Merchant Shipping Co. White Rum (Highwood Distillers) – Review

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Mar 102023
 
Merchant Shipping Co. White Rum (Highwood Distillers) - Review

The last two reviews were of products from a Scottish rum maker called Sugar House, who bootstrapped a hybrid pot still, a batsh*t crazy production ethos and somehow came out with two unaged rums that should not have succeeded as well as they did…but did; and blew my socks off. This is what happens when a producer, no matter how small or how new, takes their rum seriously, really loves the subject, and isn’t averse to tinkering around a bit, dispenses with the training wheels, and simply blasts off. Juice like this is the high point of the reviewing game, [Click here for the full review…]


Sugar House Unaged White Overproof Rum – Review

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Mar 062023
 
Sugar House Unaged White Overproof Rum - Review

As soon as the review for the Sugar House unaged white went up, a flurry of comments resulted: “It’s not too shabby” admitted one FB denizen, “But I prefer the OP.” This was immediately seconded by another who said “Love the OP” and followed it up with a flaming icon; and right on the heels of those two remarks, another chipped in over at the NZ Rum Club, and said that yep, the OP was the sh*t there too. I completely get that, because I have a thing for really strong rums. It’s a mixed bag, as any reader of [Click here for the full review…]


Sugar House Scottish Pure Single Unaged White Rum – Review

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Mar 032023
 
Sugar House Scottish Pure Single Unaged White Rum - Review

Sugar House, along with Ninefold, J. Gow, Islay Rum Co and other distilleries now opening in the UK, may represent the Brit’s answer to the diminution of the merchant bottling trade, or perhaps the growing expense of getting the best casks out of the brokerages by an ever-increasing number of independents. It speaks to the desire of a new crop of aggressive young Turks to not be beholden to third parties for barrels of rum or blending skills, but to let loose and harness their own creative impulses to the max, and go out there and break some sh*t, to [Click here for the full review…]


Original Hana Bay Premium Rum (USA, 1980s)

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Feb 272023
 
Original Hana Bay Premium Rum (USA, 1980s)

Rumaniacs Review No. 144 | 0976 In 2023, if you were to google “who makes Hana Bay rum?” you’d get a response that Hali’imaile Distilling Company is the distillery of origin; except if you went to their site, there would be no mention of Hana Bay at all (or Whaler’s and Mahina, the other brands they own and supposedly make). Digging further and you’d see that Hawaiian Distillers out of Honolulu made Hana Bay rum from around the 1980s forwards and in the early 2010s when I first looked at Whaler’s, it was being made in Kentucky by the brand [Click here for the full review…]


L’Esprit Diamond 2017 “Still Strength” White Rum (1º Ed.) – Review

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Feb 242023
 
L’Esprit Diamond 2017 “Still Strength” White Rum (1º Ed.) – Review

When it comes to Guyanese rum, I’m afraid that much as I enjoy DDL’s wares from time to time – more so of late, since they took the bull by the horns and released rums with less additions –  the really good stuff, the best stuff, to me, still comes from the indies.  Alas, Velier has moved away from the Demerara rums and I can’t afford the ones that remain on the secondary market, but fortunately for us all, there is no shortage of other independent bottlers out there to satisfy our thirst for the output of those lovely wooden [Click here for the full review…]


Rhum Belami “Legacy Edition” 3YO 55º Spiced Rhum – Review

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Feb 202023
 
Rhum Belami "Legacy Edition" 3YO 55º Spiced Rhum - Review

This is a sample review I’ve been sitting on for quite a while, and after trying it was never entirely certain I wanted to write about at all: but perhaps it’s best to get it out there so people can get a feel for the thing. It’s a rhum made in Vietnam since 2017 by a three-person outfit founded by an expatriate Martinique native named Roddy Battajon and occasionally turns up in social media feeds and in French and regional magazines — but, like other Vietnam rum brands we’ve looked at before (Mia, L’Arrangé Dosai and Sampan so far), lacks [Click here for the full review…]


Doorly’s Fine Old Barbados 14 Year Old Rum – Review

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Feb 172023
 
Doorly's Fine Old Barbados 14 Year Old Rum - Review

Last year Chris Seale and I were talking at Paris’s WhiskyLive and he mentioned that he had read some of my earlier work on the Doorly’s line of rums and thought I had been unnecessarily rough on the brand. I responded that this was very true — it’s hardly something I could pretend was not — but it faithfully reflected my feelings and opinions from more than a decade ago and of course, I’ve moved on to developing a real appreciation for Foursquare in the many years between then and now – especially the new Habitation Velier LFT and pot [Click here for the full review…]


Wild Parrot Uitvlugt 1997-2018 21 YO Rum – Review

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Feb 132023
 
Wild Parrot Uitvlugt 1997-2018 21 YO Rum - Review

If you have never heard of Wild Parrot, or have but can’t recall their releases, you can relax.  You’re not alone. It is one of those recently founded small European indies that has pretty much remained in its own area and does not seek to be like 1423 and expand around the world. For the curious, the company was created in 2017 by two northern Italian rum aficionados: Stefano Cremaschi of The Whisky Roundabout store located just east of Milan, and Andrea Ferrari from the independent whiskey bottler Hidden Spirits in Ferrara, just north of Bologne — the brand’s rums [Click here for the full review…]


Tamosi “Kanaima” (Versailles) 16 YO Guyanese Rum – Review

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Feb 102023
 
Tamosi "Kanaima" (Versailles) 16 YO Guyanese Rum - Review

Memories are short in this day and age of always-on ADD infotainment, yet I remember quite clearly the short and sharp social media posts that erupted over the naming of Tamosi’s first rum “Kanaima,” which was considered disrespectful appropriation and misnaming (at the very least) of an Amerindian term by a commercial entity (see backgrounder below this review for an expanded discussion of the matter). For those who are not familiar with the term “kanaima”, it variously refers to a spiritual force of the jungle which can be tapped into, a spirit being, or (in my own favourite) the name [Click here for the full review…]


Worthy Park “109” Jamaican Rum – Review

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Feb 062023
 
Worthy Park "109" Jamaican Rum - Review

Worthy Park’s “109” is a recent addition to the Jamaican distillery’s brand portfolio, with a storied history from its first announcement in 2020. The Jamaican distillery wanted fill out its low-to-midrange line with a darker, slightly aged and higher proof rum to complement the Rum Bar White Overproof, Silver and Gold, and while they maintained that the objective was not to go up against Smith & Cross, it’s hard to look at the specs and not conclude that at least some market-share jealousy and subtle dick-measuring was going on.  Initially the rum was called “Gunpowder Proof” – a play on [Click here for the full review…]


Key Rums of the World – Bacardi Reserva “Ocho” 8 YO Rum (Puerto Rico / Global)

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Feb 012023
 
Key Rums of the World - Bacardi Reserva "Ocho" 8 YO Rum (Puerto Rico / Global)

Bacardi hardly needs an introduction.  It’s a company of ancient vintage (in rum years), one of the first and remaining big guns of the entire sector, with a storied past from the 19th century, involving the rise of an immigrant family, ruthless business practises, revolution, heartbreak, loss, global expansion and emergence at the other end as one of the great spirits conglomerates in the world. In so doing it has carved a reputation for itself so enormous that one hardly needs to say rum after its name, it is so synonymous and clearly identified with that one single drink. And [Click here for the full review…]


Renaissance Distillery 2018 2½ YO Taiwan Rum (Fino Cask) – Review

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Jan 242023
 
Renaissance Distillery 2018 2½ YO Taiwan Rum (Fino Cask) - Review

Taiwan is not known for rums, but then, it was not known for whisky either, and look what Kavalan has managed to accomplish.  So, sooner or later, I had to come here, where an expatriate Frenchman named Oliver Caen and his Taiwanese wife Linya Chiou, have created one of the most interesting new distilling companies out there: interesting for their location, interesting for their labelling, interesting for their rums, and interesting because so few people have tried any — yet everyone knows of them, and everyone is curious to check them out. Word of mouth like that is priceless. I’ll [Click here for the full review…]


Montanya “Exclusiva” 3YO Rum – Review

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Jan 192023
 
Montanya "Exclusiva" 3YO Rum - Review

  Developments over the last few years suggest that the American rum world may slowly be shaking off its lethargy and race to the cheap bottom, and embracing a more serious rum loving ethos. Rum clubs are starting up all over the place, American spirits enthusiasts are posting reviews on social media left right and centre, more and more distilleries are making rum — and with the sterling efforts of the Old Guard like Richland, St. George’s, Prichard’s, Balcones, Maggie’s Farm and others, it is now possible for you to speak about American Rum (with caps) without somebody just pityingly [Click here for the full review…]


Isautier “L’Elise” Millésime 2006 15 YO Rhum (Reunion) – Review

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Jan 162023
 
Isautier "L'Elise" Millésime 2006 15 YO Rhum (Reunion) - Review

In all the excitement about the latest releases from the Reunion distillery of Savanna, it’s always good to keep in mind that there are two other distilleries on the island making some pretty good rhum – Rivière-du-Mât and Isautier. I’d suggest that the former is probably the lesser known, but Isautier is gaining some traction of late, because there have been quite a few neat rhums emerging from the distillery in recent years that are making some waves and exciting serious attention. So let’s forego any long introductory perambulations and get right down to the facts at hand. This is [Click here for the full review…]


Samaroli Demerara 1990 26YO Guyana Rum – Review

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Jan 122023
 
Samaroli Demerara 1990 26YO Guyana Rum - Review

Samaroli was one of the first of the modern Italian independents, and focused primarily on whiskies, which remains the core of its indie bottling business to this day. The reputation of the company began in 1968 when Sylvano Samaroli began bottling for the Italian market — the first non-UK bottler to deal seriously in that obscure Scottish tipple — and eventually started issuing rums as well. The most famous of all his rum selections, and reputedly his own favourite, was probably also the first: the 1991-bottled unicorn rum of the West Indies Dark Rum from 1948. The next rum bottlings [Click here for the full review…]


Fortress Canadian Rum – Review

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Jan 092023
 
Fortress Canadian Rum - Review

The rum we are looking at today is named simply “Fortress rum”, after the Fortress of Louisburg on Île Royale, now Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia, where the barrels of rum were aged. . The back label says the rum is made in Canada from domestic and imported ingredients (no further qualification), the website talks about “select Caribbean rums” (no further elaboration) aged in “oak barrels” (no further info on what kind) and the company of origin is Authentic Seacoast Distilling Co. Ltd which has its fingers in all sorts of pies: beer, vodka, coffee, rumcake, hand sanitizers and [Click here for the full review…]


Fryns Hasselt Haiti Old Rhum (1980s)

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Jan 042023
 
Fryns Hasselt Haiti Old Rhum (1980s)

Rumaniacs Review #143 | R-0963 All sorts of little mysteries attend this rum.  First of all, what we know: a Haitian rhum bottled by a Belgian outfit named Fryns Hasselt in the 1980s, at 40%. What we don’t know: cane juice or molasses, type of still, which estate or brand, where it was aged and in what kind of barrels – though I think it’s a fair bet it’s Barbancourt, it came from a column still, and the ageing was around five years, likely in Europe. A bottle – perhaps even the same one flipped several times –  appeared on [Click here for the full review…]


Engenhos do Norte Rum 970 2015 6 Year Old Single Cask Edition – Review

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Jan 022023
 
Engenhos do Norte Rum 970 2015 6 Year Old Single Cask Edition - Review

Having now looked at a few standard strength agricola rums from Madeira, it’s clear that for their own “standard line” company bottlings, many remain wedded to mass-audience standards that still appeal – for price and availability and approachability reasons, no doubt – to the general public. There’s nothing at all wrong with that, except that they don’t always provide that intensity of taste, that serious jolt of flavour, that something of a more robust strength provides. A good example of the potential of moving beyond G-Rated crowd-pleasers is this six year old 2015-distilled Engenhos do Norte rum agricola, which was [Click here for the full review…]


Rewinding 2022: The Year in Rum

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Dec 292022
 
Rewinding 2022: The Year in Rum

Although 2020 and 2021 were deserts of activities and opportunities to meet, share, drink, talk and socialise, the rumworld never really stopped ticking over, and while RumCask’s annual three-rum top of the year invitational roundup took a nosedive, many of us kept churning out product and adding to the literature, tasting new rums, and keeping the flag of geekdom fluttering. In late 2021 some rum expos timidly cracked their doors, and 2022 was when the world finally opened up and the entrances were flung wide for a resumption of the festival season. The COVID period, for all its many tragedies [Click here for the full review…]


Secret Treasures Gardel Distillery 1989 13 Year Old Guadeloupe Rhum – Review

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Dec 262022
 
Secret Treasures Gardel Distillery 1989 13 Year Old Guadeloupe Rhum - Review

The clear, light, and distinct nose on this Guadeloupe agricole is really quite sumptuous, and hearkens back to a time before more formal rules were put into place (even on Guadeloupe) as to how cane juice rhums were put together.  It has a clean sweetness to it, quite crisp, redolent of grapes, green apples and a touch of vanilla and caramel to start.  Sweet and sour chicken with tons of vegetables, sweet soya. And it develops into more complex territory after that – leather, freshly mown hay, citrus peel, cumin and pomegranates and was that oregano I smelled there? It [Click here for the full review…]


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