – and a bit of oak flavour that begins to dominate after a bit. Actually, more than a bit. As you sip, the oak overpowers everything else and though the finish is smooth and fine, I felt that for an 18 year old, this was not quite the standard I expected. I think I’ll have to go back to this.

The issue for me is that the 12-year and even the 7-year Flors are fantastic for their ages, and the balance that I found tipping to the oak here, is better handled in these younger offerings. They are simply better on the texture and body, while their finish is a little less. Now I’ve been accused of taking one sip, passing judgement, and drowning the poor baby in coke at the first hint of distress (a holdover from my plebian past where a flattie and a bowl’ice plus pepsi was all I needed to go with the curry goat I had an hour before), but unfortunately here it was almost necessary. I’d take the 12-year neat, and the 7- with some coke, but the 18-year old, sadly enough, and good as it was, did not move me to treat it with the great degree of reverence I initially thought it deserved, and therefore I shrugged and bastardized the poor thing.

Again, I stress this is one of those I have to go back to, so my review may change; right now I’ll place it in the first tier, just not right up at the top. Second shelf, perhaps. I’m hoping it’ll move up.

Other Notes

  • A few years after this review, Flor de Cana removed the “years old” from the label, which has been widely derided as deceptive, because now there is no longer any kind of definitive age statement.

Zaya 12 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jan 192010
 

First posted 19th January 2010 on Liquorature.

(#002)(Unscored)

Surprisingly similar to the Zacapa 23…silky, sweet, smooth, supple, and a great drink by itself.

***

This review is being written in January 2010 (and amended again in April), but we actually had this phenomenal rum for the first time in April 2009, the first time I hosted the Club. A nippy night as I recall, and iconoclastic as always, I obstinately refused to get whisky, and loudly blared to all and sundry that it would be a rum night (and so started a peculiar tradition of Liquorature, which is that the voluble, lone crazy in the corner is a Caner and nothing can be done about him, so let’s buy him a bottle to shut him up when the Club meets ). I’d like to point out that this rum was such a hit that it was repeated at the March 2010 gathering, having, in the interim, gained a cachet that made its re-release almost inevitable (whiskey drinkers never have this problem, I grouse – the shop shelves buckle with the weight of the many scotches, while us poor upholders of the sugar-flag must suffer in silence).

The Trinidadian Zaya rum is value for money. Zaya’s deep amber color suggests full body and rich flavors. Aromas of caramel, molasses vanilla are most pronounced upon opening. Initial tasting reveals substantial flavors of vanilla, coffee and molasses, followed by more subtle tastes of butterscotch. It is sweet, and that’ll be off-putting to some (and I suspect whisky lovers will avoid it altogether), but damn, is it ever smooth. Finish is consistently heavy throughout, leaving behind flavors of vanilla and caramel. The flavours are excellently strong without being overwhelming…for a bit there, I thought I was tasting a spiced rum, to be honest. If you like a bit of burn the finish will please you, but it’s not out of bounds to mix it just a bit. A splash or two of coke does the trick, though I fail to see the point, and I can just drink this baby all night long.

Research informs me that until 2008, Zaya was estate-produced and bottled in Guatemala by Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala, home to Zacapa’s rums (see update below). where volcanic soils and tropical temperatures produce some of the best sugar cane in the world (as a loyal Mudlander, I cannot in all honesty accept this heresy, and so dismiss it as claptrap for the gullible). In the first half of 2008, the distribution of rums produced by Industrias Licoreras was assumed by the giant Diageo, resulting in the Zacapa brand being given priority. Zaya was forced to move production to the Angostura Distillery in Trinidad. Guatemalan rums are said to be some of the smoothest available; Trinidad’s rums by contrast are often more heavy on oak and tar, as evinced by the Caroni line of rums.

Packaging of the two versions is nearly identical, with a few unobtrusive changes to help you determine which version you are holding. The extra-heavy bottle with the leaf-wrapped neck and cork stopper are the same as before, but is now sealed with a sticker that reads: “Trinidad Production”. The labels are slightly modified as well. The small circular crest at the bottle’s shoulder that previously displayed a pre-Columbian native central American mask is now replaced with the Trini coat of arms containing a Scarlet Ibis and two sea horses. More obvious are the words at the very bottom of the main label, which declare the country of origin: “Imported Rum from Trinidad” now replaces “Imported Rum from Guatemala”. The one we had in April 2009 was definitely a Trini one, based on that label.

To my surprise, of all the rums we’ve had thus far, this one was the hit of the season (and it had strong competition that April night with a Jamaica Appleton Master Blender’s Legacy and a Flor de Cana 18 year from Nicaragua), and I relate this to the slightly more powerful taste I mentioned, which really struck a cord with the guys. Eyes still grow misty at the memory, or so I’ve been told, and the rum keeps being used as a quasi-baseline in our group. To my mind, it’s been eclipsed by the English Harbour 1981, but there’s also a ~$100 price difference so if I was short on funds, the Trinis would get my cash for sure.

Update February 2015

There is a growing backlash against Zaya, led by people who remember the older, more complex Guatemalan profile (and the early years of the Trini one), and who despise the addition of more and more vanilla and spices into the current profile.  It has led one popular bar to remove it from their shelves altogether, as remarked in this essay by the Rum Collective.  But other online reviewers over the years (Dave Russell and the RumHowler to name two) have also begun to gripe about the matter, and the current imbroglio over the amount of sugar and other inclusions in rums is sure to add fuel to the fire.

Update October 2021 (From a FB post by Matt Pietrek)

Here’s a little recent rum history rabbit hole I just went down, learning a few interesting things along the way. The elders among us may remember a time when Zaya rum was made in Guatemala, and considered a top shelf rum. It was only circa 2008 that production moved to Trinidad and its labelling became….. controversial….
It’s been reported in many places that Zaya was originally distilled at DARSA in Guatemala. (Update: Confirmed.) I had long assumed that Zaya was just another of the Industria Licorera Quezalteca-owned brands, alongside Zacapa and Botran.
I may have been wrong.
I just now came across this trademark registration for Zaya rum, first filed in 2000, and pictured here.
The original registrant was Wilson Daniels Ltd, although the current owner is listed as Infinium Spirits, both California companies. A little more digging turned out that both companies were owned by a Win Wilson. His obituary notes this:
“Win’s proudest career accomplishments included representing Domaine de la Romanée-Conti for more than 25 years, creating Cabo Wabo Tequila (named one of the “Top Three Tequilas in the World” by Anthony Dias Blue of Bon Appétit magazine) and conceptualizing the ultra-premium Zaya Rum brand from Guatemala.”
This got me thinking – Perhaps Zaya was an entirely a US-conceived brand, made using Guatemalan-made rum. Nothing wrong with that, of course. It just means that it may not have been a Guatemalan-origin brand, as I assumed. With that in mind, the similarity of the Zacapa and Zaya names seems more intentional. Assuming my above hypothesis is correct, Might Wilson have mimicked the Zacapa name with a vaguely sound-alike name, i.e., Zaya?
Meanwhile, I also learned that both Infinium Spirits and Wilson Daniels are owned by Young’s Holdings, the owner of Young’s Market, a major American liquor distributor that recently became a subsidiary of Republic National Distributing Company, the second largest US wine & spirits distributor.

English Harbour 1981 25 Year Old Rum – Review

 12 Responses »
Jan 022010
 

This was for me, for many years, one of the top five commercially available rums in the world. Not to be missed, even for the price. Four stars, triple A, I don’t care what you call it, this thing is simply awesome.

First posted on Liquorature, January 2010.

After gathering a ton of notes on rums from all points if the compass for most of 2009, it seemed appropriate to begin my official rum reviews with what is arguably the best – and the second-most expensive – rum I’ve ever tasted to this point in January 2010. Now I cheerfully admit to being something of a peasant and have no compunctions about using an expensive rum to dilute my cheap-ass coke if I think it a bit harsh, but for something this exclusive it almost seemed like sacrilege to let anything dilute it.

My friend Keenan and I were doing a rum run at Willow Park to stock up for a wings night (he who gets the largest raise buys the wings).  For those who have never heard of it, Willow Park in Calgary may just be as Curt has described it – the best liquor store in Western Canada.  Now Curt speaks from the misguided perception of his whisky-love (for which I have found the strength to forgive him), but there is little doubt that I have found more and better vintages of God’s water, more consistently, here than anywhere else. Browsing around, I saw this pricey bottle, read the label, hesitated and then, overcome by a fit of madness, bought the thing.  It was all I could do not to wince as the price rang up (and if you think this is dumbass, just read my review of the Appleton 30 year old)

It was well that I parted with the bucks, I think, because even a lifetime of boozing didn’t prepare me for the quality of this baby…packaging, bottle, appearance, legs, colour, drink – all were uniformly top of the scale.  I reverently cracked the sealed wax over the cork (Keenan’s wife laughed at us and our seriousness), bared our pates and bowed our heads, and took a neat sip each. And sat still, a little awed. This was, without question, the smoothest rum I’ve ever had in my life, one of the very few I’ve had without ice, and, at $200 for that bottle, it’s really pricey, but worth every penny. I’d have to say Keenan’s appreciation wasn’t far behind mine.

English Harbour 1981 is distilled by Antigua Distillery Limited from fermented molasses and bottled in 2006. It’s aged 25 years in used whisky and bourbon barrels and the subtle notes come through in the nose and taste. The copper and dark cedar color is sealed in with a wax-seal cork stopper that, when sniffed, gives a gentle nose of smoky wood followed by black cherry and currants. The initial taste doesn’t disappoint with more dry wood, caramelized dark fruit and roasted cashew in the body. And so, so smooth, it’s unbelievable – first rum I have ever had without even a smidgen of bite on the way down. The finish is dominated by smoky wood balanced with cinnamon and soft nutmeg tones. It’s like a liquid Hagen-Dasz caramel ice cream. If I ever get another one and feel like parting with that much money for the benefit of the peat-lovers, it’ll make the club for sure.

Highly, highly recommended if you can afford it (it runs into the El Dorado Problem, unfortunately, but in a pinch, the English Harbour 5-year isn’t half bad either at one-eighth the cost – I’ve got the review here as well). If only to apprise one’s palate of what rums can be at the top of the scale, buying this 25 year old is something a rum-lover should do at least once in his life.

(#0001)(Unscored)

Other notes:

  • This is totally irrelevant but in 2011 I snagged four more of these babies because a local shop mislabelled them at the price of the 5-Year Old. I can virtuously claim to have shared three of those bottles with others over the years.
  • The core of this rum is the Cavalier 1981 rum made by the same company. In 2014 I asked a brand rep about it and he admitted that they had underestimated how good the Cavalier was – when they did, they had enough left for the 5712 bottles that made up this rum.
  • 750ml of 40%. Bottle #552 of 5712.

Update March 2013: This rum has, of course, been superceded in my affections and appreciation of quality, which was inevitable given how many rums I’ve tried and written about. I still think, though, that if one was to make any list of the top five rums in the world, this one should be somewhere on that list.

Update October 2014: tasted this again at the 2014 Berlin Rumfest and scribbled some notes.  Even given the evolution of my tastes to stronger and more intricate, original profiles, I’d still give this a solid 86 points. It loses some for lack of intensity at 40%, but the complexity of what is there remains lovely.

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