The Namesake

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Mar 202013
 
The Namesake

The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri The Namesake is a family drama that illuminates the author’s signature themes: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the tangled ties between generations. The novel takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of an arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ashoke does his best to adapt while his wife pines for home. When their son, Gogol, is born, the task of naming him betrays their hope of respecting old ways in a new world. And we watch as [Click here for the full review…]


Red Mars

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Mar 202013
 
Red Mars

“Red Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson is probably the best hard science fiction tale of planetary colonization ever written, and is followed by two sequels, neither of which rise to the greatness of this first novel. It harks back to the Golden Age of science fiction in the forties and fifties, when John W. Campbell edited Astounding Stories and pioneered similar types of narrative, where real men and women dealt with the universe in logical, almost engineering-like ways. “Red Mars” spans a period of some fifty years, and has elements of utopionaism, dystopianism, politics, engineering, technological futurism and interpersonal dynamics [Click here for the full review…]


A.D.Rattray Barbados (Foursquare) 2003 9 year old rum – Review

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Mar 142013
 
A.D.Rattray Barbados (Foursquare) 2003 9 year old rum - Review

To date, the only A.D. Rattray rum I’ve tried was the excellent Caroni 1997, which was quite impressive, if no longer readily available. To this is now added their Barbados 9 year old, also bottled at 46%, non chill filtered, with exactly zero additives, very much in line with the puritan, zen-like production ethic that so characterizes, oh, Cadenhead. This one was taken from a single barrel for the likker establishment “Wine & Beyond” in Edmonton (they have a few others as well, but my slender purse ran out and Mrs. Caner was watching). I must say that after decanting this [Click here for the full review…]


Film vs Digital

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Mar 132013
 
Film vs Digital

Later this year (2010), a milestone in photographic history will be reached: the last produced roll of kodachrome print film and ektachrome slide film – Kodak’s famous workhorse of pro-photographers for three-quarters of a century – will be developed in the last lab still to process its demanding Ex chemistry (for those who are interested, it’s Dwayne’s Photo Service, in Parsons, Kansas).  Appropriately enough, that last roll will be shot by veteran National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry, who made that famous “Afghan Girl” photo. Some herald it as a final nail in digital’s ascendancy over film.  As an enthusiastic amateur, [Click here for the full review…]


Wives and the El Dorado Problem

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Mar 132013
 
Wives and the El Dorado Problem

The El Dorado Problem is that pitiful state of affairs reached when a truly superior rum appears on the shelf, demurely winking at you to buy it….and you don’t have the cash because it’s just outside (or way outside) your price range. It comes from yours truly, who realized he had such a problem when attempting to buy the El Dorado 25 year old a few years ago. Many of us netizens and lurkers in the rumiverse are at that stage where young families are the phase of life – children still in the single digits, a wife whose ring still has some [Click here for the full review…]


An Introduction to Rum and the Site

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Mar 132013
 
An Introduction to Rum and the Site

This introduction was first posted on the Liquorature site in January 2010, the ported to the Lone Caner in 2013 and lightly edited for updates in 2022. But it remains a product of the time I wrote it, so if it feels and reads dated, that’s because it is. Ahh, rum.  The wonderful distilled product of cane.  I feel the same way about it as the poor deluded souls from the Peat Clan feel about their Islays.  Partly, of course, that comes from my background – almost half my life was spent in the Caribbean – and while my first [Click here for the full review…]


Single Digit Rums

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Mar 132013
 

(First posted on Liquorature, February 2010) Are we all a bunch of elitist wannabe snobs? I occasionally think we are. We can be as snooty as a veteran somelier at the Ritz watching a Hawaiian-shirted redneck walk in, and I say that because it ocurred to me the other day that while we — I!! — pay lip service to the “lesser rums” whose age is measured in single digits (or none at all, as if the maker were too ashamed to say how young the product is), the truth is that we all have a predilection for the older [Click here for the full review…]


Stills, Stills and More Stills

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Mar 132013
 
Stills, Stills and More Stills

So what exactly are pot stills or columnar stills, batch vs continuous stills, steam distillation, freezing distillation or fractional distillation in the production of rum (or that other scottish drink)?  And which one leads to better rum? I mean, I’ve made mention of “used the original pot stills” in my Pusser’s review, and in “Classifying rums” I noted that useage of pot- versus columnar-stills is to some extent geographic in nature and affects the output.  And there’s something traditional and evocative about the terms.  But what are they? All stills (the word derives from old middle english ‘distilling’) are descendants of [Click here for the full review…]


The Proof’s In the Drinking

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Mar 132013
 
The Proof's In the Drinking

It seems simple to say that an 80-proof rum is actually just 40% alcohol by volume based on a straightforward mathematical operation, but strictly speaking, it is not true. Actually, using the historical British method in force until 1980, a 40% ABV drink is 70 proof It has long been a problem to decide exactly how strong a given drink was (or is).  From the ancient times, Archimedes’s principle was used to determine specific gravities (i.e., density) by use of hydrometers, but I can trace no records that show the consistent, state-mandated application of the principle to establishing the alcohol [Click here for the full review…]


Ron de Jeremy “Adult” Rum – Review

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Mar 132013
 
Ron de Jeremy "Adult" Rum - Review

Come on now, be honest, why did you really buy this product? How can one ignore the advertising and marketing behind something as evocatively (or crassly) named as Ron de Jeremy, distributed by One-Eyed Spirits? There is almost nothing I can write that would not in some way be seen by the average reader as a mandingo-esque, pornographic allusion. I think the best — nay, perhaps the only — way I can approach this review is to do a full one-eighty course change, sink deep into the netherworlds of geekdom and nerd nirvana, and reference a great epos of wishful [Click here for the full review…]


Tintin in Tibet

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Mar 092013
 
Tintin in Tibet

  Tintin is becoming a worldwide phenomenon (again) as a result of Jackson & Spielberg’s 2011 film adaptation (long overdue, in my opinion, and thank the Lord they didn’t do it in live action). Me, I’ve been a fan since my childhood, and have had the entire collection at several points in my life (they keep getting pinched by young friends and relatives, who are drawn to the adventures and Herge’s signature drawing style). I wanted to do a review of one of his adventures, even though, to purists, I imagine that it is not necessarily a book per se, [Click here for the full review…]


Berry Bros. & Rudd 1975 Reserve Demerara Rum (Port Mourant) – Review

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Mar 012013
 
Berry Bros. & Rudd 1975 Reserve Demerara Rum (Port Mourant) - Review

Tropic Thunder Building a boutique, aged superrum at the top end of the scale – whether that scale is price or power or both – is at best an uncertain business. Too expensive, nobody will buy it, too oomphed-up and too many won’t try it. Both together and you’ll scare away all but the wealthy who casually buy not one but several of the Appleton 50s. I think that this 46% rum hits all the high notes and finds a harmonious balance between age, price and proofage. It may be among the best rums I’ve tried so far, in my lonely [Click here for the full review…]


Coruba 12 year old “Cigar” Jamaican rum – Review

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Feb 242013
 
Coruba 12 year old "Cigar" Jamaican rum - Review

  A proverbial harridan of rums, thin, dry, harsh and critical of everything you do with and to it. I call mine “Jimbo.” Coruba. That brings back memories. Remember that original shuddering bastard of a mixer I reviewed some years back? It was made in Jamaica but mostly sold in New Zealand, with a trickle going in other directions (like Alberta, or Europe, where a friend picked it up for me for about fifty Euros). It was rough and tough and a powerful inducement to give up spirits altogether. I wrote rather humourously in my original Coruba review, that one should [Click here for the full review…]


Panamonte Reserva XXV 25 Year Old Rum – Review

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Feb 132013
 
Panamonte Reserva XXV 25 Year Old Rum - Review

Bottled evening sunset. Among the best of all the 40% Panamanian rums I’ve tried thus far…though that is not quite what the endorsement it seems. The Panamonte XXV has, since its introduction, received such rave reviews across the board – it may be one of the most critic-proof rums ever made – that it’s led one reviewer (who I note has not done a formal write up or, perhaps, even tried it) to complain vociferously and with unbecoming language about the lemming like behavior of the bloggers who are supposedly in the pockets of the industry and who put over-the-top [Click here for the full review…]


Dictador 20 Yr Old Solera Rum – Review

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Feb 092013
 
Dictador 20 Yr Old Solera Rum - Review

  Attempts a fine balance, but topples ever so slightly at both beginning and end. I had this 40% seventy-dollar Colombian rum after a fiery Indian food-fest served by the January Liquorature host who had selected Rohinton Mistry’s epic book, and really, what was I thinking? – the fiery heat muffled and deadened the taste buds…but it says a lot for Dictador that even under the assault of such tongue-numbing spices, I was still able to appreciate it. And after coming home, I tried it on and off over the next week just to nail down the nuances. Coffee. Yeah, [Click here for the full review…]


Panama Red 108 Overproof Rum – Review

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Feb 022013
 
Panama Red 108 Overproof Rum - Review

A victory of Nurture versus Nature.  The Panama Red (named for some lady of possible legend in a story too long to go into here but which you can certainly google) is perhaps better categorized as a full proof rum, something between about 47-70%. I make the distinction in order to separate such rums from the standard strength of 38-46% which we see most often, and those we tend to think of as real overproofs, 57% or greater (the article “The Proof’s In The Drinking” goes into somewhat more detail on the topic). However, since it is termed an overproof [Click here for the full review…]


Rum Nation Martinique Anniversary Edition 12 year old – Review

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Jan 202013
 
Rum Nation Martinique Anniversary Edition 12 year old - Review

Like an elderly doddering relative, it requires a little coaxing and care to be appreciated fully Quite aside from my laughter (and that of everyone else at the KWM tasting where it was trotted out) at the box in which the RN Martinique Anniversary Edition Rhum Agricole 12 year old reposed, the single emotion gripping me as I tasted it was respect. Respect for its bottle, the box, the rum and above all, it’s primal excellence. Here’s a rum that takes the run of the mill low-end agricoles we are all so much more used to, and equals or tops [Click here for the full review…]


Velier Albion 1994 17 Year Old Full Proof Old Demerara Rum – Review

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Jan 182013
 
Velier Albion 1994 17 Year Old Full Proof Old Demerara Rum - Review

Corentyne Thunder. Full proof rums – I like that term. There’s a desert of rum strengths between 46% and 75%, the latter of which is what is often referred to as an overproof (for my money, anything over 50% qualifies). So to use “full-proof” seems right to distinguish rums in that arid wasteland of strength. They are the closest that rums will ever get, in my opinion, to the expressions of whiskies my sadly misguided Liquorite squaddies swoon over. I hang around those scotch swilling maltsters enough to understand the hushed and trembling voices, the bared and bowed heads and [Click here for the full review…]


Rum Nation Martinique Hors D’Age (2010) – Review

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Jan 112013
 
Rum Nation Martinique Hors D’Age (2010) - Review

  All round excellent younger agricole from the House of Fabio Rossi. Rum Nation’s agricole rum from Martinique, the Hors D’age, is not quite as sublime as the other products of the company about which I have so enthusiastically written, but this should not dissuade anyone who enjoys the French island rums from trying it, since the overall quality is quietly impressive. I tasted this in conjunction with the Karukera Millesime 15 year old which I knew was a damned good rum, and if the RN didn’t quite come up to snuff with respect to its more aged competitor, it careened across [Click here for the full review…]


The 2012 Wrap Up

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Jan 102013
 
The 2012 Wrap Up

(An abridged form of the Liquorature wrap up, posted January 2013) 2012 is drawing to a close, and many sites are beginning their top-however-many lists. The Hippie has drawn up a list of his favourite drams of the year on ATW, the Rum Howler has got his lists of top rums and whiskies he’s tried, film critics will put out their top ten lists as usual, and here I’ll join in and review how the year went from Liquorature’s perspective, including – of course! – my own discoveries of the year and my own take as a reviewer of rums. The primus [Click here for the full review…]


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