Devil’s Thumb Distillery Cane Spirit Batch #13 Australian Rum – Review

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Jul 212024
 

Devil’s Thumb Distillery may hold the distinction of being one of the northernmost Australian distilleries making rum in Australia (as far as I know only Hoochery is further north and that by less than one degree of latitude, but never mind). That places it in northern Queensland (FNQ, remember that?) about 1800km north of Brisbane, and takes its name from an iconic peak of that name in the Daintree Rainforest that overlooks over Port Douglas, Mossman and beyond: the founding team felt it would be the perfect name for the distillery.

Who is the team? Well there you have me, because as has become a rather standard – and annoying — occurrence these days, the company website doesn’t mention much of the actual history of the distillery, let alone the owners or founders. As far as I was able to ferret out, the two main movers and shakers are Mark Norman the Head Distiller and co-founder (he was the force behind the award winning Navy Strength Gin a couple of years back), and Tony Fyfe, the CEO of Hemingway’s Brewery from Port Douglas 1. Devil’s Thumb was officially established in 2020 and has been in business ever since.

As a relatively new distillery, their product range remains small; one imagines they have a modest ageing program in place and each batch of their rum is sold as such – this the 13th. They also currently sell five gins (with some cute names like “Rainforest”, “Wet Season” and “Dry Season”), two spiced rums and one multi-batch example of a cane spirit, which is to say, unaged rum. It is to this we turn our attention today – it was the Day 10 entry of the 2023 rum advent calendar, for those who are keeping tabs.

The rum (yes, I’ll call it that) is actually an agricole style distillate, with cane juice coming from the nearby Mossman Sugar Mill. It is fermented with both cultured and wild yeast over something less than a week, and then run through the 1200-litre pot still called Carrie (a tip of the trilby to their manufacturing consultant) which is used to make some lighter rums from time to time, and also for gins and whiskies. As an aside, the other still in use is an Australian-made 1000-litre double-retort pot still called Roberta (whose name derives from the gent at Brewery MacAlister who gave their wort chiller to Devil’s Thumb to convert into a pot still); the resulting distillate was rested in stainless tanks and reduced over six weeks to 48%, with no filtration and nothing added. That makes it an agricole-style rum and many readers will know I have a real fascination for such unaged cane juice products because they vary so very much.

This one certainly started things off with a bang because the first notes on the nose were of cordite and gunpowder, the smoke of firecrackers and the acrid aroma of salt-petre (no, really). It took a while for this to dissipate, and then it was replaced by rubber, varnish and turpentine, all of which admittedly sounds like industrial solvent channelled by a chemical factory working flat out, but somehow, sort of, kind of…works. Partly that’s because additional character came into play: brine, olives, raisins, leather, grass, citrus peel, herbs in olive oil, plus some dusty and dry notes that seemed more whisky-like than anything else.

The palate was also quite something: really pleasant. Yes it had some rubber and fresh plastic notes, but also pushed out a crisp sort of sweetness, with sugar water, cucumber slices in white wine vinegar (plus a pimento for kick), brine, olives, lychees and a fig or two. There were also the faint tastes of unripe apricots, lemon peel, and yellow mangoes on the edge of being ripe. It was tart and herbal and lightly sweet and quite a lovely sipping experience, if a tad sharp for those unprepared for it. The finish wasn’t all that impressive, mostly closing down the aromas and repeating what had come before without adding anything new – but it was aromatic and easygoing, so could not be classed as a failure of any kind.

Well now, what to make of this? I’d have to say that it was a cane juice rum of uncommon originality (that opening nose, for example…wow!). I suppose I could ask for a bit less bite, a little more herbal character, and maybe a few extra notes of this or that fruit. But that would make it a rum I wanted, not the rum I actually got, and for a person who seeks originality and a new experience when trying rums, the choices Mr. Norman has made cannot be faulted.

Last week I mentioned that the three year old Doorly’s was a hell of a rum – it up-ended expectations and was more than the sum of its parts. Well, this unaged dingo’s donger from Down Under is not the same kind of rum…but it’s even better, and one I would happily get a bottle, any time it went on sale in my location. It’s that unusual, that interesting…and that good.

(#1082)(86/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • Video Recap is here. The video was recorded before the notes below became available, so in cases of any inconsistency of facts, the written review takes precedence.
  • Mark Norman very kindly provided some more background details just before this review went to press. Aside from what has been incorporated and amended above, here are some additional notes:
    • This is Batch #13, but as of July 2024 they are up to #18
    • Cane juice rums are high on Mark’s radar and are a passion of his: they will always be a focus of the distillery.
    • Another major area of future endeavours is high ester rum making: the company has employed Gabriele Pegoraro, a Brazilian chemical engineer whose thesis was on the fermentation of sugar cane juice. Gabriele has a strong distilling background and taken over as head distiller to lead this process.
    • With respect to an ageing program, the company’s principle has always been that the rum will be ready when its ready, rather than at any particular age. The first reserve cask rum will be released in the next month (August 2024) which will be a single cask release of a wild fermented, double pot stilled rum with age of around 2½ years. The oldest rums in the warehouse are now close to four years old and further stock continues ot be laid down..
    • The distillery is very much rum focussed, in spite of the very successful gin line. Apparently a amount of whisky is made (to appease co-founder Tony Fyfe).
    • Experimentation with the “Jamaican” style continues, and ageing new make cane juice in white wine casks is an ongoing area of interest.

Sunshine & Sons Maroochy River “Barrel Aged Cane” Australian Cane Juice Rum – Review

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Jul 122024
 

Let’s get back to Australia, and take a look at one of the rums that begins to turn up the proof a little: this is the Barrel Aged Cane from a locality of the Sunshine Coast Region, just north of Brisbane, in Queensland. The torturous title — which when you parse it linguistically, actually makes no sense — is a way to get around the two year rule for calling a rum “rum” Down Under.

There is not too much information on the distillery available on their website beyond the usual hyperboles and flowery language, so I’ll spare you that and just mention my guess that they were founded around 2019 or so, and that they have two large pot stills – “Sarah” a 2500-litre spirit still 1; and “Maria” a 6,000-litre wash still 2. One interesting thing about this distillery is they are a sister company of a much better known brand – Nil Desperandum, which does special bottlings.

So, about this rum, then. One unusual feature about it is that it is made from locally sourced cane juice, not molasses, with wild fermentation. Although it’s exactly the same as the Sunshine & Sons Premium Spirits Original Cane, it’s slightly younger at 20 months, unsweetened, less strong (49%) and in more limited quantities (two to four 200-litre barrels per year) matured in ex-bourbon oak barrels and intended to play a role as an exception in the Nil Desperandum releases – in this case, however, it was made specially available to this advent calendar.

We don’t see to much cane juice hooch in Australia, so it goes to show the experimental nature of what they do over there. That said, the real question for us is whether it comes anywhere near to lightly aged agricoles with which we are more familiar. Nosing this displays a rum remarkably light and easy for 49%. There are hints – and I use the word carefully – of honey, fruits, lemon zest and dishwashing liquid, raisins and dates. Some ripe Thai mangoes, green grapes, oranges, and some hot pastries in a vaguely sweet but puzzlingly faint overall amalgam. It really takes some effort to pin down those elusive notes, even going back and forth for several hours,

The palate is quite firm, and once again there are tastes that only reveal themselves gradually, even reluctantly, over time: some light fruits, pears, watermelon, papaya, lychees. Nothing overbearing or overly dominant. After a while one can taste a bit of orange marmalade on white toast, vanilla, a touch of brine, some indeterminate citrus peel, wrapping up in a finish that’s short and light and sweet, but ultimately, somewhat banal.

I find this an odd rum. First of all, there is very little that says agricole here, and channels a profile more akin to a back bar light white mixing rum. It’s vaguely sweet and pretty unaggressive, and rather underwhelming for something positioning itself as a limited edition special. It’s a rum, it’s nice enough, yet it reminds me too much of those milquetoast minis that hotel fridges stock, those mild-mannered Clark Kents which they charge an arm and a leg for. It’s too easy to completely succeed in a neat pour, and yet not anonymous enough for a cocktail, while being too light to satisfy either. Admittedly, it’s better than the alcoholic water that too often passes itself off as amber or mildly aged rums out west these days…I just feel there’s more here that we aren’t being allowed to come to grips with. Hopefully future editions will try to pack a bit more punch into the plonk.

(#1080)(78/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

Montanya Distillers “Querencia” 7YO Rum – Review

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Jun 242024
 

This the third review of a rum from Montanya distillers after the interesting white Platino and the somewhat polarising 3YO “Exclusiva” (I never got around to the 4YO “Valentia” and the “Oro” is in the queue). Montanya is that forward looking Colorado-based distillery that made lots of rum waves in the last decade; founded in 2008, it was run by Karen Hoskin before the company was acquired by CRN Ventures in December 2023. Since CRN is made up of head distiller Megan Campbell, former head distiller and operations lead Renée Newton, and brand strategist Sean W Richards (who one imagines is there for marketing purposes) and only has this one asset, then I guess it was either a takeover or a divestment by Ms. Hoskin.

This rum, therefore, predates the change in ownership six-plus months ago, and if the almost complete lack of a redesign of the website aside from a notice of The Event (to say nothing of there being no mention of the Querencia at all) is anything to go by then I guess it’s business as usual. Although I must say that Karen had a visibility and presence in the universe which may have been underestimated as a selling tool, because not a whole lot has been heard about the company or its rums in a while.

Anyway. The Querencia is a rum named after an area in a bullring where the bull makes his defensive stand (interesting naming choice….). It is the only high proof Montanya has made, is seven years old (their oldest rum) and is, as noted above, curiously absent from their webpage – partly because it’s only sold at their company tasting room and partly because it’s a single barrel release (of 396 bottles) back in December 2021.

The production stats can be assumed to be pretty much on par with others in the portfolio: the Lula Sugar Mill co-op provides the complete residue from the minimal juice processing they do — raw unrefined molasses and raw unrefined granulated cane sugar — which then gets open-air fermented for around a week, before going through the 400L direct-fire Portuguese pot still (the newer US-made still that was installed in 2021 had not seen output at the time this rum was issued). The distillate was double matured: first aged in an American white oak barrel, that previously held Colorado Whiskey from Laws Whiskey House, and then finished for somewhat under a year in a Ex-Pedro Jimemez Sherry Cask. Final release bottled at 50%.

What then, is it like? If you recall, the Exclusiva was intriguing mishmash of competing aromas: the Querencia is similar but I think somewhat better: the ageing does show up and asks to be counted here and moderates what its younger sibling had: initial aromas are of black and red peppers, a sort of musky dirty dishwater hint (thankfully brief), followed by a smorgasbord of dust and cardboard, and a nice series of sharp and tangy fruits: strawberries, pineapples slices, ripe cherries and gooseberries, closing up shop with sage, dill and a pepper-heavy vegetable soup.

Tastewise, not very traditional either, just nicely assembled: cucumbers in cane vinegar, plus some minerally, ashy, iodine-y notes, well balanced off by 7-up, cola and dill. The taste is more sour than sweet, though there is enough of the latter as well (cherries, ripe mangoes, peaches in syrup, that kind of thing), even a dash of Thai peppers, and smoky red paprika. The finish doesn’t attempt anything new just brings the fruitier sweet and sour elements to a close and leaves without haste or bother.

Altogether, I’d say this is more elegant than any other Montanya offering, while not being as original. It cares enough to be an easier drink and edges into the wall rather than just ramming into it facefirst, so to speak. The sweet and slightly off notes, the sour and brininess, all mesh quite well. Even at 50% if feels softer and more palatable than many others with similar stats, and as a mixer or as a sipper, it works equally well.

Most of the time I have little patience for the way so many American rums either head straight for the cheap seats so as to max sales, or the boring middle ground in an effort never to offend even a single potential buyer. The best American rums resolutely go their own way and what we have here is one of those: an interesting, almost noble, attempt to defy the stereotype, to make an original rum to exacting standards, that will nevertheless please. Not one that everyone will love, perhaps, but for sure one that many will respect. I’m one of those.

(#1079)(85/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • A video recap can be found here.
  • Production details updated a few days after posting to take into account Megan Campbell’s helpful follow up email
  • The rum predates the December 2023 takeover and was made around 2022
  • My deepest thanks to the boys at Skylark in the UK, who allowed me to hang around their crib and steal their rums, including this one.
  • More complete company notes can be found in the Platino review
  • Under new ownership, they will be releasing a pineapple habanero rum later this summer (2024); also issuing various cocktail bitters, as well as experimenting with different barrels for aging (e.g. grape brandy barrels).

 

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

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Jun 102024
 

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

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

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

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

Photo (c) New Norfolk Distillery

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

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

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

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

(#1076)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

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

Caroll’s Distillery RHE High Ester White Rum – Review

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May 262024
 

I’ve made no secret of my disdain for the cheap mass produced uninteresting blah of the regular run of filtered standard strength white rums made and sold in Canada. They are mostly tasteless, cheerless, charmless and graceless, and their only purpose is to get you – as economically as possible – as high as a giraffe’s butt. Perhaps we should be grateful that they do this one thing so well.

If you wonder at my snark, it’s because I know that it’s possible to make an economical white rum that is much better and has real flavour, a real character, and doesn’t require the whinging about Canada’s archaic rules on what can be called rum (minimum one year ageing is a much-derided requirement for any rum in the country). Just look at all the interesting rums being made in the UK by small distillers like Sugar House, J. Gow, Islay Rum Distillery, Ninefold, Retribution, Outlier and others. Or the New Wave of Australian distillers like Cabarita, JimmyRum, Tin Shed, Hoochery, Boatrocker, Killik et al. They have their issues as well but you don’t see them holding back do you? F**k no, they’re running full speed into the damned wall is what they’re doing.

Into this dronish mess of undifferentiated alcoholic rose water that constitutes the Great White North’s white rum landscape, comes a small New Brunswick outfit (founded as a hobby distilling project in 2016 and established a fucntional distillery three yeasrs later) called Carroll’s. It has a labelling aesthetic that is really quite lovely, and a single rum off to the side that channels the most atavistic, cheerfully fiendish impulses of the owner, Matthieu Carroll. With that rum, somewhat at variance with the others he makes, he leveraged a pot still shoehorned into his family’s bakery, did a nine day closed fermentation and brewed this popskull to amp up the ester count to 567 g/hlpa, and knock the pants off unsuspecting reviewers, most of whom don’t know what the hell to make of this thing.

Think I exaggerate? Permit me to illustrate: it’s 65.1% and packs a hell of a one-two nasal wallop – both for strength and for the congeners, which have no hesitation making themselves felt. There’s candy. Lots of sweet sugared sour candy, sour kimchi, candy floss, icing sugar on a cake and so on. There’s aromas of strawberries, pineapples, chewing gum and citrus juice from a bottle. That’s the nice part, and indeed, it’s sweet — a bit delicate even; but the countervailing muskier and deeper undernotes are missing and this throws the balance off somewhat, as does the mouth puckering sour.

There are reservations on the nose, then, though it’s decent enough, but the initial the palate is where it comes into its own. Strawberries and wet hay, anise, some very tart pineapple notes, and again the candy – though some of the tasting crew opined it is really too much now. They may have a point. The real aspect of the taste that may discombobulate, is that an increasingly dominant thread of red licorice comes stealing out of the night. Once this thing gets going, it’s red licorice all the way and it overwhelms everything else and again, there’s no balance. A bit more restraint on this, perhaps some more darker, heavier notes and it would have rated higher, I think, and a rather disappointingly short finish demonstrates a blurt and a blast of quick intense sweet-sour flavour with a rapid drop off.

So where does this leave us? Tasted solo it might be more of a success. Tasted with several other high ester Jamaicans in the vicinity, its lack of multi-dimensionality is more pronounced, and the crew of Rum Revelations’ 2023 face off were far more unsympathetic about it in s daiquiri (they gave it more slack on the neat pour). Yet for all that, it’s a good dram, tasty enough. Like Romero’s Cask strength rum, this one elevates the potential of Canada’s distillers and shows they can muscle into territory held by better known and more successful exporters from the islands or others from elsewhere who are dabbling in the Jamaican high ester style. Rated against them it’s not as good, now – yet Carroll’s remains on my radar as a distillery to watch because almost alone among all the local distilleries, they dare to fail in style, and that’s something deserving of more respect than others have given so far.

Because, the rum may be colourless and have its faults, but let me tell you, in spiritous tasting terms, compared to the milquetoast stuff we see from its competitors, the damn thing glows like a neon tarantula on a wedding cake. And after you take it out and kill it, you shudder at the way it made your skin crawl and your palate pucker and your tongue shrivel up and cry…yet an hour later you’ll still be saying, with equal parts disbelief and admiration, “Bai, dat ting got some really braddar badassery, nuh?” Neil C. one of the Tasting Squad in the joint the day this thing was trotted out, grudging said “It smells like sweet sh*t but damn it tastes phenomenal.”

That’s Carroll’s for you. I really can’t put it any better than that.

(#1073)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • The RHE mark refers to “red high ester”
  • Outturn unknown
  • Although under Canadian regulations this cannot be called a rum since it is not aged, to call it “High Ester Content” as per the label strikes me as confusing and does not represent what it truly is, so I’m calling it a rum.
  • Tried against several other high ester rums, mostly from Jamaica.
  • Six minute video synopsis is here.

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

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May 212024
 

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

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

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

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

New labelling

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

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

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

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

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

(#1072)(83/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

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

Helios Distillery “Teeda” Blended Japanese Rum – Review

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May 142024
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(#1071)(85/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other Notes

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

Wild River Mountain Distillery 3YO Australian Rum – Review

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Apr 232024
 

That we get as many interesting rums out of Australia as we do is some kind of miracle. A lot of the current crop of micro-distilleries that have emerged in the last decade have to jump through ten different kind of hoops just to get off the ground, obtain the plant and pay their way while stuff is being made, and that almost presupposes that juice has to be made fast and quick. Some manage to survive the lean early years, almost all diversify, and others try to put something unique on the table.

A good example of all of this is the Wild River Mountain Distillery, located in the far north of Queensland in the Atherton Tablelands (rum distilleries Devil’s Thumb, Mt. Uncle and Bingil Bay are neighbours). Looking at their portfolio, there are 16 products being made: a vodka, a liqueur, 4 rums, 4 whiskies and 6 gins. Somebody is making sure all the bases are covered, and since there’s a fair amount of medals attending these, one can assume they’re not going out of business any time soon.

That said, the distillery, established in 2017 by the Wes Marks and his wife Amy, clearly is whisky-centric in its approach, and that’s where the enthusiasm lies: many years of experimentation (I like to think of it as taking place in a home-brewing and moonshine-type setup) to make a genuine Australian whisky and a Tennessee style hooch from local maize, predated the establishment of the formal operation. Brewing, yeast, fermentation, still-making and all sorts of other tinkering are part of this distillery’s DNA, and while rums are being made and the ever-present gins are there, it’s more like they are there for sustaining capital and cash flow than a passion in and of themselves.

Picture (c) Wild River Distillery

The rum under review today is a straightforward aged expression, and looking at the stats, it completely straightforward without any frippery: molasses-based using their signature yeast (duration not given), spring water, run through a pot still (size not known) and then set to age in ex-Bourbon barrels for about three years before being bottled at 46% — the strongest rum they currently make.

The nose is generally workmanlike and doesn’t stray too far from what’s expected. There are traces of vanilla, very ripe, squishy oranges and citrus peel, honey drizzled over nearly burnt toast, the salt of ripe cashews, and some sweet, which is almost – but not quite – like the syrup in the jar after the cherries have been taken out. Plus a banana or two, maybe an unripe apricot for kick. This sounds like a fair bit, but when you have to take the better part of an hour to nail it down, maybe not so much.

The palate, in contrast, is much nicer, with a good mouthfeel that is solid and tawny and honey-like, offset by some tart fruits, unsweetened yoghurt, cinnamon and a touch of coffee grounds. It’s not precisely sweet, but the heaviness of the way it samples gives that impression, which is a good thing; and the finish, while short, does channel and sum up most of what has gone before quite well…without, however, making an emphatic statement for itself.

That last point is key. It’s a rum, it’s decently made, it’s tasty — but somehow finishes as a less than impressive dram. There’s little that’s new, original or exciting here, and reminds me of the straightforward (and sometimes indifferent) American rums I keep running into, where so-so efforts that do the job are made, yet which lack a sense of real passion and verve, the marks of distillers committed to this product line. Oh sure, it’ll liven up and give the alcohol jolt to a cocktail, but at the end, this is the sort of rum you shrug at, and reflect that it channels about as much real character as parking lot with two cars in it.

(#1068)(75/100) ⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar, Day 8
  • Irrespective of this middling review, if you look at their instagram feed you’d see that they sure seem to have a lot of fun over there. I can think of worse places to work.

Holmes Cay Barbados 2002 20 YO Pot Still Rum – Review

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Apr 192024
 

To hear the social media commentary pouring out of the rumisphere last year, Eric Kaye pulled out some sort of magical rum rabbit from his jock and wowed the rum world with a magnificent one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-decade, 20-YO-rum from Foursquare. And not just any rum, but a pot still rum, which, as any fan or Foursquare junkie knows, is rare as hen’s teeth (the distillery is world famous for its pot-column blends, not single still distillates).

Holmes Cay is the brainchild and 2018 creation of the above-named Mr. Kaye (he was getting out of the music business at the time and looking around for other opportunities), and it’s at the forefront of a trend that hopefully gathers strength: indie bottling in the USA. Personally I’ve never understood why, given the higher startup and PP&E costs, American entrepreneurs go all out into launching distilleries, as opposed to taking advantage of more modest outlays to get an indie bottling operation off the ground. No sourcing materials, no experimentation, no technical expertise, just the selection of widely varying rums from around the world supplied by brokers who are happy to oblige and service a much less crowded market (although the insane permits, licences and bureaucracy remain the same).

Initially, to get things off the ground with a bang, Eric picked a couple of Foursquare barrels from 2005 (this was deliberate), and the speed at which they sold out in the US in 2019 assured him of the viability of the concept: he went all in, started sourcing more and began popping up on the festival circuit quite regularly to both learn and promote. By 2024 there were some 31 different bottlings in the portfolio, encompassing Mhoba in South Africa, Belize, Fiji, Guyana, Jamaica, Mauritius, Australia, Barbados, Trinidad and Reunion, and there’s no end in sight. Not to discount the sterling work Ed Hamilton did with his Hamilton rums from Guyana and Martinique and Jamaica that blaze the trail of indie imports to the US, it is no exaggeration to say Eric’s brand has probably allowed more Americans to buy a wider diversity of rums than just about anyone else around.

All of which led, if you want to mythologise it, to the sourcing of one of the twelve remaining barrels (out of an original twenty) of pot still distillate which Richard Seale sold to Main Rum back in 2002. Competition was fierce — everyone wanted a piece of something like this, no surprises there — and eventually, through threats, tears, bribes, blandishments and a lot of judicious begging (or so the storyteller in me likes to imagine), Eric managed to score one. He dressed it up nice as an exclusive edition, and released somewhat less than 200 bottles – it’s probably still possible to find one here or there, and can go for north of US$350 so it’s not for the light of purse.

Unsurprisingly, given the source distillery’s reputation, it was hailed as unique and all the usual encomiums followed in a rush from all the usual parties. But in truth it’s not the only rum of this provenance that appeared in the 2022-2023 release season – both Colours of Rum (out of Poland) and Royal Cane (a brand of Infinity Spirits from Amsterdam) also put out 20YO 2002 pot still rums from the distillery, albeit with somewhat less fanfare (and of course Habitation Velier did do a couple of its own pot still editions some years ago). But never mind: these days, when this 2002 4S vintage is mentioned, it’s Holmes Cay that gets the kudos and all the press.

And perhaps they should. The damn thing is rare enough and, while it doesn’t really follow Velier’s path of fully tropical ageing — it was aged in Europe — twenty years is twenty years and the final result succeeds like nobody’s business, with 51.1% ABV helping it along to make its presence felt. Consider the way it opens: right from the beginning we are getting cedar shavings, fresh sawdust, that sense of sweet damp woody aromas. The fruits follow: citrus, prunes and apricots and other ripe stoned fruit. There’s a surfeit of kitchen spices lurking inside the bouquet: cinnamon, sandalwood, cardamom, turmeric, fenugreek, rosemary and all sorts of other savoury aromas that defy easy classification. Honestly, if I was asked…if you pressed me… I would have to say what it really reminded me of is an old spice soukh in Saudi or Dubai or Kuwait. It’s that good.

The way it tastes is no slouch either, and presents initially with a nice light series of floral notes. It’s a melange of fruits, leading with watermelon, papaya, then moving to strawberries and sweet Indian mangoes. Some smoky paprika and bell peppers freshly sliced. It has the warm taste of sweet pastries sprinkled with crystal sugar, cinnamon and bubble gum, and the entire time I’m sipping it I’m think appreciatively how well balanced the whole construct is, with no one flavour dominating. The finish closes up shop really well, with a soft swelling intensity — and all I can think as I taste this rum, savour the crisp tang of ripe fruits and spices, is that it’s nothing shy of spectacular.

When I taste rums, I see colours and memories alongside the aromas and tastes. My imagination goes all over the place, the more so with a good rum that shows us something different, something fascinating, something old done in a new way. Perhaps I would not be able to pick this out as a Barbados rum – let alone one from Foursquare – if I tried it blind. But it would stay in the mind, remain a mile marker in my appreciation of the brand, as it has ever since I first came across it. In a way I can’t quite explain, it reminds me of love and tenderness and desire, and a bright image of a soft kiss I want from the woman who inhabits my dreams. Any rum that can evoke such feelings is not merely spectacular, it may be nigh priceless. And while admittedly I’m a certifiable romantic and your own mileage will vary, that’s the way I feel about it and to some extent, why I rate it as I do.

(#1067)(91/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • For a deeper dive into Holmes Cay and this release, check out Rum Revelations’ article, and their interview, as well as Rumcast’s two episodes, one on the founding of the brand here, and a follow up later (mostly about the Fiji release) here.
  • Looking at various online reviews (and there aren’t a whole lot), I seem to be the one who likes this rum the most. Go figure.

Retribution Distillers 2 YO (So far) Aged Rum – Review

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Mar 292024
 

It’s not often that a rum aged just a few years that remains in development is as good or better than its own unaged white predecessor, but somehow, Retribution from the UK has done a fair dinkum job of it. Their white rum was unpretentious, eager to please and a decent drink that did not try to rearrange your innards (as so many feral whites try to do), and I quite liked it. Its slightly aged cousin is just a smidgen better, and it still isn’t finished or in open release yet.

Retribution is a small distillery in Frome (a town in Somerset county, in the south west of the UK) that was started relatively recently in 2019, by a brewer named Richard Lock, who wanted to go beyond the suds he had been making to that point. Something of an auto-didact, he took courses in brewing and distilling at the Herriot-Watt University, and eventually switched over to a distilling operation. He then proceeded to issue a gin as his first product before branching out to whisky and rum. The latter (as of 2024) sports three editions: the white, a spiced and a-still-in-the-barrel aged rum, all made in relatively small quantities for now – it is this last we’re looking at today.

Technical details are the same as for the white rum: the molasses based wash is fermented between one and two weeks using a French sparkling wine yeast; double distillation through the two pot stills — first the one named “Big” (recent acquisition, 1800L) for the stripping run, and then a spirit run through “Little” (400L) — which results in an 80% ABV distillate that was then put to age in ex bourbon barrels in 2021, and diluted down to 44% for a sample exhibit. No additives, or other mucking about, of course, that goes without saying.

Even with the knowledge that this was a work in progress at the time it was tried, I think it was and remains a pretty nifty product. The nose had a nice, crisp citrus-y tang to it, which went well with hot pastries, caramel and vanilla. Oh but it doesn’t stop there: brine, olive oil, steamed cabbages and crisp tom yum soup notes proliferate, before swiftly receding, to be replaced by a more fruity and balanced profile – cherries, mangoes, ripe apples – some 7-up, cloves and greek yoghurt. Not too shabby for something this young and one can only wonder what it would be like were it stronger.

The ABV is more of an issue on the palate, where many rums with good aromas falter. For now, what is tasted is pretty good: the citrus through-line remains, showcasing lemongrass, lime leaves and zest; it is accompanied by unsweetened laban, olive oil, a light briny touch and black rye bread with sour cream and salt (a weird combo, I’ll grant you). Coriander, coconut milk, sour and hot vegetable soup, bitter strong chocolate, toffee, some herbs and soya complete the profile for me, and the finish pretty much sums up everything rather quickly before disappearing.

This is a rum that was brought to the 2023 TWE Rum Show in London for evaluation, and Richard gave me some to try as I was perambulating for two days straight in the most exciting room in the joint.1 I thought it was really quite something, and while it clearly needed some more time to come to a better fruition, even as it was there was little to complain about (Alex Sandhu, in his excellent bio of the company, made a similar point in his review of the still strength sample). The rum will be issued formally in mid 2024 as part of a subscription-based Rum Club release Cask #001, and I hope that it sells well and makes it possible for there to be others of higher and age and even better quality, to come. This one is a really good start.

(#1066)(85/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

 

Other notes

  • The question is, why review something not on the market? Whatever comes out the other end in 2024 will surely be different since it’s had another year (at least) of ageing. But it’s actually not the first time I’ve done this: Helios’s Teeda 21 YO Japanese rum was based on an unreleased sample, and so was Mia’s 2018 rum from Vietnam, and there are a few others. I think there are simply some cases where a little pre-release hype and banging of the drum is justified and that’s especially so for micro-distilleries.
  • The logo of the company references the owner’s maritime background and the ship-in-a-bottle models.

Retribution Distilling Co. Unaged White Rum (Batch #2) – Review

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Mar 242024
 

For a distillery with a name as ominous as Retribution, the owner and distiller or record is actually a fairly genial, easy going gent, who gives off vibes of an avuncular uncle who retires after a hard day’s work wherever, to his cottage in the countryside, where the faithful hound fetches his slippers. Or so the story teller in me supposes.

The man behind the company is Richard Lock, who incorporated the micro distillery in 2019 after deciding to go beyond the beers he had been making to that point. His first product was a gin, released in February 2020, with the first rum following a year later and…well, I’d tell you more, but Alex Sandhu of the Rum Barrel has done such a sterling job of biographing Retribution and Mr. Lock, on a physical visit to the distillery, that it would be taking away from his work, and so I provide the link to his company profile for the curious. It’s too bad we don’t get more of these.

In brief, the production notes are as follows: fermentation of the molasses wash is between one and two weeks using a French sparkling wine yeast; and then run through both pot stills (humorously named “Big” and “Little”) which results in an 80% ABV white corker that is then diluted down to a shade above living room strength, 44%. No additives, or other mucking about, which has become almost a badge of honour with these newly established micros, and very welcome.

So let’s get right to it, beginning with the nose. Sweet sugar water, unaggressive but aromatic watermelon and papaya, green apples, grapes, green pears from a can and a general mild vibe that suits the owner quite well. The aromas take some time to come together, and finally open up into mild fruits, strawberry jam, white chocolate, and some tart creamy notes, firm without ever being overbearing. In short, it smells pretty good.

Tastewise it’s also quite a bit more restrained than the rutting white ester stallions of yore which have blotted these pages (well…this website at any rate) and made themselves known. The rum presents as dry and fruit forward, with strawberries, green apples, grapes and some more jam (so the nose, in taste form if one wishes to be accurate), plus some pears, melons, peas and a very faint note of wet earth and vegetables which carries on to an easy finish.

Trying to analyse this and nail down the profile, I want to just say that for an unaged rum it’s really quite fine. A lot of pleasant aromas came out of those pot stills, more than is apparent at first blush, yet nothing too barbaric or strange; and it’s distinguished by having little of that aggressive in-your-face stuff, just some edge, good taste and a mild eagerness to please. That works here in a way that with others, doesn’t always.

Retribution has to some extent been overshadowed by the more hi-falutin’ aggressive fast-moving micro distilleries run by young social-media-savvy entrepreneurs who have received more attention and loom somewhat larger in people’s minds. If you’re thinking of the New Brits and their UK distilleries, Retribution is likely not the first to spring to mind. But my advice is not to count out this little outfit just yet. Pot-still, unaged white rums are still not all that common, most are fierce little brawlers – so there’s space for something more restrained like this one.

It takes gumption and grit to start a distillery of any size in Europe or the UK. It takes skill to make a good low cost, unaged, white rum right out of the gate, And it takes a rare kind of courage to keep at it without the benefit of the cool social media press, even when stuck in a small corner of a big festival, overlooked by many. This is a company we should pay more attention to when festival season comes rolling around this year…because its rums are nothing to sneeze at. Especially this one.

(#1065)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

San Juan Artisan Distillers Ron Pepón Blanco Puerto Rican Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Mar 152024
 

In the previous review I remarked that the slightly aged añejo from the relatively new San Juan Artisan Distillers in Puerto Rico, did not impress me very much. This was in spite of the fact that on paper they looked like they had all the plant, equipment, and resources they needed to make something better. A fair number of online comments supported this view: most thought it was a barrel thing, although I did get one remark that resonated, stating (paraphrased) that it’s not a good idea to assume that the physical pieces alone are what make the product great or stand above the hoi polloi. That aside, I closed with the observation that with what they had under the hood and bringing to the table, it was unlikely they could stay in the kiddie pool for long.

This white rum, bottled at the same strength, proves that point nicely and demonstrates yet again – as if it needed to be – that unaged white rum really is in a class by itself and should never be shrugged off just because it looks the same as the filtered white bar staple that gives the “category” a bad name. The production stats aren’t significantly different from the añejo: it’s cane juice derived, fermented for a few days (as best as I can ascertain – this is subject to verification) then double distilled in the charentais pot stills. No ageing.

From that almost stereotypical agricole-style beginning comes a very nice rum indeed, with a pungent, salty, sweaty, earthy, loamy nose. It smells of grit and damp potter’s soil, and behind that lurks a sort of vague funky aspect that suggests a low-end congener count, like, oh the LFCH or OWH from Hampden, or WPL from Worthy Park. Some nice fruity notes attend, like tangerines, strawberries, bubble gum, mint…that kind of thing. But it’s very low key and in no way aggressive – the 43% ABV it pulls in with mitigates against any kind of harsh or stinging profile.

The palate corrects some of that is missing when you smell it, most particularly the grassy and herbal notes the nose didn’t seem to want to fork out. The taste provides a sweet, firm, green and grassy profile, with a touch of tart unripe pears and soursop, some yoghurt and even a little aggressive (in a good way). In my mind I genuinely see some rums with colours when tasted – this one would be white and green (channelling Slytherin or something, who knows?), and can be summarised by saying it’s like an addled 7-up with some added mojo. The finish is short but quite solid and fruity, with brine and olive oil and I swear there was a pimento lurking behind there someplace, sensed but never actually confirmed.

Altogether, then, a really solid white rum of the kind I prefer. It must be mentioned that drinking the anejo and the blanco side by side is a useful exercise and it shows how treatment and ageing – transformation, if you will – doesn’t always make for a better rum (I know, I know, this from a guy who loves rums aged four decades and over). It also demonstrates how white and unaged rums without the filtration and bleaching that so infantilizes Bacardi and Lambs and their ilk have no analogue in the whisky world, but are almost unique to rums, and should be given more serious attention.

This blanco is one of the better whites out there, and redeems my initial opinion of the distillery, which I originally felt was channelling just another Latin style rum with the twist of being from cane juice but without any of the flair. The blanco, however, is pretty damned fine: it has taste, it has aromas, it has character, and I kid you not when I say that it was one of the best things on the table the day I had it. Hopefully the distillery makes more like it, and stronger.

(#1063)(85/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • Once again, my deep appreciation to Jazz and Indy Anand of Skylark in London. Hanging out at their place to talk and check out rums is always a high point of any trip I make to the UK.
  • A brief company bio can be found below the añejo review.

San Juan Artisan Distillers Ron Pepón Añejo Puerto Rican Rum – Review

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Mar 102024
 

The stats by themselves are enough to make a committed rum geek shed a happy tear. It’s from a new distillery in the Caribbean, committed to making artisanal rum from sugar cane it grows itself. It’s pot still distillation: and not just any pot stills, but the charentais cognac stills that Moet Hennesy sold after abandoning their grandiose project to make rums in Trinidad with the aborted Ten Cane brand. Cane juice agricole style rums. Ageing in ex Bourbon casks for between two and three years. 43% ABV, so more than standard proof. No additives. I mean, you read all that, and how can you not be enthused? This is the horse on which French islands and Asian micro-distilleries have ridden to fame and fortune.

And yet, San Juan Artisanal’s Ron Pepón Añejo, Puerto Rico’s first agricole style cane juice rum, is somewhat of a letdown, presenting a lacklustre sort of profile that’s too shy to appeal to the geek squad, not distinctive enough to make it with the cocktail crowd and a hard sell to the majority of drinkers who have quite different ideas as to how both an agricola or a Latin style rum should taste. At best one can say it’s a decent enough starter-kit rum for those who want to dip their toes into cane juice rum (or ron) waters without being challenged by something as off the reservation as, oh, the Sajous. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement

Consider the profile: the nose opens with vanilla, some watery but piquant fruits (pears, watermelon, overripe Thai mangoes), plus unsweetened yoghurt, some salt and pepper. One can discern dates, some figs and a faint metallic iodine and herbal tincture, but let’s be honest, it’s slim pickings to smell. The aromas are faint and very light, lacking some of the crisp assertiveness of an unaged agricole while not being aged enough to get any kind of real boost from the barrels.

This same issue is more noticeable when sipped. There really is not a whole lot going on here, even after one senses vanilla, cinnamon, bitter coffee grounds, mixed in with brine, olives, some iodine, figs and sweet smoky paprika. It’s not that there isn’t something there, it’s just too subtle to make a statement fort itself, and the finish is just disappointing, even if it does lead to a slightly more vegetal, sweet and vanilla lading close. It’s too short and too light, like Bacardis from the old days, which revelled in their anonymity as if it were a badge of honour.

It gives me no real pleasure to mark down a rum made by a bunch of people who work with passion, created a distillery from scratch, and seem to have really tried to come up with something new and interesting (see bio below). And I’m not the only one: a couple of years back LifoAccountant’s observations on the /r/rum subreddit bemoaned several of the same points I do here, and he gave it a rather sub-par 4/10. Almost no other non-marketing reviews exist, so of course there may be others who take the opposite view, that the rum is excellent, and I completely respect that. I just haven’t found any.

Anyway: for now, for me, it’s not good enough to shower it with encomiums. If it’s any consolation, I think any small new distillery that has such interesting equipment and source material and desire to go places, can’t help but succeed in the long term…and so I would chalk this one up to them still finding their rum legs. Because I don’t think they’ll stay in the kiddie pool for long — there’s too much going for them, for me to define or dismiss the entire brand because of one lone rum in their stable for which I didn’t care overmuch.

(#1062)(78/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Company Bio

San Juan Artisan Distillers is one of the new wave of Puerto Rican companies that seeks to muscle in on the long held territory of the mastodons of that island’s rum scene: Bacardi and Serralles. And while others have mostly gone from rum drinking to starting a distillery, a far more economic rationale was the inception of Pepe Álvarez’s project – his landscape and grass business went belly up when the recession of 2008 hit, coupled with US tax incentives for establishing businesses in PR expiring.

Since he was clearly too young to retire, Álvarez looked around and realized that his experience with grass and a 14 acre farm that had been acquired in 1991 which had grown to about 70 acres by now, offered an opportunity to bootstrap both into something unique to the island: rum made directly from sugar cane juice, not molasses. Starting the new company around 2012. he managed to find an investment from the Puerto Rican government, which paid for the irrigation system, tilling equipment, sugarcane seeds and the purchase of the mill. In so doing Alvarez sourced a German made Arnold Holstein pot still, and when the two charentais pot stills from Trinidad became available after Moet Hennessy pulled out of the Ten Cane project, he snapped those up too, and to back them up, he started his own cane fields, since commercial sugar cane growing in the island was a discontinued industry.

And this wasn’t all: his son Jose joined the company after getting his civil engineering degree, and Luis Planas the former master blender of Bacardi (now working for Ron de Barrellito) was asked to consult. As if that kind of horsepower was not enough, Frank Ward (ex-Managing Director at Mount Gay) provided advice on consult.

Initially the idea was to produce an agricola-style series of rums, to be released around 2017, at which point Hurricane Maria decided to derail that plan, demolished all the cane fields and left the island without power for almost a year. Undeterred, Alvarez used stocks he sourced from the Dominican Republic to make a series of fruit-infused rums with the brand name of “Tresclavos” (which, for those with memories of 1423’s unfortunately named sub-brand is not a combination of “Tres” and “esclavos” but “tres clavos” — ‘three nails’). These were well received and have become island staples, which allowed the fledgling company to weather the destruction of the fields so well that small batches of the new Ron Pepon were ready to go by 2018 with other stocks being laid down to age.

The global pandemic impacted the company as much as any other but has managed to come out the other side, and in 2022 had both an unaged white rum and a 30-month or so aged variant to present, which started selling stateside and appearing in Europe. So far the brand is not a huge seller or a famed name, but its reputation is starting to be known.

The place is experiencing growth — they now employ a staff of about six, built a visitor’s centre, have those amazing pot stills, still make only cane juice rum and various personages give them visibility (my friends from the Rumcast interviewed them in October 2022 as part of their Puerto Rican distillery roundup); and there have been several new stories abut them. It’s just a matter of time before they attain greater visibility and greater fame, and expand that series of rums they make. It’ll be worth waiting for, I think.

Other notes

  • “Pepón” stands for “Old Pepe” and is a nod to Alvarez’s father, also named Pepe.
  • My thanks to Jazz and Indy Anand of Skylark in London, in whose convivial company I tried this rum after filching it from their stocks. I don’t have “crash and pass out under the sink” privileges in Indy’s place: however, free access to the shelves of rum in every room more than makes up for that. Thanks and kudos as always, guys.

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

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Feb 232024
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

(#1059)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

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

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Feb 162024
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(#1058)(83/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

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

Lord Byron Distillery 2020 3YO Pure Single Rum (Australia) – Review

 1 Response »
Feb 092024
 

We’ve met this distillery before, a mere hundred reviews or so ago. Founded by the husband and wife team of Brian and Helen Restall in 2016, they have slowly built quite a repertoire of spirits (he likes dark ones, she prefers light so maybe there’s some kind of Jack Sprat vibe going on here) – standard rums, white ones, spiced ones, the 2021 release of the 2-3 YO 55.5% Pure Single Rum I enjoyed and a brutal 63% “fire cane” I really want to try, plus gin, falernum, limoncello and vodka, which covers the bases nicely.

So here they are again, with a somewhat offbeat take on the Pure Single Rum, if not as strong. Because the background of the company is covered in that original review, I won’t rehash it here, except to note that the columnar still I mentioned then – 380L and six plates — has a name: Alba, which was the initial name of Lord Byron’s illegitimate daughter before he renamed her Allegra. I enjoy these little winks that distillers make to some interesting aspect of their past or something that interests them, in the naming of their still, truly.

Photo (c) Lord Byron Distillery website

Anyway, about the rum: molasses based, using distiller’s yeast on a wash left for seven days in closed stainless vessels, then run through the two copper alembics (it’s double distilled), then matured a minimum of three years in ex-bourbon barrels sourced from Woodford Reserve – which if shy they can call it rum, and not a cane spirit. Of course, bearing in mind the sustainable, ecologically-friendly, zero-waste nature of their operation and commitment to making pure rums, it’s not chill filtered and additive free.

This is a rum that channels one of the more peculiar olfactory profiles I’ve yet come across- it reminds me something of some Japanese rums, especially kokuto shochus. It opens with an odd sort of earthy, mouldy, damp cellar aroma, and of wet, much-worn leather boots. Brine, olives and a vegetable soup with “plenty obstacles” and a fiery pimento for kick. There’s a sense of wet paint slapped onto decaying drywall, the bitter tang of roasting chestnuts (which I never cared for myself), plastic sheeting, and only at the end when all seems over and done with, do the shy tangy notes of ripe fruit emerge, some green apples, grapes, pears, that kind of thing. It’s an unusual nose and I’m unsure how well it would work at a heftier proof point, though I would have liked to see that one a bit more, I think – a lot of subtlety gets missed out on that, say, 43% or 46% might have shown off better.

This observation is apropos for the palate as well, which is quite crisp: and while not exactly clear or clean, is close enough not to offend while still being rather too mild for everything it apparently stuffs in its jock. It channels a hot, almost sour and spicy Thai Tom Yum soup with no shortage of lemongrass, salted butter melting in a pan, with olive oil and toasted rye bread coming behind that. Again the fruits take something of a back seat and only start becoming noticeable after the rum opens up, and even then there’s not a whole lot that one can easily pick out: lemon peel, fresh peaches, pears, some watermelon, more or less. But it does meld nicely into the whole, some of the dirty notes from the nose are absent, and the finish concludes things well: short, sharp, reasonably flavourful, all of it fading fast and acting like it just wants to bail.

Strictly speaking this is not my dram of grog. I’m not won over by the loamy and earthy notes at the beginning (the official site entry refers to “bourbon corn” as a tasting note) and aspects of the nose in particular don’t work for me; plus, as always, I have my issues with standard strength – it makes everything too mild which even a few additional points of proof might have showcased more effectively. Yet I can’t fault it for that, only admire the courage it must have taken to release the rum as it is, knowing it is something at right angles to more established profiles. So to conclude, Lord Byron’s rum showcases rather more potential than the sort of intense quality sported by the 55% 2018 Pure Single Rum they did before, and would seem to be aimed at the more easy going supermarket crowd who prefer more demure fare. The furious taste profile attendant on something stronger is missing, and the tastes will not be in everyone’s comfort zone: yet underneath all that, we see a much better rum is waiting to be appreciated, and now, having written my opinion, I think I’ll go back and try my sample a few more times. Let’s see if, after a few more hours, it delivers more concretely on what it promises.

Have a good weekend!

(#1056)(78/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other Notes

  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar, Day 13

Cabarita Spirits “Oro” Barrel Aged Cane Spirit (Batch #2)(Australia) – Review

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Feb 012024
 

Cabarita Spirits is the Australian equivalent of Nine Leaves, or so I like telling myself, and Keri Algar, the Spanish-born New Zealander who is the owner, may live in one of the prettiest places on earth, close to Cabarita Beach in the Tweed Shire of New South Wales (Husk Distillers are also in the neighbourhood). Like Yoshi-san in Japan before he did a runner on us, she is also chief cook and bottle washer, to say nothing of the entire procurement department, sales force, accounting section, maintenance manager, head distiller, bottling line and managing director all rolled into one. No, really.

Photo (c) Cabarita Spirits, from the webpage

All kidding aside, Cabarita is a small distillery, conceived in 2019 after Keri was feeling glumpish about doing soulless work for The Man in perpetuity. “I was wondering…how to be able to live on a Pacific Island in the possession of a small beachside rum bar without spending the next twenty years behind a desk, when it occurred to me that I might make rum, and that could be a means to my tropical dreams.” Starting with a rinky dink 25-litre still and a 25-litre fermenter and a lot of ideas led to two years of relentless self-education, distillery visits, sourcing equipment, and incredibly hard work and experimentation. Finally she ended up with a 230-litre copper pot still (handmade in Western Australia by HHH Distill), which she named Felix after her Spanish grandfather, who had worked as chemist in a sugar factory back in the day, and started commercial production with the usual unaged cane spirit (but oddly, no gin — “I never cared for it” she sniffs). While the official name of the distillery is Cabarita Spirits, she chose a different name — “Soltera” — for its associations with being carefree and unbound, though she does admit that these days she’s actually never been less carefree or unbound, what with all the effort of holding down all these jobs and only getting paid for one. But there are no regrets.

The “Oro” (“gold”) rum barrel aged cane spirit which formed part of the 2023 advent calendar is her second edition of a slightly aged product. Released in that year, it derives from molasses (sourced from Condong Sugar Mill in northern NSW for the curious), has a 3-4 week open fermentation time using commercial yeast, run through Felix and then aged for eight months in an ex-bourbon barrique that was re-coopered to ~120L and charred with a medium burn. What comes out the other end is an almost-but-not-quite colourless 40% rum that really isn’t half bad. All that hard work and playing around, methinks, sure paid off.

Let’s start with how it smells: sweet, light and citrusy, channelling the sunshine of a spring morning where the slight nip of departing winter still lingers and the grass is wet with dew. There are notes of key lime pie (including a warm pastry), light florals, pineapples, bananas and kiwi fruit, old paper, and a sort of potpourri air freshener. Also the faintest hint of vanilla and caramel, damp earth and cashews, but held way back. Air freshener, potpourri. I like the youthful freshness of it, the delicacy backed up by a solid backbone of aged and varied aromas, and call me a romantic, but I see the owner in this one in a way I rarely do with others.

What I want to remark on as well, is the way the palate opens up over time. Initially it doesn’t taste like there’s too much going on (“too faint” I grumbled in my initial notes before crossing it out…twice) – laundry drying on the line, ginger, yoghurt, olive oil, caramel, citrus and pineapples (again). It takes effort to tease these notes out. Yet after five minutes, then ten, then half an hour, it turns bright and sparkling, and what in a lesser rum might be faint and wispy anonymous notes of zero distinction is transmuted somehow to a taste that’s really quite lovely. By the time I’m done, I’m scribbling about citrus, mangoes, laundry detergent and pastries and pouring another glass for Mrs. Caner to try and admiring the finish, which is longer and more crisp and tart than any standard strength rum has a right to be,

Admittedly I’m fonder of higher proof rums, so freely concede that, sure, yes, there could be more strength here (and my score reflects that): yet somehow the whole thing works well and it deserves its plaudits. Consider also the difference between what this is and what the disappointing Bayou White from last week was. There we had a sort of indifferent lowest-common-denominator commercial product made to sell and not to taste: it had about as much character as a sheet of saran wrap. Keri has not made a world beater here, no – I’d be lying if I said that – but she’s made a tasty rum with passion and drive and her own character stamped all over it. It’s a lovely little number, and a win in all the ways that matter.

(#1054)(83/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other Notes

  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar, Day 5

Bayou White Louisiana Rum (USA) – Review

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Jan 282024
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

(#1053)(72/100) ⭐⭐½

Other Notes

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

Opinion

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

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

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

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

 

Black Gate Distillery Australian Dark Rum (Shiraz Cask) – Review

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Jan 232024
 

Black Gate distillery is an outfit to keep an eye on. The husband and wife team of Genise and Brian Hollingsworth made waves (to me, at any rate) with their 52% Dark Overproof back in 2021 and in 2023 they have come close yet again with this lovely Shiraz-cask-aged number – which doesn’t reimagine the rumiverse so much as take lots of what’s good with it and re-engineer it into a taste that’s uniquely their own.

Let’s just refresh our memories: located in central New South Wales, Black Gate was founded in 2009 in the small rural town of Mendooran. The husband and wife team splits the duties: Genise Holingsworth does the good stuff and makes the Lord’s favoured spirit, while her husband Brian dutifully makes that other obscure drink and handles the maintenance aspects (he’s a fitter machinist and auto mechanic by trade). They sourced two pot stills – relatively small at 630 litres and 300 litres capacity – and work with food grade molasses, commercial yeast and water, to make their various rum expressions. All are small batch (the rum output of Black Gate is only about 2000 litres per annum, and that includes the other thing). The distillery makes various Dark Rums with different finishes or cask maturations, and aside from whiskies, no cash flow stalwarts such as gins or “cane spirit” seem to be on the menu.

Photo (c) Black Gate Distillery FB page

Rums are aged in Port or Sherry casks, or both, for a minimum of two years — to be able to be classified as “rum” under Australian law, if you recall. With respect to this one, the source was from the aforementioned molasses, and fermented for around two weeks, then run through the direct-fire pot still, aged about 3-4 years in a 225-litre Huntington Estate Shiraz cask from Mudgee, then left to rest for two months before bottling. As with the overproof, labels are all the same for all these dark rums no matter when made: the specifications are, in a clever bit of economising, white printed stick-ons. The strength of the sample from the 2023 advent calendar was 45.6%, and I note there’s a newer version for sale on their website at 47.2%, so be aware of and on the lookout for some batch variation.

More is not needed so let’s get right into it. Nose first – this starts off interesting right away: rubber, funk, rotten oranges, flowers, tart yoghurt, wet leather and the sour hotness of kimchi, ashlyan-foo and turkish peppers. Underneath this rather startling mash up lurks a musky odour of damp loam, a kind of freshly watered potter’s mix which doesn’t sound appetising, but which I assure you, kind of is. Coiling around all that are fainter notes of acetones, ginger, vegetable soup, and pickled russian cabbage (not sauerkraut). The nose as a whole is not unpleasant, just goes off at something of a tangent and it’s probably a good idea to to let this one stand for a bit and come back to it a few times to get the full impact.

What I like about the taste is that it provides the tangy fruit that are not as clearly evident on the nose. Slightly sweet, it presents chocolate oranges, some caramel, leather, smoke, with vanilla and darker fruit (prunes, ripe raspberries, plums) coming through off the shiraz cask and the ageing. Ginnips, fresh cashews, grapes and green apples with a touch of licorice and that damp earth, apricots and overripe Thai mangoes, accompanied by a solid spicy heat all the way down culminating in a really nice low key but long lasting finish redolent of honey, brandy, coffee and fruitiness.

That’s really quite a bit for any rum to be sporting, and is one of the reasons I kept it on the go for longer than usual (two days)…just to see how it would develop. What may surprise casual drinkers is that even with all those sometimes off-kilter tastes coming through (and I must be honest – the assembly is a bit off and some will not like everything they taste here), the rum feels really accessible, even to the less exacting drinker. It gives a lot and the strength is right – more power and intensity might have shredded it – and so it doesn’t so much so much rock the boat as gently move it around a few times.

Speaking for myself, tasting this thing was a pleasure – because with their playful experimentation, careful distillation and shiraz ageing, Black Gate have produced a young rum that is a touch off the rails, sure, but also a decent and intriguing sipping experience. Perhaps it’s no accident that That Boutique-y Rum Company picked it as one of their ‘Return to Oz’ series recently. If I was their buyer, I would likely have given it a shot too.

(#1052)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • The exact age is unknown. 3-4 years goes the blurb
  • Outturn is also unclear – because of the small scale of the distillery and the notation that it is one barrel (#BG-140), one must assume it’s less than 350 bottles.
  • From the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar, Day 17

Island Coast Spirits “Island Coast” Tasmanian Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Jan 152024
 

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

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

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

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

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

Picture (c) Island Cost Spirits FB Page

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

(#1050)(77/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

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

Brief Historical bio

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

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

 

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