Brugal Ron Dominicano Blanco – Review

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Mar 132019
 
Brugal Ron Dominicano Blanco - Review

By today’s standards, Brugal, home of the very good 1888 Gran Reserva, made something of a fail in the genus of white rums with this Blanco. That’s as much a function of its tremblingly weak-kneed proof point (37.5%, teetering on the edge of not being a rum at all) as its filtration which makes it bland to the point of vanilla white (oh, wait….). Contrast it with the stern, uncompromising blanc beefcakes of the French islands and independents which blow the roof off in comparison: they excite amazed and disbelieving curses — this promotes indifferent yawns. To some extent remarks [Click here for the full review…]


Appleton Special Jamaican Rum (2016)

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Mar 122019
 
Appleton Special Jamaican Rum (2016)

Rumanics Review #93 | 0607 The Appleton Special is not yet a true Rumaniacs rum, since it’s still commonly available – it was, for quite a long time, one of the most common low-end starter rums available in North America and Europe, so it’s more than likely that one can still find a bottle. However, in 2016 it was retired from active service and put out to pasture, to be replaced by the not-quite-as good J. Wray Jamaica Gold rum – I think they tweaked the blend somewhat since the taste is almost, but not quite, similar. So, since it [Click here for the full review…]


J. Wray Jamaica Gold Rum – Review

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Mar 102019
 
J. Wray Jamaica Gold Rum - Review

In the previous review of the Florida Caribbean Distillers industrially-produced Florida Reserve 2 year old rum, it was treated and written about with some disdain, because as far as I was concerned, it had nothing to make it stand out at all. It was a low rent mass-produced column-still rum that did exactly nothing to distinguish itself and could at best be used to spike a drink with alcohol, without leaving any trace of itself behind, not even a grin. Move on now to another minimally aged rum marketed to the masses, cheaply priced, easily available (at least, in Toronto, [Click here for the full review…]


Florida Old Reserve Rum – Review

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Mar 062019
 
Florida Old Reserve Rum - Review

So here we have a rum I’ve never heard of before, made by an outfit called Florida Caribbean Distillers (FCD) in (where else?) Florida. For those with better memories than mine, if the company name sounds familiar, it should be – this is the same one that is contracted to make the Noxx & Dunn 2-4-5 Florida rum I wrote about a few months ago. FCD is located halfway between Orlando and Tampa: they control the Club Caribe Distillery in Puerto Rico, as well as distilleries in Lake Alfred and Auburndale (both in Florida – the latter distillery produces this [Click here for the full review…]


A.D. Rattray Monymusk 1986 25 Year Old Jamaican Rum – Review

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Mar 032019
 
A.D. Rattray Monymusk 1986 25 Year Old Jamaican Rum - Review

Rumaniacs Review # 092 | 0604 Of all the independents and rebottlers I’ve tried over the last ten years, A.D. Rattray holds a special place in my affections, largely because it was one of the first of the kind I managed to sample back when I was getting started (Rum Nation, Cadenhead and Renegade were others). Then, after trying their 1997 Caroni, 2003 Barbados and 2000 Panama rums, I didn’t find too many others and gradually they fell off my scope. A.D.Rattray was a company established in 1868 by Andrew Dewar and William Rattray, and was originally an importer of [Click here for the full review…]


Albrecht Rum LPS Long Pond 1993 17 Year Old Jamaican Rum – Review

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Feb 282019
 
Albrecht Rum LPS Long Pond 1993 17 Year Old Jamaican Rum - Review

Until Velier came along last year and produced that incredible Long Pond Quartet, you would have been hard pressed to get much from that distillery, which sent most of its stock overseas to age and be issued by others. Much of their production was placed into blends, and occasionally a small single cask release would be spotted on the market – the Juuls Ping 9, BBR 1977, Compagnie’s 2003 12 YO, Rum Nation’s 1986 Supreme Lord VI, the snarling 81.3% bronto of SMWS R5.1, and, of course, greatest of them all, the near legendary G&M 1941 58 year old. Now, [Click here for the full review…]


HSE Rhum Agricole Extra Vieux 2005 10 Year Old Rhum – Review

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Feb 252019
 
HSE Rhum Agricole Extra Vieux 2005 10 Year Old Rhum - Review

Just to reiterate some brief details about HSE (Habitation Saint-Étienne), which is located almost dead centre in the middle of Martinique. Although in existence since the early 1800s, its modern history properly began when it was purchased in 1882 by Amédée Aubéry, who combined the sugar factory with a small distillery, and set up a rail line to transport cane more efficiently (even though oxen and people that pulled the railcars, not locomotives). In 1909, the property came into the possession of the Simonnet family who kept it until its decline at the end of the 1980s. The estate was [Click here for the full review…]


Don Q Gran Añejo Puerto Rican Rum – Review

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Feb 242019
 
Don Q Gran Añejo Puerto Rican Rum - Review

It’s a peculiarity of the sheer volume of rums that cross my desk, my glass and my glottis, that I get to taste rums some people would give their left butt cheek for, while at the same time juice that is enormously well known, talked about, popular and been tried by many….gets missed. One of these is the Don Q series of rums out of Puerto Rico made by the Serrallés family who, like Old Facundo, hailed from Catalonia and came to Puerto Rico in around 1820. In the 1830s they established a sugar plantation on the outskirts of Ponce [Click here for the full review…]


Destileria Limtuaco Very Old Captain Artisan Crafted Dark Rum – Review

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Feb 192019
 
Destileria Limtuaco Very Old Captain Artisan Crafted Dark Rum - Review

Just reading the label on the Very Old Captain makes me think (rather sourly) of yesteryear’s uninformed marketing copy, Captain Morgan advertisements and the supposedly-long-debunked perception that rum is fun, a pirate’s drink, redolent of yo-ho-hos and sunny tropical beaches. Even after so many years of so many companies and writers seeking to raise the bar of quality hooch, we still get assailed by such pandering to the least common denominator and what’s perhaps more discouraging, there are many who’ll buy it on that basis alone. Lest you think I’m just having a bad hair day, consider what the label [Click here for the full review…]


Takamaka Bay Rum Co. / Trois Frères Distillery – Seychelles

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Feb 162019
 
Takamaka Bay Rum Co. / Trois Frères Distillery - Seychelles

The only rum I’ve ever tried from the Seychelles was one that was discontinued, the Takamaka Bay Overproof white, but the depth of research I did on that short article was not inconsiderable, and it formed the basis of this short biography. That doesn’t mean that I’ve tried much of their rum, but fortunately that’s not a prerequisite for inclusion in the Makers series of essays. Given how much press the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and Reunion gets these days, what with New Grove, St Aubin, Savanna, Isautier and Rivière du Mat distilleries putting cool rums out the door, [Click here for the full review…]


Excellence Rhum Diamond MPM 2005 11 YO Guyana Rum – Review

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Feb 142019
 
Excellence Rhum Diamond MPM 2005 11 YO Guyana Rum - Review

Few profiles in the rum world are as distinctive Port Mourant, deriving from DDL’s double wooden pot still in Guyana. Now, the Versailles single wooden pot still rums always struck me as bit ragged and fierce, requiring rare skill to bring to their full potential, while the Enmores are occasionally too subtle: but somehow the PM tends to find the sweet spot between them and is almost always a good dram, whether continentally or tropically aged. I’ve consistently scored PM rums well, which may say more about me than the rum, but never mind. Here we have another independent bottling [Click here for the full review…]


Takamaka Bay Overproof White Rum (2000s)

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Feb 112019
 
Takamaka Bay Overproof White Rum (2000s)

Rumaniacs Review #091 | 0598 Overproof rums started out as killer cocktail ingredients, meant to boost anything they were put into by, I dunno, a lot. For many years they were pretty much the bruisers of the barflies — low-life, lightly-aged mixers (or occasionally unaged whites) which only islanders drank neat, largely because they had the least amount of time to waste getting hammered. Still, as time passed and cask strength rums became more fashionable (and appreciated), the gap between the strength of a cool aged casker and an overproof shrank, to the point where a 75% bottling of a [Click here for the full review…]


Velier Royal Navy Very Old Rum – Review

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Feb 082019
 
Velier Royal Navy Very Old Rum - Review

Velier has always had this way of sneaking in something obscure among all their major series of rums — some smaller or very individual bottling that doesn’t so much fly under the radar as not excite quite the same rabid fly-off-the-shelves obsessiveness as, for example, the old Demeraras or Caronis. So there are those Basseterres from 1995 and 1997, for example, or the Courcelles from 1972, or that 1954 RASC army rum I’m still searching for. Another may well be the Very Old Royal Navy rum released in 2017. At the time, it got quite a lot of press (and [Click here for the full review…]


That Boutique-y Rum Co. O Reizinho White Agricole Rum (Batch 1) – Review

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Feb 042019
 
That Boutique-y Rum Co. O Reizinho White Agricole Rum (Batch 1) - Review

Last October, I ran into Pete Holland of the Floating Rum Shack at the Berlin Rum Fest (literally – I tripped and nearly fell into his shelf of rums, and he saved them by interposing himself so they would not be damaged, even if I was). Although we, as long-existing rum bloggers, knew of each other — all of us know each other in the Oasis — we had only met once before, so I bee-lined over to see what he was doing. It turned out he was stewarding the line of rums from the cheekily named “That Boutique-y Rum [Click here for the full review…]


C.J.Wray Dry White Rum (2000s)

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Feb 022019
 
C.J.Wray Dry White Rum (2000s)

Rumaniacs Review #090 | 0595 We’re all familiar with the regular roundup of major Appleton rums like the Reserve, the 12 YO, the 15 YO, 21 YO and 30 (old version or new), as well as their halo rum du jour, the 50 YO. But the company also had and has distinct and not so well known brands for sale locally (or niche export markets), such as Edwin Charley, Coruba, Conquering Lion, JBW Estate and Cocomania. And as the years turned, the company outlived some of its own brands – for example the previously well-known One Dagger, Two Dagger and Three [Click here for the full review…]


Dzama 3 Year Old Madagascar Rum – Review

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Jan 312019
 
Dzama 3 Year Old Madagascar Rum - Review

More than four years ago I wrote about the Rhum Vieux Millésimé 1998 10 YO made by Dzama and concluded that I was pretty stoked to see what else the brand had in the larder. It’s taken a long time for me to make good on that desire, so here we have something lower down on the totem pole from the same company, and I thought it was a good effort, for all its youth and in spite of the niggly questions it raised. Let’s refresh the memory first: for the geographically challenged, Madagascar is that huge island off the [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…]


Jack Iron Grenada Overproof Rum (Westerhall) – Review

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Jan 202019
 
Jack Iron Grenada Overproof Rum (Westerhall) - Review

The Jack Iron rum from Westerhall is a booming overproof issued both in a slightly aged and a white version, and both are a whopping 70% ABV. While you can get it abroad — this bottle was tried in Italy, for example — my take is that it’s primarily a rum for local consumption (though which island can lay claim to it is a matter of idle conjecture), issued to paralyze brave-but-foolhardy tourists who want to show off their Chewbacca chests by drinking it neat, or to comfort the locals who don’t have time to waste getting hammered and just [Click here for the full review…]


Clarke’s Court Superior Light Rum (2000s)

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Jan 172019
 
Clarke's Court Superior Light Rum (2000s)

Rumaniacs Review # R-089 | 590 This spite of a light white — to give it its full name, the “Clarke’s Court Superior Refined Grenada Light Rum” – should not be confused with either the current version of the Superior Light being released at 40%, or the best selling and much better Pure White at 69%. The one here is an older version of the rum, column distilled (Ed Hamilton’s 1995 book Rums of the Eastern Caribbean mentions a two-column still in operation around that time), aged for under a year, filtered to clarity and meant as a low level [Click here for the full review…]


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