Renaissance Distillery 2018 4 YO Taiwan Rum (Cognac) – Review

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Sep 262023
 
Renaissance Distillery 2018 4 YO Taiwan Rum (Cognac) - Review

This is the third review in the short series where we look at some rums released by the Taiwan based Renaissance Distillery, which were on display in a 2023 TWE Rumshow masterclass dedicated to the company. It should be noted that the company has issued scores of full proof single cask releases already, so at best this scratches the surface. Although the little Renaissance Distillery on Taiwan was officially founded in 2017, many years of small-scale under-the-radar tinkering and experimentation preceded that. The husband and wife team of Linya Chiou and Olivier Caen started a small spirits import company on [Click here for the full review…]


Don Q “Cristal” White Rum – Review

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Sep 222023
 
Don Q "Cristal" White Rum - Review

Don Q is the other big brand from Puerto Rico that many believe has bragging rights over the Big Bad Bat when it comes to quality, yet somehow does not inhabit as a deep a mindspace as Bacardi does. The brand is very well known in the US and Canada (though I don’t see it for sale out west very often) but I get the impression it’s somewhat less of a thing in Europe or Asia – probably because they have plenty of brands of their own and so don’t exist in the same spirituous desert. Don Q is the [Click here for the full review…]


Renaissance Distillery 2019 3 YO Taiwan Rum (Deuxième Cru Classé) – Review

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Sep 182023
 
Renaissance Distillery 2019 3 YO Taiwan Rum (Deuxième Cru Classé) - Review

This is the second review in the short series where we look at some rums released by the Taiwan-based Renaissance Distillery, which were on display in a 2023 TWE Rumshow masterclass dedicated to the company. It should be noted that the company has issued dozens of full proof single cask releases already, so at best this scratches the surface. For a rum younger than three years to give such a good account of itself is no mean feat, yet Renaissance Distillery out of Taiwan has done just that with this 2½ YO rum that in most other circumstances would be [Click here for the full review…]


Woods Old Charlie Jamaica Rum 70° Proof (1970s)

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Sep 152023
 
Woods Old Charlie Jamaica Rum 70° Proof (1970s)

Rumaniacs Review R-158 | #1025 Most people in the UK are familiar with the Woods brand and the rise of online auctions over the last years spread knowledge further, so it’s become reasonably common knowledge that Woods was founded in 1887 and bought by William Grant & Sons from Diageo in 2002 along with OVD and Vat 19. However, Diageo’s ownership seems to have been rather recent – they acquired the Woods brand from Seagram in 2000 when that company merged with Vivendi and divested some of its properties. Seagram’s acquisition of Woods was much earlier, though: there is a [Click here for the full review…]


Renaissance Distillery 2018 4 YO Taiwan Rum (Limousin Cask) Rum – Review

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Sep 102023
 
Renaissance Distillery 2018 4 YO Taiwan Rum (Limousin Cask) Rum - Review

Over the next few weeks I’ll issue a set of reviews of the rums released by the Taiwan-based Renaissance Distillery, which were on display in a 2023 TWE Rumshow masterclass dedicated to the company. One rum of the six that were demonstrated that afternoon — the #18260 “Fino” — has already been reviewed, so this short series will concentrate on the remaining five. It has taken almost a decade for the small distillery called Renaissance to become a presence on the global rum stage, and four of those years were spent essentially operating as an unlicensed, near-illegal moonshinery. Olivier Caen [Click here for the full review…]


Bristol Spirits Guyana-Guadeloupe Overproof Rum – Review

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Sep 062023
 
Bristol Spirits Guyana-Guadeloupe Overproof Rum - Review

Bristol Spirits – also known as Bristol Classic Rum — holds the distinction of being one of the earlier independent UK bottlers who was and remains specifically not a distillery or a whisky bottler, such as the ones which held sway in the 1980s and 1990s. While Gordon & MacPhail, A.D. Rattray, Cadenhead and a few other companies from Scotland occasionally amused themselves by issuing a rum, few took it seriously, and even the indie Italians like Samaroli and Moon Imports and Rum Nation took a while to get in on the act. Of course, the worm is turning and [Click here for the full review…]


St. Nicholas Abbey 5 YO Single Cask Overproof Barbados Rum – Review

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Sep 012023
 
St. Nicholas Abbey 5 YO Single Cask Overproof Barbados Rum - Review

Foursquare and WIRD and Mount Gay grab the lion’s share of social media attention from which originates so much of our news from Barbados, and so we sometimes overlook the fourth rum maker on the island, St. Nicholas Abbey.  They are a small boutique distillery that became famous a decade ago for their lovely etched squarish bottles which you could once get refilled at a discount if you presented it at the distillery (maybe no longer now, alas). SNA remains tiny in comparison with the other distilleries, run as part of a heritage site of the same name, and managed [Click here for the full review…]


Mandakini Malabari Vaatté, Unaged Sugar Cane Spirit – Review

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Aug 292023
 
Mandakini Malabari Vaatté, Unaged Sugar Cane Spirit - Review

The real question is not so much how good this Malabari Vaatté, is, where it originates, or what it purports to be…but what exactly it is. Part of the issue surrounding the Mandakini is that the wording on the label could equally well be describing a real rum, a disguised alcoholic beverage claiming to be one, a spiced spirit, or some peculiar amalgam of all of the above.  The rum (I’ll use the term for now) is made in Canada, and therefore falls into the rabbit hole of the country’s arcane liquor laws, one of which, like Australia’s, states that [Click here for the full review…]


Killik Handcrafted Rum “Gold” (2023) – Review

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Aug 252023
 
Killik Handcrafted Rum "Gold" (2023) - Review

Killik distillery, located in the east of Melbourne, is one of the “New Australian” outfits I have an eye out for: like others located up and down the east coast of Australia (and elsewhere), they are seeking to bootstrap a homegrown rum industry into something greater by applying modern techniques to old-style rum-making and adding an occasional dash of crazy to set themselves apart. So far it’s mostly local sales that keep these small and often family-owned operations afloat, yet slowly their reputation is spreading beyond the Bundies and Beenleighs everyone knows. The Boutique-y Rum Company’s recent bottlings of Black [Click here for the full review…]


Doorly’s “Macaw” Barbados White Rum (Late 2010s)

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Aug 222023
 
Doorly's "Macaw" Barbados White Rum (Late 2010s)

Rumaniacs Review #R-157 | #1019 Somehow, in all this time of reviewing rums from around the world, from around Barbados, and from within the Foursquare oeuvre, I never got around to looking at the Doorly’s “Macaw” white rum. Not the new 40% 3YO and its 47% ABV sibling which is in line with the redesigned and now-consistently labelled range as it currently exists (3YO, 5YO, 8YO, XO, 12YO and 14YO, and if this piques your curiosity just head over to Alex’s excellent vertical review of the lot) but the rather older and more venerable one at 40% and a sky [Click here for the full review…]


Outlier Distilling Co. “Hurricane” Overproof White Rum – Review

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Aug 182023
 
Outlier Distilling Co. “Hurricane" Overproof White Rum – Review

Outlier Distiller’s overproofed “Hurricane” is a jolt of adrenaline to the heart, an amazing rum of remarkable qualities which took me so by surprise that I kept it on the go for the best part of a day in a glass I refused to put away (or rinse out, much to the horror of Mrs. Caner). The previous rums in the company’s oeuvre – Hoolie and Punk Croc – were pretty good for their place and time and the producers’ experience, but the Hurricane took it to another level entirely. Most who tasted it at the 2023 TWE Rumshow that [Click here for the full review…]


ABC Gold Label Tropical Rum Superior (1970s/1980s)

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Aug 142023
 
ABC Gold Label Tropical Rum Superior (1970s/1980s)

Rumaniacs Review #R-156 | 1017 ABC Distillers is not a distillery of any kind, but a brand of rums still being made (with different labels), on behalf of the ABC Fine Wines and Spirits liquor chain in Florida, brought to life by Florida Distillers (no direct connection, just a commercial one), and in this case dating back to the seventies and eighties.  ABC is a chain founded in Orlando just after Prohibition ended, in 1936 — originally it was a series of bar-and-lounge establishments named after its founder (Jack Holloway) but seeing the opportunities and lesser risks of the retail [Click here for the full review…]


Bundaberg Overproof Extra Bold Australian Rum – Review

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Aug 102023
 
Bundaberg Overproof Extra Bold Australian Rum – Review

Bundaberg — or “Bundie” — may the most globally famous rum from Australia, the rum that (according to the local wags) coke, ginger beer and weekends were invented for. Even if you’ve never seen a bottle or tried it, you’ve likely heard the name. Aussies seem to love hating on it with a sort of gruff affection, but God help the gronk or the pom who disses the thing – then you get comments like Gunnar’s, which, I have to be honest, made me laugh harder than the closing sentences of the latest Plantation diss. Though they have something of [Click here for the full review…]


Outlier Distilling Co. “Punk Croc” White Rum – Review

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Aug 042023
 
Outlier Distilling Co. “Punk Croc" White Rum – Review

Unlike the completely unaged white “Hoolie” we looked at before, Outlier Distilling Co.’s Punk Croc is in fact aged, just a bit, in spite of its appearance that would suggest none at all.  Perhaps Rick and Ian, the insouciant distillers from that milkshed-based distillery on the Isle of Man, felt that the screaming vibes of the colourful label and the crazy title didn’t need any competition from some dark colouring. It is, on the other hand, just a bit stronger at 43%, but in most respects the hilariously named (and drawn) Punk Croc – these guys have a great sense [Click here for the full review…]


English Harbour “Cœur de Savalle” 8YO High Proof Antigua Rum – Review

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Jul 312023
 
English Harbour "Cœur de Savalle" 8YO High Proof Antigua Rum - Review

Antigua Distillers, the makers of the English Harbour brand of rums, has always held a soft spot in my heart, since it was their exceptional 1981 25 YO which kickstarted my desire to not just jot down tasting notes at the Liquorature rum club, but to actually go publish them (it’s review #R-0001).  Over the years that followed I tried as many of their offerings as could be reasonably acquired: their standard five year old and 10 year old rums, the port, madeira and sherry cask experimentals, and some of the High Congener series. Sometime around 2021 they whipped out [Click here for the full review…]


Outlier Distilling Co. “Hoolie” Unaged White Rum – Review

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Jul 282023
 
Outlier Distilling Co. "Hoolie" Unaged White Rum - Review

You can bet your bottom dollar that every review or writeup about the cannily named Outlier Distilling Company will find some way to mention that it’s not in the Caribbean (see?) but somewhere strange off the beaten track – the Isle of Man in this case – and has a name that is completely appropriate to what it is. And without doubt, most will also note that the founders, Rick Dacey and Ian Warborn-Jones, set up shop in a small milking shed in a farm there, because, y’know, stuff like this just writes itself and it would be criminal to [Click here for the full review…]


DDL Diamond Reserve 151 Overproof White Rum – Review

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Jul 252023
 
DDL Diamond Reserve 151 Overproof White Rum - Review

Sometimes I get the uneasy impression that slowly the 151s are fading from common collective rumconsciousness. These long-lived, much-used and oft-feared high proof rums – bottled at what was for years almost the standard for really strong rums (75.5%) and outdone only by a few – were once the kings of the stronger drinks mixes (like the B-52 and the Zombie for example), and many cocktails called for them by number, not name or brand. Yet in my lifetime, we have seen more and more strong rums at high proof invading the market, and even some regular blends are inching [Click here for the full review…]


HSE ‘La Belle Heure Titouan Lamazou’ 2021 Rhum Agricole Blanc – Review

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Jul 192023
 
HSE 'La Belle Heure Titouan Lamazou' 2021 Rhum Agricole Blanc - Review

HSE – or Habitation Saint Etienne – is a small distillery on Martinique whose products I dally with on and off like a lovelorn swain who can’t make up his mind. They have all the usual products attendant upon Martinique’s distilling scene: unaged blancs, aged agricoles of various years with a finish or special barrrel ageing thrown in here or there, the occasional millesime, indie bottlers’ outputs and even a parcellaire or two for those who like to take apart miniscule deviations in a single distillery’s profile. All of the rhums from the distillery which I’ve tried have been very [Click here for the full review…]


Original Hana Bay Premium White Rum (1980s)

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Jul 032023
 
Original Hana Bay Premium White Rum (1980s)

Rumaniacs Review R-155 | 1010 By now we’ve looked at Hana Bay and its other incarnations like Whaler’s and Spirit of Hawaii from Hawaiian Distillers a few times (here, here, here, and here) and there’s nothing new to say abut it. It is no longer being made and the company bio is brief. Hawaiian Distillers made Hana Bay rum from around the 1980s forwards and in 2002 it switched to being made in Kentucky by the brand owners at the time, Heaven Hill, who had acquired the brand from the Levecke Corporation in that year…though they may have just tossed [Click here for the full review…]


Worthy Park 2013 5 YO Double Matured Rum (Cask Selection No.6 “Virgin Oak”) – Review

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Jun 302023
 
Worthy Park 2013 5 YO Double Matured Rum (Cask Selection No.6 "Virgin Oak") - Review

Worthy Park rums at any age just seem to go for the boundary, every single time – no matter how it turns out. The results are rums of consistently decent (or high) quality, day in and day out, and I rarely find a failure, a flea-bitten dog or an also-ran glue-factory candidate in any of them – and this goes all the way back to Rum Nation’s unaged white from 2014 (now matured into one of their regular five year old rums), or the Compagnie’s 2007 7YO and 8 YO  released in 2015. All of which, for their time, shook [Click here for the full review…]


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