3S Nagakumo Ichiban Bashi Kokuto Shochu (Yamada Distillery) – Review

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Oct 242022
 
3S Nagakumo Ichiban Bashi Kokuto Shochu (Yamada Distillery) - Review

A kokuto shochu, one of the oldest spirits made in Japan, derives from unrefined sugar (kokuto) and in that sense it straddles an uneasy and somewhat undefined territory between agricole-style and molasses-based rums. Nosing the clear spirit demonstrates that: it opens with a lovely crisp agricole type brine and sweet alcohol, channelling sweet soda pop – Fanta, 7-Up, a bit of funk, a bit of citrus; and then adds a pot still kind of funkiness to the mix, like the aroma of fresh glue on a newly installed carpet, paint, varnish, and a lot — a lot — of fresh, [Click here for the full review…]


Yet Another 21 Great White Rums

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Oct 192022
 
Yet Another 21 Great White Rums

Nothing demonstrates the fast-moving development of the rumworld more clearly than the emergence of, and appreciation for, white rums, whether called aguardientes, blancs, whites, silvers, platinos, clairins, grogues, charandas, cane spirits or blancos. So no, I am not referring to the anonymous 40% lightly aged and filtered whites of the American cocktail circuit, where the objective is to hide the rum in the mix (Lamb’s, Bacardi and various forgettable blancos are examples of the type) as if embarrassed to even mention its presence. No, I refer to high proofed, often unaged belters that have enormous taste chops and can wake [Click here for the full review…]


Foursquare “Destino” 2003 14 YO Rum (General Release) – Review

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Oct 172022
 
Foursquare "Destino" 2003 14 YO Rum (General Release) - Review

Foursquare’s Exceptional Cask Series gets the lion’s share of the attention showered on the distillery these days, and the Doorly’s “standard line” gets most of the remainder, yet many deep diving aficionados reserve the real gold for the Foursquare-Velier collaborations. And while some wags humorously remark that the series’ are only excuses for polysyllabic rodomontade, the truth is that the collaborations are really good, just not as visible: they are released less often and with a more limited outturn than the big guns people froth over on social media. So not unnaturally they attract attention mostly at bidding time on [Click here for the full review…]


Black Tot Finest Caribbean Rum – Review

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Oct 132022
 
Black Tot Finest Caribbean Rum - Review

Do we even need to make mention of what Black Tot Day represents any more, and what the rum is all about? Probably not, but for the sake of new entrants to the field and those who don’t know, it is named after the day in 1970 that the (British) Royal Navy ceased issuing the daily tot of rum to its sailors…a day that to some will live in infamy, given the scandalous break with a centuries-long tradition. However it would be too much to expect that all rums were finished at the same time – and some indeed was [Click here for the full review…]


Key Rums of the World – Ron Zacapa Centenario Gran Reserva 23 “Solera”

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Oct 112022
 
Key Rums of the World - Ron Zacapa Centenario Gran Reserva 23 "Solera"

“The Zacapa is here to stay” Wes Burgin said rather glumly, in his recent Rumcast interview, reluctantly acknowledging that if ever there was an indictment of purported rum-based meritocracy where only the good stuff rises to the top, it’s the ubiquity, fame and unkillability of this one Guatemalan rum, long an example trotted out in the seething maelstrom of arguments about what a rum is or should be. There’s a lot wrong with it and a lot right with it and it has equal numbers of foes and friends, but whatever one’s opinion is, everyone has an opinion. Nobody is [Click here for the full review…]


Habitation Velier Amrut 2015 7 YO “Jaggery” Indian Rum – Review

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Oct 052022
 
Habitation Velier Amrut 2015 7 YO "Jaggery" Indian Rum - Review

Even after the decade I’ve spent writing about Velier’s rums, the company still manages to pull a rabbit out of its hat and surprise me when I least expect it, and the new Habitation Velier Amrut rum from India is this year’s contender for the rum I most wanted to try, the moment I saw Steve Magarry’s post about it on FB in September of 2022 (it popped up at Paris’s WhiskyLive a week later). Because, consider what a singular rum this is, and how many fascinating strands of the rum world it pulls together:   It’s a pot still rum, [Click here for the full review…]


Barikenn “81.6” Rhum Agricole Blanc (Montebello) – Review

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Oct 032022
 
Barikenn "81.6" Rhum Agricole Blanc (Montebello) - Review

The full name of this rum is the “Barikenn ‘81.6’ Brut de Colonne Rhum Agricole Blanc de Guadeloupe (Montebello)”.  I imagine that just trying to say the whole thing in one breath distracts somewhat from the fact that this is one of the most powerful rums of recent memory (yes, I know there are others that eclipse it – I made the list, after all), and if one loses focus and takes it too lightly then one might just find oneself being blasted into next week. Most of us know something about Montebello, but who is Barikenn?  At first I [Click here for the full review…]


Hawaiian Distillers “Spirit of Hawaii” White Rum (1980s)

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Sep 292022
 
Hawaiian Distillers "Spirit of Hawaii" White Rum (1980s)

Rumaniacs Review #138 | 0939 Hawaiian Distillers, Inc. is a Hawaiian corporation that has been in business for more than forty years. Before 1980 it was mainly manufacturing tourist items, including ceramics and specialty Polynesian Liqueurs and you can still find many of its small bottles and knick knacks on various eBay or other auctions. In the more recent era, these are the fine people who “made” the overdosed and overspiced Hana Bay and Whaler’s abominations and give real rum a bad name. For the most part, nowadays the value of their products lies in the ceramics from the 1970s, [Click here for the full review…]


Havana Club 3 Year Old Cuban Rum – Review

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Sep 262022
 
Havana Club 3 Year Old Cuban Rum - Review

The Havana Club 3 Year Old Cuban rum (the one distributed by Pernod Ricard) is a delicately light cream shaded spirit, and one of those workhorses of the bartending circuit, much loved and often referenced by drinkers and mixologists from all points of the compass. That it’s primarily utilised in making mojitos or daiquiris and other such cocktails in no way dampens the enthusiasm of its adherents, with only occasional grumbles about access (by Americans) and how it may or may not compare against the Selvarey or the Veritas (Probitas) or any Jamaican of one’s acquaintance.   It’s been around almost [Click here for the full review…]


Creating the Ultimate Rum Database – Part 2: RumX

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Sep 212022
 
Creating the Ultimate Rum Database - Part 2: RumX

Part I was an extended discussion on the evolution and development and early efforts to create a comprehensive data set – a database – of rums.  Not just current rums available now, but all of them, from all times, all eras, all countries. That it has never been done doesn’t make it any the less important…or dreamed of. To be sure there were some resources available, as listed – the problem was they were scattered, inconsistent, incomplete or did not have such a focus, and almost all that did gradually went dark because of the effort of maintaining them. Peter’s Rum [Click here for the full review…]


Creating the Ultimate Rum Database – Part 1: Early Efforts

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Sep 182022
 
Creating the Ultimate Rum Database - Part 1: Early Efforts

Since the very beginning of the distributed and engaged rumiverse, there have been movements — almost all by individuals — to catalogue all rums in existence.  All of them came up short, failed, or were abandoned…though many, in hindsight, pointed to the desirable characteristics of some as-yet undeveloped system and encouraged the next generation of creators.  Yet perhaps now we are on the edge of cracking the problem.  This two part essay charts the beginnings of such projects, why they are important, and where it all seems to be leading. For rum deep divers, researchers, auction houses, the curious, the [Click here for the full review…]


1423 S.B.S. Antigua 2015 7 YO High Congener Rum – Review

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Sep 142022
 
1423 S.B.S. Antigua 2015 7 YO High Congener Rum - Review

Based on really really true events, which may or may not be factual…. “A column still can produce this!” smirked Indy as he poured me a generous dram of the seven year old SBS Antiguan hooch and handed it over, daring me to refuse and making sure my head was bowed and cap reverently doffed. I imagine he would not have been displeased with some genuflection, so chuffed was he – and others – with this rum.   I considered my glass carefully, pen poised over the famed Little Black Book of Tasting Notes, trying to focus yet also look everywhere [Click here for the full review…]


Takamaka Overproof Rum (Seychelles) – Review

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Sep 122022
 
Takamaka Overproof Rum (Seychelles) - Review

As I remarked in the review of the Damoiseau 2009, there is an emergent trend for agricole rhum makers to make their white rhums stronger. This boosts flavours and intensity and makes for a drink or a mix that has the kick of a spavined mule, and because the rum is unaged, you are getting hit with all those enormous sweet grassy and herbal agricole-style tastes. That not only wakes up a Ti-Punch (or anything else you chose to add it to) but supercharges it. To some extent I think that this trend is meant to capitalise on the success [Click here for the full review…]


Bacardi Añejo “Cuatro” 4 Year Old Rum – Review

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Sep 082022
 
Bacardi Añejo "Cuatro" 4 Year Old Rum - Review

The Bacardi Añejo “Cuatro” hews to all the markers of the long-running Gold and Añejo variations upon which its distillery’s fame rests.  It represents Bacardi in fine style, and those who pay the twenty five dollars or less it costs will find their comfort zone is well tended. Because, while it is a blend of mostly four year old rums (with some five and six year old rums mixed in), column still origin and filtered after ageing, the fact is that it represents the standards set by rums of yesteryear while positioning itself as an entry level almost-premium of today. [Click here for the full review…]


Damoiseau Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 2009 7 YO – Review

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Sep 052022
 
Damoiseau Rhum Vieux Agricole Millésime 2009 7 YO - Review

The French island rum makers take ageing in a slightly different direction than most of those elsewhere in the world. A normal Caribbean distiller (actually just about any from anywhere), will take a rum and age it and then issue a blend of X years, and then progressively older ones, year in and year out, with the occasional special edition thrown into the mix. You never know from the main line of El Dorado rum, for example, what year any of them came from, since that’s unimportant – the age is. Ditto for others like Jamaica or St. Lucia or [Click here for the full review…]


A User’s Guide To Attending A Rum Festival

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Aug 312022
 
A User's Guide To Attending A Rum Festival

Attending rum festivals is one of the most cost-effective ways of sampling a wide variety of rums you might not otherwise have the chance to encounter, as well as (and perhaps this is just as important), meeting all your friends and other folks you’ve only texted, tweeted or commented with over long periods. It’s not as riotous as a jump-up bottom-house, and not as staid as a formal tasting, but it’s almost guaranteed that over a few days you won’t be bored.  Almost alone among major spirits categories, rum festivals are still modest enough for you to meet not just [Click here for the full review…]


Montanya “Platino” White Rum – Review

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Aug 282022
 
Montanya "Platino" White Rum - Review

“[In the US] there are a small number of rum distilleries, and a large number of distilleries making rum,” observed Will Hoekinga in our 2021 Rumcast interview, indirectly pointing to the paucity of quality American rum making. A corresponding remark I have made myself is that if the random picking of American rums to review results in just a minute percentage being really worth seeking out then the characteristics of the part can be extrapolated to the whole – and both together suggest that of the 600+ distilleries in the United states, only a handful are currently worthy of attention.  [Click here for the full review…]


Key Rums of the World – Havana Club Selección de Maestros (Cuba)

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Aug 222022
 
Key Rums of the World - Havana Club Selección de Maestros (Cuba)

There are several worthy candidates for the claim of being the first one from Cuba. Havana Club 7 YO has been a really strong contender based on ubiquity and price, and the Santiago de Cuba 12 YO was also in the running for the same reasons.  When one considers that the core criteria of the series is the Three ‘A’s – Affordability, Approachability and Availability – it would seem a slam dunk to say the HC-7 should get pride of place.  Even the Havana Club 3 YO has had its adherents, though eventually I eliminated it based on several tastings [Click here for the full review…]


Charles Kinloch Liquid Sunshine Finest Rum “Dark Jamaica” (1970s)

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Aug 182022
 
Charles Kinloch Liquid Sunshine Finest Rum "Dark Jamaica" (1970s)

Rumaniacs Review # 137 | 0931 It is becoming a working theory of mine that the heydey of the merchant bottlers and their near-ubiquitous minis of rum must have been in the 1960s and 1970s, bleeding over into the 1980s. Granted this may be because the majority of such rums I find stem from that period, I just don’t think it’s all a coincidence. Air travel and tropical drinks was a thing, hotels had well-loaded minibars, cruise lines stocked them everywhere and while I’ve never found that many merchant-bottler “indie” minis from pre-1960s or post-1990s, the auction sites are rife [Click here for the full review…]


Opinion – The New Australian Rums

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Aug 172022
 
Opinion - The New Australian Rums

When it comes to Australia and its rums, it’s likely that only two names immediately jump to mind (assuming you know of any at all and are not from there yourself): Bundaberg and Beenleigh. Both are relatively long-lived companies that predate many better-known producers founded much more recently in other parts of the world, yet it is only recently that awareness of them has climbed. Of course, this is in a large part due to association with or ownership by other major spirits companies with worldwide clout and visibility that can be leveraged, as well as social media trends. Those [Click here for the full review…]


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