Search Results : compagnie des indes

Compagnie des Indes Nicaragua 1998 17 YO Rum – Review

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Apr 132020
 
Compagnie des Indes Nicaragua 1998 17 YO Rum - Review

Of all the Central American rums I’ve tried, Nicaraguan rums from the Flor de Caña facilities probably are the least like that light Spanish style so popularized by Bacardi. They inhabit a tasting style niche that isn’t quite Latin (or Cuban, if you will), but something that blends the light column still taste with something a bit deeper and richer. It makes for a nice amalgam, though it must be said that their own rums don’t always showcase that effectively, and sometimes it takes an indie to make the point with a single barrel expression. Not as a rule, not [Click here for the full review…]

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society

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Apr 012020
 
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society

Introduction If ever there was a hook, a cachet, a point of distinctiveness, something that set apart an independent bottler’s rums from the pack of baying pretenders, surely the SMWS has nailed it. Here is a bottler of primarily whiskies, that does no advertising, issues barely any rums, and yet whose rum-cred can be said to be up there with any of the Big Names. And this is in spite of their relative obscurity and rarity, and their cost. Their rums are never available on supermarket racks, only on the shelves of its own Members’ Rooms, its partners or online [Click here for the full review…]

Reviews (A-J)

 

This is the first page of rum reviews; it is arranged in alphabetical order, from A through to J. The number on the left of each review is the sequence in which it was written, the score being on the right. Newer posts are marked. [Click here for Page 2 of Rum Reviews, from K to Z] [Click here for the Rumaniacs “Heritage” rum reviews] 0937 1423 Single Barrel Selection Antigua 2015 7 YO High Congener Rum (91) 0822 1423 Single Barrel Selection Barbados (WIRD) 2000 16 YO Rum (85) 0720 1423 Single Barrel Selection Brazil/Barbados 2019 2 YO Blended [Click here for the full review…]

Compagnie des Indes Barbados 1999 16 YO Rum (Foursquare) – Review

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Jul 282019
 
Compagnie des Indes Barbados 1999 16 YO Rum (Foursquare) - Review

If the proposed new GI for Barbados goes into force, it’s likely that rums such as this one will have to be relabelled, because the ageing will have to be done in Barbados, and it’s debatable whether a third party could be permitted to say it was a Foursquare rum(see other notes, below).  Still, even if that happens, that’s not a particularly serious problem on either count given the appreciation most have for tropical ageing these days; and one only has to see any independent bottler saying “Secret Distillery” on a label, for the rum pundits to work themselves up [Click here for the full review…]

1423 S.B.S. Jamaica 2018 (DOK) Rum – Review

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Jun 172019
 
1423 S.B.S. Jamaica 2018 (DOK) Rum - Review

It’s remarkable how fast the SBS line of rums have exploded onto the rumconsciousness of the world. This is a series released by 1423, the same Danish outfit which made the really quite elegant 2008 Mauritius rum I wrote about with such love a while back, and has received enormously positive word of mouth on social media for the last year or so.  The only similar company I can call to mind that rose so quickly in the public’s esteem would be the Compagnie des Indes, which shared a similarly exacting (and excellent) sense of which barrels to choose and [Click here for the full review…]

Sampan Rhum Vietnam Overproof – Review

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May 262019
 
Sampan Rhum Vietnam Overproof - Review

The Sampan Vietnamese Rhum is made by the Distillerie d’Indochine: and Antoine Pourcuitte, a long haired Frenchman who seems to be channelling Fabio and who lives in Vietnam, is the man who bootstrapped his desire to make good rums into a business that combines a small hotel and bar close to the beach with a distillery he pretty much built himself (officially it opened for business in late 2018). This newly constructed establishment, which produces one of those excellent white rhums which must be causing the French islands conniption fits, is his brainchild… and it can take its place proudly [Click here for the full review…]

Naga “Java Reserve” Indonesian Double-Aged 7 YO Rum – Review

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May 132019
 
Naga "Java Reserve" Indonesian Double-Aged 7 YO Rum - Review

Everything you research on Naga is likely to make you rend your robes with frustration at what little you do manage to dig up. Yet paradoxically, everything you do find out about the rum itself seems guaranteed to keep you reading, and make you buy it, if no other reason than because it seems so damned interesting. The label seems designed specifically to tantalize your curiosity.  Perusing it, you can with equal justification call it “Naga Batavia Arrack” (“made with Indonesian aged rum” says the script, implying there it’s arrack plus rum), or “Naga Double Cask rum” or “Naga Java [Click here for the full review…]

1423 S.B.S. Mauritius 2008-2018 10 YO Rum – Review

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May 022019
 
1423 S.B.S. Mauritius 2008-2018 10 YO Rum - Review

Like those tiny Caribbean islands you might occasionally fly over, the Maria Loca cocktail bar in Paris is so miniscule that if you were to sneeze and blink you’d go straight past it, which is what happens to us, twice. When Mrs. Caner and I finally locate it and go inside, it’s dark, it’s hectic, it’s noisy, the music is pounding and the place is going great guns. At the bar, along with two other guys, Guillaume Leblanc is making daiquiris with flair and fine style, greeting old customers and barflies and rumfest attendees, the shaker never still. Even though [Click here for the full review…]

Compagnie des Indes Nicaragua 2004 11 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jan 282019
 
Compagnie des Indes Nicaragua 2004 11 Year Old Rum - Review

Speaking in general terms, my personal drift away from Latin- or South American rums over the last few years derives from the feeling that they’re a little too laid back, and lack pizzazz.  They’re not bad, just placid and easy going and gentle, and when you add to that the disclosure issues, you can perhaps understand why I’ve moved on to more interesting profiles. Far too many producers from the region do too much unadventurous blending (Canalero), don’t actually have a true solera in play (Dictador), have a thing for light column still products which may or may not be [Click here for the full review…]

Key Rums of the World – Barbancourt Réserve Spéciale 8 Year Old Rhum (Haiti)

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Jan 222019
 
Key Rums of the World - Barbancourt Réserve Spéciale 8 Year Old Rhum (Haiti)

Haiti is unique as a nation because it is where the only successful slave revolt in the world took place, at the turn of the 18th century. Sadly, it is now the poorest country in the western hemisphere, and successive dictatorships, foreign interference and natural disasters have left the place in shambles. That any businesses manage to survive in such an environment is a testament to their resilience, their determination, their ingenuity….and the quality of what they put out the door. The country has become the leading world producer of vetiver (a root plant used to make essential oils and [Click here for the full review…]

Compagnie des Indes Jamaica 2007 8 Year Old Rum (WP) – Review

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Jan 122019
 
Compagnie des Indes Jamaica 2007 8 Year Old Rum (WP) - Review

Hampden has been getting so much press of late that it’s only fair to have a look at the other products of the island, of which, these days, there are no shortages. For a long time these distilleries — with names geeks could recite in their sleep, like New Yarmouth, Innswood, Clarendon, Long Pond Monymusk, Worthy Park, Hampden — laboured in relative obscurity, living in J. Wray’s gargantuan shadow, selling mostly bulk rum abroad, or for the local market. Somehow, though, the distilleries remained alive, and so did their names, their rums. While I’m by no means disparaging or downplaying [Click here for the full review…]

K&L “Faultline” Uitvlugt 1994 20 Year Old Rum – Review

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Dec 162018
 
K&L "Faultline" Uitvlugt 1994 20 Year Old Rum - Review

When we think of independent bottlers, all the usual suspects out of Europe usually come to mind — Velier, Rum Nation, L’Esprit, the Compagnie, the whisky boys up north who indulge themselves in the odd single cask expression from time to time, SMWS, Bristol Spirits, and the list goes on. These well-known names obscure the fact that smaller operations — stores and even individuals — can and do in fact issue single barrel offerings as well.  For example, Kensington Wine Market in Calgary does it with whiskies quite often; a bunch of redditors recently got together and bought a cask [Click here for the full review…]

Compagnie des Indes Jamaica 1983 33 Year Old Rum (Hampden) – Review

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Dec 132018
 
Compagnie des Indes Jamaica 1983 33 Year Old Rum (Hampden) - Review

  There all sorts of fascinating things about this rum, whose age and rarity and limited outturn makes it almost impossible to find (and as for actually getting a full bottle? I dreams me dreams, kid).  It’s aged more than thirty years. It was issued for the Hong Kong market. And it’s from Hampden, certainly one of the most interesting companies making rums in Jamaica today. Compagnie des Indes is one of those rare indie outfits that seems to be able to smell these oddly compelling forgotten casks squirrelled away in dusty warehouses someplace, and the only regret is that [Click here for the full review…]

Rum Nation Small Batch Collection – Engenho Novo 2009 8 YO Rum – Review

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Oct 222018
 
Rum Nation Small Batch Collection - Engenho Novo 2009 8 YO Rum - Review

The mark of the successful long-term independent bottler in the public perception rests upon two main pillars – one is of course the quality of the rums they put out the door (and perhaps, how consistently); and the other is the level of originality they bring to the game.  By that I mean how often do they stray from the mainstream of the standard pantheon and go in new directions, seek out different maturations, different ages, different barrels, different distilleries (or whole countries). It is because Velier nails both of these aspects that they are as successful as they are, [Click here for the full review…]

L’Esprit Worthy Park 2007 8 Year Old Jamaican Rum – Review

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Oct 092018
 
L'Esprit Worthy Park 2007 8 Year Old Jamaican Rum - Review

L’Esprit, if you recall, is that little independent bottler in Brittany which is run by Tristan Prodhomme, and has the peculiar distinction of usually issuing the same rums in two iterations – a diluted, more numerous version at a lower proof for the general market, and another more limited one at cask strength (from the same barrel(s) for those who prefer a rum with some fangs.  They don’t range too far afield and stick with the regular rums of the pantheon – from Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados, Guadeloupe, Panama and so on, with an occasional divergence to Nicaragua and Belize [Click here for the full review…]

Compagnie des Indes Fiji 2004-2016 11 YO Rum – Review

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Aug 252018
 
Compagnie des Indes Fiji 2004-2016 11 YO Rum - Review

Although the Compagnie des Indes has a few very well received multi-island blends like the Tricorne, Boulet de Canon, Caraibes and the Domindad, my appreciation of their work is so far given more to individual islands’ or countries’ rums.  There’s something about their specificity that makes the land of origin snap clearly into focus in a way a blend doesn’t (and doesn’t try to, really). That’s not a criticism by any means, just a direction in which my preferences bend, at least for now. After having gone through a few Fijian rums recently, I finally arrived at this one, which [Click here for the full review…]

Transcontinental Rum Line Fiji “Navy Strength” 2009 8YO Rum – Review

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Aug 182018
 
Transcontinental Rum Line Fiji "Navy Strength" 2009 8YO Rum - Review

Over the years I’ve gone through a few Pacific island rums and while appreciative of their inventiveness, wasn’t entirely chuffed about them.  They had elements I liked and elements I didn’t, and on balance while they were workable rums, nothing to really get excited about…unless it was the Mana’o white, which was quite an animal, though it reinforced my appreciation for white rums rather more than it did for Tahiti.  In 2017, though, the Transcontinental Rum Line put out this 8 Year Old rum and when I tried it earlier this year, I was blatted into next week. I literally [Click here for the full review…]

Kill Devil Cuba (Sancti Spiritus) 1999 17 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jul 102018
 
Kill Devil Cuba (Sancti Spiritus) 1999 17 Year Old Rum - Review

Now that Americans can bring back Cuban booze without sanction, it’s likely that their rums will get a boost in sales, and if the Havana Club trademark war ever gets resolved – though I doubt it will happen any time soon – then we’ll see many more on the market.  However, at this period in time, over and above the big names from the island like Santiago de Cuba or Havana Club, to get seriously aged juice that’s really from Cuba, we still have to look primarily at the independents for now. One of these is Kill Devil, named — [Click here for the full review…]

Compagnie des Indes Jamaica 2000 15YO Rum (Hampden) – Review

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Jul 072018
 
Compagnie des Indes Jamaica 2000 15YO Rum (Hampden) - Review

These days Jamaican rums which were previously and mostly blending fodder are getting not only a new lease on life but a resurgence of their reputation that is so massive and enthusiast-driven that it’s led to the re-emergence of names like Longpond, Worthy Park, Clarendon, Inswood, Monymusk, New Yarmouth, Hampden Estate (and others),  that might be giving Appleton some sleepless nights. Lovers of the style can’t seem to get enough of them, which goes a long way to demonstrating public boredom with pallid blended meh-rums that have suffused much of the consuming landscape for the last decades. People were and [Click here for the full review…]

Mezan Jamaica (Worthy Park) 2005 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jul 022018
 
Mezan Jamaica (Worthy Park) 2005 10 Year Old Rum - Review

The question that arises when drinking a rum that is 10 years old is whether the relatively placid 40% strength helps or hurts given our rather more discerning palates these days. The blended Jamaican XO from last week’s review, with its indeterminate age and provenance, succeeded modestly in spite of its wispiness because somehow the tastes still came through and provided a showcase for the style…and for its price it was a strong low-end contender that punched above its weight.  While the 2005 10 YO we’re looking at today is also bottled at that strength – subsequent editions are a [Click here for the full review…]

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