Rhum Negresco “First Quality” Very Old

 1 Response »
Sep 172017
 
Rhum Negresco "First Quality" Very Old

Rumaniacs Review #056 | 0456 I got this curious thing through separate channels from the usual Rumaniacs (a trend I foresee continuing) and it’s a mini-bottle insufficient to allow me to share it to everyone…so, sorry mes amis. Still, it’s one of these delightful mystery rhums about which just about nothing turns up on a search, except an old French eBay listing which suggests this is a French West Indian rhum from 1953 (unconfirmed, but how cool is that year, right?) bottled at 44% ABV, so in that sense it conforms to all the reasons the ‘Maniacs exist in the [Click here for the full review…]


Cadenhead’s Barbados Rum “BMMG” Mount Gay 2000 8 Year Old – Review

 2 Responses »
Sep 142017
 
Cadenhead's Barbados Rum "BMMG" Mount Gay 2000 8 Year Old - Review

  #387 Mount Gay out of Barbados is somewhat in the background of Bajan rum-making these days, maybe feeling like Huzur in Satyajit Ray’s 1958 classic “The Music Room”. Understandable, since all the headlines these days are about the 2006 ten year old, the Criterion, Triptych and all the other amazing Foursquare releases. And that’s a shame because there are some interesting indie bottlings out there from the island, as well as Mount Gay’s own recent cask strength work which I’ll get to one of these days. Today, then, let’s discuss the mastodon of the Cadenhead BMMG 66.3% which was [Click here for the full review…]


Saint-James Cuvée 250 Ans

 No Responses »
Sep 102017
 
Saint-James Cuvée 250 Ans

*** Rumaniacs Review #055 | 0455 About the only place this rhum falls down is that for all the information we have on it, it leaves us begging for more. It is a heritage (or “halo”) edition rhum, a bland of six millésimes, those years considered to be of exceptional quality – the legendary 1885 (R-010, remember that?), 1934, 1952, 1976, 1998 and 2000, and yeah, what else could we possibly want? Well, how much of each was in the blend, for one, and how old each of those components was, and further, how much (if at all) the final [Click here for the full review…]


Rum Nation Small Batch Collection – Port Mourant 1999 17 Year Old – Review

 No Responses »
Sep 062017
 
Rum Nation Small Batch Collection - Port Mourant 1999 17 Year Old - Review

#386 Let’s be honest – 2017 is the year of FourSquare. No other company since Velier’s post-2012 explosion on the popular rum scene, has had remotely like this kind of impact, and if you doubt that, just swim around the sea of social media and see how many references there are to Triptych and Criterion in the last six months. Which is admittedly an odd way to begin a review of a competing product, but I wanted to mention that for all the (deservedly) amazing press surrounding the latest hot juice in the rumiverse, there remain equally solid names as [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson L’Esprit 70º Blanc

 No Responses »
Sep 042017
 
Neisson L'Esprit 70º Blanc

Rumaniacs Review #54 | 0454 The fourth in the Rumaniacs Neisson lineup (though I’m sure they will be more), this thing is a massive falling anvil of oomph, and takes Le Rhum Par Neisson (R-053), also a blanc, out behind the schoolyard and whomps it with an extra twenty degrees of proof…and while the previous blanc elicited strong opinions for and against its quality, thus far I think the general consensus of this one is that it it one hell of a white rhum, to be had with a mixture of caution and enjoyment. Colour – white Strength – 70% [Click here for the full review…]


Mombacho 1989 19 Year Old Central American Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Aug 312017
 
Mombacho 1989 19 Year Old Central American Rum - Review

#385 Perhaps it would be better to start with the straightforward tasting, lest my snark bend your mind were I to lead in with the commentary instead of finishing with it. The Mombacho 1989 Central American rum does, admittedly, boast and flourish some impressive chops on the label: 19 year old rum (1989-2008), finishing for the final two years in armagnac casks, reasonable strength of 43% (I said ‘reasonable’, not ‘outstanding’). Looking at other bottles of their range it seems within the bounds of reason to assume it’s from Nicaragua, though the ‘Central American’ noted on the label might suggest [Click here for the full review…]


Le Rhum Par Neisson (Blanc)

 No Responses »
Aug 272017
 
Le Rhum Par Neisson (Blanc)

Rumaniacs Review #053 | 0453 Another Neisson in the series, one to leave a drinker scratching his head in bafflement. It’s not a bad rum, just an odd one, exhibiting some of the characteristics of other unaged whites, then going off to check out some side roads…not always to its advantage Colour – White Strength – 52.5% Nose – Hello Sajous…I mean Neisson, sorry. Whew, quite a bite here – salty, briny, and then…labneh, or fresh yoghurt. And sugar, so weird, like sucking tea through a white sugar cube. Some tar, herbals, iodine and medicine, and light (very light) florals [Click here for the full review…]


Chantal Comte L’Arbre du Voyageur 2001 Reserve Speciale – Review

 No Responses »
Aug 242017
 
Chantal Comte L'Arbre du Voyageur 2001 Reserve Speciale - Review

#384 The rhums of Chantal Comte have been of consistently high quality throughout my relatively brief acquaintanceship with her brand. Mme Comte, you may recall, is an independent bottler with the twin advantages of having a long association with spirits (she is the owner of a wine making chateau in France) as well as a boatload of familial connections and wasta in Martinique. The La Tour L’Or HSE, the 1980 Trois Rivieres and the 1977 Trois Rivieres rhums were all products that impressed, and I had thought so even when my experience with agricoles was more limited. There was something [Click here for the full review…]


Some Miscellaneous Rum Trivia…

 1 Response »
Aug 222017
 
Some Miscellaneous Rum Trivia...

So the other day a guy on reddit wrote that he was was due for surgery and bored out of his mind and could us redditors perhaps post some facts about rum which he didn’t know? Well, now, that was a challenge, and while I may have missed the US National Rum Day, the idea took hold of me and after jotting down maybe ten or fifteen points of my own, I sent off a blast to all my rum chums, asking them for small anecdotes and trivia and facts they might know of, which are not all that well [Click here for the full review…]


Neisson 2004 Single Cask Rhum Agricole Vieux

 No Responses »
Aug 202017
 
Neisson 2004 Single Cask Rhum Agricole Vieux

Rumaniacs Review #052 | 0452 None of the ‘Maniacs seem to have written anything on how old this things is, which is surprising given its price tag (about €170 or so), but both WhiskyAuction and Reference-Rhum say’s it’s a ten year old; the label (below) says its eleven so we’ll go with the older one. Another odd thing is the strength – my sample said 45%, and various online shops quote it as being variously 45.4%, 46.2% or 42.7% – so after some digging around it seems that 2004 was a particularly good year and several single barrel issues were [Click here for the full review…]


Kléren Nasyonal Premium Blend Rhum Blanc – Review

 No Responses »
Aug 162017
 
Kléren Nasyonal Premium Blend Rhum Blanc - Review

#383 When one tastes a raft all kinds of rums from around the world and across the ages over an extended period, there is a normal tendency to look for stuff that’s a little different while still conforming to commonly-held notions of what a rum is. After all, how many times can one try a basic rum redolent of molasses, caramel, sugar, banana and maybe raisins and citrus without getting a little bored? Well, for sure there’s no shortage of new and interesting popskull coming on the market in the last few years, and I’m not just talking about the [Click here for the full review…]


Rhum Neisson Extra Vieux

 No Responses »
Aug 132017
 
Rhum Neisson Extra Vieux

Rumaniacs Review #051 | 0451 Today we amble on over to Martinique, where Neisson is to be found: I have four of these fascinating AOC rhums to play with, and here’s the first of them to sate the intangible palate and add to the historical record. Neisson is, in my own opinion, one of the most singular makers of agricole rhum on Martinique, and I’ve used words like “fascinating”, “unusual” and “distinctive” to describe their remarkable products…there’s always something slightly off kilter in them, some cheerful, almost whimsical, sort of “essayons de cette façon,” or “leh we try dis” approach. [Click here for the full review…]


Renegade 2003 Port Mourant 6 Year Old Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Aug 102017
 
Renegade 2003 Port Mourant 6 Year Old Rum - Review

#382 Renegade rums continue to hold a peculiar sort of fascination for me, because they were the first rums made by any outfit other than the big island producers or major corporations with which I came into contact. They made it into Canada just as I was starting my rum scribbles, and were the only ones I saw for many years. Given our current familiarity with unadulterated rums made by independents, and adding to that something of a nostalgia factor, perhaps this Port Mourant succeeds better than it should, but I guess by the end of this review you can [Click here for the full review…]


Renegade Rums

 2 Responses »
Aug 062017
 
Renegade Rums

Renegade is – or was, in its previous incarnation – the inheritor of the rum work done by Murray McDavid, a bottler of scotch whisky established in 1996, and which acquired Bruichladdich in 2000 (Bruichladdich was itself formed in 1881, changed ownership many times until its acquisition by MM). Renegade was formed as a separate company under this umbrella in 2006 (with a single one-pound share) and their first edition of four vintages was released the following year, with a further six in 2008 and more thereafter. Only three years of releases formed the backbone of the company’s rums (if [Click here for the full review…]


Novo Fogo Silver Cachaça – Review

 No Responses »
Aug 022017
 
Novo Fogo Silver Cachaça - Review

#381 Novo Fogo is the first cachaça I’ve ever tried that went off the reservation and hammered me in the face even at a relatively staid 40%. It was so different from the regular run of sugar-water-plus-local-wood flavours to which I had become accustomed in my (as yet) brief acquaintanceship with the Brazilian national spirit, that I literally pulled my face back from the glass, muttered a disbelieving “wtf?” and spent another five minutes closely perusing the label to make sure I had not been taken for a ride. But no, it had been an unopened bottle, it had some [Click here for the full review…]


A Short & Personal Essay About Agricole Rums

 No Responses »
Jul 292017
 
A Short & Personal Essay About Agricole Rums

In July 2017 the French rum wesbsite Coeur de Chauffe, as part of the Agricole 2017 world tour, issued a two part post where members of the rum and blogging community were invited to submit some brief words regarding their experiences with the French Island agricoles. Well, most people wrote a couple of generally positive sentences, waved goodbye and moved on, but I felt that perhaps more could be said — and wrote, as is my wont, a complete essay where I tried to summarize my feelings about and experiences with this fascinating subset of the rumworld. The French language [Click here for the full review…]


Secret Treasures Gardel Distillery 1992 11 Year Old Guadeloupe Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Jul 262017
 
Secret Treasures Gardel Distillery 1992 11 Year Old Guadeloupe Rum - Review

#380 The independent bottler Secret Treasures is no longer the same company it started out as, and this particular and delectable Guadeloupe rum was selected by the Swiss concern Fassbind before they sold off the brand to Haromex in 2005. So although Haromex is now making a new line of rums under the ST label (like the St Lucia Vendome and John Dore still rums I’ve looked at before), this rhum predates them and is part of the original line up. Guadeloupe is somewhat general a term so let me expand on that by saying the rhum originates from [Click here for the full review…]


Longueteau VSOP Rhum Vieux Agricole (6 YO)- Review

 No Responses »
Jul 232017
 
Longueteau VSOP Rhum Vieux Agricole (6 YO)- Review

#379 Much as I had with the Longueteau Grand Réserve, a ten year old agricole from Basse-Terre (Guadeloupe), I felt the 42% strength on the six year old VSOP was perhaps too timid and too wispy for a rhum which could have been more had it been made stronger. Longueteau, a distillery which has been in operation since 1895 and produces the Karukera and Longueteau lines of rhums, seems to eschew fierce and powerful expressions and is quite content to keep on issuing standard strength work, but since their quality is nothing to sneeze at and is readily approachable by [Click here for the full review…]


Key Rums of the World: Appleton 12 Year Old Rum

 8 Responses »
Jul 192017
 
Key Rums of the World: Appleton 12 Year Old Rum

#378 No matter how many other estates or companies make and market Jamaican rum, it’s a fair bet that when it comes to recognition, Appleton has cornered the market in their own land, much like DDL has in Guyana, or how FourSquare is currently dominating Barbados. Recently I ran a few Appletons past each other (it’s one of the few decent rums one can get in the rum wasteland that is Toronto), and while the 21 year old, Master Blender’s Legacy and 30 year old are not on sale there, the rebranded “Rare Blend” 12 year old was. Re-tasting the [Click here for the full review…]


Bristol Spirits 1974 30 Year Old Jamaica Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Jul 162017
 
Bristol Spirits 1974 30 Year Old Jamaica Rum - Review

#377 Bottled in 2004 at a lukewarm 43%, Bristol Spirits have somehow transcended the living room strength of this classic 30 year old rum and produced one of the best Jamaicans of its kind. Even under some time pressure, I still had that glass on the go for two full hours, smelling it over and over, tasting it in the tiniest of sips again and again, comparing, retasting, rechecking, making more and more notes, and in the fullproof company of Guyanese and Jamaicans I was trying alongside it, it was a standout of no mean proportions. We simply do not [Click here for the full review…]


 Older Entries  Newer Entries