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 that I have a real issue with that, but there’s so much other good stuff out there that I don’t need to go to Puerto Rico for my rums. Without trying to be insulting, the fact is that Puerto Rico, which enjoys a favourable import tax regime with the US, makes the Budweiser and Coors of rums, with all the negative connotations this implies.  In making common hooch to appeal to the widest possible audience and lowest common denominator (the US consumer), some of the quality is lost in the quest for sales.

The Captain Morgan brand actually originated in Jamaica, where Seagrams bought the Long Pond distillery in the 1944. Tax incentives favouring Puerto Rico caused them to transfer manufacturing to a factory outside San Juan (close to where the Bacardi family was setting up a factory at the same time); in 2001 they sold the rights and brand to Diageo, a British concern which by 2010 was the largest spirits company in the world.  Diageo noted that they will transfer the production facilities from Puerto Rico to St Croix in 2011 or thereabouts.

Having bored you to tears with all of this tedious history and trivia, the question remains, is it any good?

Going in, I wasn’t sure: my experience with Puerto Rico was previously with Bacardi – the bestselling rum in the world and the choice of expatriates in far flung and remote corners of the world such as where I used to be – and Bacardi is a well-meaning, reasonably tasty but generally boring mixer — I tarred Captain Morgan with the same broad brush. Surprisingly enough, however, it really is quite a decent rum.  In fact, it’s a really nice sipper for the newbie who wants to get away from mixers without losing the body and taste. But I should add this was largely because of the inclusions and additions (primarily sugar and vanillas), not because of brilliant ageing and blending skills.

The nose is candied and overwhelms right out of the gate with vanilla and caramel. The dark undertones of molasses are clearly in evidence. The dark body has some strong legs, yet they don’t kick you in face with harsh spirit notes either.  This is why as an intro to a sipper, Captain Morgan is a pretty good way to start. The sweetness usually imparted by coke or other mixers that cut the spirit burn is essentially taken over by the spices added to the rum itself. And clearly effort has been taken to mute and smoothen out the palate.  The downside of this is that beyond the candy of these spices, it takes a real expert to taste anything else: try as I might, I could not discern more than butterscotch, vanilla and caramel and some very faint traces of what may have been orange.

The finish is also surprisingly smooth and even, and lasts quite a bit.  This may be attributable to the spices, but even so, for a three-year-old rum, I’m quite impressed. It ranks right up there, though its lack of complexity and deeper rum notes render it unsuitable for more discerning (and choosier) palates.

Speaking for myself, I’d buy this again, sure.  It may not be top tier (I paid just under $30 for it), but I have a sweet tooth and enjoy a decently crafted rum that is at home either by itself or in company with a cola. As a man who has spent triple digits searching for the best of the best (and been disappointed more than once with expensive losers that fail on the finish), I cannot fault the Captain Morgan for not aspiring to great pretentiousness.

So, unlike a Coruba, which I’d feed to favoured enemies in quantity, this one I’d gladly share on a warm sunset or cold winter night with my friends – for a low end rum, from me, that’s high praise indeed.

(#021)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • In the mid-2010s the bottle label was changed to replace the Captain Morgan portrait  (head only) with the full picture of “The Captain” standing with one leg resting a barrel.  Bottle shape and contents remain the same, though.
  • 2021 Update: The rum has now been reclassified (by me) as a spiced rum due to the overwhelming vanilla profile…and the fact that it’s now acknowledged as being added-to. It’s therefore unsurprising that I don’t much care for it these days.

Appleton Estate 30 Year Old Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
May 172010
 

Publicity Photo (c) Appleton Estate

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, by age. One might also and reasonably concern oneself with the way it looks – both bottle and liquid – or whether the rum is old enough to have sex with itself or not, but since so many are blends, it’s not always easy to tell (and Rums have this irritating tendency not to be bound by whiskey’s strictures of stating the age of any blend as the youngest part of the blend).

Based on these admittedly half-assed standards, the best rum in the world right now might actually be the 40% English Harbour 1981, because it comes in a sturdy red-maroon cardboard box, the bottle cork is a real one, not the pissy little plastic nonsense, and is sealed with old-fashioned red sealing wax (gotta love those touches, man); and it has received rave reviews from all over, as well as having a dark look and strong legs of a rum that really means business.  My imaginary friend Keenan has more than once observed (rather sourly) that he absolutely hates being dinged an extra ten bucks or more for a decidedly mediocre offering, simply because ten cents’ worth of extra whistles and bells was put on the bottle in an effort to “tart ‘er up”, as he so colourfully puts it.

So what can I say in a rum review of (hats off, and bow heads respectfully here) the Appleton Estate 30 year old?  This is a rum which is arguably at the peak of the distillers art in Jamaica. It is the most expensive rum I have ever seen. It has a bottle shape different from all the other Appleton offerings, up to and including the decent 21-year old which – horrors! – still comes in the cheapskate cylindrical tin, still has that fat-ass bottle shape of the entry level V/X and still retains the ridiculous cheap metal cap (what are these people thinking?). Now the 30-year-old has a fat cork shaped like a grizzly’s d**k. The rum is burnished copper and within the bottle dance hams two dance-hall girls past their prime would weep with envy over.  And yet, as if they heard Keenan’s grumbles, the makers put this pristine lass in the same piece-of-crap tin cylinder that embraces bottles a quarter of the price.  I don’t know who does the marketing for these boys, truly.

If you see one of these, or hear of one for sale, then your whole drinking life to this moment comes into perfect perspective.  To buy or not to buy, that is the question. In my youth, I would have said screw it and walked away, reasoning that my hard earned dollars were better off – and would go further, afford more enjoyment – in purchasing the equivalent fifteen bottles or so if SDR tipple.  But in my dyspeptic old age, quality is so rarely seen that it almost seems a crime to let something at the top of the heap – pricewise and appearance-wise – get away just because one was being a cheapo.  This line of reasoning is a little flawed, I’ll grant you, but it got me past last Friday with no problems.

Only 1,440 bottles of the ultra-exclusive 30 year old 90-proof rum were produced from six casks. Of those, 744 went to the USA and 30 to New Zealand in 2009 (the year of issue), and the rest got scattered around the world. The resident rum guy at Willow Park, a gent by the name of Michael, noted that they had six in the cellar, and I saw another four at Co-op the other day, I read a post on the Ministry of Rum that 156 went to Ontario in May 2010… all of which makes one wonder where the other 500 in the world are being held. I shut my eyes tight, forked over my credit card, and one of the pricier rums ever seen by me to this point became mine.

The individual marques that make up the 30-year-old originate from small-batch copper pots and columnar stills, and were all aged a minimum of eight years, blended, and then aged for a further twenty-two years in oak barrels from Tennessee which once held Jack Daniels.  After that length of time, the great fear of the drinker and the great challenge of the blender, is how to make the resultant not become so infused with the oak that you end up with something that is no longer a rum (but not quite a whiskey).

The Bear being unavailable (or my imagination not bringing him to life, depending on whether or not you believe the man exists), and I being unable to contain my desire to crack the bottle, I hustled over to the Last Hippie’s place, knowing he was out drowning his sorrows in cheap Scotch on his backyard deck in his daughter’s pilfered Barbie cup. Just as Dumbledore had to give blood to pass into Voldemort’s hiding place, I had to endure a dram of excellent whiskey which I had no appreciation for (sorry Curt, couldn’t resist).  Then we reverently opened the 30-year-old, swirled, took a deep sniff and a sip so dainty the Queen of England would have been proud.

Wow.

The rum had real body. The colour was a burnished copper-bronze, and it had the fat, slow legs of an over-the-hill stripper. The nose was an exhilerating and subtly complex combination of orange peel (the Appleton signature), caramel, maple sugar (yes, maple), vanilla and baked pears.  On the palate the smoothness of this baby was unbelievable.  I was waiting with trepidation for the oak peg-leg to the face and a deep burn on the way down, but somehow Appleton have managed to take 30 years’ maturation in oak and de-fang the taste many might expect, to create a smooth, mellow sipper which is redolent of vanilla, caramel, burnt sugar and spices, but which lacks the sweetness some might want in their rums.  Like Renegade’s offerings, there’s no getting around an oaken component some mislike for being too in-your-face (I said it was muted, not absent) but the smoothness of the overall blend made it a phenomenal drink.  The finish is excellent, lingering in the throat, not overpowering you, just staying there and gradually dissipating with the hints of molasses and spices remaining, and a suggestion of tannins and oaken flavours that many may find excessive.  But really, a masterful piece of work. For the record, I believe Curt thought so too –  though rum isn’t really his thing, he’s generous enough to lend grudging appreciation to his friend’s madnesses when they deserve it (even if the reverse is not true).

With a rum costing this much (it is $500+ in Ontario, last time I checked), one has, after the fact, to be a little dispassionate – even cold – about one’s review. One cannot simply let one’s expenditure dictate a positive opinion.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to: that it was a rum on par with the other elephant in the room is not under dispute.  The questions is, would one buy it again – or recommend it to someone else who had the money but wasn’t sure. For example, with the $200 EH25, I would unhesitatingly say yes (and have). Was the smoothness, the subtlety of the taste, the exclusiveness of the issue, worth it? After all, if the EH25 was like having a slow love-in with your mistress, then the Appleton 30 should have been like a surprising mad romp in the sheets with a wife you’re crazy in love with.  Was it?

The bottom line is both yes and no, and one of the reasons this review is so long is because in my own meandering way, I want to be honest about my feelings regarding it. It is a lovely rum. A lovely sipper.  It’ll come out to be sampled rarely.  It is one of the smoothest rums I’ve ever had, and one of the most complex.  But in a way I can’t quite put my finger on, it falls short of true greatness.  This could be because of the crap packaging; and the slight lack of sweetness, that final nip of bitterness, which, as I have said before, is what I want in a rum, and why I don’t care for whiskey.  It has a lovely hue and colour and legs, and the body is excellent.  But perhaps in ageing it that long too much oak ended up in the taste, subtle as it was, and too much effort placed into muting that, not entirely to the advantage of the finished product. (“Too smooth!” thundered Keenan, and quickly poured himself another shot to make sure he was right). Having said all of the above, let me say that I unhesitatingly and unreservedly recommend it above any of the other Appleton offerings, and I am really in awe of what Appleton have done, as I was with the English Harbour.

I just think for that price point, it should have bowled the EH-25 for duck, and instead, got nailed for two byes. I’m paying for a limited edition, not for the ultimate quality of the rum. The Jamaicans came in with a powerhouse cricket team and the Antiguans pipped the innings.

For a rum this exclusive, this hyped and this expensive, I cannot help but call that a defeat.

(#019)(88.5/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

Santa Teresa Antiguo de Solera 1796 – Review

 6 Responses »
May 102010
 

 

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 same bottle two weeks in a row, I had the opportunity to dip my schnozz and see if my deteriorating memories of the first sip were on target.

Some history first: the Santa Teresa distillery is located in Venezuela (north part of South America for the geographically challenged) about an hour east of the capital, Caracas, on land given by the King of Spain to a favoured count in – you guessed it – 1796. Political vagaries being the way they are in South American banana republics, the estate ended up in the hands of a Gustavo Vollmer Rivas, who began making rum from sugar produced on nearby estates – owned by other Vollmerses –  in the late 1800s.  The Santa Teresa 1796 was produced in 1996 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the estate land grant, and, like the Ron Matusalem reviewed elsewhere on this site, is produced by the solera method.

In the solera process, a succession of barrels is filled with rum over a series of equal aging intervals (usually a year). One container is filled for each interval. At the end of the interval after the last container is filled, the oldest container in the solera is tapped for part of its content (say, half), which is bottled. Then that container is refilled from the next oldest container, and that one in succession from the second-oldest, down to the youngest container, which is refilled with new product. This procedure is repeated at the end of each aging interval. The transferred product mixes with the older product in the next barrel.

No container is ever drained, so some of the earlier product always remains in each container. This remnant diminishes to a tiny level, but there can be significant traces of product much older than the average, depending on the transfer fraction. In theory traces of the very first product placed in the solera may be present even after 50 or 100 cycles. In the Santa Teresa, there are four levels of ageing. And the final solera is topped up with “Madre” spirit, which is a young blend deriving from both columnar and pot stills.  Seems a bit complicated to me, but sherry makers have been doing it for centuries in Spain, so why not for rum? The downside is, of course, that there’s no way of saying how old it is since it is such a blend of older and younger rums (Appleton does this as well with some of their stock, and I can’t say I was impressed with their offering).

The resultant is a dark brown, medium-bodied honey-gold rum with a backbone of an older, dry blend.  It’s difficult to describe the exact feeling I had when I tasted it, but it’s like a very pure, medium strong unsweetened hot tea carving its way down your throat. Assertive, yet not unpleasant. And not very sweet, as I’ve said – it’s almost like a good sherry.  The nose is lovely: honey, vanilla, some faint hints of fruit (banana and cherries?), caramel and toffee. The taste and texture on the palate is not as smooth as I would like, and the finish is medium long, redolent of light oak and caramel. A pleasant nose, a good sip, a nice finish, a decent taste. A solid rum, medium tier.

I didn’t care for it neat, but on ice it’s a very competent sipper – without going so far as to make me really want to go nuts over it. In other words, not an English Harbour by any stretch of the imagination.  I would use it as a mixer without hesitation, but I’m not sure if that isn’t just a bit of sacrilege there: after all, the whole point of making something this special is to savour the richness, isn’t it? I guess it flew over my head.

It may be too early to say, but thus far, based on this and the Ron Matusalem, I have to say I’m less than impressed with the solera method of blending. I’m perfectly willing to accept that there must be superior examples of the solera blender’s art out there, and will search the remaining 1450+ varieties of rum until I find one, but I fear that either such and example will be found after I curl up my toes, or be out of the range of my rather slender purse.

(#018)(Unscored)

Update

Cruzan Single Barrel Dark Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Apr 132010
 

 

Publicity Photo (c) Cruzan

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 way a decent compensation.

The not-so-mythical Bear, who very thoughtfully helped me change my winter tyres, suggested one or two vintages from his pantry (a Santa Teresa 1796 for one), but I had bought this intriguing new as-yet-unsampled dark rum hailing from St Croix for ~$35 from the much lauded Western Cellars store in Midnapore (I was disappointed yet again with the paucity of the rums which contrasted badly against the groaning and crowded shelves filled with expensive twelve year old or greater scotches), and since this is a tad more expensive than the normal hooch that goes for $25, I thought it was time to try it.

Keenan’s hurt look of reproach (he has spaniel eyes that really work well for this), that I could find the contents of his private cellar somehow less than adequate, mellowed quite markedly as soon as he saw the bottle. For all his talk about not wanting his bottlers to waste time dandifying their wares and thereby jacking up the price for nothing but cosmetic upgrades unrelated to true quality, Keenan is a bit of a sucker for a real cork. St Croix had a suitably exotic ring to it.  And the little label at the top, where real ink noted this was bottle X from barrel Y, impressed us both even as we snorted our skepticism.

Still, Cruzan’s single barrel rum is not bad at all, for a rum that is blended from a series of 5 year to 12 year old rums. It has a pungently sweet nose that states its origin in molasses quite clearly.  The original rums that create the blend are aged in white oak whiskey and bourbon barrels, but the resultant is then itself aged in yet another charred barrel for a further period about a year, and I’ll tell you, that thing creates a deep amber colour and a striking nose that a single ageing would not produce.  You can taste hints of  caramel, vanilla, butterscotch, dark fruit and faint nuttiness, and the finish, while not quite as smooth as I would like, is not unpleasant at all, and lasts for a good bit.  It’s reminiscent of a good cognac. It’s dry and clean and the burn is quite mellow, really.  And I have to say it: it pleased my sweet tooth, and the body is decent, so while I might not drink it neat, over ice it’s perfectly drinkable, and with a coke I’d say it’s just veddy veddy good.

Honesty compels me to admit that I had to do a second taste at home, after departing Keenan’s porch somewhat worse for wear.  Sampling the Santa Teresa (it’s quite good, but I have to write the review) and then the re-tasting the Appleton Master Blender’s Legacy (which is about as poor on the finish line as I recall), then following that up with 3/4 of the bottle of this exemplary Cruzan had me seeing three Keenans as I departed.  My mother raising me as she did, I said goodbye three times, and assured each one of the three that when it comes to a good mixing rum, or just a damned decent drink for a reasonable price, this Cruzan is definitely a good buy.

Hopefully the Bear was in better shape than I and can remember what a good drink it was:  I guess I’ll see the next time I raid his stocks or he comes over to pilfer mine.

(#016)(Unscored)

Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva 15 Year Solera Rum – Review

 3 Responses »
Feb 272010
 

17141

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.  I may be fairly clever, but I’m somewhat prone to losing a few IQ points when having my sixth or seventh…or shev’nt’nth shot of…whu’ever. And that impacts on my note-taking, so I have to watch it.

Anyway it was with real delight that I saw this intriguing 15 year old rum from the Dominican Republic  joining its cousins the English Harbour 5, the Bundie, the El Dorado 21 and the Angostura Royal Oak on the table.  Now some might shake their heads and question my liver, my sanity or my ability to have so many competing rums swirling around my palate and still maintain my sobriety or sense of taste (which would be much degraded by the Bundie), but I exist to rise to challenges such as these, and sacrifice my finer feelings for the good of The Club.

A Super-Premium rum (whatever that might mean), this french-oak-barrel matured rum is the top of the line for the Ron Matusalem distillery which originated in Cuba in the 1800s, and which captured a fair share of the market right up to the point where some upstart johnny-come-lately called Fiddle…Fidelity…Fido…whatever (he had a beard and dressed in fatigues) took over from the US-backed dictatorship in 1959. The company was re-established in the USA and removed to the Dominican Republic in 2002 after one of the descendants of the founders gained full control of the company (the family branches had been feuding, leading to the brand’s decline). Interestingly, Matusalem’s master blenders are all descendants of the original founders as well, and are supposedly masters in the technique of solera blending originally developed for sherry and brandy, where barrels of rums from different stages in the maturation process are blended to produce the desired, unique blend. And while my bottle never noted it, this is a solera, which means the “15” on the label does not mean the youngest in the blend, but the average.

The Gran Reserva is a deep gold colour, though not quite dark; it looks like burnt honey. Not light either in body or colour or density. The nose contains strong indications of oak which, to my mind, drown out the subtler vanillas and toffee that linger better on the taste buds; and it is not as sweet as other offerings…they may have stinted on the sugar or caramel.  In my opinion, then, it does not impress when drunk neat or on ice – it is too much like a whiskey, in smell and body and taste (this may be a deliberate attempt to distinguish the product from other rums of equal vintage), and it burns going down, with a short and smoky finish, the way no good 15 year old should.  If I wanted whiskey I’d cross to the dark side and genuflect to the Scots, so on that level it fails.  However, I liked the taste and feel on the palate – the slightly higher density and long maturation period helps give it a really good, silky feel – I just don’t appreciate the taste that much.

That said, as a mixer with coke, whatever screams of outrage from purists, the thing is stellar. It has no such explosion of flavour as the EH5 did, but it develops a very solid, multi-layered and robust taste where the coke provides exactly the level of sugar that enhances the taste of the rum, to produce an excellent butterscotch taste that the silky texture of the rum goes with beautifully.

And that makes me conflicted, not least because I generally like soleras.  It seems that an aged sipping rum like this should not have to be mixed to enhance it to the level I rate so highly. I concede that this may partly be my sweet tooth and love of vanilla and caramel and butterscotch (that’s not butter made in Scotland, Curt, just in case you wondered), and partly my own preconceived notion of what a good sipping rum should be like.

Be that as it may, I believe a whiskey connoisseur, or someone with a different palate from mine, will love this rum.  As a mixer, I think it’s great — but why pay more for this when so many able, younger, cheaper mixers exist? The test of a good aged rum is whether it can stand on its own without adornment or enhancement. On that level, much as I like what comes out of this baby when coke is added to it, I must sadly state that it doesn’t measure up to its hype or pedigree when taken neat.

(#102)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • My sources for the solera comment are the company’s own website, and additional references here and here.
  • Matusalem does not own a distillery and is therefore a third party rum made, as noted, in the Dominican Republic. In 2015 they established their own new distillery there.

Bundaberg Rum – Review

 23 Responses »
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 highly attuned to quality than my more pedestrian schnoz), and in mine went the Bundie (plus a few others, in case you’re thinking that the exchange was not an equal one).  Ever since we had had this at Bauer’s place some months ago when dodging his dog and scarfing pizza, I had wanted to write a review of this antipodal hooch, and to refresh my memory as to whether it was truly as bad a sipper as I recall.  Or had I been too tipsy and despoiled by the whisky that night to have a clean palate?

The answer? Yes, no and no.

Bundaberg Rum is made in Bundaberg, Southern Queensland, Australia, and is something of a cult favourite down under – it’s said this is what coke and weekends were invented for. “Bundie’ as it’s called there, is practically a cultural institution and supposedly the most popular rum in Australia.  I first heard of this 37% underproof when I read Wilbur Smith’s Hungry as the Sea (“Listen to me, you Bundaberg swilling galah” says the hero at one point to an Aussie engineer) and have kept it in the back of my mind ever since. It has been made since 1888 when local sugar plantations were trying to figure out what to do with their leftover molasses. With some interruptions, the rum has been in production ever since.  In 1961 the polar bear was added to the labelling as a mascot to imply how well the rum could ward off the coldest chill. The Bundie that makes it over here is not the more expensive Reserve, Red or Overproof, but just the standard low-end stuff, coming off a wash and then a pot still. Even so, I think it costs in the $40-$50 range (which may be transport costs factored in).

One has to be clear that this is not meant to be a sipping rum.  It’s absolutely meant to be mixed (preferably with ginger beer to create a highball known as the “Dark and Stormy”), and every review I’ve read says so, though one Aussie who commented here disputed the point and suggested it was more commonly mixed with coke.  I agree. This is a cocktail base and not something to tempt the nose and the palate to indulgent, leisurely sips.

The problem was, I approached like I had all the others. Sniff, a sip neat and another one over ice.  And I shuddered and just about knocked Keenan out of his chair in my haste to reach the coke. Keenan himself was blanching. “Turpentine,” he managed to squeak as he reached for the smelling salts.

Christ.  This is not a rum.  This is a tequila masquerading as a rum. It smells different from any rum I’ve ever tasted, harsher and cloyingly musky-salt-sweet (the very thing I hate about tequila) and the taste is sharp, violent on the tongue and is redolent of methylated spirits, match sulphur and new paint (I exaggerate for effect…but not by much).  There’s no oak, no caramel sweetness, just hurt.  As a sipper this may be the single vilest drink I’ve had since I made the mistake of trying my Uncle Ronald’s DDL five year old neat and lost my voice and sight for a fortnight (admittedly, some suggested it was an improvement and rushed to buy a few extra bottles). It certainly will warm the cockles of your tum, but my advice is to use it for what it was meant for: comforting exiled Aussies, mixing it with coke at least 3:1 in favour of the coke and appreciating that here is something that really is different. Keenan’s attitude was distinctly unflattering: “I’d rather eat a curried dingo sh*t than try that straight again.”

It may appeal to some who like drinking a rum that is off the reservation (and is as distant from the Caribbean caramel and fruit taste as it’s possible to get), and maybe with ginger beer (or coke) it really does lift your socks off.  All I can say is that it doesn’t work for me, and after I helped The Bear back to his feet, we “ketch sum sense” and moved back to the safer ground of the West Indian nectars, rather than indulging further armchair sojourns to the south.

Coruba Dark Jamaica Rum – Review

 4 Responses »
Feb 252010
 

First posted 25 February 2010 on Liquorature.

(#011)(Unscored)

Short, sharp sword to the guts when had neat, this rum is without question something to use as a mix and not to risk taking alone.  Needs refinement to be taken seriously, but since it’s cheap as all get-out, it does have a perverse attraction on that basis alone. Go for it if you’re feeling a bit brave today.

***

This is another one of those reviews that I wrote in order to give some weight to the Single Digit Rums.  Having tasted it, shuddered and reached for the coke, I can understand both why it costs so little, and why it’ll probably never make the table of the Club.

SDRs are in the main the bottom end of the ranking scale, and part of that is because they represent what I term the tipple for the masses – it’s the sort of thing I grew up on, had many a good conversation over, and eventually moved away from as my tastes became more snooty (and hence, expensive).  The Jamaica distillery of J. Wray & Nephew, home of  Appleton makes this low end rum and it’s marketed by Compagnie Rhumière Bale out of Basel, in Switzerland – using 30 marks to create it utilizing the solera method – primarily as a mixer and a base for cocktails and other drinks.  Given that the age is unmentioned anywhere on the label, and taking into account its somewhat raw searing taste, I venture to suggest it’s five years old or less.

The thing is, a rum this dark, I kinda expected just a tad more…a strong molasses taste maybe, a burnt-sugar kind of nose.  Something that was rude, vulgar and overpowering, that happily booted and spurred across the palate and would never see the tables of the rich but which at least had some kind of obnoxious character all its own (say what one will about the Bundie, no-one can deny it has a taste and prescence not readily ignored). None of that is really in evidence in the Coruba, because the spirit fumes overpower everything fast. Now, if one flexes one’s snoot and gives it a long and decent snort, one may be able to separate the fruit and perhaps some whiskey: certainly the taste is there – I detected some apricot and sugar on the way down.

The problem is that the finish is too short and harsh, and you know me: I really have an issue with that damned whiskey burn.  So neat and on the rocks, I’d stay away from it, since this is clearly not a sipping rum.  Even when mixed, alas, it lacks the release of flavour that characterizes the aristocrat of the working class tipple, the EH5 (which has become a low-end baseline all its own, by the way). Which is a shame, because once the burn goes away and you manage to swallow, you do actually taste something of the toffee and caramel at the back of the throat. Unfortunately, that’s more than likely just the coke or ginger beer.

In summary then, Coruba really fails as a sipper either neat or on the rocks. On the assumption that it’s a mixer, I’d put it on the bottom shelf.  If I was desperate for a drink I’d take it, but it’s got so much competition at the same price point that it’s probably best to just use it in one’s cooking without giving it pretensions to your liquor cabinet…unless a favoured enemy is dropping in for a visit, in which case, be generous.

Update 25 Oct 2010: I just reviewed an article on Wikipedia which states that Coruba is not marketed in Jamaica, but primarily in New Zealand, where it has held the top selling rum spot since the 1970s. If anyone from NZ can comment on that I’d appreciate it, since it sure is news to me, and it’s curious that I found a Kiwi rum in Alberta.

Other Notes

The Cocktail Wonk provides some background information on the company behind the brand as he discusses the “Cigar” release, but it’s useful here too.

Young’s Old Sam Demerara Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
Feb 252010
 

First posted 25th February 2010 on Liquorature;

(#004)(Unscored)

Young, rambunctious and strong of nose and taste.  It is the epitome of a low ranking Demerara rum, with powerful scents and tastes lacking in anything remotely resembling complexity: and yet, I really kinda like it.  Perhaps because it’s a simple creation of such primary flavours.  It’s not meant for taking neat, but as a mixer? Yummo.

***

The bottle of Old Sam I tasted is a “single digit rum” whose ingredients come from the Old Country, where the primary distillation takes place in DDLs facilities — these are the gentlemen who make the excllent El Dorado 21 year old also reviewed on this site —  but is matured and blended in Newfoundland.  There it is made by the same company responsible for making Screech, the much-loved, equally-derided traditional Newfie tipple –  also deriving from a Caribbean raw stock –  and which I have to check out one of these days.

The history of the rum revolves around parts of the old “Triangular Trade” (from Europe with trade goods, to Africa for slaves, over to the West Indies for sale of slaves and goods and loading of fruit, fish, sugar and rum, and then back to Europe – over time stops in North America were added).  Howard Young and Company introduced Old Sam to England in 1797 – why they would ship it to Newfoundland for blending is a mystery, since rum was already being made in commerical quantities in the Caribbean at that time: perhaps it was because back then, Guiana was vacillating between being a Dutch colony and an  English one, and often used as a bargaining chip in the wars of the time between these two powers.

Old Sam is a Demerara Rum, dark and rich, redolent of molasses and bunt sugar. It is aged for a minimum of two years in oak barrels, and then blended with various other 12-year old rums. “Navy” rum is a much bandied-about term — Pusser’s, Lamb’s, Screech and Old Sam all like to make claims to the title, but this low end stuff is nowhere near the much better, smoother Pusser’s, and even the Old Sam website recommends it as a mixer, or a base for cocktails and food requiring a rum ingredient.

Having said that, I have to say that the nose, while sharp, is rich, and develops good hints of caramel, brown sugar – a lot of brown sugar – and a shade of fruity vanilla.  Nothing out of the ordinary, and being relatively young, is not particularly smooth.  Note that I still get all pissy when rums don’t mention their age even if it’s two years old or something, since to me, age and price and word of mouth are the three pieces that go together in assessing whether to buy a rum or not. For this one I have one out of three – price, and since that is quite low (about $22), and since I’ve never heard of this one mentioned, or lauded, it seems reasonable to suppose it’s a young ‘un, not particularly special, and indeed, the tasting pretty much confirmed that. Harsh on the way down, has a burn and kick that would make a smarter man swear off low-end rums for good, and not much of a finish.  About par for a low end rum – it’s definitely not for sipping. As a mixer, it’s pretty good, but not everyone will enjoy that very rich burnt sugar and molasses taste.

Rereading this, it sure looks like I am dissing the rum. That’s unintentional, and perhaps results from me treating it like an upscale sipper, and judging it that way. So let me be clear: it’s disappointing as a sipping spirit….but in a mix, it’s excellent. Brown sugar, molasses, caramel, vanilla and coke.  Fine, just fine.  It kind of proves the point that you don’t have to have a premium sipper to enjoy a rum. Unsuspected riches exist for the diligent trawler and tireless taster, and if you’re into deep, dark Demerara rums, you can do worse than this unpretentious product. Personally, I’ll keep searching for better, knowing that another rum equivalent of Cibola is probably waiting for me out there, somewhere…but that doesn’t mean I don’t like this one.

Update June 2020

  • Over the years my liking for Old Sam’s has remained steadfast, and these days I’d probably score it around 80-82. My personal opinion is that it is a large proportion PM distillate, though this has never been confirmed. With DDL no longer exporting bulk “heritage still” rums, it’s possible that Young’s Old Sam may be forced to change its blend in years to come.
  • Who Old Sam actually was is a subject of some conjecture, brought to a head with the BLM movement in the last years, because to some the drawing of the man  on the label is that of a black man, implying a product being sold that implicitly glorifies slavery.  Others dispute that interpretation of the picture, saying it’s of Mr. Young himself.

Pyrat’s XO Reserve 15 Yr Old Rum – Review

 4 Responses »
Feb 252010
 

D7K_3085

First posted 25 February 2010 on Liquorature

Short version – too much orange peel and marmalade flavours mar an otherwise reasonable rum.

It may sound sacrilegious to even mention this 15 year old product of Anguilla in the same breath as Bundie, but when you think about it, Bundaberg is without question one of the unique rums in the world: one may despise it and spit after mentioning its name, but there’s no denying it stays with you. It’s like the dark reflection of the EH25.  And Pyrat (pronounced “pirate”) is another one like that which, love it or hate it, will not soon be forgotten.

While made in Anguilla, it isbended and bottled at DDL’s facilities in Guyana, and then imported to North America by a company out of Nevada called Patron spirits (I don’t know whether the Nevada company owns or has shares in the  producer but maybe the rum is just made under contract).  It has a squat, bottom heavy bottle reminiscent of the old pirate bottles (embedded in our mental imagery of the world by what must be a thousand movies), and an amber, clear colour verging on the orange. It is a blend of different 15-year-old rums aged in used whiskey or bourbon barrels, and bottled at 40% strength.

I must concede Pyrat’s is a pretty unique middle-end rum, although cheaper than one would expect for a 15-year old (~$40). The first thing that hits you after you remove the cork is the citrus nose.  Yes there’s sugar and vanilla and caramel notes in there too, but they are almost clobbered into insensibility by the attack of the orange marmalade and citrus peel flavouring (and to some extent, by the spirit as well – this has a sharp bouquet).  The taste is similar: a little harsh, mid-level burn, medium finish…and those orangey notes just keep on going forever. It’s like you are drinking a liquid orange bathed in burnt sugar, with just enough whiskey aftertaste to stop this from being classed as a liqueur (it’s a close run thing, however).  Very, very distinctive: like the Bundie, you could taste this blind and know exactly what it is.

Did I like it?  Texture, yes, taste, not at all.  It conflicted a little with my sense of what a rum should taste like – I was startled by how intense the orange was – but it was smooth enough and mellow enough for me to appreciate it more as the evening wore on. The flavour sort of darkened over the hours and became heavier, which I sort of enjoyed.  That said, I’m not entirely sure this as good as it could have been for the kind of ageing it has undergone: the Venezuelan Diplomatica Exclusiva Reserva was a lot better for about the same price. I must concede that as a mixer (3:1 in favour of the Pyrat’s) this lights up a coke like the 1st of July, and is even better when one adds a lime wedge, so all is not lost.

But maybe the Last Hippe has had the last laugh after all: because I’ve been spoiled to think of 10-year-olds and better as sippers, the way whiskeys are.  And when older rums like this one fall just short of the mark, then unique or not, I must simply state that my preference is not always for the uniqueness of taste or flavour, or even the superlativeness of the texture and feel on the tongue, but on the relative ranking of this baby to other fifteen year olds I like.

And while I appreciate Pyrat’s as a crazy unique drink in a class all its own, I must say — all pundits to the contrary — it’ll never entirely be one of my favourites.

(#073. 73/100) ⭐⭐½

Other Notes

  • Sometime in the last few years prior to this review, or so I heard, Pyrat’s changed the blending to enhance the citrus, and prior blends were darker, sweeter and smokier. That being the case, I might have to take one of the older variants to see whether the changes were an improvement or not. Note also that this rum is now bottled, and maybe even made, in Guyana, at DDL’s facilities.
  • Update April 2017:  A post went up on Facebook recently that supplied a photograph of the new label.  Here at last the statement is more honest, calling it a spirit which is a blend of rums and “natural flavours.”  So it’s a spiced spirit now, and not really a true rum. Disregard the word “artisanal”.

El Dorado Special Reserve 21 Year Old – Review

 7 Responses »
Feb 192010
 

D3S_6898

First posted Feb 19, 2010 on Liquorature.

Deep, smooth, elegant, complex, affordable. Brilliant rum catering to all my tastes.

It seems to be a cruel irony that I always find the rums I desperately want to buy and take a taste of when (a) my frugal better half is casting baleful glares in my direction,  (b) my friend The Bear is unavailable to assist in the sampling and (c) cash is short…or at least, pay day is nowhere in sight, which amounts to the same thing.  All three were in evidence this Friday, when, for reasons we shall not get into here, I was in the Calgary Airport liquor store.  Now why they would have a store in a place that does not allow you to bring the good stuff aboard except in checked luggage (at which every West Indian I ever met would blanch, shudder and mutter that “dem peepl nah gat sens…is where else me go drink it?”) escapes me, but I ended up snagging one of the three bottles I was after: the Demerara Distilleries El Dorado Special Reserve 21 Year Old.

For those unfortunate souls not from the West Indies, or the even sadder ones who know nothing about Guyana, let it be said that two mighty local spirits outfits vie for control of the local and export market: Banks DIH (a blender and beer maker) and Demerara Distilleries (a true distillery).  There isn’t a Guyanese alive, of this I am convinced, who does not recall the sniff of fermenting sugar as he passes Diamond Estate to or from the airport.  This is where DDL has its base of operations, and this is where they blend the elite little package that I prepared to sample some thousands of miles away.

For a rum costing close to a hundred, the packaging is surprisingly cheap printed thin cardboard, but okay.  It’s what was within that I was after.  DDL matures this baby in used oak whisky and bourbon barrels, and the aroma of the cork bears this out.  The aroma was a pungent mix of burnt sugar, spices, soft and thick, chopped fruit in a black cake, butterscotch and caramel, molasses and smoke and I dunno…perhaps some oak, all blended very smoothly and almost inseparably in there.  A first taste neat and then another on the rocks made it clear that DDL put some effort into making this a somewhat dry rum (more so than the 15 year old), but it developed on the palate very nicely, and I think The Bear would agree that it was enhanced by the whiskey notes, the same way he really appreciated the Renegade 1991.  The sheer amount of tastes coming through was astounding: chocolate, coffee, mocha, truffles, raisins, dates,  black currants and blackberries, anise, licorice, molasses…each flavour chased its way genteelly up one side of my palate and down the other.

Very very smooth, hardly any bite on the way down. And a long finish, where those sweet highlights come out and almost, but not quite, overpower all the other spices.

Good stuff this. At 40% it is like caramel velvet going down, and it’s one of those like the English Harbour 25, that I would not tamper with, it’s that good…no coke for this baby.  It can’t class with the English Harbour all the way (at half the price, that would have been practically a miracle), but I’ll tell you this…it gives similar price point rums like the Appleton Master Blender’s Legacy a run for its money. It may disappoint on a second tasting, but thus far, for me, it’s one of the better neat rums I’ve ever tasted, and it wasn’t wasted money.  Too bad the Club was not meeting this week…I would have loved to bring it along for an introduction.

Update: three weeks later the Bear and I sampled this together for my second go-around on the bottle.  While his tongue had already been desensitized by the English Harbour Five we’d been sipping for the previous half hour (he agrees this is one of the great SDRs around), he was clean-bowled by the sheer quality of this 21-year. Unlike me he took no umbrage at the cheap packing, since, in his view, it does not add to the price and what you get is what you pay for. An interesting point.  But after he wiped his misty eyes dry, he said that this was such a smooth, well-balanced rum that it might even be better than the EH-25. Looks like I’m not the only one to think this way.

(#015)(88/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Update October 2017

  • I have done a complete re-tasting and re-assessment of the ED21 and appreciated it the same way, noted the failings more clearly (mostly to do with strength and additives), scored it slightly lower…and named it one of the Key Rums of the World.
  • As a completely irrelevant aside, Grandpa Caner likes the El Dorado 15 Year Old better and refuses to cede pride of place.

Flor de Caña Centenario 18 Year Old Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Jan 252010
 

First posted 25 January 2010 on Liquorature.

(#007)(Unscored)

***

Memory fails as to who introduced me to this Nicaraguan gem. I have a feeling it was Dougie from the office when he went down there. I was initially a bit doubtful, but since I was trying to scare up some good stuff for the first non-whiskey night of Liquorature, which thus far had been exclusively a Scottish binge, I felt it was necessary to pull out the stops: I had already bought the Appleton Master’s Blend and the Zaya, and this one’s price point fell somewhere in between.

The oldest of the Flor de Cana rums made from molasses, this sweeter than average dark brown rum is aged for eighteen years in used whiskey or bourbon barrels, yet somehow avoids that harsh bite so characteristic of rums aged in whiskey casks (like Renegade’s offerings). Because it is younger than the Appleton Master’s Blend, it isn’t quite as pretentious either, and so I deplored the similarity of the bottle with the 12 year version somewhat less. This is also the darkest of the rums we had that night, a rich clear brown with a slightly red tint; and, poured, it releases a nutty, smoky aroma, with hints of burnt sugar.

The taste in the mouth is superb (but note that my own predilections run slightly more to sweet than the average, so I won’t pretend this will work for others), sweet and spicy – those caramel notes really start to come out if you can hold it on the tongue – and a bit of oak flavour that begins to dominate after a bit. Actually, more than a bit. As you sip, the oak overpowers everything else and though the finish is smooth and fine, I felt that for an 18 year old, this was not quite the standard I expected. I think I’ll have to go back to this.

The issue for me is that the 12-year and even the 7-year Flors are fantastic for their ages, and the balance that I found tipping to the oak here, is better handled in these younger offerings. They are simply better on the texture and body, while their finish is a little less. Now I’ve been accused of taking one sip, passing judgement, and drowning the poor baby in coke at the first hint of distress (a holdover from my plebian past where a flattie and a bowl’ice plus pepsi was all I needed to go with the curry goat I had an hour before), but unfortunately here it was almost necessary. I’d take the 12-year neat, and the 7- with some coke, but the 18-year old, sadly enough, and good as it was, did not move me to treat it with the great degree of reverence I initially thought it deserved, and therefore I shrugged and bastardized the poor thing.

Again, I stress this is one of those I have to go back to, so my review may change; right now I’ll place it in the first tier, just not right up at the top. Second shelf, perhaps. I’m hoping it’ll move up.

Other Notes

  • A few years after this review, Flor de Cana removed the “years old” from the label, which has been widely derided as deceptive, because now there is no longer any kind of definitive age statement.

D’Aguiar’s XM 5 Year Old Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Jan 252010
 

First posted 25 January 2010 on Liquorature.

Full disclosure: this review is based on rum made (and drunk) 1995 and earlier and retasted in the 2000s in a social setting. The review is more a nostalgia essay with such memories as I retained and wanted to share, of one of the formative rums of my youth, than a true review

(#006 / Unscored)

***

When I was living in the Old Country, this baby was the rum I drank every Friday for a decade straight (or more) without fail, and on quite a few days in between. My evenings tended towards heading straight for the Palm Court (behind which I lived) with my friend John, finding a seat, calling Prince (our favourite waiter, because he knew us on sight) and ordering “Double five an’ pepsi, glass, bowl’ice and a Bajan pack a’ B&H.” Translated, this means a double shot of the XM rum in a glass, ice on the side, and a Barbadian-manufactured golden pack of Benson & Hedges cigarettes (the English made ones were more expensive, so one had to specify). This squarely pegged my social status, since folk of lesser means ordered the cheaper, locally made Bristol smokes and Demerara Distillers King of Diamonds five year old, while the upper crust went for XM Ten Year Old and the English B&H.

Not surprisingly, my baseline was therefore the XM five year. Now granted, John and I, who always drank together, practically murdered the drink in a bath of pepsi (coke was less available), so one can reasonably ask how the hell I ever got enough notes together for a review, but on occasion we did in fact have it on ice only. Rarely. In fact, vanishingly rarely. All right, almost never. Usually when the pepsi ran out at his place or mine. But there are other good reasons why.

The problem is that this rum was really not for the export market (every Caribbean nation has tipple like this for the masses), and so although one can find it in shops abroad, the quality is not top tier. The rum is light golden brown, and has a sharp, pungent nose, and quite frankly, I think the Whiskey Exchange’s review, describing the nose as “Candied orange peel, brown sugar, buttery oak. Crystallised ginger, creamy, toasty vanilla and sugared almonds. Quite fruity, with baked banana, raisins and hints of blackcurrant jelly developing,” may be just a bit much.   The alcohol fumes overpower everything too fast. It’s definitely a mixer rum for this puppy. And a bunch of expats I drank with regularly had exactly the same opinion.

The body is light — thin and sharp — and lacks real character, though one can detect vanilla, caramel, burnt sugar and some light hints of fruit, perhaps citrus; but the rum is not particularly smooth, and it jars going down (lest any think I’m assassinating a former favourite in a bid to disown my past, trust me when I say the 10-year is far better, and though I’ve heard of a mythical 50-year old which is reputedly is in a class of its own, I’ve never seen or tasted it; and the comparative King of Diamonds 5-year is paint remover in comparison – in those days, anyway). Some years later after I had been on a Bacardi kick for a bit, I received a gift of this bottle from John, and I was surprised how thin it seemed, mixed or straight.

To me, this is the first baseline rum I ever had in my life…like a loved one, I played with others but always returned to her. It will always be on my personal pantheon of favourites, not because it’s a stellar example of the craft (it’s competent work and a decent drink, but a star it is not), but because of the memories it brings up of a time in my life that was unique. I know without thinking that when next I taste this rum, I’ll be transported back to the tropics, under warm starlit skies, the breeze will be blowing though Palm Court (where some hopeful young bint with a terribly nasal voice will be wailing to the accompaniment of a karaoke machine), I’ll be young again, and John and I will be hailing Prince, calling for a double-five and B&H, and talking for the next five hours about how we would fix the world, and how Batman could absolutely kick the s**t out of Spiderman, and why there had to be a third Terminator movie.

I’m almost certain there isn’t a man reading this review who doesn’t have at least one drink like that.

Other Notes

For background on the maker, Banks DIH, see the company biography.

Cadenhead’s Classic Green Label Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Jan 192010
 

 

Picture (c) WineSearcher.com, Stock Photo

First posted January 19th, 2010 on Liquorature.

It looks like a rum and occasionally smells like one, but it sure doesn’t always feel like one; Cadenhead’s policy of making the Classic without any additives or subsequent filtering gives it a less voluptuous body than the average and an overall whisky character that only a psychologist could unravel. Decent drink for those who like a little danger and seeing how rums can go to the edge, though.

***

This is as strange a rum as I’ve ever had, and was a selection of the November 2009 gathering, where nothing but rums were served, and it went head to head with two other rums: the Zaya 12 year old (and the winner by a nose, ha ha), and the Appleton Estate Master Blender’s Legacy (which was the most expensive and opined as the least value for the money).  The Cadenhead Green, for all its ~$75 price tag, was considered middle of the road.

It’s a strange one, this. For one thing, I have no idea how old it is. Nor am I entirely certain where it comes from, although I believe it is a Demerara rum that was then further refined in Scotland and watered down a tad to bring it down from cask strength. The website states it remains untreated and no additives brought in for either colour or taste, and its bold taste makes that likely to be true.

Cadenhead Distilleries is a scotch maker, not a rum maker (actually it’s now owned by the Campbeltown distiller J.&A. Mitchell and Co., which runs the  Springbanks distillery in Argyll), but perhaps they took a gander at what good products came out of Bruichladdich’s Renegade line and followed suit. For whatever obscure reason, Cadenhead has chosen not to reveal the provenance of this rum (the “Demerara” appellation refers to the dark colour and body, not the source), but a few people on the internet have speculated it’s Jamaican, or possibly even Cuban – that would be illegal to market in America, so if anyone bought one of these in the US, I’d be interested to hear about it. It’s listed at 50% ABV, making it an fullproof Rum (I use the word “overproof” to denote rums that are insane for all practical applications…you know, like 70% and up).

The nose is candied, with hints of cinnamon, charcoal, and marshmallow. Dark gold in color, clear. It settles out with chocolate notes, caramel, and burnt pineapple, lightly tingling at the back of the tongue. Strong finish and some bite on the way down. I’d recommend this one with a drop or ten of water plus some ice, unless you’re a peasant like me and just say to hell with it and destroy it with a coke (just kidding). Not really a good sipping rum — it’s not subtle or smooth enough for that – but I’ll say this: the thing had character, and kicked back like a spavined mule after the first few glasses. I’m hoping to get another bottle to see if the first was just me. You’d think that our whiskey drinkers would have been in transports of ecstasy with the Green, given its resemblance to a decent scotch, but in fact the opposite was true, and it came in, as I mention above, in the middle. Given our evolution since then, it’s possible that this opinion might change on a second go-around. (2014 Update: it did, and for the better)

Did I like it?  Tough question. I’ve made no secret of my dislike for distillers who refuse to put provenance or age on their labels – it’s too much like a cheat, giving the buyer no chance to make a first-pass determination of quality, or rate it against other, similarly-aged products –  and that goes double for the higher priced babies, where a buyer needs to know what he’d forking out his dough for. Whisky – Scotch whisky – has its rules about what kind of hooch can bear the highland name, but the plebian and slightly disreputable origins of rum seem to mitigate against rum distillers doing the same.  I admired the strength and character that the Green had, and its body was excellent. The strength stiffened the starch in its spine quite well and the complexity was admirable.

So I’ll split it down the middle: I’d recommend it unhesitatingly for true rum aficionados who dislike adulterations, and dedicated whiskey drinkers (these are the guys who have their snoot glasses in one coat pocket, who sniff and sip and gargle and then rinse with distilled water).  For more middle of the road folks I’d say “Give it a shot, for here is something remarkably different you won’t soon forget.”  And for those who just want a decent mixer, I’d suggest getting something cheaper and sweeter to put into your cocktail.

Fairer than that I just can’t be.

(#003)(Unscored)

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