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…]


English Harbour 2014 6YO Antigua Rum (High Congener Series) – Review

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Dec 052023
 
English Harbour 2014 6YO Antigua Rum (High Congener Series) - Review

In less than fifteen years, the entire rumiverse has changed so completely that not only can a not-that-well-known distillery from a not-that-well-known island make a cask strength rum of force and taste, but it is considered normal for them to do so; and that little distillery has become famous enough to be compared with the likes of major Caribbean outfits both older and younger, of far greater visibility. That is what the English Harbour High Congener rum really means, over and above its interesting stats. The success of the indie bottlers in the last decade and a half in promoting [Click here for the full review…]


Capricorn Distilling “High Ester Cane” Unaged White Rum (Australia) – Review

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Dec 022023
 
Capricorn Distilling "High Ester Cane" Unaged White Rum (Australia) - Review

Almost all of Capricorn Distilling’s current line up of releases are good ones, and they haven’t even started a serious ageing program yet. Whether this is a matter of their desire to tinker and see what happens, or a clearly thought-out distillation philosophy, is unknown to me. What I do know, is that having tried their standard range (not the spiced, infused, gins, liqueurs or anything else) I can honestly state that if you get a white unaged Australian rum this year, you could do worse than buy a case of their juice generally – and the High Ester in [Click here for the full review…]


Capricorn Distilling 2018 Pure Single Rum 4 YO (Release 2)(Australia) – Review

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Nov 272023
 
Capricorn Distilling 2018 Pure Single Rum 4 YO (Release 2)(Australia) - Review

Capricorn really is a distillery off in its own zone, and I mean that in a good way. Aged or unaged I’ve rarely seen a producer so young make rums that display such a deft, sure touch – they’re not all world beaters, but I think they’re certainly a cut above the ordinary, even the entry-level standard-strength “Coastal Cane” which I likened to a cross between an agricole and a Jamaican white overproof. In November 2023 they had a sort of coming-out party at the Brisbane Rum Revolution, where there were a number of complimentary comments about the various releases: [Click here for the full review…]


Don Q “Cristal” Puerto Rican Rum (1980s/1990s)

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Nov 252023
 
Don Q "Cristal" Puerto Rican Rum (1980s/1990s)

Rumaniacs Review R-160 | #1041 Few rum aficionados need me to elaborate either on Don Q, the “other” major distillery on the island of Puerto Rico which makes it, Puerto Rico itself and it’s peculiar status vis-a-vis the USA, or indeed, this rum. Any one of them is an essay in itself and can lead to any number of rabbit holes, Let’s just stick to the basics, then. In brief: like Bacardi, Destilería Serrallés was founded by a Catalan emigre in the 1860s (the sugar plantation the Serrallés family first bought goes back three decades before that), though they lacked [Click here for the full review…]


Clement 2002 9 YO Trés Vieux Rhum Agricole – Review

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Nov 202023
 
Clement 2002 9 YO Trés Vieux Rhum Agricole - Review

The Martinique distillery Clement has, since 1989, ceased making rhum — the brand’s juice has been distilled up the road at the facilities of Distillerie Simon, and from 2017 also and increasingly from Fonds-Preville (both are owned by the Hayot Group). The original premises, however, are still used for ageing, blending and bottling Clement rhums, and they still maintain the AOC designation. Depending on who you speak to then, it supposedly has at least some terroire harkening back to what old Homere Clement made on his plantation of Domaine de l’Acajou, the progenitor of the brand. Clement was among the [Click here for the full review…]


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