Plantation Barbados Grande Reserve Aged Rum – Review

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Apr 102023
 
Plantation Barbados Grande Reserve Aged Rum - Review

At first I thought the Barbados Grande Reserve Aged Rum was a replacement for the five year old Barbados rum from Plantation which I had tried many years ago, but further investigation showed them to be quite separate.  Both, however, are part of the Signature blends which include the Barbados 5, the XO, Grand Anejo and Xaymaca — these are what one might infer are entry level rums for the curious (to call them ‘premium’ would be a stretch). They are neither bartenders’ mixing staples like the Three Star, OFTD or Original Dark, nor expensive limited editions like the upscale [Click here for the full review…]


Ironworks Distillery “Bluenose” Dark Rum – Review

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Apr 032023
 
Ironworks Distillery "Bluenose" Dark Rum - Review

The first thing one notices about the rum, even before it’s poured, is the colour – dark, almost black, with reddish tints, and completely not natural. This creates both expectations and dread in the reviewer because firstly, there’s the whole question of additives, and secondly, it suggests the channelling of the Navy Rum vibe of yore, complete with cutlasses, yo ho hos and some sort of faux-Demerara vibe to deceive the unwary. This does not usually end well. It’s a relief then, that neither of these is obviously or obnoxiously the case, and in fact, the rum presents rather well [Click here for the full review…]


Ian Macleod No. 34 “Diamond of Frederiksberg” Demerara Rum (2003)

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Mar 302023
 
Ian Macleod No. 34 "Diamond of Frederiksberg" Demerara Rum (2003)

Rumaniacs Review #146 | R-0985 This is one of those rare instances where the subject is not some dusty old find from Ago with dust flaking from its shoulders, but a relatively recent bottling; and rather more than less is known about the rum, because in this instance, not only did I have the bottle in my grubby little paws, but happily it was also sporting a quite informative label. Oh, and it was a great Guyanese rum to boot.  Those who bought one are surely happy they did so, or should be. This was an independent bottling done for [Click here for the full review…]


Co-Op Spirits Caribbean White Rum (Minhas Distillery) – Review

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Mar 272023
 
Co-Op Spirits Caribbean White Rum (Minhas Distillery) - Review

What we are trying today is the Co-Op Caribbean White Rum, which at around C$30 or less is comfortably within the reach of anyone’s purse if perhaps not their purpose. The rum is supplied to the Co-Op supermarket chain by a very interesting Calgary-based company called Minhas Distillery, which until recently didn’t have a distillery in the city, just a brewery, and whatever spirits they produced came from a distillery down in Wisconsin…which is all less than helpful in tracing the product since rum is really not in their portfolio. What Co-op sells is a white rum in a sleek [Click here for the full review…]


Compagnie des Indes Fiji 2010 (Secret Distillery) 10 Year Old – Review

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Mar 232023
 
Compagnie des Indes Fiji 2010 (Secret Distillery) 10 Year Old - Review

Compagnie des Indes, run by the flamboyant and cheerful Florent Beuchet, was one of the first independent bottlers whose rums I found and started reviewing, along with Rum Nation and the original Renegade and yes, Velier. The small company is still going strong, and after having made its bones with some really good single cask bottlings — I have fond memories of their Indonesian rum, for example — did some very unusual one-offs (Florida, Thailand, Ghana, El Salvador), and also expanded into blends, much as 1423 has done, with names as evocative as Tricorn, Blacklice, Boulet de Canon, Veneragua, Barbagaya, [Click here for the full review…]


Dzama Rum Cuvée Blanche (Madgascar) – Review

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Mar 202023
 
Dzama Rum Cuvée Blanche (Madgascar) - Review

Madagascar’s best known distillery’s rums have been the subject of three reviews in these pages, stretching from 2014 to 2021, yet even now it is unclear whether this has made anyone sit up and pay attention. For the most part the rum drinkers’ attention remained resolutely with the Caribbean nations, or the new ones emerging elsewhere – suggesting that while Madagascar was unusual, it was apparently not enough to make it a global seller. With or without such widespread recognition, Dzama still exists, however, still releases rums (a lot – Rum-X lists 29 of them), and can still be found [Click here for the full review…]


Whaler’s The Original Dark Rum (Rare Reserve)(Red Label)(1970s / 1980s)

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Mar 162023
 
Whaler's The Original Dark Rum (Rare Reserve)(Red Label)(1970s / 1980s)

Rumaniacs Review No.145 | 0981 Whaler’s as a rum brand is still being made after more than half a century, and apparently undeterred by its complete lack of anything resembling real quality, has not only kept the Original Dark Rum recipe – the vanilla-bomb that I reviewed way back in 2010 – but actually expanded the supermarket line of their rums to include a vanilla rum, a white rum, a “topping rum” (whatever that is) and other flavoured variations that comfortably cater to the bottom shelf and are almost guaranteed to make another generation of Americans swear off rum forever. [Click here for the full review…]


Bacardi Gran Reserva “Diez” 10 YO Rum – Review

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Mar 132023
 
Bacardi Gran Reserva "Diez" 10 YO Rum - Review

The Bacardi “Diez” – or, to give the rum its full title, the Bacardi Gran Reserva ”Diez” 10 Year Old Extra Rare Gold Rum – is the top of the trio of the company’s mid-level “kind-of” premium range.  Below it are the old workhorses of the añejo, gold, blanco, black, superior and so on; in its playpen also reside the Cuatro and Ocho (and maybe the Reserva Limitada); and above it are the more exclusively minted bottles of the Facundo line – the Paraiso, Neo, Eximo and Exquisito (I am deliberately excluding the relatively new single barrel editions and the [Click here for the full review…]


Merchant Shipping Co. White Rum (Highwood Distillers) – Review

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Mar 102023
 
Merchant Shipping Co. White Rum (Highwood Distillers) - Review

The last two reviews were of products from a Scottish rum maker called Sugar House, who bootstrapped a hybrid pot still, a batsh*t crazy production ethos and somehow came out with two unaged rums that should not have succeeded as well as they did…but did; and blew my socks off. This is what happens when a producer, no matter how small or how new, takes their rum seriously, really loves the subject, and isn’t averse to tinkering around a bit, dispenses with the training wheels, and simply blasts off. Juice like this is the high point of the reviewing game, [Click here for the full review…]


Sugar House Unaged White Overproof Rum – Review

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Mar 062023
 
Sugar House Unaged White Overproof Rum - Review

As soon as the review for the Sugar House unaged white went up, a flurry of comments resulted: “It’s not too shabby” admitted one FB denizen, “But I prefer the OP.” This was immediately seconded by another who said “Love the OP” and followed it up with a flaming icon; and right on the heels of those two remarks, another chipped in over at the NZ Rum Club, and said that yep, the OP was the sh*t there too. I completely get that, because I have a thing for really strong rums. It’s a mixed bag, as any reader of [Click here for the full review…]


Sugar House Scottish Pure Single Unaged White Rum – Review

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Mar 032023
 
Sugar House Scottish Pure Single Unaged White Rum - Review

Sugar House, along with Ninefold, J. Gow, Islay Rum Co and other distilleries now opening in the UK, may represent the Brit’s answer to the diminution of the merchant bottling trade, or perhaps the growing expense of getting the best casks out of the brokerages by an ever-increasing number of independents. It speaks to the desire of a new crop of aggressive young Turks to not be beholden to third parties for barrels of rum or blending skills, but to let loose and harness their own creative impulses to the max, and go out there and break some sh*t, to [Click here for the full review…]


Original Hana Bay Premium Rum (USA, 1980s)

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Feb 272023
 
Original Hana Bay Premium Rum (USA, 1980s)

Rumaniacs Review No. 144 | 0976 In 2023, if you were to google “who makes Hana Bay rum?” you’d get a response that Hali’imaile Distilling Company is the distillery of origin; except if you went to their site, there would be no mention of Hana Bay at all (or Whaler’s and Mahina, the other brands they own and supposedly make). Digging further and you’d see that Hawaiian Distillers out of Honolulu made Hana Bay rum from around the 1980s forwards and in the early 2010s when I first looked at Whaler’s, it was being made in Kentucky by the brand [Click here for the full review…]


L’Esprit Diamond 2017 “Still Strength” White Rum (1º Ed.) – Review

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Feb 242023
 
L’Esprit Diamond 2017 “Still Strength” White Rum (1º Ed.) – Review

When it comes to Guyanese rum, I’m afraid that much as I enjoy DDL’s wares from time to time – more so of late, since they took the bull by the horns and released rums with less additions –  the really good stuff, the best stuff, to me, still comes from the indies.  Alas, Velier has moved away from the Demerara rums and I can’t afford the ones that remain on the secondary market, but fortunately for us all, there is no shortage of other independent bottlers out there to satisfy our thirst for the output of those lovely wooden [Click here for the full review…]


Rhum Belami “Legacy Edition” 3YO 55º Spiced Rhum – Review

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Feb 202023
 
Rhum Belami "Legacy Edition" 3YO 55º Spiced Rhum - Review

This is a sample review I’ve been sitting on for quite a while, and after trying it was never entirely certain I wanted to write about at all: but perhaps it’s best to get it out there so people can get a feel for the thing. It’s a rhum made in Vietnam since 2017 by a three-person outfit founded by an expatriate Martinique native named Roddy Battajon and occasionally turns up in social media feeds and in French and regional magazines — but, like other Vietnam rum brands we’ve looked at before (Mia, L’Arrangé Dosai and Sampan so far), lacks [Click here for the full review…]


Doorly’s Fine Old Barbados 14 Year Old Rum – Review

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Feb 172023
 
Doorly's Fine Old Barbados 14 Year Old Rum - Review

Last year Chris Seale and I were talking at Paris’s WhiskyLive and he mentioned that he had read some of my earlier work on the Doorly’s line of rums and thought I had been unnecessarily rough on the brand. I responded that this was very true — it’s hardly something I could pretend was not — but it faithfully reflected my feelings and opinions from more than a decade ago and of course, I’ve moved on to developing a real appreciation for Foursquare in the many years between then and now – especially the new Habitation Velier LFT and pot [Click here for the full review…]


Wild Parrot Uitvlugt 1997-2018 21 YO Rum – Review

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Feb 132023
 
Wild Parrot Uitvlugt 1997-2018 21 YO Rum - Review

If you have never heard of Wild Parrot, or have but can’t recall their releases, you can relax.  You’re not alone. It is one of those recently founded small European indies that has pretty much remained in its own area and does not seek to be like 1423 and expand around the world. For the curious, the company was created in 2017 by two northern Italian rum aficionados: Stefano Cremaschi of The Whisky Roundabout store located just east of Milan, and Andrea Ferrari from the independent whiskey bottler Hidden Spirits in Ferrara, just north of Bologne — the brand’s rums [Click here for the full review…]


Tamosi “Kanaima” (Versailles) 16 YO Guyanese Rum – Review

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Feb 102023
 
Tamosi "Kanaima" (Versailles) 16 YO Guyanese Rum - Review

Memories are short in this day and age of always-on ADD infotainment, yet I remember quite clearly the short and sharp social media posts that erupted over the naming of Tamosi’s first rum “Kanaima,” which was considered disrespectful appropriation and misnaming (at the very least) of an Amerindian term by a commercial entity (see backgrounder below this review for an expanded discussion of the matter). For those who are not familiar with the term “kanaima”, it variously refers to a spiritual force of the jungle which can be tapped into, a spirit being, or (in my own favourite) the name [Click here for the full review…]


Worthy Park “109” Jamaican Rum – Review

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Feb 062023
 
Worthy Park "109" Jamaican Rum - Review

Worthy Park’s “109” is a recent addition to the Jamaican distillery’s brand portfolio, with a storied history from its first announcement in 2020. The Jamaican distillery wanted fill out its low-to-midrange line with a darker, slightly aged and higher proof rum to complement the Rum Bar White Overproof, Silver and Gold, and while they maintained that the objective was not to go up against Smith & Cross, it’s hard to look at the specs and not conclude that at least some market-share jealousy and subtle dick-measuring was going on.  Initially the rum was called “Gunpowder Proof” – a play on [Click here for the full review…]


Key Rums of the World – Bacardi Reserva “Ocho” 8 YO Rum (Puerto Rico / Global)

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Feb 012023
 
Key Rums of the World - Bacardi Reserva "Ocho" 8 YO Rum (Puerto Rico / Global)

Bacardi hardly needs an introduction.  It’s a company of ancient vintage (in rum years), one of the first and remaining big guns of the entire sector, with a storied past from the 19th century, involving the rise of an immigrant family, ruthless business practises, revolution, heartbreak, loss, global expansion and emergence at the other end as one of the great spirits conglomerates in the world. In so doing it has carved a reputation for itself so enormous that one hardly needs to say rum after its name, it is so synonymous and clearly identified with that one single drink. And [Click here for the full review…]


Renaissance Distillery 2018 2½ YO Taiwan Rum (Fino Cask) – Review

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Jan 242023
 
Renaissance Distillery 2018 2½ YO Taiwan Rum (Fino Cask) - Review

Taiwan is not known for rums, but then, it was not known for whisky either, and look what Kavalan has managed to accomplish.  So, sooner or later, I had to come here, where an expatriate Frenchman named Oliver Caen and his Taiwanese wife Linya Chiou, have created one of the most interesting new distilling companies out there: interesting for their location, interesting for their labelling, interesting for their rums, and interesting because so few people have tried any — yet everyone knows of them, and everyone is curious to check them out. Word of mouth like that is priceless. I’ll [Click here for the full review…]


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