The Lone Caner – Page 49 – A Solo Reviewer's Take on Rums

Rhum des Plantations St. James 1885

Oct 282015

Rumanicas Review 010 | 0410 Yes, you read that right. 1885. Holy molasses this thing is old. How can anyone even begin to assess a spirit that was made so incredibly long ago? I’m literally in awe. What was going on back then anyway? Sino French war in Vietnam; the Mahdist army overran Khartoum and killed General Gordon; AT&T was incorporated in New York; Gottlieb Daimler patented his engine; the North West rebellion in Canada; the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York harbour; the Third Anglo-Burmese war…and St. James began bottling its vintages that year, same year as they introduced [Click here for the full review…]

St. Nicholas Abbey 15 Year Old Rum – Review

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Oct 262015

St. Nicholas Abbey 15 Year Old Rum - Review

An expensive, luxurious, silky, almost-heavy, near-masterpiece of assembly. This dethrones the $400 Panamonte XXV as maybe the best 40% rum I’ve ever tried. For half the price. It’s been just over four years since I reviewed the St. Nicholas Abbey’s 8, 10 and 12 year olds, and I liked them all, a lot. They were soft, warm, well-made Bajan rums (initial distillate provided by R. L. Seale of Four Square), redolent of much history and heritage — the plantation itself is as much of interest as the rum they make. Ever since then I’ve been trying to get my hands [Click here for the full review…]

Black Tot: Last Consignment Naval Rum – Review

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Oct 222015

Black Tot: Last Consignment Naval Rum - Review

Bottled history. Nothing more, nothing less. “The heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good,” remarked Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I remembered that bit of wisdom before embarking on our tryst with this rum. And to ensure that my long anticipation for the Tot wasn’t bending my feeble mind (I bought the bottle 2014, and tasted it for the first time almost a full year later) I tempered my judgement by trying it three times, with the Skeldon 1973 32 year old, BBR 1977 36 year old, a Velier Caroni and the Samaroli Barbados 1986. Just to be sure I wasn’t [Click here for the full review…]

Rhum J. Bally 6 Ans

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Oct 192015

Rumanicas Review 009 | 0409 Oh, tough one to research. Loads of 1929 and 1930s photos out there, rien on this one. Not a millesime, because J. Bally helpfully places the year on that little smiley label at the top for those. But with that fading old-style label, maybe pre-1980s? Earlier? Not sure. Still, J. Bally’s original domicile on Plantation Lajus du Carbet was closed back in 1989 (current rhums are made at a consolidated site at Plantation Simon using the original recipe), so at least we have something suitably aged here. Whatever. It was a neat little piece of [Click here for the full review…]

The Three Amigos – El Dorado’s Single Barrel Rums

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Oct 182015

The Three Amigos - El Dorado's Single Barrel Rums

(#236) The three single barrel expressions issued by DDL are a curious bunch. Ignoring the head of steam gathered by independent bottlers in the last ten years or so, DDL has never given either prominence or real attention to what could be Demerara rum’s killer app – single barrel, cask strength expressions that are still-specific. When one observes the raves Velier, Cadenhead, RN, Silver Seal and others have gotten for their tightly focussed expressions hewing to precisely those coordinates, one can only wonder what DDL’s malfunction is. And yet, here they are, these three, originating from the Port Mourant wooden [Click here for the full review…]

Sunset Very Strong Overproof Rum – Review

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Oct 152015

Sunset Very Strong Overproof Rum - Review

Hulk no like puny rum. Hulk smash. The last and strongest of the overproof howitzers batters my glass. It’s a giant of a drink, the most powerful commercial rum ever made, a gurgling frisson of hot-snot turbo-charged proofage. 0.5% additional points of proof and the black clothes squad with silenced helicopters and full SWAT gear would be rapelling down to my apartment searching for weaponized rum. It skirts jail-time illegality by a whisker, and I can truly say the only reason I bought it was anal-retentive machismo and the desire to say I had. Like every 151 ever made (but [Click here for the full review…]

Asterix & Obelix

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Oct 022015

*** I challenge anyone to read the adventures of the two indomitable Gauls, Asterix and Obelix, and not bust out into a belly laugh at least once. Much like Herge’s Tintin, there’s a peculiar flavour to these illustrated graphic novels (for this is indeed what they are – it would be incorrect to deem them mere “comics”) which American illustrators of humour have, for the most part, lost or abandoned – the ability to write and draw a story that is more than just a four strip daily funny, and make it long, absorbing, hilarious and riveting, stocked with a [Click here for the full review…]

L’Esprit Epris 13 Year Old Brazilian Rum – Review

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Sep 272015

L'Esprit Epris 13 Year Old Brazilian Rum - Review

If originality and straying off the beaten path of the rumworld is your thing, wander no further. The thing is just a few stops short of being stunning. This is one of the rare occasions where I tasted a rum blind, knowing absolutely nothing at all about it before I started…really, absolutely zilch. Not the country, not the company, not the distillate. I blame this on the pad I crash at in Berlin which has no wi-fi, no internet, no elevator, and what passes for hi-tech is an East-German era rotary dial phone. So the situation when I tasted this [Click here for the full review…]

Chantal Comte La Tour de L’Or Martinique Rhum (HSE) – Review

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Sep 202015

Chantal Comte La Tour de L'Or Martinique Rhum (HSE) - Review

An agricole that bends the rules just enough to be original, without dishonouring its antecedents. What a remarkable rhum. In between the larger and more well known independent bottlers lurk smaller operators pursuing their own vision. Some, like Old Man Spirits, or Delicana, fight the good fight without undue recognition or perhaps even real commercial success. Others seem to find a more workable middle road. Chantal Comte is one of these, an eponymous company run by a bright and vivacious lady who Cyril of DuRhum interviewed earlier in 2015. I first saw some of her products in 2014, bought some [Click here for the full review…]

Cuvée Homère Clément Rhum Vieux Agricole Hors d’Âge – Review

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Sep 142015

Cuvée Homère Clément Rhum Vieux Agricole Hors d'Âge - Review

An unaggressive, bright and clear, sipping-quality rhum agricole that can serve as a bridge between traditional molasses rum and agricoles. Clément holds the dubious distinction of providing one of the first agricoles I ever tried. That was five years (and some change) ago. At the time when I tried that Tres Vieux XO, just about the top of their range, I remember the clarity and smooth brightness of it, and how it flirted with a molasses profile without ever stepping over the line. That rhum was a blend of three exceptional years’ production…the Hors D’Age I was trying this time [Click here for the full review…]

Samaroli Nicaragua 1995 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Sep 072015

Samaroli Nicaragua 1995 10 Year Old Rum - Review

This is a rum that reaffirms my faith in the Nicaraguan rums. Nothing need be added to it, nothing can be taken away. There’s a purity and minimalism of construction here that is almost zen. The sheer range of flavours emanating from the glass that held the Samaroli Nicaragua 1995 tickled my nose and astonished my mind. Few light coloured rums I’ve tried in the last six years were ever this rich right out of the gate. For a person whose background in Nicaraguan rum trends more to the Flor de Caña range (of which the 21 remains my favourite), [Click here for the full review…]

Bristol Spirits Port Mourant 1999 14 Year Old Rum – Review

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Sep 032015

Bristol Spirits Port Mourant 1999 14 Year Old Rum - Review

It’s all a little bit, well, funky. There’s an element of crazy about, it, perhaps deliberately created, perhaps not, which is almost in defiant contrast to more traditional PMs. All things considered, this rum raises my ire and hurts my heart, both at the same time. In it I see all that craft makers aspire to, while somehow failing to realize both its and their own potential. Last time around I looked at the quietly impressive Bristol Spirits PM 1990 17 YO, which I tasted in conjunction with this younger 1999 iteration. You’d think that with core distillate being the same, and [Click here for the full review…]

Bristol Spirits Port Mourant 1990 17 Year Old Rum – Review

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Aug 272015

Bristol Spirits Port Mourant 1990 17 Year Old Rum - Review

A love note from Bristol to lovers of Guyanese PM-still rums Bristol Spirits is that independent bottler out of the UK which started life in 1993. Their barrel selection from the various countries around the Caribbean has created an enviable track record of limited bottlings; I’ll always have good memories of the Bristol Spirits PM 1980, and the subsequent editions of the 1990 and 1999 were rums I’ve been keeping an eye out for on the basis of that positive experience. All of these were made, of course, using the Port Mourant distillate – in this particular instance they didn’t [Click here for the full review…]

Opinion: In Defense of Rum Bloggers

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Aug 252015

“I don’t read a lot of blogs because, well, most of them are written by people who aren’t qualified to piss in the ocean,” remarked Ed Hamilton on his blog The Ministry of Rum on July 7th 2015. To say I was surprised at such a blanket indictment of the majority of the rum blogging community would be an understatement. He’s not the only one to make such a statement in the recent past: when I wrote a five part series on how to start reviewing rums earlier this year, in an effort to provide some advice on new [Click here for the full review…]

Velier Diamond-PM Experimental 1995 19 Year Old – Review

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Aug 242015

Velier Diamond-PM Experimental 1995 19 Year Old - Review

While I loved the single-minded, furious purity of the PM and Diamond rums individually, I could not find fault with what was accomplished by marrying them off. (#228 / 89.5/100) *** In a time where conglomerates rule the roost, where even old distilleries with respected antecedents produce supposedly high-end rums that aren’t always, the wonderment is that rums like Veliers can still be made. The craft makers are the sharp end of the spear – many are artists who cater only to those who want the pure rum experience…they live in their own corner of the rumworld, have small sales [Click here for the full review…]

Cacique 500 Ron Extra Añejo – Review

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Aug 182015

As appealing and soft as a pair of slippers on a cold evening Nosing this golden brown forty percenter was like revisiting a place in the mind. The soft sweet scents transported me back to the first time I tried the Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva on a dark, bitterly cold and wintry evening. This rum, made by the same outfit as the DRE, was quite similar: caramel, toffee, unsweetened chocolate and salted butter on rye bread. There was a slight salty-sweet note here that hinted at soya, or even tequila, but very much in the background, and as it developed, coffee, [Click here for the full review…]

Nine Rums from Out Of Left Field

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Aug 162015

Want a rum that says a big FU to your opinion? Here’s one, and then eight more. *** It annoys me no end, seeing the same boring rundown of standard table rums extolled by journalists who don’t bother to do the most elementary research on what a good rum actually is, and make no effort to take the subject seriously. Earlier in 2015, in response to yet another vanilla listing of same-old-blah-blah-blah-rums-you-should-try written by someone who “discovered” rums on a weekend Caribbean safari (or was that the one put together by a hack who only now realized rum was a drink worth checking out?), [Click here for the full review…]

Ron Veroes Añejo – Review

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Aug 132015

Frankly, I get more excitement looking for the keys in my pocket. Like most people, the stuff I’ve tried from Venezuela are the Pamperos, the AJ Vollmer rums of Santa Teresa, and the Diplomaticos from Destileridas Unidas, the latter of which have recently been getting some flak on social media for their over-sugary backbones. Let me add to the Veno lineup with the Veroes, which won medals in 2012 from both the Madrid World Congress of Rum (and again in 2013) and from the XPs at the Miami Rum Renaissance. I think the Cacique 500 is knocking about somewhere, I’ll [Click here for the full review…]

La Favorite 1990 Rhum Vieux

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Aug 062015

Rumaniacs Review 008 | 0408 Founded in 1842 and remaining a small family owned outfit in Martinique, La Favorite makes this AOC designated rhum vieux, aged a minimum of three years (I’ve been told it is five years old). They make a big deal of the transmission of distillation technique and blending from father to son, as well as their selection of only the best cane, the natural fermentation, and controlled distillation (using steam powered equipment). I’ve gone into the history of the company a little more here. This gold rhum derives from pot still, issued at 40% in 1990. One [Click here for the full review…]

Rum Nation Caroni 1998 16 Year Old Rum – Review

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Aug 062015

Rum Nation Caroni 1998 16 Year Old Rum - Review

The last of the flight of seven Caronis I tried in depth back in 2014, and one of the better ones. There are two extremes to the Caronis: the limited release bottling from independent bottlers which are usually less than a thousand bottles, and Velier with its huge stockpile and multiple issues…so much so that one always has difficulty figuring out where to start with ‘em (the 12 year old 50% may be the best place). I have a feeling that Rum Nation’s take on the late great plantation’s rum is likely to be one of the more accessible [Click here for the full review…]

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