St. Nicholas Abbey White Overproof Rum – Review

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Aug 012022
 
St. Nicholas Abbey White Overproof Rum - Review

It’s been years since I looked at any of the rums of Barbados’s boutique micro-distillery, St. Nicholas Abbey. This is not for want of interest, really – just opportunity. Plus, I had enthusiastically reviewed most of the original three-rum 8–10–12 YO lineup (later expanded to five with the additions of the 5 and 15 YO), and felt no immediate need to search for and buy and try progressively aged and more expensive expressions like the 18, 20 and 23 year-olds that kept on coming out the door at standard strength – sooner or later one of them would cross my [Click here for the full review…]


Lord Byron Distillery 2018 2YO Pure Single Rum (Australia) – Review

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Jul 282022
 
Lord Byron Distillery 2018 2YO Pure Single Rum (Australia) - Review

More and more, being environmentally conscious and paying attention to a sustainable agricultural business model is a determinant for any forward looking distillery that can trade on this aspect of its operations to make sales, gain visibility and win awards. What was once a minor aspect of production methodology has grown to the point where it is something almost every new micro distillery — and many major ones — seeks to institute. More than just ethically correct, it’s good business. Lord Byron Distillery (named after the 19th century poet who is arguably the world’s first modern celebrity) is one which [Click here for the full review…]


Taking Some More Time Off…

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Jul 192022
 
Taking Some More Time Off...

It’s been several hard and somewhat depressing years since I’ve managed to leave the country, see some friends and drink rum in their loud, cheerfully disreputable, fun-filled company.  This week is the first in what feels like forever, so no posts for the next week, no reviews, or essays or opinions.  The ‘Caner is on vacation. But just so you don’t feel unappreciated or without something on hand to pass the time, I’m posting this cartoon I’ve been working on for a few weeks in my spare time.  Enjoy! Share this… Facebook Threads Twitter Bluesky Reddit Messenger Whatsapp Telegram


Saint James Brut de Colonne “Bio” 2020 Rhum Blanc Agricole – Review

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Jul 182022
 
Saint James Brut de Colonne "Bio" 2020 Rhum Blanc Agricole - Review

To drink the still strength, high proofed “Bio” that Saint James distilled in July of 2020, is to be reminded what a distiller at the top of his game can do without even ageing his product.  Yes, they’ve made the pot still white I was so impressed by in 2019, but to try this 74.2% growler immediately afterwards (as I did) is like running the bulls in Pamplona in one year…then coming back later when all of them had been replaced by a particularly aggressive bunch of wild Kenyan Zebus that had been fed a diet of diced tigers and [Click here for the full review…]


Holmes Cay 2005 Belize 15 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jul 142022
 
Holmes Cay 2005 Belize 15 Year Old Rum - Review

Belize, until recently, had somewhat withdrawn from the epicenter of avant-garde and popular rum culture. Traveller’s, the main distillery in the country, produced soft Spanish-heritage-style rums like the One-Barrel, Three-Barrel and Five-Barrel rums and the excellent Don Omario (not sure if it remains in production), yet it was overtaken by the full-proof pot-still ethos that have of late almost defined quality modern rums for the deep diving aficionados and connoisseurs. That’s not to say Belize’s rums weren’t popular – they were, and remain so, especially to those who knew about them and liked the style.  It’s just that in terms [Click here for the full review…]


Damoiseau 8 YO Rhum Vieux Agricole – Review

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Jul 112022
 
Damoiseau 8 YO Rhum Vieux Agricole - Review

The Damoiseau 8 YO was for years one of the unsung stars of the brand, a rhum that has been made year in and year out for ages, and the one that edged most into premiumized territory without actually being one itself . But if its increasing online unavailability and absence on the webpage of the company is any indication, we might be seeing it headed for a decline and discontinuation, and if that’s true then my advice for those reading this review would be to stock up, because this is one pretty damned fine piece of work, and you’ll [Click here for the full review…]


Yack Creek Distillery Amber “Tavern Style” Rum #5 (Australia) – Review

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Jul 072022
 
Yack Creek Distillery Amber "Tavern Style" Rum #5 (Australia) - Review

When it comes to Australia, the wider world knows of Bundy and Beenleigh almost by default, because they are the big guns that export globally and allow us to try their stuff as found in a duty-free or released by the independent bottlers. But perhaps a better sense of the country could be provided if we run through the rums of those multitudinous small micro-distilleries that dot the landscape, because seriously, that’s where all the cool stuff and innovation seems to be happening as these New Australians seek for the elusive magic of a truly indigenous rum that could not [Click here for the full review…]


Rhum Jacsi Martinique (late 1950s)

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Jul 042022
 
Rhum Jacsi Martinique (late 1950s)

Rumaniacs Review #136 | 0920 Rhum Jacsi (later named Rhum Jacksi) defies easy categorization and is a research exercise leading down several peculiar rabbit holes. All initial sources agree that the rhum was from Martinique, was made from the 1950s to the 1970s and it is usually to be found at 44% ABV (some later versions were 40%). The source / etymology of the name is not written down but is easily inferred. The distillery of origin is a mystery. The companies involved in its make are the only places one can go and that’s a sufficiently lengthy story to [Click here for the full review…]


Riverbourne Distillery Rich Dark Sipping Rum #8 (Australia) – Review

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Jun 302022
 
Riverbourne Distillery Rich Dark Sipping Rum #8 (Australia) - Review

Australia’s sugar cane industry is concentrated in the east of the country, so it comes as no surprise that many of the small distilleries that make rum (one cannot firmly state they are always rum distilleries) are located in the states of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, usually near some kind of built up infrastructure, though sometimes on the outskirts of some small town or other. The small one-man distillery of Riverbourne is a bit more rural and remote (a relative term) in that there really isn’t much between it and Canberra, the capital, which is an hour’s drive [Click here for the full review…]


SMWS R11.4 Worthy Park 2010 6 YO Rum (“Tasty Treat”) – Review

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Jun 272022
 
SMWS R11.4 Worthy Park 2010 6 YO Rum ("Tasty Treat") - Review

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is the largest subscription-based spirits distributor in the world, focussing primarily on whisky but also blends, bourbons, gins, cognacs and, yes, occasionally rums. It has long passed the stage of simply buying a cask here or there and releasing the subsequent bottling, but is a noted stockist and ageing warehouse in its own right, purchasing new make spirit from all over the map and barrelling it themselves. Their prime focus remains the whisky arena, no matter what sort of minor releases they do in other areas of the spirit world, which I guess is understandable given [Click here for the full review…]


South Pacific Distillery Bounty (Fiji) Premium Overproof Rum – Review

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Jun 202022
 
South Pacific Distillery Bounty (Fiji) Premium Overproof Rum - Review

For years, South Pacific Distillery out of Fiji has been sending bulk rum abroad, which the indies of Europe have been snapping up and releasing as limited edition single cask bottlings: TCRL, L’Esprit, Samaroli, Rum Cask, Duncan Taylor, the Compagnie, Kill Devil and others have all released a bottle or two, and that is pretty much the only introduction most of us have to Fiji’s rums. However, like most distilleries which either dominate a country or seek to diversify in the region, they do have an in-house label of their own: the “Bounty” brand, which I must hasten to distinguish [Click here for the full review…]


Aisling Distillery “Riverina” 4YO Ex-Shiraz Australian Rum – Review

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Jun 162022
 
Aisling Distillery "Riverina" 4YO Ex-Shiraz Australian Rum - Review

Aisling Distillery’s “Riverina” rum is one that defies easy description. It is a rum of real originality that can inspire equal parts admiration or despite, and the only one the resolutely whisky- and gin-focused distillery has ever released in its short eight years of existence. Its bare statistics could be described in a short sentence, yet to attempt an analysis of what makes it impressive may actually be too long for a short review like this one…because what it tries is no less than to marry a straightforward rum profile with something wholly and solely its own – a character, [Click here for the full review…]


Pere Labat “70.7” Brut de Colonne Rhum Agricole Blanc – Review

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Jun 132022
 
Pere Labat "70.7" Brut de Colonne Rhum Agricole Blanc - Review

The official and very long name of this rum is “Pere Labat ‘70.7’ Brut de Colonne Rhum Blanc Agricole de Marie Galante” and clearly wants to have a title that is as long as the ABV is high. That proof point, of course, is impressive by itself, since until quite recently, white agricole rhums tended to park themselves contentedly in the 50-55% space and made their reputations by beefing up Ti Punches that knocked defenseless cruise line tourists across the room. However, it was never going to stay that way. Even before my list of the strongest rums in the [Click here for the full review…]


Four Bells Imported Navy Rum (1970s/1980s)

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Jun 092022
 
Four Bells Imported Navy Rum (1970s/1980s)

Rumaniacs Review #135 | 0914 Disregard – actually, try to forget – the label for a moment, so that the word “Navy” doesn’t send you into conniption fits. It’s an advertising thing, and exists on that label for no other reason than to draw a line between the seafaring traditions of yore, and your mind — as if somehow, by buying and drinking the rum, you are instantly transported to a noble nautical heritage stretching back centuries, with sea spray in your face, snapping sails overhead, and you line up at four bells to get your tot. I guess that’s [Click here for the full review…]


Key Rums of the World – Velier’s Haitian Clairins

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Jun 052022
 
Key Rums of the World - Velier's Haitian Clairins

In less than a decade, the indigenous spirits of Haiti have gone from being local moonshine known only to locals, residents of the DR, visiting NGOs, Haitians in the diaspora and the occasional tourist, to rhums that have made their mark and become famous the world over. They are enormously complex, traditionally made, un-tinkered with and unaged, and have helped usher in an appreciation for artisanal cane spirits that would have been unthinkable to the aged-rum establishment as little as ten years ago. The rums, with their fierce and fiery tastes, initially appealed mostly to cocktail makers (and drinkers), which [Click here for the full review…]


Tin Shed Distilling Co. Requiem 2013 6 YO Rum (“S.S. Ferret,” Australia) – Review

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Jun 022022
 
Tin Shed Distilling Co. Requiem 2013 6 YO Rum ("S.S. Ferret," Australia) - Review

Distilling outfits from almost everywhere in the world take the names of their owners, their locations, or some romanticised word that appeals to the founder(s). Occasionally – and I’ve found this in Down Under quite a few times – a bit more sass and irreverence is in evidence, as witness “Robber’s Dog”, “Illegal Tender”, “Holey Dollar” or “Hoochery”, all the real names of real distilleries in Australia. I like that kind of insouciance, however irrelevant it might be to a review of this kind. Today’s rum is from the interesting and rustically-titled Tin Shed Distilling Co which is primarily known [Click here for the full review…]


Clairin Sonson Unaged White Rhum (Haiti) – Review

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May 302022
 
Clairin Sonson Unaged White Rhum (Haiti) - Review

While there are hundreds of clairin makers in Haiti, and they have been making cane juice spirits there since before the country’s independence in 1804, widespread modern knowledge of the spirit only really came after 2014, when it was introduced to the global audience by Velier, the Italian company made famous by its Demeraras, Caronis, and Habitation pot still rums series. Strictly speaking, Velier’s stable of clairins consists of just five core products from five small distilleries, but this obscures the regular annual releases of the unaged whites, the aged variants, and the various blends. Initially, clairins from three distilleries [Click here for the full review…]


Winding Road Distilling Co. Coastal Cane Pure Single Rum (Release 1) – Review

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May 262022
 
Winding Road Distilling Co. Coastal Cane Pure Single Rum (Release 1) - Review

Distilleries that go off on their own tangent are always fun to watch in action. They blend a wry and deprecating sense of humour with a quizzical and questioning mien and add to that a curiosity about the rumiverse that leads to occasional messy road kill, sure…but equally often, to intriguing variations on old faithfuls that result in fascinating new products. Killik’s Jamaican rum experiments come to mind, and also Winding Road’s focus on their cane juice based rums, like they were single handedly trying to do agricoles one better. Moving on from the standard proofed rums from Australia upon [Click here for the full review…]


Rom Deluxe Bellevue (Guadeloupe) 1998 23 YO Rum – Review

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May 232022
 
Rom Deluxe Bellevue (Guadeloupe) 1998 23 YO Rum - Review

Aside from their premium “Wild Series” line of rums with their striking black and white labels and dizzying proof points, the relatively new Danish indie Rom Deluxe also has various downmarket rum offerings. One step down from “Wild” is the Collector’s Series, originally meant to capture rums that were not quite as strong as the former but retaining much of the quality.  On the face of it and perusing the listings, I don’t honestly see much difference, however, aside perhaps in a lower price. The subject of today’s review is the first batch of Release 3 which hails from Bellevue, [Click here for the full review…]


Savanna Lontan Grand Arôme 2007 6 YO Rum – Review

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May 192022
 
Savanna Lontan Grand Arôme 2007 6 YO Rum - Review

After all these years of Savanna’s releases of new series, individual bottlings or millesimes, one can reasonably be nearing the point of exhaustion.  Perhaps no other primary producer outside of DDL, Privateer and maybe the French island distilleries with their annual cask editions, has so many releases from all over the map, relentlessly put out the door year in and year out. This is a connoisseur’s delight and to the benefit of consumers everywhere…but something of a collector’s nightmare. I doubt there’s anyone who has the entire series of this Reunion-based distillery’s Lontans, Intenses, Metises, Creols, Traditionnels, Grand Arôme, Maison [Click here for the full review…]


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