Lemon Hart Demerara Rum (Standard Strength) – Review

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Oct 012010
 
Lemon Hart Demerara Rum (Standard Strength) - Review

First posted 01 October 2010 on Liquorature. Lemon Hart is an instructive case study in how one can chose a rum without knowing a damned thing about it. As I’ve noted on more than one occasion, if you go into a store without a blessed clue, you are down to three bases for your decision and only three: the price; the look; and knowledge you have when you enter the joint. Anything different is somebody else choosing for you. So here, what did I have? Well, the price for a flattie, which was less than twenty bucks; the look, which [Click here for the full review…]


Bacardi 151 Overproof Rum – Review

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Oct 012010
 
Bacardi 151 Overproof Rum - Review

First published 01 October 2010 on Liquorature. This deep-throated bellowing maniac of a rum does almost nothing well – but one thing so grandly it borders on Van Gogh-level insanity: it hits you in the face.  A lot.  Welcome to the lost week of your life. Even in the world of lesser rums, there is such a thing as subtlety…a whiff of class, or style, be it ever so humble. Bacardi, with this 151 proof beefcake, sneered long and loudly and stated flat out that they wanted no truck with that kind of pansy nonsense.  They stayed as far away [Click here for the full review…]


English Harbour 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Sep 252010
 
English Harbour 10 Year Old Rum - Review

Solid all round rum, probably better than most ten year olds around. First posted 25 September 2010 on Liquorature. I’ve been a little reticent about trying English Harbour Reserve ten year old, and have put it off for over a month now.  Its younger sibling the Five is such a good mixer and all round rum (it’s been a favourite of the club for some time), and its older brother the 25 is such a powerhouse in its own right, that it seemed almost like trying to make a good aged rum go up against…well, practically a pair of low and high end juggernaughts. [Click here for the full review…]


Bacardi 8 Year Old Rum – Review

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Sep 172010
 
Bacardi 8 Year Old Rum - Review

  First posted 17 September 2010 on Liquorature A tentative foray, a single spy, sent into the camp of the premium rums, perhaps to scout out the territory for further invasions to come (we can hope).  Capture one and be surprised by its low price and overall quality. If Bacardi can make this one, I don’t know why they don’t come charging into the high-end market in force. *** Maybe it’s just me, but I sometimes find stronger notes and more positive tastes at the middle and lower end of the price and snoot scale;  more premium rated rums can [Click here for the full review…]


El Dorado 15 Year Old Rum – Review

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Sep 102010
 
El Dorado 15 Year Old Rum - Review

First posted 10 September 2010 on Liquorature #036 The 15 year old is a different animal from it’s older and younger sublings, and resides on the top of the sippers lists of many a rum aficionado. The 15 year old is the bridge.  It is the last bottle in DDL’s premium line that will not set you back three figures, and still has the cheery character of a younger rum, the cheeky palate that dances and laughs across your tongue and then happily bitch slaps you for your trouble with all the insouciance of the first girl who ever refused [Click here for the full review…]


The Labelling of Rums

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Sep 012010
 
The Labelling of Rums

(First posted on Liquorature, September 2010) Rum connoisseurs and aficionados must occasionally weep with envy when they see the myriad regulations and hoops that whisky makers have to jump through when labelling their product. That sounds utterly counterintuitive, unless you’re trying to get a handle on what rum actually is – perhaps, like obscenity or time, you can’t define it, but you know it when you see it (or is that the Matrix…?). I think that the advantage whiskies have over rums in this regard, is the geographic nature of production: whisky is so markedly identified with just a few countries [Click here for the full review…]


Stroh 54 Austrian Overproof Rum – Review

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Aug 302010
 
Stroh 54 Austrian Overproof Rum - Review

First posted 30th August 2010 on Liquorature. When I was discoursing about rums with a Calgary Co-op liquor sales manager (in my normal sneering way, and for the usual reason), I asked about this odd little label from Austria, because, with my penetrating insight and encyclopedic knowledge, I was aware that Austria didn’t have any sugar cane fields  — Andrea from the cashier’s till was called over, and noted flatly (in that no-nonsense way that people use to inform you they know the Truth even if you’re too ignorant to), that she’d had them all, tried the lot, was Austrian into [Click here for the full review…]


Mount Gay Old Cask 1703 – Review

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Aug 282010
 
Mount Gay Old Cask 1703 - Review

Stunning.  Strong marriage of well balanced flavours, terrific nose and a silky finish marred ever so slightly by a slight bitterness at the tail end. A damned worthy entry at the top-end, showing Mount Gay is still a force to be reckoned with in the premium lines. First posted  28 August 2010 on Liquorature. Mount Gay.  The premier house of rum on Barbados, the oldest rum distillery in the world, and this rum, their premium product, first seen in 2009.  I was not entirely enthused with the Extra Old, but here, they have created a small gem that takes the [Click here for the full review…]


Smuggler’s Cove Dark Rum – Review

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Aug 182010
 
Smuggler's Cove Dark Rum - Review

First posted 18 August 2010 on Liquorature. Fresh from the intense concentration I brought to the Elements 8 Gold rum, I trotted out the flattie of Smuggler’s Cove Dark to chillax with.  I would have damaged the Young’s Old Sam, but it was almost done, so off I went to this one.  My more romantic side likes to think that the humourous and positive reviews of Newfie Screech and Lamb’s so impressed the family of one of my Maritime friends at the office, that when she went back to Nova Scotia for some R&R (rather more recreation than rest, I’d [Click here for the full review…]


Elements 8 Gold Rum – Review

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Aug 182010
 
Elements 8 Gold Rum - Review

First posted 18 August 2010 on Liquorature.  I’d seen this trapezoidal bottle once in a while on the occasional shelf in Calgary, but  I’d never been interested enough, or seen it in sufficient quantity – let alone heard anything about it – to decide whether it was worth a buy or not.  It was an interesting surprise when a very helpful gent from Co-op named Dan Ellis (may the ice in his glass never melt) sourced the thing out.  Now granted, I had been making sneery remarks at the paucity of his rum selection (as opposed to the Scottish drink) [Click here for the full review…]


Amrut Old Port Deluxe Rum – Review

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Jul 302010
 
Amrut Old Port Deluxe Rum - Review

First posted 30 July 2010 on Liquorature. Pungent, full and pleasant to drink.  Amrut may be taking the whisky world by storm, but I think this may have been the real shot across the bows Didn’t Clint and the Last Hippie just post good reviews of Amrut’s fusion whisky the other day?  In researching the second of three new rums for the July 2010 gathering, I discovered (much to my surprise), that the same company out of Bangalore India, makes this very capable young rum called Old Port (I can’t get any details on ageing, distillation methods or composition for [Click here for the full review…]


El Dorado Finest Demerara 5 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jul 302010
 
El Dorado Finest Demerara 5 Year Old Rum - Review

First posted 30 July 2010 on Liquorature. We’ve tasted the El Dorado 21 year old (a superb example of the distiller’s art) and I have a 12 year old kicking around somewhere that I’m awaiting the return of the Bear to crack, but since the low end of the scale was available, it formed the third part of the three-rum selection for the July 2010 gathering.  I’d like to point out that what Demerara Distillers markets abroad as 5-year, is vastly different from what is foisted on the local market in Guyana, and that’s a shame, since it says that leavings are [Click here for the full review…]


Mount Gay XO (Extra Old) Rum – Review

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Jul 302010
 
Mount Gay XO (Extra Old) Rum - Review

First posted 30 July 2010 on Liquorature You’re not looking at two images here by accident: both of these are Extra Old. The one on the right is the new design introduced perhaps a year or so ago, and what I bought was the one on the left. There’s some confusion in the literature as to what you’re getting: the one on the right is supposedly 15 year old blends, while the one on the left is stated on some websites to be 7, 8 and 10 years old blended together…what the hell? However, after having contacted Mount Gay’s customer [Click here for the full review…]


Flor de Caña Grand Reserve 7 yr old rum – Review

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Jul 212010
 
Flor de Caña Grand Reserve 7 yr old rum - Review

  Solid, even excellent, full-bodied, full-tasting mixing rum (some with stronger constitutions than mine may disagree).  I’d take it neat only with some caution, and would simply not advise it this way, though you are welcome to try. When you’re going on a deliberate bender, or attending a bash where you know the drinking will be copious, there’s about zero point to being pretentious  about it.  You dress like a peon, you bring some cheap stuff with you (or supply it), and you don’t waste a whole lot of time snooting, tooting, gargling, tasting and spitting. You’re there to have [Click here for the full review…]


Doorly’s XO Barbados Rum – Review

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Jun 302010
 
Doorly's XO Barbados Rum - Review

  This rum is simply too weak and underpowered. It is the Prince Myshkyn of rums. Bajans like to say they did everything first, annoy and harass no end of Guyanese travelling through Grantley Adams, and are a suitably soft-spoken, deprecating folk to boot (“You may enter the war; Barbados is on your side,” went that famously modest telegram to King George in 1939).   However, research shows their claim to produce the first commercial rums in the western hemisphere is likely to be true. Mount Gay is of course the most famous and widely exported, but for some reason they [Click here for the full review…]


Rhum Clément X.O. Très Vieux- Review

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Jun 302010
 
Rhum Clément X.O. Très Vieux- Review

First posted 30 June 2010 on Liquorature. A superlative agricole with good body, marvellous complexity and a really strong, spicy fade; yet not as sweet as some rums drinkers might like.  As of this writing I’m not entirely won over by it (or agricoles as a whole), but concede the excellence of its make without hesitation. Abandoned by all the ladies in my family for the afternoon, tasked with making sure my two boys didn’t get into a fight over the Wii, I whiled away the hours by taking an appreciative sniff, slurp and swallow of this expensive rhum agricole [Click here for the full review…]


Kraken Black Spiced Rum – Review

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Jun 272010
 
Kraken Black Spiced Rum - Review

  First posted 27 June 2010 on Liquorature. (#027)(Unscored) Overproofed, overpriced, overrated. *** Kraken Black — the selection for the June 2010 Book Club session — is a victory of advertising over the reality of what it is, of style over substance for those who are ok with it, a low-to-middling value (~$28 Can) wrapped up in a presentation that would have you believe the price is an undiscovered steal.  A lot of people are going to drink this thing, wax loquacious at the spice, admire the darkness and say “wow!” I’m afraid, though, that’s just knee-jerk, because you take [Click here for the full review…]


Lamb’s Navy Rum – Review

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Jun 222010
 
Lamb's Navy Rum - Review

First posted 22 June 2010 on Liquorature. “The spice must flow,” said the Padishah Emperor in Dune. I agree, because I do love my cheap-ass spiced rums. My sweet tooth and plebian background make having a rum with no stratospheric price or ostentatious pedigree such a pleasant experience, truly.  And I could tell, that day when I trotted out the Renegade 1991 for my Newfie squaddie (who snatched it happily out of my hand with a speed his corpulent frame does not begin to hint at), that even if I was a snob with pretensions to the peasantry, he had more [Click here for the full review…]


Rhum Barbancourt Reserve Speciale 8 Year Old Rum – Review

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Jun 192010
 
Rhum Barbancourt Reserve Speciale 8 Year Old Rum - Review

  First posted 19 June 2010 on Liquorature. Barbancourt.  Just roll that on your tongue and you can almost hear the whisper of words both foreign and exotic – Barbarossa the Ottoman privateer; the Barbary Coast; Hispaniola; bucaneer…the name reeks deliciously of of piracy.  And aside from peg legs, parrots, cutlasses, the Spanish Main and caravels of looted or buried treasure, is there any product more identified with the term than that of their most famous drink? I have to admit that it was the romance of the name and origin – and some honest curiosity –  that made me [Click here for the full review…]


Havana Club 7 Year Old Cuban Rum – Review

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Jun 192010
 
Havana Club 7 Year Old Cuban Rum - Review

First posted 19 June 2010 on Liquorature. So much of how I remember a drink and rate it, comes from the circumstances in which I sampled it. The woman I was with in that special restaurant when I feigned sophisticated insouciance over an unpronounceable rum.  The Irish pub in Berlin where my brother and I got a little sloshed on some cheap crap tipple at a Rugby World Cup match we watched years ago, the name of which I can never remember, but which tasted so great that I go all soft with the memory long after the laughter has [Click here for the full review…]


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