Mombacho 1989 19 Year Old Central American Rum – Review

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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)

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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

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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…

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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…]


Savanna Lontan Grand Arôme Vieux 2004 12 Year Old – Review

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Jun 282017
 
Savanna Lontan Grand Arôme Vieux 2004 12 Year Old - Review

#376 With the advent of the Hampden and Worthy Park rums which pride themselves on high ester counts, it seems that one of the emerging trends in the rumworld may well be such tasty, clear, bags-of-fruit rums with not just a single sapling populating the salad bowl, but an entire damned orchard. Yet on the other side of the world, Savanna has been doing this for some years now with their “Intense” and “Grand Arôme” lines, of which the reigning porn queen might well be the HERR 10 year old that so impressed me. That rum was startling and original, [Click here for the full review…]


Velier Port Mourant 1975 32 Year Old Full Proof Demerara Rum – Review

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Jun 262017
 
Velier Port Mourant 1975 32 Year Old Full Proof Demerara Rum - Review

#375 Velier rums have now become so famous that new editions and collaborations disappear from the shelves fifteen minutes before they go on sale, and the “classic” editions from the Age of the Demeraras are all but impossible to find at all. Still, keeping one’s twitchy ears and long nose alert does in fact get you somewhere in the end, which is why, after a long drought of the company’s rums in my battered notebook (if you discount the legendary Caputo 1973), I managed to pick up this little gem and am pleased to report that it conforms to all [Click here for the full review…]


Secret Treasures St. Lucia 2005 9 Year Old (John Dore Pot Still) Rum – Review

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Jun 222017
 
Secret Treasures St. Lucia 2005 9 Year Old (John Dore Pot Still) Rum - Review

#374 Two bottles of Secret Treasures St. Lucian rum came my way in early 2017, entirely unexpected and unannounced, and both were fascinating variations on a theme. Did I say thanks to Eddie K? I think so, but let’s just tip the trilby to the man one more time, because even next to its very sound brother, this baby from a John Dore pot still is no slouch either, and not much has been written about either one, and it’s entirely possible that they are among the most under-the-radar value-for-money indie rums around. Since there’s not much more to say [Click here for the full review…]


Opinion: Why Negative Reviews Matter

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Jun 202017
 
Opinion: Why Negative Reviews Matter

Two comments I came across in my reading last week stuck in my mind and dovetailed into conversations I’ve had with others over many years. The first was from a reviewing website which stated (paraphrased) that they don’t review what they have nothing good to say about. The other, from a high-end watch-review site called Hodinkee, quoted a journalism professor as saying “If you’re going to write about something bad, it needs to be bad in an important way. Just being bad isn’t enough.” Which got me thinking. Why write negative reviews at all? They’re often depressing experiences, however easily [Click here for the full review…]


Secret Treasures St. Lucia 2005 9 Year Old (Vendome Pot Still) Rum – Review

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Jun 192017
 
Secret Treasures St. Lucia 2005 9 Year Old (Vendome Pot Still) Rum - Review

#373 In recent years, St Lucia and its eponymous distillery has been inching towards its own understated cult status: pot still rums, no additives, a finish-variation here or there, good barrel strategy, all round good stuff, and somehow (don’t ask me why) still lacks the cachet of the big four (Trini Caronis, Guyana’s DDL, Bajan FourSquare and, of course, dem Jamaicans). Many of my rum chums swear by their rums, however, whether made by independents or issued on the island, and I can tell you, they deserve the plaudits, because they’re good. Assuming you’ve already gone through various batches of [Click here for the full review…]


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