Rum Nation Small Batch Rare Rums – Caroni 1997 21 Year Old – Review

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Dec 032020
 
Rum Nation Small Batch Rare Rums - Caroni 1997 21 Year Old - Review

Any independent bottler who’s been around for a few years always has rums at various tiers of quality, or premiumness.  Most of this has to do with increasingly elaborate packaging, marketing campaigns, price (of course) or just the hype surrounding the bottle. Though of course once we see a price tag in the hundreds (or thousands), and an age in the third decade or more, we tend to perk up and pay attention anyway without any prodding, right? Rum Nation, a fomerly Italian-based IB has always been on board with this practice. Even back in 2011 when I bought their [Click here for the full review…]


Chamarel Premium Double Distilled White Rum – Review

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Nov 302020
 
Chamarel Premium Double Distilled White Rum - Review

It says “rum” on the label, but for all intents and purposes we should be calling it rhum. Chamarel made it out of cane juice on the island of Mauritius, and it’s an easy-going, sweet-smelling, good-tempered cane juice rhum that got wrung out of a pot still on the island and somehow didn’t turn into some foul-smelling, cantankerous harridan in the process.  That’s probably deliberate, because had they done so, while it might have enthused the fanboys of unaged white lightning made in the backwoods, it might also cost a sale or two among the less adventurously minded. Suffice to [Click here for the full review…]


Naga Double Cask Aged Indonesia Rum – Review

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Nov 262020
 
Naga Double Cask Aged Indonesia Rum - Review

The Naga double-cask aged rum is part of the company’s standard lineup without any fancy whistles and bells, and when you nose it, you get a sensory impression both hauntingly familiar and obscurely strange. Even dialled-down and wispy as it is, it reminds one of chocolate, very ripe dark cherries, Fanta, sweet caramel, bonbons, and delicate perfumed flowers; and it’s the extras beneath all that which add piquancy and puzzlement: white pepper, a foamy Guinness stout, and a gamey, meaty smell which is fortunately quite faint.  The rum, bottled at 40%, exists outside the comforting confines of the Caribbean and [Click here for the full review…]


Velier Diamond / Versailles (SVSG) 18 Year Old Rum – Review

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Nov 232020
 
Velier Diamond / Versailles (SVSG) 18 Year Old Rum - Review

Sooner or later in these reviews, I always end up circling back to Velier, and for preference, it’s usually the rums from the Age of the Demeraras.  It’s not that I have anything against the Caronis in their near-infinite variations, the Habitation’s pot still range, or the series of the New Hampdens, Villa Paradisetto or 70th anniversary. And I have a soft spot for even the smaller and more exactingly selected outturns of one-offs like the Courcelles or the Basseterre rums. It’s just that the Demeraras speak to me more, and remind me of the impact a then-relatively-unknown indie bottler [Click here for the full review…]


Samaroli Grenada 1993 22 Year Old Rum – Review

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Nov 192020
 
Samaroli Grenada 1993 22 Year Old Rum - Review

Recently I was observed to be writing more reviews of obscure rums nobody ever hears about (or can get) than the commonly favoured tipple and new releases favoured by the commenterati.  That’s a completely fair thing to say, because I do. Not because I want to be behind the times — I’m gutted I couldn’t try the three new pot-still Appletons from Velier so many people are waxing rhapsodical about, for example —  it’s more a factor of my current location, and inability to travel and the cancellation of the entire 2020 rumfest season. It’s also as a somewhat deliberate [Click here for the full review…]


Island Cane “Red Cane” Rhum Agricole Blanc 53º – Review

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Nov 162020
 
Island Cane "Red Cane" Rhum Agricole Blanc 53º – Review

It’s when you sniff this understated and really quite excellent agricole from Marie Galante that you gain some sense of how well made both it and the green labelled “standard” blanc 50º are.  The Green Label — my term, not theirs — was good and I really liked it, but this one was a few degrees stronger and a few degrees better and makes a good case for both the utilization of specific cane varietals and a single source of origin. Briefly, Rhum Island – a company founded in 2017 – issues rhums which are bottled in Saint Martin (a [Click here for the full review…]


Rendsburger Barbados (Rockley Still) 1986 18 Year Old Rum – Review

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Nov 092020
 
Rendsburger Barbados (Rockley Still) 1986 18 Year Old Rum - Review

Rendsburger is one of the last of the great old houses from around Flensburg, that north German / Danish town which once had a near hammerlock on the rum trade in northern Europe and the Baltic. The company is actually located in (guess?) Rendsburg, 66km due south of that famed entrepôt, in which the parent company Kruger has its home; they in turn are a small, family-run whisky and spirits specialist mainly known for being a large whisky auction house and while they have done some releases in the past, they don’t really “do,” and are not known for, rums. [Click here for the full review…]


Reimonenq Vielli 7 YO Grande Reserve Guadeloupe Rhum – Review

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Nov 052020
 
Reimonenq Vielli 7 YO Grande Reserve Guadeloupe Rhum - Review

Reimonenq out of Guadeloupe is not a producer whose rhums I’ve tried much of, and so the initial attack of this Grande Reserve — nuts, nougat, toblerone, vanilla ice cream and sweet white chocolate — took me somewhat off balance.  The Vielli was a rhum aged 7 years, so I expected a bit of agricole-ness mixed up with more traditional aged olfactory components, not something like that, not right off. But there they were, clogging up my nose.  And that wasn’t all – the dourness of the opening was followed by stuff that was a lot more sprightly – dried [Click here for the full review…]


Island Cane Rhum Agricole Blanc 50º – Review

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Nov 022020
 
Island Cane Rhum Agricole Blanc 50º - Review

There are quite a few interesting (some would say strange) things about the Rhum Island / Island Cane brand, and the white rums in their portfolio.  For one thing, the rhums are bottled in Saint Martin, only the second island in the Caribbean where two nations share a border – the Netherlands and France in this case, for both the constituent country of Sint Maarten (south side) and the Collectivité de Saint-Martin (north side) remain a part of the respective colonizing nations, who themselves don’t share a border anywhere else. Secondly, there is neither a sugar or rum making industry [Click here for the full review…]


Rum Nation Guatemala Rum Gran Reserva – Review

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Oct 292020
 
Rum Nation Guatemala Rum Gran Reserva - Review

Aside from Zacapa, Botran is the other big rum name we know which comes out of Guatemala.  Both have lost some of their lustre in the last years (though probably not their sales), the former for its sweetness, the latter because it got left behind by the fast moving indie world and cask strength ethos that gradually took over the top end. That certainly did not stop Rum Nation though, because they happily took some of the distillate from Botran’s Destiladora del Alcoholes y Rones SA (also known as DARSA) and aged it for around four years (minimum) in the [Click here for the full review…]


A1710 La Perle “Brute” Parcellaire White Rhum – Review

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Oct 262020
 
A1710 La Perle "Brute" Parcellaire White Rhum - Review

It doesn’t say so, but A1710’s rhum “Brute,” stuffed into a bottle at a rip snorting 66%, is another example of a mini-terroire called a parcellaire – a single small section of an estate, like, oh the UF30E or the similar A1710 54.5% edition that was also issued in the year this was, 2017.  There are a few of these micro-terroire rhums floating around and while still uncommon, do show an interesting new direction for the rum world.  Though, for obvious reasons I don’t see them as becoming mass market products any time soon – more like exactingly made small [Click here for the full review…]


Tres Hombres No.8 La Palma Ron Tradicional Anejo XVII Años Solera – Review

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Oct 212020
 
Tres Hombres No.8 La Palma Ron Tradicional Anejo XVII Años Solera - Review

Before delving into the (admittedly interesting) background of Tres Hombres and their “fair transport” concept, let’s just list the bare bones of what this rum supposedly is, and what we do and don’t know.  To begin with, it’s unclear where it’s from: “Edition No. 8 La Palma” goes unmentioned on their webpage, yet Ultimate Rum Guide lists a rum with the same stats (41.3% ABV, la Palma, Solera) as Edition No. 9, from the Domincan Republic.  But other La Palma rums made by Tres Hombres list the named rums as being from the Canary islands – Aldea, in point of [Click here for the full review…]


Bristol Spirits Classic Rum 1985 Versailles 13YO – Review

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Oct 192020
 
Bristol Spirits Classic Rum 1985 Versailles 13YO - Review

If one rates popularity or the reach of a brand by how many joyful fanboys post pictures of their latest acquisition on social media and chirp how lucky they are to have gotten it, surely Velier’s oeuvre leads the pack, followed by Foursquare, and after them come trotting Kraken and Bumbu and maybe an agricole or two from Martinique.  Nowhere in this pantheon (I use the term loosely) is Bristol Spirits to be found – yet, in the late 1990s right up to the mid 2010s, Bristol was releasing some very good juice indeed, including the near legendary 30 year [Click here for the full review…]


Reddit XXX/One Foursquare 2005 13YO Rum – Review

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Oct 152020
 
Reddit XXX/One Foursquare 2005 13YO Rum - Review

The Reddit /r/rum forum gets far too little attention and kudos for what it accomplishes.  It acts as a useful backup for (and provides a deeper well of knowledge than) the fleeting one-sentence commentary on Facebook from which I have gradually withdrawn more and more.  Most of the really intelligent and literary rum discussions take place here, and that’s not even counting the witty short-form text-only reviews of T8ke and Tarquin_Underspoon, LIFO_Accountant and all the others who post here.  In 2018 one of the moderators suggested to the redditors that perhaps we all, as a collective, get a cask and [Click here for the full review…]


L’Arrangé Dosai Unaged White Vietnamese Rhum – Review

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Oct 122020
 
L'Arrangé Dosai Unaged White Vietnamese Rhum - Review

Every now and then you come across a rum in its nascent stages which you just itch to write about — even if it’s not (yet) for sale. The Mim from Ghana was one such, an aged St. Aubin was another, and last year, Reuben Virasami (currently tending bar in Toronto) passed on a new Vietnamese rhum that I felt really deserved rather more attention than it got (even from those who made it).  In brief, two expat Frenchmen, Jérémy Marcillaud and Nicolas Plesse, seeing all that lovely cane growing in Vietnam, were looking around for something to do with [Click here for the full review…]


Ron Botran 1893 Solera Añejo (Decanter)(2000s)

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Oct 082020
 
Ron Botran 1893 Solera Añejo (Decanter)(2000s)

Rumaniacs Review #121 | 768 1893 was a year of some importance for the Botran rum-making concern of Guatemala – it was the date of birth of one of the founders of the company, Venancio Botran. He and four other brothers (Andres, Felipe, Jesus and Alejandro – their parents immigrated from Spain to Central America in the early 1900s) moving away from a purely sugar-based company, established the Industria Licorera Quetzalteca in the western Guatemalan town of Quetzaltenango back in 1939. It was geared towards making rones, and the company remains a family owned business to this day.   This rum [Click here for the full review…]


Hamilton 151 Overproof Rum – Review

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Oct 052020
 
Hamilton 151 Overproof Rum - Review

Although just about every conversation about the Hamilton 151 remarks on its purpose to replicate the Lemon Hart 151 as a basic high proof bar-room mixer, this is a common misconception – in point of fact its stated objective was to be better than Lemon Hart. And if its reputation has been solidly entrenched as a staple of that aspect of the drinking world, then it is because it really is one of the few 151s to satisfy both rum drinkers and cocktail shakers with its quality in a way the LH did not always.  Back in the late 2000s [Click here for the full review…]


High Spirits 1975 Fine Old 32 YO Demerara Rum – Review

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Sep 302020
 
High Spirits 1975 Fine Old 32 YO Demerara Rum - Review

In spite of rums from various 1970s years having been issued throughout that period (many are still around and about and surfacing every now and then at wallet-excavating prices), it is my contention that 1974-1975 were the real years that disco came to town.  No other years from the last century except perhaps 1986 resonate more with rumistas; no other years have as many Demeraras of such profound age, of such amazing quality, issued by as many different houses.  I’d like to say I’ve lost count of the amount of off-the-scale ‘75s I’ve tasted, but that would be a damned [Click here for the full review…]


Smatt’s Silver Jamaican Rum – Review

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Sep 272020
 
Smatt's Silver Jamaican Rum - Review

It’s peculiar how little information there is on Smatt’s that isn’t all razzamatazz and overhyped positive posturing meant to move cases. Almost nobody has written anything of consequence about it, there’s no review of credibility out there, while the product website is a cringeworthy mass of spouting verbiage long on gushing praise and short on anything we might actually want to know. When you’re relegated to furtively checking out Rumratings and Difford’s to at least see what drinkers are saying, well, you know you’ve got an issue.   Smatt is, according to those sources I’ve managed to check, a small-batch, boutique, [Click here for the full review…]


Skotlander V (1400 sømil) Danish Rum – Review

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Sep 222020
 
Skotlander V (1400 sømil) Danish Rum - Review

Let’s start at the beginning.  Skotlander rum is not made in Scotland, but in Denmark, for the very good reason that the founder, Anders Skotlander, is a Dane with the name. Denmark has long been known (to me, at any rate) as home of some of the most rum-crazy people in Europe, and Anders decided to walk the walk by actually creating some of his own, in 2013. He purchased a Müller copper pot still, sourced sugar cane molasses and in 2014 released 1000 bottles of RUM I, a white, at 40%. It promptly won a gold medal at the [Click here for the full review…]


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