The Lone Caner – Page 63 – A Solo Reviewer's Take on Rums

El Dorado Finest Demerara 5 Year Old Rum – Review

Jul 302010

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…]

Kraken Black Spiced Rum – Review

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Jun 272010

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

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…]

Havana Club Cuban Barrel Proof Rum – Review

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Jun 092010

Havana Club Cuban Barrel Proof Rum - Review

First posted 9th June 2010 on Liquorature. Let’s be clear from the outset, that this is a true Cuban rum, not a product of the Bacardi line which produces a rum under the same name and which it is being litigated against. The marque was first created in 1878 by Jose Arechabala in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba. Some might argue that Fidel had no business nationalizing the company after he took over the country in 1959, but the current crop of rums, produced in a 50:50 partnership with Pernod-Ricard since 1994 suggests that quality has not suffered in the [Click here for the full review…]

El Dorado 25 Year Old Rum (1980)

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Jun 012010

This review was written in 2010 for the online rum magazine Rum Connection, and I add it here for completeness. F. Scott Fitzgerald famously noted that the rich are different from you and me. The same could possibly be said of premium rums at the top of the scale. They are so different, represent such an investment of time and effort, and are usually in such short supply that they come to represent something of the pinnacle of achievement in rum blending and production. Something rarefied, something out of the ordinary box in which most aged rums are placed. Something [Click here for the full review…]

Newfoundland Screech Rum – Review

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May 312010

First posted 31 May 2010 on Liquorature. All humour and snide Newfie jokes aside, Screech is a thoroughly rock solid rum: not brilliant at any one thing, it is simply good at everything without shining anywhere. Odd, but if you’re after something that just goes ahead and does what it does, here’s the one for you. One has to smile when seeing a name as evocative as Screech. It has all these connotations of pain about it, mixed up with the Newfie seafaring heritage and their backwoods image so beloved of Canadian humourists: and so one’s imagination goes riot as [Click here for the full review…]

Captain Morgan Private Stock – Review

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May 252010

First posted May 25th, 2010 on Liquorature. Surprisingly mellow sipper from a purveyor not noted for such drinks; not overly complex, but warm, buxom, heavy and with a rich nose and body. This is the Mother Hubbard of rums, to keep in the cupboard. Right from the get go I must mention that I’ve given Captain Morgan a wide berth thus far, simply because it always had a reputation as a low- to mid-level mixer. The fact that it was a spiced rum – whether or not it says it is – also added somewhat to its plebian cachet. Not [Click here for the full review…]

El Dorado Single Barrel ICBU Demerara Rum – Review

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May 242010

El Dorado Single Barrel ICBU Demerara Rum - Review

First posted 24 May 2010 on Liquorature. I always admire some level of originality, whether it is in food, drink, a book, movies or simply the way something looks. In an era of mass production and conformity, too much of what we buy or see is an exact copy of the same thing we bought or saw somewhere else. On that basis, I was quite happy to see Demerara Distillers’ square, tall bottle of the El Dorado Single Barrel ICBU when it was presented at the April 2010 session of the club, and since it was not only a [Click here for the full review…]

Appleton Estate 30 Year Old Rum – Review

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May 172010

Appleton Estate 30 Year Old Rum - Review

First posted May 17, 2010 on Liquorature. A smooth, complex, warm, rich and all-round-awesome creation which fails ever so slightly on the back stretch because of excessive oakiness, just enough to defer sainthood for Joy Spence. Should be drunk in miniscule sips, with hat off, and head bowed reverentially down. I’ve remarked before that there are only three ways of deciding whether to buy a rum you know nothing about and which you cannot taste to test in the shop: one, by price; two by information filtering through from others (i.e., word of mouth or one’s own research) and three, [Click here for the full review…]

Santa Teresa Antiguo de Solera 1796 – Review

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May 102010

Santa Teresa Antiguo de Solera 1796 - Review

First posted 10th May 2010 on Liquorature. I remember being somewhat unenthused with this rum from Venezuela when Scott trotted it out last year. Venezuelan rums seem to be a bit drier, with less body and not quite as sweet as those made in the Caribbean proper (I note that several online reviews have precisely the opposite opinion), and to my mind, that makes them best for mixers, not sippers. Still, I had never made good notes on this baby since I tried it for the first time, so, when both Keenan and Scott coincidentally came up with the [Click here for the full review…]

Cruzan Single Barrel Dark Rum – Review

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Apr 132010

First posted 13 April 2010 on Liquorature. Completely solid rum, that succeeds on many levels. Strong taste, well defined flavour profile, just enough sweet and a lovely dark body that doesn’t quit. Wow. A worthy addition to the shelf, to be doled out to real friends. Against the constant whine I make about rums not stating their proper age on the bottle (like some sly strumpet misrepresenting her quality), I have to concede that having a friend to not only help drink it but who’ll trot out his own cherished stocks to stretch out the binge is some small [Click here for the full review…]

Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva 15 year old rum – Review

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Mar 092010

Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva 15 year old rum - Review

First posted 9th March 2010 on Liquorature. For some reason, the Last Hippie was absolutely enthralled by the label design* of this Venezuelan import when Pat trotted it out for the February 2010 get-together, rhapsodically comparing it to a postage stamp, nearly swooning over the originality of it all. It was the first time I ever saw a label nearly bring a Peathead over to the Light and have a shot of the good stuff, but it fell just short of the mark, alas and perhaps embarrassed by his untoward display of emotion, he retreated to the other Scottish [Click here for the full review…]

Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva 15 Year Solera Rum – Review

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Feb 272010

Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva 15 Year Solera Rum - Review

First posted 27th February, 2010 on Liquorature. Having friends who will trot out cherished stocks of the good stuff for me to taste and comment on is always a plus. Having those who share my interests in rum, and pick up obscure bottles from odd distilleries in faraway places is even better. Granted every now and then one runs across paint thinner or liquified rat turds masquerading as rum, but in the main, the odds work in my favour. Still, though, I’ve had to take a leaf out of the Last Hippie’s book and always have a notebook on hand. [Click here for the full review…]

Bundaberg Rum – Review

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Feb 272010

First posted February 27, 2010 on Liquorature. (#014)(Unscored) Holy antipodean molasses, Batman: what the hell is this? Years from now, old farts will be discussing their first great love or hate of rum, and this one will surely make the short list. You either embrace this vile sipper or despise it for its difference, but you’ll never be indifferent, that’s for sure. *** Full of hope and expectations, Keenan and I traded rums over the table yesterday – in his direction went the El Dorado 21 year old (I had really wanted him to sample it since his snoot is more [Click here for the full review…]

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