Opinion – Planteray Isn’t Going Anywhere

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Feb 252025
 
Opinion - Planteray Isn't Going Anywhere

This 7,000-word essay is the transcript of a four part video opinion I released in February 2025, based on an unpublished essay written mostly in 2023 and amended over the subsequent months and years. I have elected to not include a bunch of graphics and pictures to go with it, because it’s long and deserves to be read as it is without distraction. If video is your thing, they are on YouTube Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 1 – Introduction and Background Hello everyone Today I’m going to do a fairly long four-part opinion piece. This [Click here for the full review…]


Minhas Distillery “Corsairs” White Rum (Barbados/Canada) – Review

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Jan 192025
 
Minhas Distillery "Corsairs" White Rum (Barbados/Canada) - Review

On the basis of the label, you could be forgiven for thinking this rum is something of a steal at under Can$25. Proof is rated at 44.9% – unusual for white rums in this country, so that’s good. “Product of Barbados” – nice, sure to excite interest. Clear white – intriguing. Is there hope for us here? Nope. This is where details and knowing what to look for, matter. What is the source of the distillate (juice or molasses – best not to assume)? Is it aged or unaged (not an unusual question even for whites), and if aged, how [Click here for the full review…]


Carroll’s Distillery “Cormorant” Black Rum (Canada) – Review

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Jan 172025
 
Carroll's Distillery "Cormorant" Black Rum (Canada) - Review

Today we conclude our quick run through of the rums made by Carroll’s Distillery in New Brunswick, by addressing the “Cormorant” “black” rum. For all that it implies, it’s a medium bodied rum, more dark brown than black, from a pot still, slightly more aged than those rums we have looked at so far, and costing a shade more (Can$36). And while it started out generating indifference, I did warm up to it over time. As before, Carroll’s uses Crosby Fancy  molasses, and a seven day fermentation, after which the wash is run twice through the the pot still, and [Click here for the full review…]


Carroll’s Distillery “Sanderling” Aged Rum (Canada) – Review

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Jan 132025
 
Carroll's Distillery "Sanderling" Aged Rum (Canada) - Review

Today we continue our quick run through of another of the rums from Carroll’s Distillery in New Brunswick, by addressing the “Sanderling” lightly aged rum. This rum, now called “Sandpiper” on the website, thought it’s the same rum, essentially shares the production profile of the unaged white rum “Gannet” which we looked at before. Using Crosby Fancy (or high grade) molasses, and a seven day fermentation, the wash is run through the the pot still, and then a second time on the smaller a reflux still with eight rectification plates, which produces a distillate anywhere between 75-93% ABV. This results [Click here for the full review…]


Carroll’s Distillery “Gannet” Unaged White Rum (Canada) – Review

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Jan 112025
 
Carroll's Distillery "Gannet" Unaged White Rum (Canada) - Review

Well, here we are again, continuing with the lineup of the Carroll’s Distillery rums, which I bought all at once some six months or so ago. The next reviews will all be about this one outfit’s stable, so I’ll push them out fast. Now, if you recall, this is a small New Brunswick-based micro distillery owned by Matthieu Carroll, and he founded it as a sort of hobby project back in 2016, got serious in 2018, then sourced a 500L hybrid pot still and registered it as a commercial distillery in 2019 — he went full bore into retail a [Click here for the full review…]


Helios Distillery “Teeda” White Japanese Rum – Review

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Jan 092025
 
Helios Distillery “Teeda” White Japanese Rum - Review

“Teeda” is a Japanese word meaning “sunshine”, which is a nice name considering that the distillery in Japan that makes it is called “Helios”.  We have looked at several of Helios’s rums before this – the unaged Kiyomi white, the blended gold rum, the 5YO rum, and of course the pricey but very good 21 YO I just did a video review for last week. It is unusual that they have nothing in the midrange between 6 and 20 years of age, like most other distillers, but maybe they’re just laying down stocks, and the 21YO was something of an [Click here for the full review…]


Camikara 3 YO Cane Juice Rum (India) – Review

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Jan 022025
 
Camikara 3 YO Cane Juice Rum (India) – Review

Today I’ll dispense with the third rum in the Camikara line of rums from the Indian company of Piccadily Distillers (their true name is Piccadily Agro Industries Ltd), who also make the very good 12YO, and a rather more middling 8YO that I was less than enthusiastic about. These are all rums that are of relatively recent conception, with the line first introduced in December 2022 (in a splashy extravaganza at the Hyatt Regency in Haryana that gave the Tasting of the Century Hampden launch in 2018 a run for its money), utilizing stocks that had been laid down for [Click here for the full review…]


Camikara 8 YO Cane Juice Rum (India) – Review

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Dec 312024
 
Camikara 8 YO Cane Juice Rum (India) – Review

Camikara (“Liquid Gold” in Sanskrit) is a brand of rum from the Indian company of Piccadily Distillers (their true name is Piccadily Agro Industries Ltd), who are better known for their whiskies until a year or two ago, when they introduced the very interesting 12YO cane juice rum we’ve looked at before. That rum was a cane juice product (supposedly Piccadily are the only ones in India doing this), and had two younger siblings that were also cane juice based, a 3YO and and 8YO, the latter of which we are discussing today. As with the 12YO, Piccadily Distillers made [Click here for the full review…]


Nil Desperandum “The Road North” Australian Rum (2023 Edition) – Review

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Dec 302024
 
Nil Desperandum "The Road North" Australian Rum (2023 Edition) – Review

“Nil Desperandum” is a Latin phrase hearkening back to Horace’s Odes that channels some of my old classical studies back in the day – it means (literally) “Nothing to despair of” or “Do not despair” – or, in more colloquial terms, no worries, mate, which might just as easily be the entire country’s motto. It is, of course, the sign that was hung over the bar in the original pub of the same name in Woombye from which the company got its name, which is a nice bit of historical trivia. Obscure humour and references aside, let’s just observe that [Click here for the full review…]


Amrut Two Indies White Rum (India) – Review

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Dec 202024
 
Amrut Two Indies White Rum (India) - Review

Once again we are visiting India, to look at a rum made by the world-famous whisky producer, Amrut Distillers. The story of this remarkable company has been told already so I won’t rehash it here — but it behooves us to note that for all the ballyhoo about its whiskies (for which it is mostly and justly famed), Amrut has been making rums for far longer, dating back to its initial  establishment in 1948. Also, in a departure from Mohan Meakin (of Old Monk fame), Amrut did not descend from a British-run company from colonial times, but was and remains [Click here for the full review…]


McDowell’s No.1 “Celebration” Matured XXX Dark Rum (India) – Review

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Dec 092024
 
McDowell's No.1 "Celebration" Matured XXX Dark Rum (India) – Review

Background In the various reviews of the rums made by Old Monk, Camikara, Makazai, Amrut and Rhea, the observation was made (several times) that Indian rums don’t really have that good a reputation outside their country of origin, especially recently with the move towards greater transparency and purity. The rums there just never really go critical outside the diaspora and are viewed in many quarters inside and outside India as (at best) second tier also-rans. There are several reasons for this. For one, In India itself rum has always been seen as a commoners’ drink, not a premium one, with [Click here for the full review…]


Burdekin Distillery “Wild Child” Australian Rum (2023 Edition) – Review

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Dec 052024
 
Burdekin Distillery "Wild Child" Australian Rum (2023 Edition) – Review

Slowly I’m reaching the end of the rums of the 2023 Australian Advent Calendar issued by Mr. and Mrs. Rum, with this one: the “Wild Child,” an unaged white rum released in 2023. However, since the distillery only had its formal opening / still commissioning ceremony in mid 2024 (per a video I found on YouTube), one can reasonably ask where the rum came from – something that is absent from the label, the website or any promotional material to be found online (including the calendar). Fortunately, an informative email or two settled this nicely, and if you’re interested in [Click here for the full review…]


Old Sam Demerara Rum (Rebranded) – Review

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Nov 152024
 
Old Sam Demerara Rum (Rebranded) – Review

The other day I did a Rumaniacs retrospective on Edward Young & Co. Blue Mountain Old Liqueur Jamaican Rum dating back to the 1940s, made by an outfit founded in 1797. In doing the usual background research I found that one of my favourite low rent Canadian rums – the Youngs Old Sam – was originally made by the same company, and the current iteration’s label more references this connection more concretely than the original did. That said, the pickings remain oddly thin. According to those sources I checked, the Newfoundland & Labrador Liquor Corporation (NLLC) picked up the brand [Click here for the full review…]


Winding Road “Coastal Cane” Pinot Cask 4YO Pure Single Australian Rum – Review

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Nov 112024
 
Winding Road "Coastal Cane" Pinot Cask 4YO Pure Single Australian Rum – Review

It is no accident that Winding Road Distillery makes its third appearance in the 2023 Australian Rum Advent Calendar issued by Mr. & Mrs Rum, and is included in the upcoming 2024 edition as well.  The rums which Mark and Camille Awad make in their little distillery (just south of Brisbane in New South Wales) are, and have always been, in my opinion, just excellent – and that’s whether we’re discussing an unaged white rum, the first release of the two year old Pure Single Rum, or this one. There is a small biography of the company which will provide [Click here for the full review…]


Edward Young & Co. Blue Mountain Old Liqueur Jamaican Rum (1940s/1950s)

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Oct 302024
 
Edward Young & Co. Blue Mountain Old Liqueur Jamaican Rum (1940s/1950s)

Rumaniacs Review #R-163 | 1097 A good part of the label is missing, but even without that, this is what we know: it’s a rum branded “Blue Mountain Finest Old Liqueur Jamaica Rum” which popped up on one of the two “old rums” auction-site booths I patronised at the 2024 German Rum Festival (unlike the token system at other commercial brands’ booths, here one had to fork out actual coin for one’s dram). It was hand-dated 1930s / 1940s, and the proof point was not noted (the torn label’s missing portion probably had all that).  Still, using that limited data [Click here for the full review…]


JimmyRum “RumRum Batch #4” 4YO Australian Rum – Review

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Oct 282024
 
JimmyRum "RumRum Batch #4" 4YO Australian Rum – Review

With the upcoming release of the new 2024 Australian Advent calendar, I should speed up the process of writing about the 2023 calendar, where we still have about four to go. And so today, I return to one of the first producers whose rums I tried back with the initial calendar, JimmyRum, that casual, humorous, insouciant little distillery down in the south (see a brief bio below the review). Several ranges of rums are now part of the distillery’s stable, and you want to be careful with them, because while they are clearly and distinctively named — Queen’s Cut, Oaked, [Click here for the full review…]


Don Q Gold Puerto Rican Rum – Review

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Oct 222024
 
Don Q Gold Puerto Rican Rum - Review

Americans know the Puerto Rican company of Don Q quite well (it is named after Don Quixote, which always struck me as odd, but never mind), and are usually quite enthused with it since it’s an alternative to the ubiquitous Bacardi, as well as supplying them with another Cuban-style rum. Europeans on the other hand, know of the brand without being overwhelmed – they do, after all, have access to better tipple than most — and the rest of the world, I would imagine, falls somewhere in between. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on companies that at first sight [Click here for the full review…]


Husk Distillers “Pure Cane 50” Australian Rum – Review

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Oct 142024
 
Husk Distillers "Pure Cane 50" Australian Rum – Review

There are not many distilleries in Australia who are known outside of the region – Bundaberg is probably the most famous, Beenleigh is gaining recognition, and of course there are other small operations which the magnificent Advent Calendar from Mr and Mrs Rum have allowed greater visibility. Killik, Cabarita, Brix, Hoochery, JimmyRum and many others. One of these, about which I have already written twice, is Husk Farm Distillers; they are one of the older of  New Australians, dating back to 2009 when the founder, Paul Messenger, was ensorcelled by Martinique’s agricole rhums and spent the next few years establishing [Click here for the full review…]


Bayou Louisiana XO “Reserve Select Barrel” Rum – Review

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Oct 112024
 
Bayou Louisiana XO "Reserve Select Barrel" Rum - Review

Rums like this, decent as they may be, always strike me as ultimately deceptive: when you delve right in and start to take apart the claims of the advertising they try to sell you on, all you get is emptiness. The pretty label and website blurbs you are generously provided is rather at odds with the grudging paucity of anything resembling actual information, and for us to be running around trying to understand anything about what’s in the rum in this day and age is, quite simply, an affront to rum lovers. The mild dissatisfaction you might sense in the [Click here for the full review…]


La Maison & Velier 2018 Vietnam 6YO Rum – Review

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Oct 052024
 
La Maison & Velier 2018 Vietnam 6YO Rum - Review

In any festival featuring rums, there are always a few that are special (if only to oneself), and the larger the festival the more they are…and usually, the harder they are to find. Sometimes they only exist below the counter, provided by people who know (and hopefully like) you enough to spot a shot. Occasionally, you are alerted to potential finds by fellow enthusiasts who scurry around ferreting out the new, the amazing, the obscure, or the just plain batsh*t crazy, and then they tell you — maybe. Alas, in many cases there are only limited stocks and others are [Click here for the full review…]


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