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…]


Killik Handcrafted Rum “Pure Pot Still” Australian Rum (pre-release) – Review

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Sep 252024
 
Killik Handcrafted Rum "Pure Pot Still" Australian Rum (pre-release) - Review

There aren’t a whole lot of rums in Australia that charge full bore and headlong into fullproof territory, but Killik, a small distillery from Victoria, has never shied away from releasing some seriously batsh*t crazy rums. These are the same happy chappies who, if you recall, experimented relentlessly with muck pits and dunder, supercharged their wash and unleashed a high-ester, hogo-laden juice — the shuddering white shredder of the 59% Silver Overproof, remember that feral blast? — onto an unsuspecting rumiverse back in 2021. You can be sure Ben and Callan Pratt have lost none of their fiendish delight in [Click here for the full review…]


Colours of Rum Foursquare 2002 20YO Barbados Rum – Review

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Sep 232024
 
Colours of Rum Foursquare 2002 20YO Barbados Rum - Review

Anyone on the worldwide festival circuit over the last few years knows about the crew that reps the new independent bottler out of Poland called Colours of Rum. Their eye catching shirts matching their brightly labelled rums, the rums themselves, the enthusiasm of Magde Reszke and Dominic Rudnicki (among others) when they talk and strut their stuff…well, it’s not hard to stop by and just hang out for a bit, see what they are selling and check if anything is squirrelled away under the table that might conceivably be shared. It just goes to show how much a good brand [Click here for the full review…]


El Dorado 2012 12YO LBI/DHE High Ester Blended Rum – Review

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Sep 172024
 
El Dorado 2012 12YO LBI/DHE High Ester Blended Rum - Review

More than ever it has become clear that DDL has found a way to fold special editions into its core El Dorado range. I had remarked in the video review of the PM 2009 12 YO that until relatively recently, special limited bottlings did not get much attention from the company, or the public: the Rare Editions which replaced Velier’s iconic Demeraras did not always get serious traction, consumers did not cotton on to the “Colours” quartet, and the 15 YO and 12 YO wine-finished releases were at best modest sellers.  Yet to have cask strength limited editions that showcased [Click here for the full review…]


Kalki Moon “The Mill” (Batch 1) Australian Unaged White Rum – Review

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Sep 122024
 
Kalki Moon "The Mill" (Batch 1) Australian Unaged White Rum – Review

It always pleases me when I see some new or old distillery go off on a tangent and do its own thing.  It could be some new still configuration, a parcellaire microenvironment, a crazy fermentation time or style, some obscure cane varietal, a new take on the Jamaican style of rum making (dunder and muck pits, for example)…take your pick.  It’s almost guaranteed to provide something we can look at with curiosity and (hopefully) with pleasure and appreciation. Kalki Moon Distillery, that artisanal outfit set up in Queensland right under the nose of Bundaberg — in fact, Mr. Rick Prosser, [Click here for the full review…]


Key Rums of the World – The 1423 SBS Single Origin Unaged White Rums

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Sep 062024
 
Key Rums of the World - The 1423 SBS Single Origin Unaged White Rums

Introduction: Collections, Series and Special editions Many independent bottlers sooner or later differentiate their top end rums with a special series of one sort or another. The inspiration might be Cadenhead’s “Green Label” or “Dated Distillation” rums, which are among the earliest extant (at least, as far as I know), but many other major and minor houses have run with the concept over the last two decades – and this is why we see Velier’s varied annual releases (Flags, Demeraras, Caronis, Indian Ocean, Habitation, etc), Rom Delux’s “Wild Series”, Plantation’s “Extreme” collection, Tamosi’s rums, the entire Colours of Rum oeuvre, [Click here for the full review…]


Makazai Gold “Tribute” Rum (Goa, India) – Review

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Aug 192024
 
Makazai Gold "Tribute" Rum (Goa, India) - Review

For those of not actually from India or part of the extended diaspora, the only rums from the subcontinent which most of us ever knew about were the Old Monk, the Amrut Two Indies and Old Port, and maybe a smattering of others like MacDowell’s, Hercules, Contessa, and, more recently, the Camikara. Yet India has been making distilled spirits for centuries, including from sugar cane, and so it comes as no surprise that as the growth of rum as a premium spirit continues around the world, local entrepreneurs would look to establish small craft brands or distilleries of their own. [Click here for the full review…]


El Dorado Cask Strength, Single Still 2009 12 YO (PM) Guyana Rum – Review

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Aug 142024
 
El Dorado Cask Strength, Single Still 2009 12 YO (PM) Guyana Rum – Review

Today’s review is all about an El Dorado rum from Guyana’s famed (and only remaining) distillery, DDL. The backstory is quite fascinating because it shines a light into how large companies which lack the nimble footwork and quick reaction time of small upstart independents, can — once they get going and commit their resources to the job — produce something really good. However, I’ll add that as a note below the main review so you don’t expire of boredom before discovering how the rum actually is. The 12YO 2009 El Dorado rum, is one of the single still expressions which [Click here for the full review…]


[Video Essay] Notes On My (Rum) Tasting Glasses

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Aug 082024
 
[Video Essay] Notes On My (Rum) Tasting Glasses

Recently, after watching one of my videos, a user asked about what tasting glasses I used, and so after a few days of thinking about it, I posted my first formal video essay about the subject.  Other unposted videos on varying random topics have been made before, mostly commentaries and opinions (some quite incendiary, which is why they stay on my computer not online) rather than something like this, which leans more to the educational. I wouldn’t normally give a video a post of its own here, since it’s already out there on the major vlogging platforms. But it’s the [Click here for the full review…]


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