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…]


L’Esprit Beenleigh 2014 6YO Australian Rum – Review

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May 162022
 
L’Esprit Beenleigh 2014 6YO Australian Rum – Review

Two years ago I took a look at L’Esprit’s Beenleigh 5YO rum from Australia and after trying manfully to come to grips with the gasp-inducing strength of 78.1%, I got up off the floor and wrote a fairly positive review about the thing. That rum was hot-snot aggressive and not bad at all, and there I thought the tale had ended…but then came this one. And then it became clear that Steve Magarry (who was then Distillery Manager over at Beenleigh) and Tristan Prodhomme (the showrunner at L’Esprit) read my review, rubbed their hands gleefully while cackling in fiendish delight, [Click here for the full review…]


SMWS R7.1 Jamaica 2000 16 YO Rum “Welcome to Jamrock” – Review

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May 122022
 
SMWS R7.1 Jamaica 2000 16 YO Rum "Welcome to Jamrock" - Review

Sooner or later, no matter what the SMWS thought the Big Gun Rums deserving of their own Big Green Bottle were, they had to come here, to Release 7.1 of the vaunted and much ignored “R” (rum) series. By 2016 when it was put on sale for the membership, they had rums from Guyana (DDL), Jamaica (Monymusk and Longpond), Barbados (WIRD) and Trinidad (Providence)…and that was it. And even if you’re not in to rums – or weren’t, six years ago – it’s clear there’s just a whole lot missing there, which could have buffed and burnished the SMWS’s sadly [Click here for the full review…]


Foursquare “Premise” 2008 10 YO Rum (ECS Mark VIII) – Review

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May 092022
 
Foursquare "Premise" 2008 10 YO Rum (ECS Mark VIII) - Review

One of the downsides of working and living where I do is that the latest newest releases pass by and can’t be tried in time to catch the initial wave of advertising and consumer interest. Sometimes whole years pass by between the much ballyhooed arrival of some interesting new product and my ability to write the review…by which time not only has the interest flagged but also the supply, and a whole new raft of fresh rums are hogging the limelight. This is particularly thorny with respect to the very limited issues of independent bottlers who do single cask releases, [Click here for the full review…]


Boatrocker Brewers & Distillers Double Barrel Aged Australian Rum Batch #3 – Review

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May 052022
 
Boatrocker Brewers & Distillers Double Barrel Aged Australian Rum Batch #3 - Review

The distillery and brewery called BoatRocker (with what I am sure is representative of a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour shared by many Aussies) is another small family-run outfit located in Melbourne, a mere 50km or so north of JimmyRum. It was officially founded in 2009, and like many other such small enterprises I’ve written about, their genesis is far older: in this case, in the 1980s, when the (then teenaged) founder, Matt Houghton, was enthused by the Michael Jackson (no, not that Michael Jackson) show “The Beer Hunter” – this led to a lifelong love of beer, homebrewing, studies of [Click here for the full review…]


Revisiting the Plantation Barbados XO 20th Anniversary Rum

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May 012022
 
Revisiting the Plantation Barbados XO 20th Anniversary Rum

It’s an old saw that time grants experience at the expense of youth, and indeed the entire review of the El Dorado 21 YO rum was an extended meditation on this theme.  But perhaps, had I wanted to illustrate the issue more fully, it would have been better to reflect on the descent of the Barbados 20th Anniversary XO in my estimation over the intervening years since I first tried and wrote about it in 2012.  Back then I awarded it what by contemporary standards is an unbelievable 88.5 points and my opening blurb naming it “one of the top [Click here for the full review…]


Hoochery Distillery Spike’s Reserve 7 YO Australian Rum – Review

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Apr 282022
 
Hoochery Distillery Spike's Reserve 7 YO Australian Rum - Review

Just reading the name of this rum invites questions. Where does the rum come from, with a name like that?  Who is Spike? Is there a really a distillery named after the rotgut liquor the word “hooch” represents? In the welter of “cane spirit” new-make unaged rums emerging from the New Australians and the lack of many seriously aged rums from Down Under, is there actually one that’s seven years old? What could it possibly be like? Fortunately your fearless (if occasionally clueless) reviewer, possessed of rather more enthusiasm than good sense, has not only been here before but has [Click here for the full review…]


Navy Neaters 95.5º Proof (Guyana) Rum (1970s)

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Apr 252022
 
Navy Neaters 95.5º Proof (Guyana) Rum (1970s)

Rumaniacs Review #134 | 0902 Back in 2015 I tasted another one of these older Navy-style rums, also called Navy Neaters and I have no idea why that rum didn’t make the Rumaniacs series. That one was a Guyana-Barbados blend, while this one is Guyana only; both were made by the same company of Charles Kinloch & Co. Kinloch made light white filtered rums and a Jamaican or two, plus various blends, but by the 1980s no rum bearing the Kinloch name were being made any longer. Four basic background facts are involved here and I’ll just give them to [Click here for the full review…]


Husk Distillers “The Lost Blend” Cultivated Australian Rum – Review

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Apr 212022
 
Husk Distillers "The Lost Blend" Cultivated Australian Rum - Review

In the increasingly crowded Australian spirits marketplace, for a rum maker to stand out means it has to have a unique selling point, some niche aspects of its production that sets it apart in people’s minds from all the other contenders in the marketplace. Killik’s is the one tinkering with the “Jamaican-style” of rum making; Jimmy Rum has its insouciant sense of humour, colourful owner and halcyon location; Beenleigh rests its laurels on being one of the oldest and its origin myth of the shipwrecked pot still; Cabarita Spirits has its vivacious solo proprietress, Brix goes with its yuppie urban [Click here for the full review…]


Plugging In To Rum – A Guide To Online Resources

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Apr 182022
 
Plugging In To Rum - A Guide To Online Resources

Originally published November 2020. Continuously updated, with the last edit in June 2023 Introduction More and more resources are coming online even as – or perhaps because – an increasing amount of people, young and old and in between, are coming into rum.  They arrive new, or from some other spirit, and are wont to inquire “Where can I find out about…?”  The questions are always the same and after more than ten years of doing this, I sometimes think I’ve seen them all: What rum do I start with? If I like this, what would you recommend? What’s the [Click here for the full review…]


Mhoba Pot Stilled High Ester Rum (2019) – Review

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Apr 182022
 
Mhoba Pot Stilled High Ester Rum (2019) - Review

The South African distillery of Mhoba is one of those small outfits like Richland, Privateer, A1710, Issan, Killik or J. Gow,  that almost single handedly builds a reputation from scratch through dogged persistence and ever-increasing word of mouth, to the point where they exercise an influence on the whole conversation around rums. None of these are the only ones, or the first, to do what they do: but all of them have qualities that are more than just beginner’s luck, and elevate — even redefine — the category of rums for their entire country. In the early 2010s, Mhoba’s founder, [Click here for the full review…]


Habitation Velier Privateer 2017 3 YO Pure Single Rum – Review

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Apr 132022
 
Habitation Velier Privateer 2017 3 YO Pure Single Rum - Review

Few in the rum world are unaware of the little rum company in Massachusetts called Privateer, so indelibly has it made its mark on the American rum scene. Maggie Campbell, the former master distiller there (as of late 2021 she is in Barbados working for Mount Gay) put her stamp on the company’s reputation quite firmly via a series of releases with evocative names like Distillers’ Drawer, Queen’s Share, Bottled in Bond and Letter of Marque (among others). And Privateer, like Velier, Savanna, Foursquare and others, had learnt of the value of limited editions, regularly released – they stoked excitement, [Click here for the full review…]


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