L’Esprit Foursquare 2005 15 YO Barbados Rum – Review

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Mar 032024
 
L'Esprit Foursquare 2005 15 YO Barbados Rum - Review

It’s not entirely clear why the little Brittany-based independent bottler L’ESprit – for which I have retained an enormous fondness over the years – advertises so little and keeps such a low profile. One never sees them at rum festivals, Tristan Prodhomme is practically unknown among the pantheon of small-company personalities, the company is more wedded to whisky than to rum…and yet the rums this one little outfit does release have a really good track record, people do treasure the ones they get and I would always take a second look myself, if one crossed my path: it’s one of [Click here for the full review…]


Mad Monkey Distillery Pure Single Rum “Tawny Cask” Batch #2 (Australia) – Review

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Feb 272024
 
Mad Monkey Distillery Pure Single Rum "Tawny Cask" Batch #2 (Australia) - Review

One thing I have always enjoyed about the Australian distilleries (aside from their cool origin stories) is the irreverent naming. While many are completely straightforward owners’ or geographical names, there are some that enjoy a cheeky wink too, like Brix, Tin Shed, Boatrocker, Red Hen, Jimmy Rum or Winding Road. And of course there are those that take it even further, with names as evocative as Devil’s Thumb, Hoochery, Hippocampus…or Mad Monkey, the subject of today’s review. Below this quick review is a more in depth company backgrounder: for now, what do we have in the glass? The tech sheet [Click here for the full review…]


Hampden Estate 2016 5YO LROK “The Younger” Jamaican Rum – Review

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Feb 232024
 
Hampden Estate 2016 5YO LROK "The Younger" Jamaican Rum - Review

By now little needs to be said about Hampden Estate, the famed Jamaican distillery that had its coming out party in 2018, a distribution deal with Velier, and a seemingly a new series of rums to collect just about every single year. For all its variety though, their presentation is pretty consistent and you can usually tell one at a glance just by looking at a label. Said labels conforming to all the usual Velier standards, and providing pretty much all the background details you could hope for. In this case we’re dealing with five year old rum released in [Click here for the full review…]


Archie Rose Distilling Co. “White Cane” Batch #2 Unaged Rum (Australia) – Review

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Feb 162024
 
Archie Rose Distilling Co. "White Cane" Batch #2 Unaged Rum (Australia) - Review

“Oh wow!” I wrote with a sort of delighted and startled surprise when first nosing Archie Rose’s 40% white rum they called White Cane. I had not tried anything from the distillery before – indeed, I knew very little about it — but the rich and oily scent of a mechanic’s shop fumigated with vanilla flavoured acetones was really not what I had expected as an opening salvo. And it didn’t stop there, because the seeming light ‘n’ easy aromas it started out with contained quite a bit more oomph than was initially apparent – once it opened it up [Click here for the full review…]


Ways of Sunlight

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Feb 142024
 
Ways of Sunlight

Ways of Sunlight, published in 1957, is a collection of short stories written by the Trinidadian novelist Samuel Selvon, and was the Liquorature Book Club selection for July 2012, chosen by yours truly, largely because I had long been a fan of not only the book itself (having read during my school years), but because I was curious how the Canadian crew would handle short story collections in general and a Caribbean author outside their experience specifically (Stephen King seemed too easy, really). Ways of Sunlight is divided into two main parts, one dealing with life in 1940s and 1950s [Click here for the full review…]


Savanna Rhum Traditionnel Vieux 2004 9 YO “Intense” (Porto) – Review

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Feb 122024
 
Savanna Rhum Traditionnel Vieux 2004 9 YO “Intense” (Porto) - Review

It’s about time to clear up a backlog of older tasting notes that have been shoved to the back by newer and more exciting releases, and so for the next few weeks we’ll try to push some reviews of older expressions out the door. Today we’re going to go back and look at Savanna, that Reunion based distillery which has had a fair amount of good press over the last five years, though perhaps more remaining more popular and well known in Europe than the Americas. What distinguishes Savanna is the range of what they make. Many distilleries have ranges [Click here for the full review…]


Lord Byron Distillery 2020 3YO Pure Single Rum (Australia) – Review

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Feb 092024
 
Lord Byron Distillery 2020 3YO Pure Single Rum (Australia) - Review

We’ve met this distillery before, a mere hundred reviews or so ago. Founded by the husband and wife team of Brian and Helen Restall in 2016, they have slowly built quite a repertoire of spirits (he likes dark ones, she prefers light so maybe there’s some kind of Jack Sprat vibe going on here) – standard rums, white ones, spiced ones, the 2021 release of the 2-3 YO 55.5% Pure Single Rum I enjoyed and a brutal 63% “fire cane” I really want to try, plus gin, falernum, limoncello and vodka, which covers the bases nicely. So here they are [Click here for the full review…]


Caves do Barrocão Rhum Fantasia (Portugal)(1970s)

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Feb 062024
 
Caves do Barrocão Rhum Fantasia (Portugal)(1970s)

Rumaniacs Review R-162 | #1055 Fantasias as a class of rum have pretty much faded from public view, only resurrected periodically in retrospectives like this one – these days spiced rums and spirit liqueurs hog attention and wallets. Yet they were popular, once, mostly in Europe around the 1950s to 1970s. By the eighties the style had started to diminish in popularity and the rise of standards and production regulation at a country- or regional level, as well as the emergence of a “pure” rum culture probably caused is eventual demise…though not it’s complete extinction.. What Fantasia rums were, was [Click here for the full review…]


Cabarita Spirits “Oro” Barrel Aged Cane Spirit (Batch #2)(Australia) – Review

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Feb 012024
 
Cabarita Spirits "Oro" Barrel Aged Cane Spirit (Batch #2)(Australia) - Review

Cabarita Spirits is the Australian equivalent of Nine Leaves, or so I like telling myself, and Keri Algar, the Spanish-born New Zealander who is the owner, may live in one of the prettiest places on earth, close to Cabarita Beach in the Tweed Shire of New South Wales (Husk Distillers are also in the neighbourhood). Like Yoshi-san in Japan before he did a runner on us, she is also chief cook and bottle washer, to say nothing of the entire procurement department, sales force, accounting section, maintenance manager, head distiller, bottling line and managing director all rolled into one. No, [Click here for the full review…]


Bayou White Louisiana Rum (USA) – Review

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Jan 282024
 
Bayou White Louisiana Rum (USA) - Review

Consider for a moment the distinctive bottle shape and sleek label design ethos of the Bayou Louisiana white rum. The crystal clear white and green motifs (call me an overly-visual imagineer if you will) hints at cane juice, grass, and sunshine and channels thoughts of a clean and tasty white rum in fine style. Just as well that this is all in my head because while the text tells you the usual stats, little of the images and sense of what they represent, is real. The company making the rum is called Louisiana Spirits LLC: it was founded in 2011 [Click here for the full review…]


Black Gate Distillery Australian Dark Rum (Shiraz Cask) – Review

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Jan 232024
 
Black Gate Distillery Australian Dark Rum (Shiraz Cask) - Review

Black Gate distillery is an outfit to keep an eye on. The husband and wife team of Genise and Brian Hollingsworth made waves (to me, at any rate) with their 52% Dark Overproof back in 2021 and in 2023 they have come close yet again with this lovely Shiraz-cask-aged number – which doesn’t reimagine the rumiverse so much as take lots of what’s good with it and re-engineer it into a taste that’s uniquely their own. Let’s just refresh our memories: located in central New South Wales, Black Gate was founded in 2009 in the small rural town of Mendooran. [Click here for the full review…]


Romero Distilling Co. Sherry Finished Amber Rum (Canada) – Review

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Jan 192024
 
Romero Distilling Co. Sherry Finished Amber Rum (Canada) - Review

Although I tried all three standard expressions of the Romero Distilling Co. at the Rocky Mountain Food and Drink show in Calgary in 2023, I had already bought all of them before, and this came in useful when double checking my quickly scribbled notes on the “Amber.” That was the one which I had almost bypassed in favour of the “Dark” and the extraordinary full proof Sherry Cask edition — which I still think is one of the best Canadian rums I’ve had to date. A quick recap: the Calgary-based Romero Distilling Company was founded in 2018 by Diego Romero, [Click here for the full review…]


Island Coast Spirits “Island Coast” Tasmanian Rum – Review

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Jan 152024
 
Island Coast Spirits "Island Coast" Tasmanian Rum - Review

Once again we start the new year off with a series of rums from the Australian Advent Calendar, 2023 Edition. First issued by the Australian rum-loving couple Mr. & Mrs. Rum in 2021, not in 2022 and now again for 2023, it answers what we out west have been wondering about for years (well…at least I have) – what’s going on with the rums being made in Australia over and beyond Bundaberg, which everyone cheerfully loathes and Beenleigh which everyone likes? Twenty four rums in the calendar, a whole raft of new and old distilleries strutting their stuff, and let [Click here for the full review…]


Flor de Caña 12 YO Rum – Review

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Jan 082024
 
Flor de Caña 12 YO Rum - Review

This is the third time I am coming to the famed Nicaraguan rum producer’s 12 year old rum. The first occasion was in 2011 when I was still somewhat wet behind the ears: then, I commented that it was a bridge between the sipping quality older expressions and the younger mixers of the bartender’s arsenal. In 2017 I picked up another bottle to see if my opinions had changed significantly after additional years of tasting and writing, a wider and somewhat more experienced palate and a better sense of the global nature of rums. They hadn’t. It scored around the [Click here for the full review…]


Rewinding 2023: The Year in Rum

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Jan 052024
 
Rewinding 2023: The Year in Rum

Speaking from my solitary spot in the rumiverse, 2023 was in many ways a year of challenges and changes and oddly enough, also of maintaining the status quo and holding the line. It was an exciting year with many new experiences and many new rums, and while I could not attend quite as many festivals as I might have preferred — or met as many friends, colleagues, aficionados and rum people as I wanted to — in many respects the year was a success on other levels and I really can’t complain except for one thing: I didn’t get to [Click here for the full review…]


Cadenhead Dated Distillation Trinidad “TDL” 2001 19 YO Rum – Review

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Dec 282023
 
Cadenhead Dated Distillation Trinidad "TDL" 2001 19 YO Rum - Review

A.D.Rattray. Gordon & MacPhail. Berry Bros. & Rudd. Cadenhead. The names evoke whisky, empire, Scotland and the early days of the Rum Renaissance through which we are still living. For the longest while, the occasional rums issued by these long-established companies, some of which are centuries old, allowed the diligent and solitary rumhound to taste what rums could be, were made to be, and kept the spark alive. Because throughout the second half of the 20th century, they were among the few bottlers of rum who eschewed the movement to light rums (i.e., chase Bacardi, copy vodka) and laid the [Click here for the full review…]


Clément Rhum X.O. Très Vieux Rhum Agricole (2010s)

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Dec 222023
 
Clément Rhum X.O. Très Vieux Rhum Agricole (2010s)

Rumanicas Review R-161 | #1047 You want to careful ordering a Clement XO rhum because there is another one also named thus which is not this at all; and two others with the same bottle shape but different names. Fortunately the other XO has a different bottle style and a different strength and lacks the word “Très” (very) in the title, and the ones that do take the bottle design are called l’Elixir or Cuvée Spéciale XO. So just a little caution is all I’m suggesting. In another odd circumstance, the subject of today’s retrospective also lacks almost any reviews [Click here for the full review…]


Ron Relicario Peated Finish Aged DR Rum – Review

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Dec 182023
 
Ron Relicario Peated Finish Aged DR Rum - Review

Perhaps this rum was inevitable. Maybe spurred on by the rising price of ex bourbon barrels, or the desire to experiment, or the curiosity about whether a peated whisky really is like a Caroni, or simply to attract those who can no longer afford the Octomores and other similar expressions of Islay, some bright spark at a rum distillery has finished his rum for six months in a peated (Speyside) whisky barrel. Is that a real thing, or is it just a stunt? Commentary on Rum Ratings suggests a sharply divided audience on this and when you smell it, you [Click here for the full review…]


Secret Barrel Canadian Small Batch White Rum (Batch 001) – Review

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Dec 112023
 
Secret Barrel Canadian Small Batch White Rum (Batch 001) - Review

For a country that boasts a huge population of rum-swilling West Indians and a not inconsequential number of Maritimers out east who inhale dark rums with their Jiggs Dinner, it’s odd that rums are not more appreciated and available than they are. To some extent the paucity of decent rums from abroad is alleviated by the emerging local craft distillery movement, with tasty products coming out of Ironworks, Romero, Mandakini and Potters (among several others); too, the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation makes some really interesting blends (Cabot 100 and Young’s Old Sam remain personally appreciated mixing favourites) and there’s even an [Click here for the full review…]


2024 Rum Festival Schedule

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Dec 062023
 
2024 Rum Festival Schedule

MOVED TO THE RIGHT SIDEBAR Each year for the last two years I have tried to post a constantly updated calendar of all rum festivals around the world for those who need such a thing to plan holidays, abscond from soused spouses or otherwise plot malfeasance with similarly minded rum chums. The post remains a peculiarly unread part of this site, but I find it so useful that to stop curating it strikes me as a sort of diss to dedicated rumistas and business types (you know who you are) who need a facility of this nature to tie together [Click here for the full review…]


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