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…]


Rum Nation Jamaica 1991 Supreme Lord VIII 25 Year Old Rum (Monymusk) – Review

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Jan 152019
 
Rum Nation Jamaica 1991 Supreme Lord VIII 25 Year Old Rum (Monymusk) - Review

Before considering the €300+ price tag, or grumbling about Rum Nation’s penchant for adding something extra to (some of) its rums, give the last Supreme Lord Jamaican rum from 1991 a whiff, a sniff and a snort. Sip a dram. Take your time with it. Enjoy. Because it’s simply outstanding, and even in concert with eight other Jamaicans that were on the table the day I tried it, it held up in fine style.   Part of that derives from the extended “sherry finish” — though since it spent eleven years in oloroso casks I’d suggest it’s more a double [Click here for the full review…]


Compagnie des Indes Jamaica 2007 8 Year Old Rum (WP) – Review

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Jan 122019
 
Compagnie des Indes Jamaica 2007 8 Year Old Rum (WP) - Review

Hampden has been getting so much press of late that it’s only fair to have a look at the other products of the island, of which, these days, there are no shortages. For a long time these distilleries — with names geeks could recite in their sleep, like New Yarmouth, Innswood, Clarendon, Long Pond Monymusk, Worthy Park, Hampden — laboured in relative obscurity, living in J. Wray’s gargantuan shadow, selling mostly bulk rum abroad, or for the local market. Somehow, though, the distilleries remained alive, and so did their names, their rums. While I’m by no means disparaging or downplaying [Click here for the full review…]


Rhum J.M. Vieux Millésime 1989 15 Year Old

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Jan 092019
 
Rhum J.M. Vieux Millésime 1989 15 Year Old

Rumaniacs Review #088 | 0587 You’d think that a rhum issued less than fifteen years ago would still be reasonably available – you’d be wrong. This amazing leather-labelled, oak-aged 15 year old agricole from J.M. (Martinique) is almost impossible to find, and if you do, it’s not cheap.  It’s long since vanished from J.M.’s online shop, and I finally ended up tracking a bottle down in Switzerland, where it was a fetching a cool five hundred bucks or more, which just goes to show it’s not just other people’s money the Swiss are squirrelling away.  One can only wonder how [Click here for the full review…]


A1710 2017 “La Perle” Martinique White Rhum – Review

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Jan 072019
 
A1710 2017 "La Perle" Martinique White Rhum - Review

After the initial flurry of articles attendant on the forming of the first new distillery / rum brand in Martinique in, oh, I don’t know, forever, there’s been a surprising drop in attention for A1710. The big guns like Neisson, Bally, HSE, Trois-Rivieres, Depaz et al, with decades (or centuries) of brand awareness underlying their name and fame, continue to issue their excellent agricole rums, of course, but it’s almost like A1710 dropped by the wayside.  Yet this tiny outfit makes rums with a lot of zip, zap, zowee and swoosh, and should not be ignored just because it’s small. [Click here for the full review…]


Toucan Rhum Blanc Agricole – Review

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Jan 022019
 
Toucan Rhum Blanc Agricole - Review

There must be something about the French that just leads them into starting little rum companies in other countries. There was Hembert Achard and Anne-Francois Houzel who formed Whisper Rums from Antigua; David Giallorenzo of Issan; and Marine Lucchini and Thibault Spithakis of Chalong Bay. And of course there’s Toucan, which, if you recall from my posts of a year ago, is a relatively new entrant to the field of rums, yet distinguished itself (in my eyes at least) by making the really nifty-but-underpowered Toucan No. 4, as well as being from French Guiana, a place we have not seen [Click here for the full review…]


Seven Seas Japanese Rum – Review

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Dec 302018
 
Seven Seas Japanese Rum - Review

Take this as less a review, than a description of my experience with a rum I didn’t know what to do with. * I have been sitting on this review for over a year, alternately confused and disgusted and wondering and puzzled.  It was a rum like nothing I’d ever had before, tawdry and smelly and meaty, an open sewer of a rum, a discarded tart’s handkerchief, yet I could not believe it could actually be so.  No reputable company – no company period – would willingly release such a product into the wild without reason, so what was I [Click here for the full review…]


St. George Spirits California Agricole White Rum (2014) – Review

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Dec 282018
 
St. George Spirits California Agricole White Rum (2014) - Review

Just as we don’t see Americans making too many full proof rums, it’s also hard to see them making true agricoles, especially since the term is so tightly bound up with the spirits of the French islands. Agricole, let it be remembered, is the French term for agricultural rums made from pure sugar cane juice, and called such to distinguish them (not without a little Gallic disdain, to be sure) from traditionnels, or traditional rums, which are made from molasses, a by product of the sugar making process. For the most part, having much to do with the finances, molasses [Click here for the full review…]


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