El Dorado Rare Collection – Port Mourant 1999-2015 16 YO PM

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Mar 192018
 
El Dorado Rare Collection – Port Mourant 1999-2015 16 YO PM

#498 By the time we get to the third Rare Collection rum issued by DDL to the market in early 2016, we have to move on from our preconceived notions of how these rums were issued: okay, so they booted Luca out and us rum junkies were pissed, but from a purely business perspective, perhaps we should have seen it coming.  And anyway, the world didn’t come to an end, did it? Life continued, taxes got paid, rums got drunk, and civilization endured. Time to move on. It was surely nothing personal, just business, caro amico.  Lo capisci, vero? Which [Click here for the full review…]


El Dorado Rare Collection – Enmore 1993-2015 22 YO EHP

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Mar 162018
 
El Dorado Rare Collection - Enmore 1993-2015 22 YO EHP

#0497 “A cheap shot,” muttered Henrik, referring to DDL stopping Velier’s access to their rums in 2015, and surely channelling the feelings of many. And it was therefore perhaps unavoidable that the initial DDL Rare Collection rums issued in early 2016 were instantly compared to the Age of Demerara Veliers upon whose success they wished to capitalize and whose street cred they sought to supplant.  That’s hard cheese and perhaps unfair to the rums, but it was and remains DDL’s cross to bear and they must have known that going in. The question was whether they maintained the standard and [Click here for the full review…]


El Dorado Rare Collection – Versailles 2002-2015 13 YO VSG

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Mar 142018
 
El Dorado Rare Collection - Versailles 2002-2015 13 YO VSG

#496 It’s been two years since the furore created by the inadvertently premature publication of the Velier catalogue entries for the El Dorado Rare Collection ignited in the minds of the Velier lovers, and I’ve been sitting on the three bottles almost since that time, waiting to get around to them. One of the reasons the reviews were not written immediately was simply that I felt the dust needed to settle down a bit, so that they could be approached with something resembling objectivity.  Two years might have been just about enough for me to forget the original reviews that [Click here for the full review…]


Mount Gay Black Barrel Rum – Review

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Mar 112018
 
Mount Gay Black Barrel Rum - Review

#495 Some time ago I called Mount Gay XO one of the Key Rums of the World, and observed that it longevity, decency and general all-purpose usefulness created a shadow in which all subsequently issued Bajan rums to some extent had to live.  Times moved on and other profiles started to take precedence in the rumiverse, but Mount Gay, however delinquent in moving into the limited edition or cask strength landscape so effectively colonized by Foursquare, did not entirely rest on its laurels, and did try to experiment here and there to see what else they could pull out of [Click here for the full review…]


Avuá Prata Cachaça – Review

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Mar 072018
 
Avuá Prata Cachaça - Review

#494 The Avuá brand of cachaça has a slightly different pedigree from independents in Europe who buy from brokers, and is closer to that of small new rum companies who buy selected stock direct from distilleries (e.g. Whisper, Toucan, and Real McCoy, for example).  Two New Yorkers – one a former brand manager for Red Bull, Pete Nevenglosky, the other a businessman and lawyer, Nate Whitehouse – developed a liking for the spirit and sensed (or thought they could exploit) a rising appreciation for craft spirits in the US – rum generally, cachaça specifically.  After some searching and sampling around, [Click here for the full review…]


Avuá Amburana Cachaça – Review

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Mar 042018
 
Avuá Amburana Cachaça - Review

#493 The other day I read that there are supposedly forty thousand cachaça producers in Brazil ¹ — if that statistic is actually true, then most are probably from small ops like the 500+ or so in Haiti – backyard moonshineries, rather than medium to large commercial operations. But there is no doubting that they represent a significant slice of the global volume of cane-derived spirits and it’s too bad that so few reviews of them exist (perhaps the lack of exports is to blame – most is drunk in-country; or maybe we need some Brazilian spirits bloggers). A major characteristic of [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson Rhum Agricole Vieux 2005-2014 43%

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Mar 032018
 
Neisson Rhum Agricole Vieux 2005-2014 43%

Rumaniacs Review #075 | 0492 Revisited over nearly three years, the seemingly underproofed 43% 2005 Neisson has grown in my estimation; indeed, it wasn’t until I was doing up my tasting notes that I recalled the initial review (R0273 / 86 points) done back in 2015, and realized that it was even better than I recalled, back when Neisson was still too strange, too new to my agricole experience, for its qualities to shine through.  Good thing the Sage sent us some more to try, then, because perhaps now I can be more enthusiastic about it. Colour – Amber Strength [Click here for the full review…]


Velier Guadeloupe Rhum Vieux “Basseterre” 1997 – Review

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Feb 262018
 
Velier Guadeloupe Rhum Vieux "Basseterre" 1997 - Review

#0491 Don’t get so caught up in the Velier’s 70th Anniversary bottlings, their dwindling Demeraras or the now flavour-of-the-month Caronis, that you forget the one-offs, the small stuff, the ones that don’t make waves any longer (if they ever did).  Just because the Damoiseau 1980, Courcelles 1972, Basseterre and Rhum Rhum lines don’t make headlines while the aforementioned series do, is actually a good reason to try and find them, for they remain undiscovered treasures in the history of Velier and are often undervalued, or even (gasp!) underpriced. One of these delightful short form works by La Casa di Gargano [Click here for the full review…]


A Velier Port Mourant Tasting Blowout

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Feb 232018
 
A Velier Port Mourant Tasting Blowout

Some days are just harder than others, especially when we put our lives and livers and family time on hold, just say f**kit and do a deep dive into rums that are insanely expensive, excrutiatingly rare and that makes ethanol leak from the eyes of every Velier fan and exiled Mudlander who ever lived. While I would not go so far as to say we suffer for our art (drinking rum unicorns like this? are you kidding?), there is no question that when two of the cool kids in the rumworld – Gregers and Nicolai – managed to put together [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson Rhum Agricole Vieux Brut de Fût 2005-2012

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Feb 202018
 
Neisson Rhum Agricole Vieux Brut de Fût 2005-2012

Rumaniacs Review #074 | 0490 Almost the last of the Neissons in the current Rumaniacs lineup – and nothing at all wrong with this one either, because Neisson’s overall quality has been remarkably consistent throughout the various samples, and while there are variations in minor points throughout, the bottom line is that aged or young, strong or easy, they are all – all – of a high standard.  My love for French Island rums trends more towards Guadeloupe, but if I ever saw a Neisson from Martinique sitting on the shelf, it would always be one I gave serious consideration to [Click here for the full review…]


Banks DIH

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Feb 172018
 
Banks DIH

It is appreciated that the lion’s share of the credit for Guyanese rums goes to Demerara Distillers Limited, who have the spirituous equivalent of a killer app in the famed stills and have capitalized on that big time. In fact, their rums are so unique and well known that they have become stand ins for the entire class of “Demerara Rums”. However, DDL is in fact something of a late entrant to the field, formed in the 1970s by the consolidation of older sugar estates held by departing UK companies like Bookers or Sandbach Parker.  A far older brewing company [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson Rhum Agricole Vieux Brut de Fût 2003-2012

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Feb 132018
 
Neisson Rhum Agricole Vieux Brut de Fût 2003-2012

Rumaniacs Review #073 | 0488 So here we’re moving Neissons into the 2000’s series of rums and leaving the 1990s behind.  Those were pretty good, all of them, so did that track record of cool continue?  I think so.  What strikes me about all these Neissons of whatever age or provenance, is their overall consistency.  There are points of difference in all of them, of course, but I would be hard pressed to do a blind horizontal tasting and be able to tell you which one was which – they all cluster around the same level of quality. And no [Click here for the full review…]


St. Aubin Rhum Agricole Blanc – Review

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Feb 102018
 
St. Aubin Rhum Agricole Blanc - Review

#487 Yeah! It screams as you sip it, seeming to want to channel a heavy metal rock star in his prime as he puts together a yowling riff on his axe and squeals impossibly high notes into the mike like his huevos were getting crushed. Pow! Biff! Smack! went the rum on the nose.  Holy pot still Batman, what the hell was this?  I smelled hard, I blinked tears, I coughed out rhum fumes and a hundred flies died on the spot. The maelstrom of clear aggro swirling madly in my glass made me think that if I’d had the [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson Rhum Agricole Hors d’Âge 1997-2012 15 YO

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Feb 072018
 
Neisson Rhum Agricole Hors d’Âge 1997-2012 15 YO

Rumaniacs Review #072 | 0486 The Neisson rhums just keep on staying at a high level of quality, no matter what the year.  This is not one of the best of the 1990s editions but it’s no slouch either and if you get it – assuming you can because my google-fu isn’t doing very well locating it – you will likely be quite pleased.  This  rhum was rested in steel tanks for a year (it was actually distilled in 1996, reports Serge) – and then put to age in 1997, hence the dating on it.  Oh and for the rabid [Click here for the full review…]


J.M. Cuvée 2000 9 Year Old Rhum – Review

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Feb 042018
 
J.M. Cuvée 2000 9 Year Old Rhum - Review

#485 Ever notice how on the British West Indies there are just a few or just one big gun per island or country — like DDL, Appleton, Mount Gay, Foursquare, Angostura, St Lucia Distilleries, St Vincent Distillers, Rivers Royale, and so on — while the smaller islands from the French side like Martinique, Guadeloupe, Reunion and Mauritius seem to have little outfits all over the place?  I don’t know what’s behind that – maybe it has to do with the commercial cultures of each sphere.  Whatever the case, one can’t fault the results of multiple distillers competing fiercely for global [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson Rhum Agricole Hors d’Âge 1995-2014 19 YO

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Jan 302018
 
Neisson Rhum Agricole Hors d’Âge 1995-2014 19 YO

Rumaniacs Review #071 | 0484 As we proceed down memory lane with the aged Neisson rhums, the single cask expressions begin to take on greater prominence, displacing larger-volume blended outturns with more exactingly made products for the cognoscenti. These are expensive rhums, old rhums, not easily available, and are aimed at the upper slice of the market – the 1% of connoisseurs, I would suggest.  Ordinary drinkers who just like their rums without fuss or fanfare are not the target audience – these products are made for people who are deep into their variations, for the rhum equivalent of philatelists [Click here for the full review…]


St. Aubin “Mauritius” Cuvée Grande Reserve 2004 Rhum – Review

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Jan 282018
 
St. Aubin "Mauritius" Cuvée Grande Reserve 2004 Rhum - Review

#483 The History Collection 1715 “Isle de France” Cuvée Spéciale, in spite of being made from cane juice, reminded me rather more of an El Dorado rum than a true agricole, and with the History Collection’s 1814 “Mauritius” Cuvée Grande Reserve we’re looking at today, similar thoughts occurred to me…albeit about a different country. Perhaps that’s the marker of a rum that lingers in the mind and titillates the senses – it reminds you of something, but pinning it down proves elusive…and then it turns out to be quite a distinct product in its own right, as this one is. [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson Rhum Agricole Hors d’Âge 1994-2012 18 YO

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Jan 242018
 
Neisson Rhum Agricole Hors d’Âge 1994-2012 18 YO

Rumaniacs Review #070 | 0482 The deeper one dives into the series of aged agricoles from Neisson, the more the similarities and differences become apparent.  They all have points of commonality which speak to the philosophy of the bottler as a whole, yet also aspects of uniqueness in the smaller, more detailed ways, which individual tastings done over long periods might not make clear.  Even the variations in strength create detours from the main road which only a comparison with a large sample set bring out.  What this particular series emphasizes, then, is that Neisson’s aged range is quite a [Click here for the full review…]


St. Aubin Isle de France Cuvée Spéciale 2005 Rhum – Review

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Jan 212018
 
St. Aubin Isle de France Cuvée Spéciale 2005 Rhum - Review

#481 The current focus on the Caribbean’s rums to some extent obscures interesting developments taking place elsewhere – for example the new Madeira rum from Rum Nation, French Guiana’s Toucan…and rums from St. Aubin in Mauritius, which are not particularly new, but certainly lack wider appreciation, perhaps because they don’t make it to the festival circuit as much as others do.  Anyway, this rum, the Isle de France 1715-2015 is part of their “History Collection”, bottled at 40% for a wider commercial market, and commemorates the year of establishment of French rule over Isle de France for the French East [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson Rhum Agricole Hors d’Âge 1993-2012 19 YO

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Jan 182018
 
Neisson Rhum Agricole Hors d’Âge 1993-2012 19 YO

Rumaniacs Review #069 | 0480 These double-digit aged agricoles are joys to behold (we’re talking carafe or flagon styles with fancy stoppers here), look awesome on the shelf (put these on a faux-silver salver on the sideboard with a couple other and you could pretend you’re a closet billionaire when pouring it into an ersatz crystal glass that was once a peanut butter jar), and best of all, they taste awesome, whether in a glencairn, a cut crystal Lalique, or in that old Canadian standby, a screw top jar.  I know the middle aged agricoles of around 6-12 years or [Click here for the full review…]


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