The Lone Caner – Page 62 – A Solo Reviewer's Take on Rums

El Dorado 25 Year Old Rum (Millenium Edition) – Review

Oct 262010

First posted Oct 26, 2010 on Liquorature. Note: I have written a companion piece to this review for RumConnection here: it’s more tightly researched, a bit longer, and takes a more structured approach. But both this review and that one are of a piece, and I hope you enjoy them Of all the rums reviewed here, I believe that the only reasonably complete “age set” of a single distillery’s products I’ve managed to buy is the el Dorado line. Somehow, Calgary seemed to have gotten most of the el Dorado aged rums over time, though some of the estate editions are missing [Click here for the full review…]

Clarke’s Court Pure White Rum – Review

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Oct 212010

First posted 21 October, 2010. (#041)(Unscored) A strong white overproof, of which not much can be said, since I had an adulterated version: but that “bush” is one of the most evocative, crazy experiences I’ve ever had, and if you brave the Spice Island to get some, more power to you. *** I have never had a rum like this one, and I know that 99.99% of the people reading this (even if you’re from the Caribbean) haven’t either. No, really. When was the last time you a had a 138 proof rum with what looks suspiciously like a worm [Click here for the full review…]

Gosling’s Black Seal Bermuda Rum – Review

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Oct 132010

Gosling’s Black Seal Bermuda Rum – Review

First posted 13 October 2010 on Liquorature My younger brother and I have always had an excellent relationship, and the other day when I was in Toronto (I drove there from Cowtown) we had a small session, even though we didn’t have anything special to sample – to my surprise, the LCBO prices were higher than those in Calgary and so I simply laughed at the $550 for the Appleton 30 yr old, or the $120 for the El Dorado 21 and bought the Gosling’s Black Seal. Gosling’s hails from Bermuda: like Appleton’s, Mount Gay or el Dorado, it is [Click here for the full review…]

Captain Morgan’s Original Spiced Rum – Review

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Oct 132010

Captain Morgan's Original Spiced Rum - Review

First posted 13 October, 2010 on Liquorature The best selling and most commonly quoted spiced rum in the world. It’s the standard by which all other spiced rums are measured not because of its excellence, precisely, but because of its overall “okay-ness”. It’s okay everywhere while being truly outstanding at little. It’s sweetness and spice are part of the appeal. The fact that this is a low end mixer should not dissuade you from giving it a shot (no pun intended) if you’re in the mood for a reasonably low-priced little something. It’s about on the same level as the [Click here for the full review…]

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

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

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

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

(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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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…]

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