Winding Road Agricole Blanc “Virgin Cane Spirit” – Review

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Feb 172022
 
Winding Road Agricole Blanc "Virgin Cane Spirit" - Review

To call Winding Road Distillery’s unaged cane spirit both an “agricole blanc” and a “virgin cane spirit” seems like something of a tautology, doesn’t it? But no worries: it’ll will be renamed at some point to make it simpler and to gain access to the EU and other places where the term “agricole” is clearly defined and protected (they are well aware of the naming conventions). This is fairly important for their future plans, since all their current rums, including what they’ve laid down to age, derive from cane juice. There are no plans to move away from that core [Click here for the full review…]


Winding Road Distilling Co. – Australia

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Feb 172022
 
Winding Road Distilling Co. - Australia

As with most new distilleries in Australia, Winding Road is a family affair located about 175km south of Brisbane, whose antecedents go back as far as 2014 when the husband-and-wife team of Mark and Camille Awad were casting around for something to do which would keep them in the more tourist-centric area of Northern Rivers in New South Wales (rather than moving to a bigger city where professional work was more plentiful). At the time the craft distilling movement had begun but was in its infancy, and being in a sugar cane growing district, having something of an entrepreneurial bent [Click here for the full review…]


Tomoet Moi Kokuto Shochu (Japan) – Review

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Feb 142022
 
Tomoet Moi Kokuto Shochu (Japan) - Review

It was to examine this almost-rum (and others like it that will inevitably come) that the detailed treatise on Japanese kokuto shochu had to be written, because without it the review would have lost much of its context and the shochu’s offbeat profile would not have been properly understood. In brief, shochu is a type of Japanese distilled spirit made from various ingredients, where a two-phase fermentation process using a mold is de rigueur: one to convert starches to sugars and another to convert those sugars to low-proof alcohol, which is then distilled using pot stills. Kokuto shochu is one [Click here for the full review…]


Kalki Moon “Plant Cane” Australian Cane Spirit (Batch 1) – Review

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Feb 092022
 
Kalki Moon "Plant Cane" Australian Cane Spirit (Batch 1) - Review

There are five bottlings planned for the Australian Distillery Kalki Moon’s “Cane Farmer” Series, named as an homage to the farmers in Queensland who were instrumental in developing the state. The Plant Cane — an unaged white spirit which is a rum in all but name — was the second, introduced in December 2020, with spiced and darker aged expressions that can be called “rum” locally being developed for future release. We’ll go into the background of the company later, but for now, let’s just talk about this white unaged spirit, made from molasses (yes, molasses, not juice), fermented with [Click here for the full review…]


Berry Bros. & Rudd 2004 9 YO Haitian Rum – Review

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Feb 072022
 
Berry Bros. & Rudd 2004 9 YO Haitian Rum - Review

This is one of those times where I’ll circle back and fill in the detailed background later, since even a summary of more than three centuries of company life will still probably put the disinterested to sleep.  In brief, Berry Bros & Rudd (or BBR) is a London-based wine and spirits enterprise (they have branches in several other countries) who dabble in their own bottlings of rum from time to time.  They were among the first indies to capture my attention back in 2012 or so with an extraordinary 1975 Port Mourant, but nowadays their star shines somewhat less brightly [Click here for the full review…]


Brix Distillers Urban Cane Spirit (2020 Harvest) – Review

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Feb 032022
 
Brix Distillers Urban Cane Spirit (2020 Harvest) - Review

Brix Distillers is an interesting contrast to the JimmyRum distillery we looked at last week.  With Jimmy’s, you got the impression of a down-to-earth, easygoing, somewhat blue-collar enterprise with a cheeky sense of humour that also provided good info on who and what it was. Brix, on the other hand, gives more of a yuppie vibe and emanates a youthful vigour that is paradoxically, also somewhat anonymous (none of the owners are identified on their website, for example). While Jimmy’s is definitely a distillery with a bar and restaurant (of sorts) attached later, one can easily get the impression that [Click here for the full review…]


Leilani Hawaiian Rum (1960s-1970s)

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Jan 312022
 
Leilani Hawaiian Rum (1960s-1970s)

Rumaniacs Review #132 | 880 The exact date of make of this Hawaiian rum is a little tricky: the NZ Canterbury Museum notes it as “circa” 1960s and there are old magazine advertisements for sale online which mention it, dating from 1967 and after, so that dovetails neatly with internal Seagram’s records dating the creation date of the rum to 1965. It was made in time for the Montreal World’s Fair, also known as Expo 1967, and designed to speak to Canada’s desire to move away from its staid British past and embrace a more multicultural mindset. This was done [Click here for the full review…]


JimmyRum “Silver” Premium Australian Spirit, Batch No. 4 – Review

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Jan 262022
 
JimmyRum "Silver" Premium Australian Spirit, Batch No. 4 - Review

There’s a sly sort of insouciant Aussie humour at work in the JimmyRum distillery, not the least the name itself.  More serious-minded folks would name the company “McPherson’s” or “Victoria Distillery” or some other such portentous title meant to demonstrate respectful gravitas and a profound commitment to the momentous task of distilling top drawer Australian rum. The names of the staff would be reverently listed with their titles, background, experience and commitment to rum, and the whole business would just reek of Ultra Serious.   In place of that we get that playful name, a tongue-in-cheek nod to the founder, a [Click here for the full review…]


Opinion – Plantation’s 3-Star Rum: Not Yet In Decline

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Jan 242022
 
Opinion - Plantation's 3-Star Rum: Not Yet In Decline

This essay is a companion price to the review of the Plantation 3 Stars White Rum. You have to go back to around 2011 to understand something of the regard in which Plantation 3-Stars white continues to be held. Then, just as the renaissance of rum was gathering a head of steam, just as cask strength pure single rums were getting noticed, at a time when unaged white rums were hardly taken seriously outside the French islands, bartenders were faced with a dearth of workhorse mixing rums that weren’t just some boring column-still vodka wannabes. They were working with and [Click here for the full review…]


Plantation 3 Stars White Rum – Review

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Jan 242022
 
Plantation 3 Stars White Rum - Review

The Plantation 3-Star rum is part of the “bar classics” range of Plantation’s stable, which includes well-regarded rums like the OFTD, Original Dark and Stiggin’s Fancy.  Of course the whole “3 star” business is just marketing – it’s meant to symbolize three stars of the Caribbean rumworld whose rums from a part of the blend: Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados.  This conveniently elides the stars of Guyana, Martinique, St. Lucia and many others, but ok, whatever.  Ditto for the “World Best Cellar Master” – uh huh. Still, Plantation’s webpage for the rum provides a nice level of detail for those who [Click here for the full review…]


Beenleigh 3 YO White Australian Rum – Review

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Jan 202022
 
Beenleigh 3 YO White Australian Rum - Review

For years, Bundaberg was considered the Australian rum, synonymous with the country, emblematic of its distilling ethos, loved and hated in equal measure for its peculiar and offbeat profile (including by Australians). Yet in 2022 its star has lost some twinkle, it rarely comes up in conversation outside Queensland (where it sells like crazy), and another distillery has emerged to take the laurels of the international scene – Beenleigh.  Scouring through my previous notes about Beenleigh (see historical section below), it seems that even though VOK Beverages got a controlling interest in the enterprise back in 2003, they contented themselves [Click here for the full review…]


Other Sugar Cane Spirits – Kokuto Shochu (Japan)

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Jan 182022
 
Other Sugar Cane Spirits - Kokuto Shochu (Japan)

  Shochu, along with awamori, is the oldest distilled spirit made in Japan, just about all of it in the south island of Kyushu and its surrounding islands, and so distinct that several varieties have their own geographical protections. It’s versatile, interesting, very drinkable, and is becoming even more popular than sake in the last years, especially in Japan, where most of it is consumed. And while the focus of my work is rum, and the point of this article is to highlight local spirits based on sugar cane, I must be clear that the cane spirit known as kokuto [Click here for the full review…]


Letter of Marque Hampden (DOK) 2009 8 YO Jamaican Rum – Review

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Jan 162022
 
Letter of Marque Hampden (DOK) 2009 8 YO Jamaican Rum - Review

DOK.  The initials which have now become a word, have such a sense of menace.  They have all the unfriendly finality of an axe thunking into an executioner’s block. And perhaps this was deliberate, because a DOK rum (I give a delicious shiver) is at the trembling razor’s edge of esterland, 1600 g/hlpa, something so torrid and intense that it is used to calm down cask strength neutral alcohol before being sold to Scotch lovers, and those only now getting into rum. Richard Seale is famous for his exasperation about DOK-weenies and fangeeks who wax rhapsodic about these things, because [Click here for the full review…]


Novo Fogo “Tanager” Cachaça – Review

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Jan 122022
 
Novo Fogo "Tanager" Cachaça - Review

Over the last years, one of the inescapable conclusions I’ve come to is that rums that dare to be different or faithfully rep their terroire without reference to others, will always and only get niche acknowledgement from that sliver of the rumisphere that knows and understands the varieties of rum and is not reluctant to try something on the blank edges of the map. Wider acceptance by the larger mass of the rum buying public, though…that may be harder. This is perhaps why some of the more artisanal cane derived spirits of the day – aguardientes, grogues, clairins, charandas, kokuto [Click here for the full review…]


Samaroli 2004 11 Year Old Haitian Rum – Review

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Jan 102022
 
Samaroli 2004 11 Year Old Haitian Rum - Review

When we think of Haiti two names in rum immediately spring to mind: clairins and Barbancourt.  This pair of diametrically opposite rum making styles dominate the conversation to such an extent that it is often overlooked that there are other distilleries on the island, like Barik / Moscoso, Agriterra / Himbert, Distillerie de la Rue (Nazon), Distillerie Lacrete, La Distillerie 1716, Beauvoir Leriche and Janel Mendard (among others).  Granted most of these don’t do much branded work, stay within their regional market, or they sell bulk rum only (often clairins or their lookalikes that punch up lesser rums made by [Click here for the full review…]


Taking Some Time Off…

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Dec 222021
 
Taking Some Time Off...

I’m taking some time off and away from writing, and if this cartoon goes up, it’s because I’m tasting as much as I can over the Christmas season when Mrs. Caner, Grandma Caner and the Little Big Caner allow me some time to do that. Have a great Christmas, everyone, and enjoy the holidays. Share this… Facebook Threads Twitter Bluesky Reddit Messenger Whatsapp Telegram


Bounty “Spirit of St. Lucia” Rum (1970s-1980s)

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Dec 192021
 
Bounty "Spirit of St. Lucia" Rum (1970s-1980s)

Rumaniacs Review R-131 | 873 Bounty Rum — not to be confused with the South Pacific Distillery rum of the same name — was the first branded rum produced by St. Lucia Distillers in 1972 when the combine was formed through the consolidation of the Dennery Distillery (which was owned by the Barnard family) and the distillery run by the Geest family at Roseau Bay.  The rum was considered the workhorse of the brand, a step down from the subsequent releases of the Chairman’s Reserve, Admiral Rodney and other blends of greater perceived cachet and exclusivity that came into prominence [Click here for the full review…]


J.M. “Jungle” Rhum Agricole Blanc Edition Limitee (2017) – Review

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Dec 162021
 
J.M. "Jungle" Rhum Agricole Blanc Edition Limitee (2017) - Review

These days I rarely comment any longer on a bottle’s appearance – there was a time when I actually scored it as part of the review, though common sense suggested that it cease after the pointlessness of the practice became self-evident – but here I really must remark on the striking distinctiveness of the design. In colour and form it reminds me of Henri Rousseau’s savagely childish yet iconic jungle scenes. You sure won’t pass this bottle on a shelf if you see it. But what is it? The Martinique distillery of J.M. is of course not an unknown quantity [Click here for the full review…]


Key Rums of the World – Clarke’s Court Pure White Overproof (Grenada)

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Dec 122021
 
Key Rums of the World - Clarke's Court Pure White Overproof (Grenada)

There are four operations making rum in Grenada – Renegade (the new kid on the block, operating since 2021), Westerhall, Rivers Antoine and Clarke’s Court, the last of which was formed in 1937, operating under the umbrella of the Grenada Sugar Factory (the largest on the island) and named after an estate of the same name in the southern parish of St. George’s.  This title in turn derived from two separate sources: Gedney Clarke, who bought the Woodlands estate from the French in the late 1700s, and a bay called “Court Bay” included with the property (this in turn was [Click here for the full review…]


Velier 70th Anniv. St. Lucia Distillers “Warren Khong” 2010 7 YO Rum – Review

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Dec 082021
 
Velier 70th Anniv. St. Lucia Distillers "Warren Khong" 2010 7 YO Rum - Review

It’s the Red Queen’s race, I sometimes think: top dogs in the indie scene have to keep on inventing and innovating to maintain their lead, release ever-older or fancier bottlings, enthuse the fans, show how cool they are, all to remain in the same place — and none, perhaps, know this as well as Velier, whose various “series” go back a decade or more and keep the bar set really high. The legendary Demeraras, Caronis and Habitations, the Indian Ocean series, Endemic Birds, Foursquare Collaborations, 70th Anniversary, Appleton Hearts, True Explorer, Rhum Rhum, NRJ…the list just keeps growing. But the [Click here for the full review…]


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