Renegade Grenada 1996 11 year old Rum – Review

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Mar 122011
 

First posted 12 March 2011 on Liquorature

One of the acclaimed limited edition bottlings from Bruichladdich, it will remind you of a dry rye, and is a rum worth your buck; deep, tasty with complex flavour and taste. It’s long lasting on the palate, but not in the company of your friends.

A few days ago I was on the Ministry of Rum, and a guy there proudly announced that he had just bought all twenty bottles of the current Renegade line. All twenty!!? I’ve only ever seen four in this whole country. You can imagine with what envy I regarded that little announcement. I mean, I have relatives in Deutschland and I suppose I can get a few that way, but it just strikes me as wrong somehow that I can’t get a larger selection of these intriguing rums in the only unregulated province in Canada.

Ever since I saw the first sand-blasted bottle of the Renegade line with its metal dog tag, I’ve admired the product line. Not always appreciated it as much as I should have (chalk that down to lack of experience). But definitely admired the concept: a whisky maker with a great reputation making rums. And pretty interesting rums at that – rums that strike a newbie rum lover raised on the Bacardis and Appletons as dry and not as sweet as he’s used to, perhaps…but rums that grow on you after a bit, like this one and all its brothers, sisters and cousins did.

The maturation in bourbon casks is only part of the equation, because the Grenada 1996 is then finished in Haute Brion casks, and it shows. The nose was just heavenly: toffee, pineapple, caramel, come first, with – what was that? cheddar? – citrus and burnt sugar emerging later to mix gently with a marshmallow softness that tamped down the spirit burn of a 46% spirit. I’ve never been convinced that a spirit should be 46% or greater, though I’ve had my share of cask strength rums, and the occasional whisky: still, I might want to make exceptions here or there. The extra strength imparted a deeper and more complex flavour to the aroma than I had expected, and you’d probably like it as long as you’re prepared to tolerate a little more heat and spice than normal at the inception. I seem to recall I made a similar observation about overproofs once or twice.

Spice or not, heat or not, I simply could not complain about the flavour and feel on the tongue. The thing felt like a rye, though a bit drier, just enough sweet, and it leaves a coating on the tongue that is oily and long lasting (this is probably a direct result of the policy of un-chill filtering which leaves the taste-enhancing oils intact in the spirit) . There’s leather, a hint of cedar wood and always, that slightly floral and cherry hint descending from the Haut Brion casks (I may be reaching here). And I got breakfast spice, cinnamon, caramel and chocolate; yes it’s spicy and burning on the fade and even before, but in a good way. Curt and I had a long discussion on what heat, spice or burn actually mean in the context of a review, how it should be rated and to what degree it impacts on one’s enjoyment. In this case, I’ll just say that it was mellow and deep and not remotely reminiscent of my wife giving me a hard time after an all night bender when I pour myself through the door and can’t remember the names of the kids. Seriously.

Cask finishing seems to be an upcoming thing right now. Of course, whiskies have always had variations which were matured in (for example) sherry casks, and rums have a few courageous souls here and there who do a double ageing, once in oak and once in something else (Ron Zacapa 23 is a good example of this idea). But Murray McDavid of Bruichladdich may have taken the concept a few notches further up the scale by buying up very specific estates’ rums and then enhancing them in some pretty awesome wine casks. This Grenada variant was completed in Haute Brion casks; it comes from the Westerhall distillery, active since 1766, and which these days makes only 3 barrels a day from a copper pot still. The stock was bought and then the casks shipped to Islay for ageing and final completion (and I’m still kinda pissed that the Hippie, when he was there, utterly ignored this aspect of Bruichladdich’s production and brought back no info on their philosophy regarding it). It’s pretty damned good, is a one line summary.

I think a sweet-toothed rum lover such as I has to grow into the Renegade rums. A year or two back, I reviewed two other variations, sniffed rather snootily and said the rums were too much like whiskies. What a difference experience and the passing of time makes. The Renegade Grenada edition has shown me something of how different a rum can be from my own preconceptions, and yet still be enjoyable. At ~$60-80 Canadian, it isn’t really for beginners wanting their first intro (my opinion). But it – and its nineteen relatives in the line – may be the bridge for the truly interested person to broaden his palate to more interesting and offbeat variations…to the point where whiskies actually start to look really appealing and worth an occasional try.

Oh crap…Maltmonster and the Hippie are going to hang me with that.

(#068. 84.5/100)

Other Notes

Ron Barceló Añejo – Review

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Feb 092011
 

First posted 9th February, 2011 on Liquorature

This is a weaker than usual, unloved product of a distillery that has better products up the food chain, but apparently refused to pay the same attention to this one. It passes muster as a rum, but barely, and if you have choices and like stronger wares, this one won’t get you to part with your cash. If you want something stronger than a port or liqueur, but weaker than a real spirit, well, I guess this is for you.

Right out of the bottle you get a sense of the relative weakness of this rum. Perhaps it’s a measure of the forty percenters or even fifty percenters I’ve been sipping lately, but let’s face facts and concede that it’s also a relatively weak rum at a 37.5%, one which would make any maker of a 151 snicker a little. And that also makes the Ron Barceló weigh in dangerously close to being a liqueur, which this site is not in the business (yet) to review.

Ron Barceló, made in the Dominican Republic (not in Dominica – the two are separate nations), is a product of Barceló Export Import, which has been in business since 1930, has always been a rum producer, and remains to this day a privately held company run by men who bear the name still. Julian Barceló, the founder, hailed from Spain – the name is actually Catalan – and arrived in the DR in 1929. His company soon became a very large and profitable enterprise, expanding his line of products to differing rums starting in 1935. By the 1980s the company became one of the biggest in the country, and expanded its market base by aggressively promoting exports – Spain was and continues to be a prime export market for the rums, of which the anejo reviewed here seems to be somewhat of a mid tier product. Maybe it’s a sherry thing. Note that this is one of the “Three B’s” – Bermudez, Brugal and Barceló – of the DR, and the youngest.

A golden coloured rum, Barceló poured into the glass and displayed the swiftly moving anorexic legs of a middle distance sprinter, judging from the haste with which the scooted back down into the body. The nose was quietly unimpressive: it had a bit of sting and spice to back up the scents of caramel, burnt sugar, bananas and perhaps a bit of coffee, but beyond that, there was very little, even after I went back to it a few minutes later, and again for a second and third nosing. I really didn’t know what to make of it: against the lack of depth and power imparted by a lower alcohol content is a slightly smoother, less astringent nose imparted by that very same lack. Bit of a schizo product, really.

The downward spiral continued on the palate: thin, a little harsh (if I was unkind I’d say bitchy, but that would be implying a strength the rum does not possess). The flavours are unassertive, though one must concede that you do get unambiguous notes of caramel, molasses and brown sugar, and perhaps a shade of citrus. But none really “tek front” and either elbowed the others aside, or asserted a pleasing marriage of the lot. You got these, and…nothing. You could almost say it was boring. And the finish? Well, uninspiring – smooth and short, with no sting worthy of the name (let alone a burn) and some kind apologetic whiff of weak spirit at the back of the throat, a tired reminder that Barcelo had some alcohol content after all. Undistinguished and unremarkable, to me. The whole product smacks of some kind of “good enough” philosophy in its provenance that I find vaguely affronting.

In sum, I’m completely unimpressed. With respect to other distillers’ products from the same half of the island, I didn’t care for the Bermudez Ron Añejo Anniversario, to which I gave an indifferent opinion, but that one, at 40%, was marginally better than this anemic offering. The Brugal on the other hand blew both of the other “Three B’s” away on better body, better taste and a phenomenal finish. Mind you, as I noted in the former review, people who like cognacs and whiskies and drier libations might find lots to favour about the Barceló – I merely suspect that it’s lower proof will alienate those same people. Who wants an underproof when there’s so much standard 40% or higher out there for the same cost, with a bolder, more assertive profile? I mean, the only reason I don’t classify this as a liqueur right away is because it is not sweet or heavy enough. But it’s close. No wonder the maker’s website gives so little information on the Barcelo: there’s precious little information to give.

So there we have it. The indifference of manufacture, coupled with an underproofing of the Barcelo, undoes what could be termed passable work by the blenders — and therefore I must conclude that it appears that it is a throwaway product, something without much care and love lavished upon it. It’s an also-ran for older, more aged, better blended efforts from the same company. It tries to walk with the big dogs, but for my money, alas, it just ends up peeing like a puppy.

(#066. 61/100)

Other notes

  • In September 2022 a comment (below) pointed out that Barcelo makes rums only from cane juice, which an immediate check on the website of the company also confirms. I have therefore changed some of the factual elements of this review appropriately (although score and tasting notes stay as they were). No idea how that slipped past my original vetting process…however, it’s possible that they used both molasses and cane juice, since Latin countries / ex-Spanish colonies did not have a history or tradition of using cane juice.
  • Note that in 2009 a new Barcelo division, Alcoholes Finos Dominicanos, was established with funds from the EU Rum Sector Programme (the same one that funded Clarendon’s new column still / fermenters and Foursuare’s bottling plant), and built a new industrial distillery the following year, which is processing 100% cane juice. This is now the distillery Barcelo is using to make its rums. It seems reasonable to suppose that this Anejo I tasted in 2011 is from older stocks that were made from molasses. The taste supports that assumption. (See also this 2020 Barcelo company profile on YouTube).

Flor de Caña Centenario “21” 15 Year Old Rum

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Jan 182011
 

First posted 18 January 2011 on Liquorature.

A better than average presentation, for a rum that supercedes its age

The Flor de Caña 21 is a good example of ensuring you know what you’re buying before you fork out your hard earned pieces of eight. I’m being redundant here (most other online reviews make mention of this), but I note the matter because all other Caña products have their age statement clearly and unambiguously front and center: 4 yr old, 5 yr old, 7 yr old, 12 yr old, 18 yr old. You can hardly avoid that: it’s on the front of the bottle and if you miss it, you aren’t paying attention in your hurry to peruse the price information. But the veinte uno doesn’t habla in this manner. The 21 doesn’t refer to the age, but the century for which it was bottled, and it’s actually a fifteen year old, which is noted in small gold lettering on the back. And this may in fact be reflected in the price: I paid ~$70 for it, and one would expect a 21 year old to be closer to, if not exceeding, a hundred.

Presentation was first rate – while I would have preferred a box or a tin for something this aged, I could live with the blue bag and the matching opaque blue bottle, since I’m a sucker for originality (and recall, the brilliant 18 year old doesn’t even have the bag, let alone a box). The rum itself pours into the glass in a tawny amber colour; it presents slow fat legs, for which I’m beginning to run out of amusing metaphors to describe: let’s liken it on this occasion to a Bourda fishwife’s plump gams.

The nose in this thing is, quite frankly, outstanding. It’s deceptive as well, because it starts out as a caramel-molasses scent, very smooth and hardly stinging your schnozz at all…and then morphs into a clear, clean floral and herbal scent that is delicate and assertive at the same time (I know no other way to express this lovely nose – most dark rums are either medicinal or overwhelm with burnt sugar and molasses, but not this one). In fact, I liked this so much that I spent an inordinate amount of time dipping my beak into it just to revel in its pleasures.

The body is medium (the bottle says full-bodied, but I’m not entirely convinced of that), just enough sweet mixed with just enough flavour and alcohol. The profile on the tongue is something else again: rich, caramel and sugar undertones, bound together by molasses and – once more – that unique hint of clean flowers, just faint enough to draw attention and balance out the muskier sugars, yet not so much as to overwhelm. The balance really is quite good. The 21 exits in a smooth and gentlemanly fashion, with barely a sting, and yet here’s a bit of a letdown: the finish is shorter than one might expect. An excellent nose and taste and coating on the tongue and throat, you understand: just short, as if the gentleman was visiting a house of ill repute, and now, having completed his business, wishes only to put on his hat and depart the premises with all due dispatch.

Flor de Caña (flower of the cane) rum is made in Nicaragua, and is one of the most consistently good dark rums I’ve ever had, at any age (I simply adored the 18 year old). The Compañía Licorera de Nicaragua was founded in 1937, though workers of the San Antonio sugar refinery had been distilling their own festive hooch for local celebrations for maybe half a century before that. The success of the distilling company led to expansion and to exporting rums to other countries in Central and South America by the late 1950s. Following on the heels of the trend established by DDL in 1992, they began to issue aged premium rums (though stocks were surely laid down before that…after all, when was the 18 year old I had in 2009 put into a barrel?). And since 2000, these rums have been recipients of numerous awards for excellence. No argument from me on that score.

It’s an overworked and abused cliche that 20% of Americans can’t find their own country on a map, but this is surely not an issue with anyone who knows his rums. Within the subculture, the great spirits of the small nations in the Caribbean and South America stand out as beacons of light and pride for their makers…and none of us who ever taste one of these great drinks is any doubt where Venezuela, Guatemala, Guyana or Nicaragua is. We know the nations, we know the geography and we know the history. We know of and care about, above all, the premium products of these small states, and what makes them special. In increasingly disconnected, fragmented world, rums like the Flor de Caña 21 are almost like national symbols in and of themselves: they have the power to bring us together and educate us beyond their fleeting, ephemeral tastes.

(#062. 85/100). ⭐⭐⭐½

Legendario Ron Añejo – Review

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Jan 032011
 

A blended rum given enhanced flavour by the addition of Muscatel wine prior to final ageing. This creates an unusual almost-sipper that is not entirely to my taste but cannot be denied for what it is – an intriguing essay into the craft of playing around with the basic brown-sugar sweetness of rum to get something quite unique.

First posted 3 January 2011 on Liquorature.

Legendario Ron Añejo is a Cuban rum, but makes no concessions to people North of 49 who don’t habla, since nothing on the label is English (or French). Fortunately, as a travelling vagrant, I have a smattering of several additional tongues (and can curse pretty well in about fifteen or so, but never mind), so this was no barrier. The rum is exported around the world, and is an interesting entry into the world of aged spirits, not least because its flavor profile is so exceedingly odd.

This was a rum I bought as an impulse purchase, for about thirty bucks, and my opinion was that it’s a middling rung of the Legendario product ladder. There isn’t much of that to begin with: the entire line seems to consist of six rums both dark and white, with the Gran Reserva 15 year old being the top end. The Ron Añejo is a rum that blends a 47% solera with rums that are one, four and six years old, and then a small smidgen of Muscatel wine is added, after which the resultant is aged for fifteen days in oaken casks prior to bottling. While produced in Cuba, it is marketed primarily out of Spain and although I’m not sure, I suspect that this final ageing takes place there also.

Legendario poured out as amber brown from an opaque dark-brown bottle with a cheap tinfoil cap. In the glass it exhibited a touch of oily film, yet devolved into remarkably thin legs that scooted back down rather quickly. I regarded it with some surprise, not sure what to make of this: usually when you see a filmy sheen develop on the sides of your glass, the legs tend to be rather lazy, but not here. So was Legendario a rum with good body or not?

The nose suggested it might be. I didn’t care for it on an initial sniff – I was hit by a deep and cloying fruitiness, like overripe papayas or even the Australian Bundie, neither of which is on my list of all-time favourites – and this proves why it is so necessary never to let your first try dictate your final opinion. Taking in the nose a second and third time, I got the same aroma, yes, but then it dissipated and mellowed out into scents of honey and dark sugars, infused with the sharper but muted tannins of oak. Not so much as to make it a bitter experience, just enough to prove it had been aged.

The taste was fascinating and continued on from the nose: the Añejo did in fact have a robust medium body, and was smooth and rich on the tongue, leaving a nice oily film that distributed a flavour reminiscent of cigars and tobacco (and oak). A smoky caramel-toffee flavour slowly developed and married into an emergent taste of cherries and ripe papaya. I was not entirely enamoured of this element: it was quite a fruity little number, perhaps too much so, and it was only when I did my customary research that it occurred to me that the added Muscatel – a black, quite sweet variety of grape – was in all likelihood responsible for these overripe fruity tastes I was getting hit with. I remain unimpressed with the effort while acknowledging its originality.

The fade was pretty good. Medium long and sweet, and while here again the hints of overripe fruit persisted, they were overshadowed by molasses and burnt sugar fumes that were a very pleasant way to have the Legendario go down.

What’s my opinion on this one? Tough call. I do not believe the Muscatel adds anything to it except differentiation from the crowd. It may be that there was simply too much of it, and it sort of crowded out other flavours, to the overall detriment of the whole rum. As a sipper, then, it’s borderline. As a mixer, if you take something with less than the normal amount of sugar in it – say, Coke zero or ginger ale or some such – it’ll probably make your day.

Americans, who have maintained their trade embargo of Cuba for longer than many residents of Florida have now been alive, cannot legally import any of the sterling products of the island nation, the most famous of which are cigars and rums (although I’m sure that aficionados get their stocks regardless). The Legendario is a better-than-middling product, to me: it is not on par with Havana Club’s barrel proof offerings, and I’d really like to give the Gran Reserva 15 year old a twirl on the dance floor – but it’s not bad for all that, even given its initially startling fruity nose. Legendario is nothing to break the embargo over, mind you – prospective purchasers of this rum in the USA can wait until the embargo inevitably gets lifted – but if you can get it, by all means snag a bottle.

(#060. 76/100) ⭐⭐⭐

 

A.D.Rattray Caroni 1997 13 Year Old Rum – Review

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Dec 222010
 

I wrote the full review for Michael Streeter of the RumConnection website in December 2010, and here is the summary :

The price is reasonable, the colour, body and nose are lovely, and the taste is unique, if a bit harsh: if the rum fails at all, it’s in the decision not to mess with it – this has led to the prescence of oak maintaining an influence not all will appreciate. Are other similarly aged rums better, tastier, smoother and more complex? Yes, absolutely. But I also think that the Caroni is one of a kind, a rum lover’s secret discovery – a sort of prime number of a rum, which is indivisible by anything other than you and itself.

The website link to Rum Connections is here and here is the full text:

Why the bottle of A.D. Rattray Cask Collection 13 year old Caroni rum (bottle 128 of 290) states it is “made exclusively for Co-Op” (a grocery chain) on the label is a mystery to me1. This is especially the case since I have been able to find it on sale in at least two other countries, and the labels on neither have any such mention. I can only conclude that this is a distribution issue, not a matter of commissioning or purchasing some kind of exclusive bottling (which both other merchants in Calgary — the Kensington Wine Market and Willow Park – indulge in).

The selling point of a rum like this one is never just the rum itself, but exclusivity, limited bottle-outturn, and rarity. Like the Appleton 30 (1440 bottles) and the English Harbour 1981 (5774), this is an extremely limited edition of 290 bottles, emerging from a single cask. As if this were not enough, it’s 13 years old and un-chill filtered, as well as having no additives at all – just like the two Cadenhead offerings I’ve tried – and these last two points are the Caroni’s great strength and also (to some) a weakness. Fortunately, and curiously, the price of the rum when I bought it was in the forty dollar range, which seems low ….either it isn’t that exclusive, not that good, or someone is testing the water to see if the price point can be supported for premium limited-edition rums as they are by whiskies.

The name of the rum comes from the Caroni (1975) Ltd sugar company of Trinidad and Tobago, which was established in 1887 and taken over by the government of T&T when it acquired Tate & Lyle’s shareholdings in 1970 (51%) and 1975 (49%) – it went under because it consistently lost money and no buyers could be found, in 2004. This may well be some of their last stock still available commercially as a bottled product so even if the rum is not to your liking, it’s possible that as an investment…well, it’s up to you.

The rum itself was attractively packaged in a black cardboard tin, in which a slim bottle of light amber fitted tightly. Tin foil wrapped around a well-seated cork. It’s a thing of mine that I enjoy the voluptuous sound of a cork popping gently out, so points there. At 46% ABV, I’m was not expecting a gentle nose that tenderly massaged my snoot and beckoned invitingly with soft, caramel-scented breath, and I didn’t get one – but it was not as sharp and medicinal as I feared either. In point of fact, it was, in spite of its lack of “post processing”, rather good. Distinct, and clear, separating early into notes of vanilla, nuts and burnt sugar, with the muskier molasses scent underlying everything. And yes, a claw or two to remind you of its slightly higher alcohol content.

I don’t know how many people reading this have ever seen a sugar cane field burn in the tropics at harvest time, and can speak of the experience (I’m one of them): there’s a kind of deep smell of burning brown sugar that permeates the whole area, and lingers in your nose for days. I’ve always liked it when handled well within a rum’s bouquet, perhaps because of the memories it evokes of my boyhood. After leaving the Caroni to open for a few minutes, that lovely aroma stole around and about the other scents, which gradually became identifiable as faint hints of citrus fruit and notes of cherries, not so ripe as to be cloying…just young enough to impart some sting. I could have gone on smelling that for a lot longer than I did.

The body of the Caroni turned out to be sharper than I personally preferred, and lighter, clearer: definitely a medium bodied rum, hot and spicy on the palate, and a bit dry. This mostly likely comes from the additional spirit of the 46% I was sampling, as well as tannins from the thirteen years of ageing in the oak barrels, which was not mitigated. The lack of additives also played its part: that lack is a point of pride of the distiller, but I’m just not convinced it really works for rums, no matter how much it succeeds for whiskies (rummies like their libations sweeter, as a rule). On the other hand, by eschewing the chill filtering process, all the original oils, fatty acids, sugars, esters and phenols remain in the body, and this was what probably accounted for its somewhat richer taste. Certainly, after the peppery spiciness faded, the sweetness (less than usual but still noticeable) came through more clearly, as well as banana, smoke, leather and – alas! – just a shade too much oak.

The fade is excellent, bar the same issue – the burn is deep and long, and that burnt sugar and caramel taste lingered, and spirit fumes wafted up the back of my throat and just…stayed there. The bitterness of the barrel was unfortunately part of what lingered also, so on that level the Caroni failed for me, but I’m perfectly prepared to accept that others will enjoy that aspect more than I did. As an aged rum, as a sipper, therefore, I must concede I like it above the more expensive offerings from Cadenhead; and as a mixer the Caroni is unique and superb (and the lower price makes it suitable for a better than average cocktail for those inclined that way – though who would do such a thing is unclear). Where I think it falls down is in the thinner body and lack of any attempts to mute the oaken taste, which fortunately is not so prevalent as to overpower everything else, just prevalent enough to make a good rum fall to the middling rank, instead of inhabiting a loftier plane in my esteem (although this may change).

A.D.Rattray, a company established in 1868 by Andrew Dewar and William Rattray, was originally an importer of olive oil and European spirits, which branched out into blending and storage of malt and grain whiskies. Now owned and operated by Mr. Tim Morrison (formerly of Islay’s Morrison-Bowmore distillery, and a descendant of Mr. Dewar), its core mission is to make unusual, exclusive, limited edition whiskies from stock obtained from all the unique whisky producing regions of Scotland. The company would appear to be going with a trend now gathering steam – that of premium scotch makers branching out into other spirits, like rums. I’m all for innovation – I found the Renegade line of the Bruichladdich distillery intriguing essays in the craft, and for all my occasional dislikes of the Cadenheads, I must concede they have tried to take rums in a different direction than the heretofore dominating “sweet and brown” philosophy – and I look forward to seeing what else comes out in the future from such out-of-the-box thinkers.

In summary, the price is reasonable, the colour, body and nose are lovely, and the taste is unique, if a bit harsh: if the rum fails at all, it’s in the decision not to mess with it – this has led to the prescence of oak maintaining an influence not all will appreciate. Are other similarly aged rums better, tastier, smoother and more complex? Yes, absolutely. But I also think that the Caroni is one of a kind, a rum lover’s secret discovery – a sort of prime number of a rum, which is indivisible by anything other than you and itself.

Quite aside from its coming rarity and decent pricing, that’s enough of a reason to give it a shot.

(#059)(Unscored)

Other notes

Addendum (August 2015)

This included, I’ve looked at eight Caronis in depth, most sourced in 2014. They are:

…and a bunch of short-form Rumaniacs reviews, here:

 

Whaler’s Rare Reserve Dark Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
Dec 112010
 

Whaler’s Rare Dark Reserve Rum is all characteristics and no character: smell without nose, burn without body and aggressiveness bordering on the obnoxious without actually delivering on any of the promises it makes. Don’t let the tempting scent fool you. That’s most of what you’re gonna be getting.

(First posted 11th December 2010)

Whaler’s Rare Reserve Dark rum is not, as its advertising might imply, made in Hawaii. Its website certainly suggests the connection by touting the traditional recipe used by whalers in the old days, copied from native islanders’ own rum production on Maui and perhaps infused with vanilla beans once used to rattle around in bottles, meant to entice whales to come closer. An amusing tale which may even be true. Be that as it may, the rum takes its name from the hardy sailors who once plied the Pacific searching for the whales to decimate and made rum on the side when stopping for R&R in the islands. But it’s actually made in Kentucky, by Heaven Hill Distillery and is a commercially indifferent low-cost, low-effort, low-interest spiced slop marketed to people who know no better, on an industrial scale.

For a bottle costing less than $25, you can’t expect too much, and indeed, it doesn’t deliver too much. In that sense, it is not like the Tanduay, an undiscovered steal: it’s just a low level adulterated rum made from neutral spirits. What makes it stand out from the crowd is a nose of real, if simple, power. Open this bottle and just let it stand there: it’s like somebody let off a butterscotch bomb in the room (and lest you think I’m exaggerating, I tasted this with a group of Scotiabank employees, and one of them smelled it twenty feet away in less than three seconds…before I poured a single glass). I have gradually been corrupted into using a glencairn glass, but truth is, you don’t need something snooty for Whaler’s – what you really need is a gas mask to filter the thing out.

The darkness of Whaler’s is, I concede, appealing, and it sports a medium body (I expected something heavier and richer from that colour, but no…). In the glass it sports thin legs, and that is where this kind of test proves its worth. Consider: a strong, overpowering nose of butterscotch and vanilla through which you can dimly and imperfectly sense caramel and some sugar and pretty much nothing else. A body that stings and burns and delivers that taste…and nothing else. A finish that is short and thin and stings (not much, but that’s me damning it with faint praise)…and nothing else. I’ve heard and read of rum lovers discussing “hollow” rums, which have all promise and no delivery – this is the first one I’ve ever tried.

What Whalers really is, when all is said and done and drunk, is a flavoured, spiced rum. Not even fancy herbal stuff like, oh, the Tuzemak, or even Captain Morgan – those two have the balls to put their money where their advertisements are and don’t have airy pretensions to more than that – but just a bucketload of caramel, vanilla and butterscotch flavouring poured into some 40% rum. As a low level mixer this will be okay, I guess. As a sipper it fails, utterly, unless you’re after a harsh liqueur of some kind, or a cocktail base. I know I’m not, but if you are, I’d suggest a coke zero or some other non-sweet mixer: this thing is too sugary by half already and doesn’t need any further embellishment.

(#058. 71/100) ⭐⭐½

Opinion

Heaven Hill distillery from Bardstown, Kentucky may be the harbinger of an accelerating trend: that of larger distillers diversifying their entire portfolios and producing more than just the spirits that once made their name. Bacardi has stuck with rums (and has one at every price point except the stratosphere) as has J. Wray & Nephew, but research I’ve done on Tanduay, Banks DIH, DDL and of course Diageo shows that these big guns (among others) are producing vodkas, tequilas, gins, whiskies, liqueurs and just about everything else north of 30% ABV. Even Bruichladdich and Cadenhead are now experimenting with rums as opposed to straight whisky production and American “craft” distilleries in particular seem to want to make everything possible on the one still they might have. And here is the Whaler’s Distilling Company, a subsidiary of the behemoth of Heaven Hill, producing rums in Bourbon country. And vodkas. And Gin. And other stuff.

In fairness, that’s the way companies survive, by innovation and adaptation to a marketplace where drinking preferences are all over the map and changing in a heartbeat at the dictates of fashion; quality control is better and modern technologies are consistently employed for a taste that is the same bottle to bottle: none of that hit and miss approach that characterizes tiny operations making rum for local consumption on small islands. But I still kind of regret the passage from the uniqueness of such tightly focused distilleries to something more impersonal.

Tanduay Superior 12 year old – Review

 7 Responses »
Dec 052010
 

 

First posted 5th December, 2010 on Liquorature.

Some rums just upend all expectations, and maybe even redefine your assumptions. Smooth, amber-dark, just sweet enough, and with a body and a finish that simply don’t give up, Tanduay Superior 12 year old is like that. Where on earth has this rum been, and why can’t I find it in Calgary?

A very affable individual from my office named Rainerio was heading off home to the Philippines the other day, and knowing there were interesting rums to be found there (though unashamedly confessing ignorance of exactly which ones those were since I had never had any) I went down on bended knee, indulged myself in a paroxysm of weeping meant to soften any stony heart, and begged him to bring back a sample for me to review. Well, I exaggerate a bit for poetic effect, but I did ask. And Rainerio very kindly brought me back a bottle of this stunning 12 year old. Hell I would have been satisfied with any local popskull, and to get something so all-round excellent was a like getting an early Christmas present.

Tanduay is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, make of rum in the east, particularly the Phillipines, and made by the Tanduay Distillery out of Manila. Like other major distillers – Bacardi and Diageo come to mind – they have a complete range, from light to dark, from the very cheap to the very expensive, and they have been in operation since 1854, which pips Bacardi by, oh, seven years. Yet, for whatever reason – distributors ignorance, lack of channels, unfavourable tariffs or whatever, you really have to look around to find it in North America (my research suggests it may be more readily available in Europe) and yet it may be the third most popular brand of rums in the world.

A dark brown rum of the same hue as the Bacardi 8 year old, the Tanduay 12 year old is an oak-aged product served up in a standard bottle emerging from a hard cardboard black box, and sporting a deceptive cheapo tinfoil cap. I looked askance at it and wondered whether this was a harbinger of things to come, but what the hell, I had asked for it and so dived right in.

On the nose the 12 year was spicy and immediately assertive with equal parts vanilla, caramel and lemon zest in some kind of crazy harmony, as if Michael Jackson suddenly joined up with the Bee Gees and they created a song of their own that just missed being nuts by some strange unknown alchemy. It was bold and immediate, but after allowing it to breathe, a sly delicate note of flowers came stealing around the more powerful notes. Yes there was some sting, but this died away after a while and the medicinal reek I so dislike in younger rums was utterly absent.

The rum took my hand and took me along with it: medium heavy body, coating the tongue with a sort of oiliness I have only had with DDL’s more aged rums. There was just enough sweet to the Tanduay, and the caramel and vanilla notes were now joined by something softer, perhaps bananas or a tamed light citrus. It slides smoothly down the throat and let me tell you, the fade is simply awesome. Long and smooth, with one last soft gasp of breathy fragrance wafting back up to remind you of what you just had, and inviting you to revisit the experience with another try.

Unless a distributor for this rum is found or whatever has stopped the importation of Tanduay to Canada is resolved, I doubt I’ll ever taste it again (though maybe I can ask Rainerio to bring another one back in a year or two). I’m glad I had a chance to try it: just when I thought I had a handle on the major brands of the world, this one came out of nowhere and smacked me upside the head. If nothing else, it says that though I may have tasted and reviewed more rums than most, there are always gems from other places previously unconsidered that will just amaze, delight and please with their overall excellence. This is the first one in my experience: I know there’ll be others, but Tanduay gives me hope that I’ll actually be able to find them, and share that delight with all those who one day read the reviews I put up about their quality.

(#056. 84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

Bacardi Black Rum – Review

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Dec 032010
 

First posted December 3rd, 2010 on Liquorature

Bacardi Black is a deep, dark rich mixer’s drink just the right side of sweet enough, but lacks the cojones to be a decent sipper on its own merits.

The mainstays of Bacardi’s massive sales are, to my mind, the low-enders: those rums not good enough to stand on their own, but which have a bold taste, a decent body and – somewhat like Johnny Walker – sufficient overall quality to be a cut above the average. The normal Joe who walks into a liquor store isn’t after all, looking for a life-changing experience: he’s looking for a decent drink at a good price that won’t make him void his bowels, lose his sight and tie his alimentary canal up into a complex knot.

Such a rum is the Bacardi Black, which I will tell you right out, is not a sipping rum by any stretch of the imagination (unless you like low enders to sip and cause you pain) but will liven up any drink you make with it. It’s a cocktail base, pure and simple, and should be treated as such and I must be equally honest and tell you it’s one of the better ones out there at its price point (less than $30 for 750ml). I should also point out, however that the Black is no longer available as the Black since it has now been replaced as the Bacardi Select rum. Dunno what difference there is between the two.

You can almost always tell tipple for the masses: with a very few exceptions, almost no care is taken tartin’ ‘er up, and this is no exception. Tin foil cap. Cheap label with bare minimum of facts. A reekingly pungent nose that only reluctantly releases its claws and puffs a grudging fart of caramel into your face like a baby’s bum at the exact wrong time. A thin little toot, you understand…the Black is not a heavy dark rum. But to some extent you are compensated by a transformation of the initial caramel whiff into light cinnamon, some bonbons, and a weakly burnt-wood belch.

The body is, as I say, not for sipping. A tad on the thin side, tasting of oak and caramel, some vanilla and maybe nuts. But oddly, for a rum this dark, there is a lack of boldness and assertiveness, a lack of sweet, that’s somewhat at odds with its aggressive styling and bold dark looks: it’s as if Will Smith turned into a wuss, or something. And that finish: ugh. Lousy. Hobbesian, truth be told – nasty, brutish and short.

I know I’m making a case that this is just another piece of dreck. But it’s not, really – it’s just not meant to be had neat (and my apologies to all of you who have tried it that way and liked it – but you need to trade up). As a mixer in cocktails it’s actually really good….its weaknesses are compensated for by whatever we chose to add to it.

Bacardi’s 20 million cases of annual sales are more than just a question of a stable of brands or a favourable tariff regime with the US. They have simply, and for generations, made a damn fine series of rums. What they lack in uber-quality and premium labelling (they have nothing to even breathe upon the Appleton 30 or DDL’s aged offerings), they make up for in volume of decently distilled spirits that appeal widely because of both their overall quality (sold cheaply) and their ubiquity.

I’ve found Bacardis the world over and always affordable, almost always better than the local hooch. They’re good enough and affordable enough, which sheds a clear light on their marketing philosophy. By eschewing top-end and exclusive premium rums and concentrating on making a series of excellent mid- and low-tier products – like the Black and the Gold – Bacardi have essentially created what every manufacturer dreams of making just once and then selling a jillion. Simply put, with the Black and its like, Bacardi have made the Model T of rums.

(#054. 77/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other Notes

  • The “Black” in the title refers to the colour, of course. I have read different accounts as to how that is achieved – one story says it’s because of heavily charred barrels and then filtered through more charcoal, another other says it’s liberal use of E150 caramel colouring, and third says a bit of both.
  • According to Rum Ratings and this reference, the rum name has now been discontinued, and the same rum is referred to as “Bacardi Select”. The exact year is unclear, since I picked up this bottle in 2010 but BilgeMunky had already noted the change in his review of the Select in 2007. Since the Select does not appear in Bacardi’s catalogue as of 2021 (when I checked again), I assume that it has been rebranded once more, this time as the “Cuatro.” Nothing else in the lineup qualifies, and the fact that the blends making up the rum are aged a minimum of four years suggest this – however, I accept that the Select might simply have been replaced altogether with a new blend that is not using charred barrels quite as much.

Angostura Royal Oak Select Trinidad Rum – Review

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Dec 012010
 

 

Original Post Date 01 December 2010 on Liquorature.

(#013)(Unscored)

Workable blend that makes for a perfectly solid mixer without shining in any other way, except to maybe pip the low-end Appletons. Best save for the 1919 version.

***

Royal Oak Select Rum is another one of those annoying rums that tell you nothing about how old it is, which instantly informs you it’s a blend. I don’t care much for whisky, as my humourous posts have made clear (I think the Peat Heads are misguided, but innocently so, and may be dint of effort and tender ministrations be brought to understand the error of their ways), but I do appreciate the fact that every bottle has its age on it. As a rule of thumb, I assume that when this is not the case on rum bottles, then it is less than five years old. Cadenhead Green Label is an exception, of course.

A golden rum, Angostura is young (3-6 years, nothing more definitive), made in Trinidad by the same folks who are now producing the once-superlative but now downgraded Zaya 12 year old, but not a on par with that voluptuous lass. Like with all single-digit rums (SDRs, as I call them), it lacks the polish and finish of older siblings (yes, yes, with the exception of the fabled EH-5), and I think it is not distilled for the export market, really. Therefore it may be best used as a mixer.

Still, even for young rum, this baby has its admirers, and I’m one of them. I wouldn’t drink it straight, since it’s a bit too harsh on the tongue and throat for that – the younger parts of the blend certainly assert their prescence early on. But the nose has an interesting hint of citrus, and intriguing caramel overtones develop more seriously on further tasting, together with coconut and a certain mellow spiciness. The body is quite good, with a sort of oiliness that leads to a long lasting flavour. The finish is medium short, quite a bit of burn, but the caramel sweetness remains, mixed with a faint nuttiness. It’s a bit richer in flavour than I had expected, and while I don’t expect that much from an SDR, its strength (43%) and dominating sugar-caramel aftertaste belie the light colour and make it a good choice to go head to head 1:1 with coke.

In summary, a decent mixer about on par with an Appleton V/X but with its own profile and a stronger taste and slightly smoother finish, so not as low-tier as the Bundaberg (which I have gone on record as not appreciating). Anyone who buys this is not scraping the bottom of the barrel by any means.

Note: I must go on record to express my appreciation to Keenan who raided his pantry to provide me with this bottle to sample. He finds it highly amusing to watch while I try to stay sober and drink four of his rums at the same time.

 

Bacardi 1873 Dark Rum – Review

 3 Responses »
Nov 272010
 

First Posted 27 Nov 2010 on Liquorature

A pleasant mixer but not worth it as a sipper…like a date you want to kiss but really aren’t sure you want to bring home just yet.

I’m at a loss to say what Bacardi 1873 is, based on what I’m reading. Research is maddeningly inconclusive: is it a solera, as some bottles advertise themselves to be, or a standard blend of some kind? Some sources suggest that it’s an aged blend that has now been replaced by the eight year old. I hesitate to commit myself to any of these positions, because while I can tell my bottle is definitely not marked as a solera (that is usually clearly identified as such on the bottle, and the one I sampled makes no mention of it), I can’t ascertain anything else.

It would also appear that the few rum reviews out there are at odds on whether it is discontinued or not, and if so, replaced by what. Bacardi’s own (woefully inadequate) website is hardly a fount of information on the matter and thus far they have ignored my inquiries. On the other hand, Chip Dykstra of the Rum Howler Blog was as helpful as ever, and responded that while the 1873 started life as a Solera made in Puerto Rico, production was subsequently moved to Mexico and the specialized solera method was discontinued.

Faced with this dilemma, a reviewer does what he can: he directs an inquiry at the distiller, does as careful a tasting as he is able, and puts a picture of the bottle up to ensure that readers know precisely what they’re reading a review of. And this is what I’ve attempted to do.

Price wise, nothing to say. About $35. Bottle, not the rounded shape of the standard Bacardi’s like Black, Gold or White, but more squared off. Cap is a cheap crap tinfoil press-on. I won’t go so far as to say these initial indications denote low-end, but it does seem to be trending that way. On the other hand, I like the rich and deep amber-gold colour of the rum as the light strikes it (something I’ve attempted to show in the picture I took).

Working on the assumption that this is a blend, the trick is to see if a decent tasting can suggest, with a fair degree of assurance, whether it’s an old or young one running up the spine.

On those nose, there is a surprising lack of any kind of spirit burn on the initial sniff, just soft vanilla notes wrapped around a caramel and burnt sugar core. There is a hint of oaken tannins on the back end which suggest some level of ageing, but it’s impossible to say how much: the relatively simple nose doesn’t lend itself much to dissection. I need to mention, though, that after I left my glass to stand for a bit, a sly citrus hint came sliding out of the softer background of vanilla.

The palate confirmed the overall lack of complexity the nose had suggested. The body of the 1873 was lighter than I expected for something of this copper-brown/amber coloured hue; and slightly sweet without overpowering you with sugar, and a shade dry (not as much as the Bermudez, however). The rum is spicy, packing a light stinging burn on the tongue, yet perseverance elicits the taste of dried fruits as well, the non-sweet kind, like dates, perhaps; this last is very faint and is no more than a light impression. As for the finish, it’s short and sharp, and the medicinal fumes which thus far escaped you are back to claw their way up your throat and spoil what so far had been an unremarkable, but also not particularly bad, rum.

I’m really not impressed with the 1873 on its own – this one seems to be tailor made for a cocktail base of some kind, and indeed, as a mixer with the usual suspects, I really enjoyed it. I believe it to be a blend of rums aged no more than five years. As a sort of general product, it doesn’t try to be any one thing, but too many, and there we may have hit on the reason for its lack of success with me. The makers never got around to hanging their hat on any kind of flavour profile, while trying to please everyone: that marks it out as a low-ender, to my mind.

I sometimes wonder how much rum-lovers’ tastes the world over are formed from early exposure to the best selling rum in the world. When you think about it, drinkers who start with scotch appreciate the drier, not so sweet variations that hark back to whisky and cognac, while also liking the sweeter, more full-bodied stuff; but drinkers who began with Bacardi and never strayed from the true faith tend to like the former somewhat less, and concentrate their love on the latter. This private theory of mine is anecdotal at best, but who knows.

Be that as it may, Bacardi 1873 is a pleasant blend of no great sophistication, and sports its youthful physique and unpretentious nature like any teenager that ever lived but fails on the finish line. It’s main selling point might be that it’s a cut above the black and gold variations, and works exceedingly well as a mixer. For some, it might work as a low-end, none too stellar sipper (something like the El Dorado 5 yr or English Harbour 5 yr)…not for me, though.

(#049)(73.5/100) ⭐⭐½

Tuzemak Czech Rum – Review

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Nov 262010
 

First posted 26 November 2010 on Liquorature.

Herbal, different and like few other rums (we’ll be generous with the term) ever made; will add variety to cocktails and cheer to any Czechs you booze with, but my take is to exercise care when you have it neat.

We must establish from the outset that all labeling to the contrary, Tuzemak is not precisely a rum. This is because it was originally made from potatoes or beets, not sugar cane, and while you might find it in the rum section, it’s simply because the Czech manufacturers have in the past included colouring and taste additives to make it more like a real rum, and called it as such — you will note this label has no such word, not even “room” which some Central European spirits makers have used to get around EU regs. I’m no fan of over-regulation, and the EU has whole warehouses crammed floor to ceiling with them, but in this case their ruling that to be classified and sold as rum in Europe, the thing can’t be made from pommes-de-terre, finds much favor with me.

Which is not to say I actually despise the drink I bought on a whim at Willow Park the other day (my curiosity and nosiness will be the undoing of me one day, I fear). As a confirmed internationalist and pretender to cosmopolitanism, I try to take a more tolerant view of differences, and if this thing more or less looks like a brown drink, tastes sweeter than whisky and smells a bit like the good stuff, while being trumpeted as a rum in Czechoslovakia even though they have been forbidden to do so…well, I’m not averse to taking it at face value (The Last Hippie, who refuses to concede that there is any other whisky than the Scotch kind even as he snootily reviews what he terms “lesser offerings” in an effort to call himself fair, would probably be horrified at my laissez-faire attitude, but them’s the breaks).

Tuzemak actually means “domestic” in Czech, and simply refers to its down-home origins (not a maid). Called Tuzemský rum until January 1, 2003 — when the country became subject to the EU regulatory regime on spirits as a condition for entry — it is, like Stroh’s, something of a local institution, and made with an old, supposedly traditional recipe. Czechs are great beer drinkers, but they do like hard stuff as well: aside from the rum, there is both slivovice (a kind of plum brandy) and Becherovka, (a herbal 38% liqueur). This one seems to take the best part of tose and creates a drink for the people who never have drinks…just a drink, and then another drink and then…

Enough temporizing, then: what’s the story on the rum?

On the nose, it’s not too shabby. It’s a little pungent, a shade sharp, but as it settles, wafts of vanilla billow gently into your nose without too much sting or burn. There is a very slight medicinal undertone that kind of spoils the taste, but not so much as to seriously detract from the overall quality, just to show it’s not an aged product. What kind of blend it is – that is to say, what’s in it or how many differing ingredients there are – I cannot say. There’s too little information available.

The palate continues enhancing what the nose promised. As one tastes, the vanilla becomes more pronouced, keeping in step with a gradually increasing floral note, some kind of herbs (similar to the Stroh 54) and a faint liquorice hint that blends pretty well into the overall balance. It’s like a light sweet semi dry cognac, and for once I do not mean this in a bad way. It’s young and a little rambunctious, not too sophisticated…yet nice too, even as a low end sipper. The finish is short and dry and without serious sting or burn, the warm breath of the fumes come up the back of your throat and linger gently before dissipating

In summary, I think this is a very workmanlike entry to the genre. I’d drink it neat, yes; but it makes a phenomenally different and pleasurable mixer too, largely due to its unusual herbal properties which give even that old faithful, the rum and coke, a uniquely different perspective. Remember how I despised the plasticine taste of the Stroh 54? This delectable local tipple from middle Europe avoids the pitfalls of that overproof, and is a decent rum, an interesting sipping tipple and something that I’d recommend for any who want to try something a little off the reservation.

Na zdravi!

(#050)(73/100) ⭐⭐½

Other Notes / Updates

  • In 2018 the Tuzemak was pulled aside by the EU and told to remove the “rum ether” which gave the beet-distilled spirit its rum flavour (it was a carcinogen).

Bermudez Ron Añejo Anniversario – Review

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Nov 192010
 

First posted November 19, 2010 on Liquorature.

Bermudez is the second rum I managed to find from the Three Bs distilleries in the half-island of the Domincan Republic (Brugal, Bermudez and Barcelo), and is both less and more than its possibly better known sibling, the Brugal Ron Añejo which I took a look at the other day.

J. Armando Bermúdez & Co., C. por A. is a distillery located in Santiago de los Caballeros in the north central region of the DR. It was founded in 1852 (hence the year on the label of this Anniversary edition) by Erasmo Bermúdez, who created the formula of the Bitter Panacea, an early rum meant to be taken as appertif, and which soon became very well known. To this day the descendants of Erasmo run the show, but there are stories about how the various members of the family have squabbled among themselves on the direction of the company, and so it no longer holds the pre-eminent position it once had. It certainly is the oldest of the Three Bs, Brugal being established in 1888 and Barcelo in 1930.

There is no age statement on the bottle, so one is forced to resort to external resouces to see what’s in this baby. Wikipedia refers to the Anniversario as a golden high-end premium blend (not particularly helpful), and Chip Dykstra’s notes suggest it has either a twelve or a fifteen year old backbone, based on the supplier’s say-so, but añejos are usually under ten years old so I take that assertion with a pinch of salt. Given its middling price of just around forty dollars, he may be right, but I find it frustrating in the extreme to find the company website unavailable, and no other notes of consequence anywhere to inform the casual reader on the matter.

Anniversario is a tawny gold colour, however hidden it may be in a nearly opaque dark green bottle. I can’t say the tinfoil cap impresses me much – if this is a premium rum you’d think something more would be added to the initial presentation to justify the price, not a cheap covering and an equally cheap sigil on the front above the label. But it’s another indicator, pointing to its less aged pedigree than others claim it has.

A thin oily film devolves into slow thin legs that meander slowly back into the glass; on the nose, the medicinal sting and reek is more pronounced (much to my surprise) than the Brugal I had right beside it and ten minutes previously (I promptly poured another glass of it to make sure this was not an accident and yup, it was confirmed). After I left it to open up a bit, other flavours emerged: a sort of earthy, dark taste, like rich chocolate, balanced off by a dry and woody flavour and a hint of citrus. Later it developed a sweet floral hint, though not as light and clear as the Brugal: it was more…heavy, a bit like lilies as compared to white roses.

The Anniversario is a dry, unsweet medium-bodied rum which seems to be characteristic of the Latin islands. Tasting it confirmed some notions, dispelled others. A sweeter taste shyly emerged from out of the nose, and the driness became more pronounced, as did the slight bitterness coming from the oaken tannins. On the back end and leading into the finish, the faint traces of molasses and caramel I so like could finally be discerned. The finish is short and spicy, a slight burn that just misses being sharp (for which I give thanks), but again, is nowhere near as smooth as the Brugal.

I wish I knew more about its distillation and provenance: it smelled and tasted like a single digit rum, yet it was obviously aged and seemed to be marketed as something more. And against that, the 3-5 year blend of the Brugal has a phenomenally smooth finish which this one can’t even approach. In fine, I’m underwhelmed by the Anniversario. It has a relatively modest price tag, but if it is true that it is a blend of double digit teen rums, then it has a pedigree I simply cannot see as justified (on the other hand I must say that it’s a matter of what one reviewer has said, plus some anecdotal evidence gleaned from hours of searching online – no real hard facts I can hang my shapka on).

At the end of it all, it must come down to my opinion based on what I tasted. The Bermudez Ron Añejo Anniversario tastes like a dry cognac, not a rum, is not sweet enough and lacks a real body. The blend just doesn’t work as well as it should for me, in spite of the fact that it may have a blended series of aged components in the double digits. It has an interesting marriage of flavours, but this groom, alas, ain’t buying today.

(#048)(73/100) ⭐⭐½

Brugal Ron Añejo – Review

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Nov 182010
 

First published November 18th, 2010 on Liquorature.

Ron Añejo Brugal is one of two rums from the Domincan Republic which I tasted side by side last Friday. Not to be confused with Dominica, the Dominican Republic is the Spanish speaking eastern half of the island of Hispaniola…the western half is Haiti. Three distilleries known as the Three Bs operate in the DR: Bermudez in the Santiago area, the Santo Domingo distillery called Barcelo, and Brugal in the north coast. Brugal, founded in 1888, seems to be the largest, perhaps as a result of being acquired in 2008 by the UK Edrington Group (they are the makers of Cutty Sark), and perhaps because Bermudez succumbed to internecine family squabbling, while Barcelo made some ill-advised forays into the hospitality sector and so both diluted their focus, to Brugal’s advantage

The term añejo simply means “aged”, and in this case it’s just a question of how long. Given the cheapness of the bottle (~$30 in Calgary Co-op) you can sort of assess that it’s not a double-digit rum, and indeed, after doing some research, I confirmed it to be a blend of rums aged three to five years in the usual used oak barrels that once held bourbon. The rum itself is a solidly mid-tier offering, golden in colour, in an utterly undistinguished, average looking bottle with a white plastic cap (plastic? sigh…). I don’t always agree with the Arctic Wolf in Edmonton on his assessments of rum, but both he and The Bear share this one thing: they despise cheap crap, in particular, bottle caps made of tinfoil or plastic (against this, you have to understand that the Bear in particular hates being dinged for extra crap which adds only to presentation…it gets a bit confusing at times).

All this preamble aside, what’s going on with the profile? Well, if you want me to cut to the chase, the bottom line is that Brugal Anejo is a solid mid-tier rum, with a smooth finish that makes it just barely edge into sipper territory. Stop reading now if that’s all you needed.

In the glass it’s a clear dark toffee colour, which leaves a nice clear film on the side of the glass which gradually disperses into thin legs. The initial nose is sharp and medicinal (did I ever mention how much I hate this?) which, once the rum sits a while, devolves into light vanilla and caramel notes with a clear sweet floral note that I quite liked. Gradually, a second and third nosing will take you back into the comforting arms of the caramel, molasses and burnt sugar flavours, but they are light and clear in a way that is at odds with the heavier, darker flavours of the Guyanese El Dorados (or even the Jamaican Appletons).

The body of the rum is medium light… in fact, it’s almost thin, the way Doorly’s XO was. Be warned: this rum is not sweet, and this means that the overall feel on the tongue is more like a cognac, an opinion reinforced by its overall driness. The lack of sweet translates into something almost salty, like an ocean breeze tang, or something autumnal (which may be the oaken flavours coming through), and it’s intriguing without entirely being something I cared for. And as with the nose, after a moment you can taste the burnt brown sugar flavours coming subtly through on the back end – much more so than the Doorley’s I could not learn to appreciate. On ice Brugal’s is not recommended – the ice will close this baby up faster than a nun’s habit in a brothel – but as a mixer? Hmmm. Pretty damned good.

The delight of this rum is the finish: Brugal is astonishingly smooth. I don’t like the lack of sugar in the flavour profile because this to some extent affects how long the finish lasts and how heavy the rum feels, but even with the short time you feel the rum on the swallow, you get no burn or scratch or bite whatsoever. It’s nothing short of amazing, and for this I gave it a high thumbs up. Overall, this is not quite my kind of rum – I’ve made mention of my liking for heavier, darker and slightly sweeter variations – but I must be honest about it. If your liking is for less sugar than I prefer, then this low priced mid-range likker from the Caribbean will be right up your alley and is absolutely a good value for your thirty bucks. If that’s your thing, go for it.

(#047. 74.5/100) ⭐⭐½

 

J. Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
Nov 012010
 

First posted 01 November, 2010 on Liquorature

Raw white overproof, fun to drink mix or celebrate with…as the Jamaicans have long since known.

To be honest, I’m not entirely clear why people – aside from binge drinkers, students and serial alcoholics, whose motives are clearer — bother to drink white overproofs straight on a regular basis. The taste is simply too raw for real appreciation, in my opinion (though I have had several “full proof” rums which avoid this sharp stiletto to the palate, so it’s by no means a hard and fast rule). But I suppose they’re like those long distance runners who believe that twenty six miles is for sissies, and run ultra marathons instead. Tail end of the bell curve, or something like that. Or maybe they got used to in their youth in an old-country beer garden, or some trading post-cum-rumshop in the backdam; or believe it makes them more macho; gets them high faster; mixes better. Who the hell knows? If it’s one thing I’ve discovered in writing these reviews, is that there is as wide a variety of tastes as there are rums, and what is derided by one may be equally praised (fulsomely so) by another.

Whatever the case, there is actually a pretty good market for overproof rums among drinkers: overproofs are supposedly for cocktail bases and cooking purposes, but that never stopped anyone I ever met, male or female: one of my most enduring memories of working (and boozing) in the bush is a young Amerindian girl, passed out dead drunk on the Baramita airstrip, a bottle of Brazilian 99% alcool clutched tight in her left hand, and I know men who simply pace themselves better with strong spirits than with weak ones. That said, as I was researching and reading online readers’ fora about Stroh 54 (and 80), Bacardi’s 151 and the Clarke’s Court Pure White, knowing what I knew about Guyanese “High Wine” and now writing about the J. Wray & Nephew White Overproof, it seems to me that some people simply prefer it. And that’s perfectly proper.

The white I discuss here is bottled at a relatively mild 63%, which would make scotch drinkers quite happy, I suppose. It is, as any rum aficionado can immediately tell you, manufactured by the Jamaican boys who make Appleton Estate rums: and while the Appletons are easily purchased the world over, I get the impression that this white lightning is not easily or commercially available outside the Caribbean – which is indeed where my Torontonian squaddie John had picked it up on one of his sojourns to the Islands. It may be the single most popular rum in Jamaica, and mostly drunk mixed.

Therein lies the rub. Drinking an overproof of any kind is not a matter of sipping it neat, or even on ice. The J. Wray variant in this review is pretty strong, searing stuff without question: a massive, raw, ethanol delivery system that could knock a platoon out by breakfast time with one quick inhale. At the inception the white has almost no taste: it’s pretty flavourless beyond some kind of smoky, oil-fire kero tang coiling behind the nasty burn, which means that it’ll take on the flavours of whatever you chose to mix into it. Sure you might get some hints of orange peel, licorice and a peppery kind of spiciness at the back end (nose? what nose?), but truly, the only way to get any enjoyment at all out of something like this is to mix it, because all tastes are burned to a crisp by the spirit fire fairly fast (and in the distance I can hear the sneers of the Maltmonster as he delicately noses his favourite Ardbeg, neat).

Do that and this transparent medium body rum fares rather well, I thought (not without a little surprise). It makes a mean bastard of a Cuba Libre, a deep and strong Mai Tai that kicks the crap out of you in labba time, and I can almost guarantee that there isn’t a household of Jamaicans – expatriate or homeboys – who don’t have a bottle of this stuff kicking around. Like Guyanese with their XM five, it has all sorts of social connotations: crack a bottle and immediately you pour a capful on the ground to return some to those who aren’t with you; have a housewarming, and grace the floor with a drop or two; touch of the rheumatiz? – rub dem joints with a shot; mek a pickney…put a dab ‘pon he forehead if he sick; got a cold…tek a shot and rub a shot. And so on. Of course, it must be noted that all the usual safety advisories are in order as well, given the flammability of something this close to pure ethanol.

I have gained a sort of sneaking appreciation for overproofs, including this one, because while it lacks the subtlety of a more refined 40% variation (subtlety? don’t make me laugh…the thing is like a charging brontosaurus on steroids at rutting time), it makes an intense, strong, powerfully tasting mix with whatever you decide to chase it. Try adding cola to a 40% low-ender and then to the White Overproof and try and tell me this one doesn’t have more character, more taste, more…well, cojones. It absolutely is not afraid to charge the gates and get the hell off the reservation. When you drink J. Wray’s clear hooch, reader, there’s no ifs, ands or buts — you know Elvis has left the building; and didn’t just exit, he took off with rocket-powered, turbo-charged steel-toed boots. And a jet pack.

So if you believe that major rum producers have pussied out and are producing too many high end, over-sugared, liqueur-tasting sweet drinks (like spiced rums, underproofs or Pyrat’s) for the masses of the unwashed and the hordes of the rabble (like myself); and if you think your chest lacks sufficient cylindrical, keratinous filaments; and that you are swinging a pair of weighty ones that should be addressed by a man’s drink — well, then it’s entirely possible that you are just waiting to buy a gallon or three of this popskull, made by one company that remembers its roots and continues to distil a real rum.

Always assuming, of course, that you do not already own some.

(#045)(Unscored)

Other Notes

Ten years down the road of the rum journey, I came around to seeing this rum more clearly and appreciating it more — and named it one of the Key Rums of the World

Cavalier 1981 Vintage Antigua Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
Oct 292010
 

First posted 29 October, 2010 on Liquorature.

A discovery you will think all your own and which you’ll be glad you made; smooth, flavourful and velvety as the best kiss of your life, with a finish that doesn’t disappoint.

***

The Antigua Distillery has embraced both developing trends in the rum market: it has aggressively worked to address the emergence of premium sipping rums by creating the masterful English Harbour series of rum (I think the 5 yr old is one of the great mixers around, and the 1981 25-yr old, is one of the top five commercial aged 40% rums in the world), and also trended towards the resurgence in cocktails by marketing a more flavourful series of rums dedicated for the mixing circuit. Both the younger English Harbours and the Cavalier brands genuflect to the latter trend.

While Rum has been distilled in Antigua since 1493, the Antigua Distillery itself was not incorporated until 1932 when, during the downturn of rum and sugar production, some enterprising local businessmen consolidated their production; in 1934 the company purchased nine estates and a small sugar factory. While individual estates were wont to to make their own hooch in crude and small pot stills, usually for internal consumption, the acquisition of the factory permitted the company to create its own molasses, and made both aged and un-aged rums under the Caballero brand name. From these small beginnings the distillery has grown in fame and popularity.

Doing the research for the rum I casually tasted in John’s house in Toronto stunned me at the quality of what he might have, all unknowing, managed to snag for himself on one of his trips down to The Islands. You have to understand that aside from the El Dorado 25 year old, the other rums on his table that evening were a mixed bag: overproofs, bush, five year olds and so on…and this one, which didn’t remark itself as special in any way (and none of them had price labels affixed). So while we all know enough about the English Harbour suite to know what we want, few of us in Cowtown have ever seen anything else from the Land of 365 Beaches. The Cavalier Rums are the Gold, the Light (a white rum), the white Puncheon, the 151 overproof, the 5 year old and the extra Old. And the 1981 Vintage I had that night…it was quite something.

The 1981 Vintage derived from copper stills is matured – the company website declines to say how long, but I hazard it is not less than ten years – in 22 litre oak casks which once held bourbon, and the resultant blended in 5000 litre oak vats dating back from the formation of the company, which suggests the vats may be quite a bit older than that. What comes out the other end as an aged premium rum put into a wax-sealed bottle stopped with a tight-fitting cork, and is well worth your consideration.

The striking thing about the Cavalier extra Old is its simplicity. It has a straightforward smooth nose of caramel, molasses and vanilla, with light floral hints. It has a medium brown colour and a kind of rich body in the glass. It’s the bite on the snoot that’s not there, or is so faint you barely notice it….just those rich waves of brown sugar and vanilla, and those very slight tannins that assert the prescence of some other flavour just outside your ability to nail down precisely. It’s just as velvety smooth in the mouth: like a caramel sweet, it stays and offers its taste to you and maybe the reason I didn’t expect that is because there was no reason for me to…I hadn’t, in point of fact, really expected much of anything, which may be reverse snobbery of the worst kind. Be that as it may, the taste stays in the mouth and the finish is long, smooth and sweet, like maybe one of the best kisses of your adolescence from the girl you loved to pieces and still remember fondly after all this time.

I have no idea how much it costs – John mentioned he had picked the bottle up at the VC Bird Airport in Antigua back in 2000 and barely tasted it since then (how do you even begin to talk to a man about such a wonderful undiscovered treasure when he treats the liquid gold with such insouciance, I ask myself helplessly, seething with envy). I only had the one taste and then a second one to confirm, and I have not seen the bottle here in Calgary, and so must rely on my tatty tasting notes that somehow survived the trip back here intact. Like that long ago girl, the taste of this rum now fades gradually from my mind while remaining in my memories and will be missed and even mourned a little for its unavailability.

All I can tell the reader of this review is that if you ever go to Antigua, then, aside from ensuring you buy the English Harbour 1981, pick up this Cavalier 1981 Vintage rum. I won’t say your tastes equate to mine or that you will have the same enjoyment I did…but I think you’ll agree that this rum is worth a little extra, and will retain an honoured spot on your shelf. The way, one day, it will hopefully have on mine.

(#044)(Unscored)

Angostura “1919″ 8 year old Rum – Review

 9 Responses »
Oct 272010
 

Photo (c) Whisky Antique

First posted 27 October, 2010 on Liquorature.

Excellent presentation; a rich, complex and smooth experience that reminds you why premium rums exist at all and makes for a good gift for aficionados

Somewhere in the midst of an alcoholic haze left by the last gathering of the Gentlemen of Liquorature, I had this vague memory of drinking quite a superlative little sipper. Pat had, of course, been quite miffed when I wrote the review of the Bacardi 8, since he had wanted to surprise me with something I hadn’t had before – but he got me on the rebound with this one. Fortunately, my tasting notes survive the bender, and once I sobered up and remembered my name, I dug them out for this review.

Angostura is that Trini distillery that now makes the excellent Zaya (Diageo, via its shareholding in Moet Hennessy, owns the Zaya brand, but do not own the distillery – CL Financial retains majority shareholdings there). They have been making blended rums since the early part of the 20th century (1947, according to them). At that time Bacardi owned some 45% of the stock, which it held until 1997 when CL Financial – the largest T&T conglomerate with fingers in dozens of pies – bought the shares (they ran into a major liquidity crisis in 2008 and in order to get a bailout, relinquished seats on the board to the Government2).

I don’t as a general rule make a comment on the bottle, but in this case I’m happy to make an exception: Angostura, home of the bitters and the Royal Oak, have poured the 1919 variation into a short, squat, square bottle with rounded shoulder and a massive, voluptuous cork. Its excellence is more in the simplicity than anything overt…I had the same feeling about the English Harbour 10 year old.

The 1919 is a blend of rums aged a minimum of 8 years – both bottle and the company website makes this claim – in charred oak barrels which were previously used to age bourbon whiskey. It’s a golden brown liquid, quite clear, somewhat reminiscent of the Havana Club Barrel Proof and has that same brilliant hue when the sunlight hits it.

On the nose, there is surprisingly little spirit burn. There’s a mellow billowing scent when the bottle is opened, in which the smooth odours of caramel, vanilla and flowers balance well and softly together. There is a richness to the nose that is quite unexpected, and it promises an excellent drink. Sipping it is a uniformly pleasant experience: I don’t usually expect too much from younger rums, though those greater than seven years are usually pretty decent mixers (the Flor de Cana 7 yr old is a perfect example): this one, it must be said, is an exception. As a ground level sipper, it’s bloody good, perhaps a slightly less sweet and less spiced-up version of the Captain Morgan Private Stock at about the same price, but equally smooth, equally tasty.

The feel in the mouth is warm and silky rather than harsh, and after letting it breath you get flavours of buttery caramel, vanilla and molasses, but not too much of any one: in fact, the 1919 is remarkably restrained and well balanced among these primaries. Coiling subtly around this backbone are some fruity and softer floral hints that I can’t quite identify but that enhance the central notes excellently. The texture is slightly viscous and smooth as all get-out. And the finish is long, warm and spicy, with the faintest hint of sharpness that seems to be there just to remind you this is not the best Angostura wants to give (that might be the 1824 rum).

All in all, for a rum that costs in the forty dollar range, I’m impressed. For all its relatively youth, it scores highly in all the right areas: presentation, nose, flavour profile, mouthfeel and finish. It is equally good as a mixer or as a sipper, again very much like the Captain Morgan Private Stock. And what it lacks in the complexity and sheer brilliance of the older premium rums (like the English Harbour 25, Appleton 30 or the El Dorado 25 and 21), it makes up for by being, quite simply, one of the best low cost rums out there, one which the average Tom, Dick or Harrilall can afford, and enjoy.

(#043)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • In 2016 or shortly thereafter, the short, stubby and squared bottle (the “old” version, reviewed here in 2010) was replaced with a more standardized cylindrical barroom-style bottle; apparently the blend was tweaked as well, because a couple of commentators on Masters of Malt were scathing in their denunciations of the new taste.
  • Difford’s Guide and my own company biography of Fernandes Distillers both note that the “1919” name derived from a batch of rum recovered from a 1932 Government rum storage warehouse fire by Fernandes; some casks labelled 1919 survived and the rum inside was felt to be good enough to blend and bottle under that title. As a result it became a standard blend ever after, even transferring over to Angostura when they took over Fernandes in 1973. However, that blend did change over time – for instance there was supposedly some Caroni in the original makeup, but certainly no longer.

Clarke’s Court Pure White Rum – Review

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Oct 212010
 

First posted 21 October, 2010.

(#041)(Unscored)

A strong white overproof, of which not much can be said, since I had an adulterated version: but that “bush” is one of the most evocative, crazy experiences I’ve ever had, and if you brave the Spice Island to get some, more power to you.

***

I have never had a rum like this one, and I know that 99.99% of the people reading this (even if you’re from the Caribbean) haven’t either. No, really. When was the last time you a had a 138 proof rum with what looks suspiciously like a worm floating in it? I know for damn sure I’ve never even seen one like it (and maybe never will again).

Now let’s be clear about one thing. The real Clarke’s is a legitimate overproof white lightning made in Grenada by the Grenada Sugar Factory since 1937, and is apparently the most popular rum on the Spice Island, best had with some Angostura bitters (the 43% darker rums made here are supposedly for the ladies, who “prefer gentler rums”). Local wags claim it’ll add hair to your chest, strip the paint off anything, and can run your car if you don’t have any petrol. Older ladies use it as a rub. The commercial rums of this distillery have actually won several awards for excellence. However, what *I* had was – how do I put it – a refined variant of the standard recipe. In a word, I had the “bush” (and that’s why I’m also not scoring it). How it got into the kitchen of one of my oldest long-distance friends is a question best left unaddressed.

Bush of course has a long and honoured tradition in the West Indies. We called it “bashwar” in the jungle camps I used to work in, always had a 45-gallon drum fermenting somepace, and as I noted in the Newfoundland Screech review, backyard variations are a fixture in the remoter areas of The Rock. You take your life in our hands when you drink some of this stuff, I told John, as he poured me a generous shot of a clear purple-brown rum. He grinned and turned the bottle, which no longer had a white rum in it, but a coloured liquid in which floated additional ingredients: leaves, bark, twigs, berries, and, yes, that plump worm. I said a heartfelt prayer that the thing was dead, and knew right away that there was exactly zero point in attempting to review the rum the way I dealt with more commercial wares that actually pass a certification process of some kind.

The tasting of some new, as-yet-untasted rum of the cheaper type, no matter how it started life or ended up in my glass, is more an exercise in zen than anything else (hush, ye snickerers). It’s about feeling, about memory, about what it brings into your mind when you taste it (even if you immediately throw up afterwards). It’s about who you are and what brought you to this place.

By that criteria, Clarke’s delivered in spades. After waving away the spirit fumes which evidently wanted my wife to collect on the insurance, I got a powerful scent of chemicals, and was transported to my boyhood in a flash. It was the exact scent of the orange lye soap I grew up bathing with at a small stand pipe in the overgrown backyard of a small house we moved to in Georgetown’s Charles Street when I was nine. It was my aunt Sheila cutting up a tableful of fiery hot peppers at four in the morning to make into hot sauce. It was “It’s A Fact” at 645 in the morning on Radio Demerara, black pudd’n’ with plenty sour, a hot curry with roti, a cookup with nuff nuff chili ‘pon it.

And the taste, wow: sweet, brandy-like, fiery as all hell, and yet dusty too…old, aged, like a sleepy pre-Independence Georgetown dreaming in the sun under the Union Jack. It was the memory of the dingy beer gardens my brother and I haunted on Broad Street, with bob-pieces given to us by our uncle Ronald to play pool with. It was the smell of too many old pool tables with dead rails and old balls that barely bounced. It was the smell of rum and stale beer and cigarette smoke and guys with no clear occupation playing cards or dominos in these places at ten in the morning while Roger and I shot a rack. It was the deep smell of the old drugstore right down the street, now long gone, with chico sweets in rows of huge glass jars, plastic revolvers with rolls of caps from China, all mixed up with the odours of Limacol, drugs and prescriptions and memories of childhood when life looked sunny and summer holidays went on forever.

At 69%, you aren’t getting subtlety on the finish and I won’t pretend you will, or that Clarke’s bush variant even approximates that. But you know, all those herbs and crap in the bottle seem to have smoothened it out somewhat, taken the edge off, because the burn is deep and warm — and still with that elder dusty air wafting around in the back of your throat, like the times of our youth in a small town that you now no longer remember clearly, except in your dreams and fading memories.

I sort of likened the Bacardi 151 to a race car and wrote a good humoured review in that vein. Clarke Court’s Pure White Rum (the bush variation) is not like that at all. It’s strong and crazy and unique, and I didn’t think of speed or racing thunder at all when I tasted it — instead, the cars I got were the old taxis of Georgetown: Hillmans, Austins, and Morris Oxfords, with cracked vinyl upholstery and purring engines, and my brother and I jouncing around on a Saturday morning going with our mother to Bourda market to shop for fresh stuff. The rum may be raw, smelly, one-of-a-kind home-adapted hooch , and commercially unavailable in this iteration. But the memories it evokes in this long departed Mudlander are priceless.

Bacardi 151 Overproof Rum – Review

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Oct 012010
 

First published 01 October 2010 on Liquorature.

This deep-throated bellowing maniac of a rum does almost nothing well – but one thing so grandly it borders on Van Gogh-level insanity: it hits you in the face. A lot. Welcome to the lost week of your life.

Even in the world of lesser rums, there is such a thing as subtlety…a whiff of class, or style, be it ever so humble. Bacardi, with this 151 proof beefcake, sneered long and loudly and stated flat out that they wanted no truck with that kind of pansy nonsense. They stayed as far away from the notion of class as they could, and made a popskull that reminds you of nothing so much as the liquid equivalent of a Tarantino movie, or a permanently pissed off ex-spouse packing an Uzi in either hand. The rum acts like Bacardi decided to build some kind of high test which jet engines can run on and set altitude records. It’s as if they let some mad scientist out of their chemistry lab and he went ape while unsupervised.

Bacardi 151 is absolutely not a for the weak. If you’re merely average, then make your will, alert your relatives that the possible cost of long term health care will be theirs, and ensure the insurance is paid up. Kiss your significant other tenderly one last time. If you’re still single, well, you may be in luck, ‘cause after a shot or ten of this massive ethanol delivery system, you will think just about any girl and maybe even the neighbor’s dog is fair game. And I have to state up front: with a rum this powerful, clear health advisories are in order. Do not drink while smoking, or when camping out and stoking the fire. The 151 is as flammable as hell: giving vent to a loud fart or indulging your propensity to bloviate may leave you as a rapidly decomposing burnt amoebic mess on the floor.

Because Bacardi 151 is quite simply, nuts. It blows out your sniffing nose at 500 hp and 8000 rpm, and when you’ve recovered breath, rediscovered your voice and stopped crying like a little girl, it thunders down your throat with a tonsil-ripping 600 ft-lbs of torque. Zero to drunk arrives in 2.5 shots – yeah, go ahead, try it – and that figure is only marginally exaggerated. Generations of insects will expire on your exhale, and professional flamethrowers will avoid you like the plague. Other drunks at the bar will only vaguely remember seeing a flash of alcohol fumes as your sobriety disappears over the horizon in a cloud of vaporized rum.

In between the waves of spirit and ethanol burns waft tantalizing hints of something warm and caramel like. Hey, if you don’t mind some suffering and try a second sniff or a real taste, you can probably pick out the molasses and the burnt sugar, plus – and I’m reaching here – vanilla (I was comforting my throat with EH25 and weeping into my wife’s shoulder a the time so my memories are a little hazy). But these are like bunny rabbits in a cane field of jaguars and have about as much chance: the 151 swiftly, efficiently and mercilessly hunts them down, eviscerates them with sharp ethanol claws and has them for lunch. You only think you noticed such warm and comforting scents and tastes before reality invades your fantasy and you are ravaged yet again.

Bacardi’s makers took a rum aged a minimum of one year, snickered into their mustaches, and distilled it to a whopping 75.5%. At that strength, it’s kind of irrelevant what kind of barrels they age it in…they could age it in my son’s potty with a diaper floating in it, and the next morning both diaper and potty would be gone. That also makes it one of a select few overproofs in the world today: their own 151 Dark, or the Stroh 80, Sunset Very Strong, the SMWS Longpond 9 year old 81.3% or poorer bastard cousins like the Wray & Nephew White Overproof (a mild 63%) or the Stroh 54 (at which you can just see Bacardi laughing hysterically whenever they name it). The company can, of course, indulge itself in such cheerfully infantile pursuits – selling more rum than just about every nation on the planet allows it to pretty much create anything they feel like.

Making this one, they may not have attempted to create a superrum. But for my money, they sure as hell gave birth to a rum like few others. Which probably means that, as with other overporoofs like the Stroh 80, you’re more likely to run out of bar patrons than a bottle of this stuff – or cojones, or whatever other words the Puerto Ricans use for “courageously stupid.” It’s not quite my thing and I’m not masochistic enough to try 151 on a consistent basis, however grudging an affection I may have for it: but that this rum exists at all is reason enough to admire it.

(#037. Unscored)

Other Notes

  • The Bacardi 151 rum was discontinued in 2016 because health and safety issues (stupid people using it for stupid reasons) — this kept Bacardi in near constant litigation and finally they just got fed up and pulled the plug, though of course it remains available to be found on auctions and secondary markets to this day. Buzzfeed carried a humorous retrospective.
  • This rum started a train of thought that culminated in a deep dive into the History of the 151 rums that was posted in 2020 (I had a more detailed section on Bacardi than this review allows), and a place of sorts in the list of Strongest Rums in the World, as part of the 151s entry.

Opinion

[August 2021] Aside from being one of the strongest rums I had ever tried, and written about, the review here was and remains important (or at least, it marks a milestone of sorts) for one other reason: it was written almost entirely with a sense of humour lacking in the 36 reviews that preceded it. Those had the occasional funny sentence or witty phrase as part of the review, but in the main, they were pretty standard and sober little essays. Here, for the first time, I just let myself go from start to finish, and laughed my way through the whole thing, enjoying the writing process thoroughly. It was worth it for that alone, I think.

But the reactions of readers over the years has been uniformly positive, and demonstrated that one need not be a dry, serious, punctilious, pedantic writer all the time. One can simply enjoy the writing, the expression and the laughs (and isn’t that what rum is all about too?). And what that did was allow me, thereafter, the freedom to explore other modes of expression in writing reviews, whether serious, or lighthearted, using a first person narrative, a conversational tone, or even adding a biblical flavour. I may be in the minority on this one, but I think it made the overall body of work a lot richer and more enjoyable for average readers.

 

English Harbour 10 Year Old Rum – Review

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Sep 252010
 

Solid all round rum, probably better than most ten year olds around.

First posted 25 September 2010 on Liquorature.

I’ve been a little reticent about trying English Harbour Reserve ten year old, and have put it off for over a month now. Its younger sibling the Five is such a good mixer and all round rum (it’s been a favourite of the club for some time), and its older brother the 25 is such a powerhouse in its own right, that it seemed almost like trying to make a good aged rum go up against…well, practically a pair of low and high end juggernaughts. And then, there was always the thing that I absolutely hate trying a new rum alone..it’s so much more fun when I can bounce my ideas off someone like the Bear as we get continually more sloshed together. Our spouses have a hard time containing their laughter as we come up with ever more flowery adjectives to describe out latest object of taste

Be that as it may, I bought this $100 (Can) rum at the local emporium of Willow Park, largely because the bottle I knew existed in Co-Op had disappeared by the time I got around to snagging it, and so, fearing a rum drought of the good stuff (and the jeers of the Maltmonster as he tauntingly raised his current single malt to toast me), I bought the only one they had. The fact that WP subsequently posted a few more bottles on the shelf suggests my fears were unfounded, but it’s better to be safe with stuff like this. The bottle sat in my pantry for a full four weeks before I finally lost patience with both my own pansiness and my non-materializing guests, and finally cracked it.

I’m a fan of minimalism – the whole Japanese concept of beauty in simplicity appeals to me: the EH10 follows this theme, coming in the same bottle as the EH25, but with a simpler cork stopper, and a lovely, bare-bones label that says what it is without embellishment or hoo-rahs. In that sense it beats the pants off any other label I’ve ever seen. And the container itself is a solid, non-nonsense straight-lined bottle that harks back to simpler time. Can’t help but admire that.

The rum is a deep brown-red-gold, like a transplanted flame-haired lassie from Cork. The legs sliding down the glass when it is straightened are slow and fat and oily, and I have to say I was quite taken with the rum already. The nose was very impressive. As I expected, it was less harsh than the EH5 and less refined than the EH25, but in this lay its strength, too. Remember, the Ten is a blend of rums aged ten to twenty-five years that have been aged in the usual used oak barrels that once held bourbon, and it takes something from those blends, and adds to that the oaken tannins from the barrels. Not quite as much care has been taken to mute the wood (the 1981 25 yr old is extraordinary for the balance it achieves with the same elements), but what the 10 has done is create a powerfully complex nose, one where its comparative youth grants it more character than otherwise might have been the case. Consider: on the first intake, you get soft brown sugar, toffee and caramel hints. Let it breathe a minute then try again. This time you get a faint citrus, vanilla, some oak or other sweet wood, and now the burnt sugar starts coming at your in soft billowy waves. On a third try, you get those deep notes of molasses and see how all these components come together. I called my wife and asked her to double check. She added some fruit to what I had discerned, confirmed most of what had detected, and then went to get the 25 for a quick comparison…and here comes the interesting thing: the 25 is softer, smoother, more refined and interesting – bit it also had a delicate floral hint which the 10 lacked (and more complexity to boot). Wow. I couldn’t believe it: while not as good as the 25, the ten year old was giving the El Dorado 15 a run for its money.

Tasting it was another interesting experience. The English Harbour Reserve is soft and smoky on the palate, but it’s not oak I was tasting…something else, some freshly mown green grass or sugar cane leaves, or new sawn lumber of some aromatic kind. The cinnamon hint and spices come straight out, I get notes of mocha and light coffee and perhaps fruit of some kind; and the overall feel is rich, viscous and smooth. There is just enough sugar to go with the molasses taste to make the experience a voluptuous one, and lose those cognac-like notes that (to me) so diminishes older, more expensive rums (after all, if I wanted a cognac…).

The finish is just a bit too bitchy, a tad too scratchy, to be appropriately classified as fully smooth – it claws rather snidely on the way down (with one claw, not five, so it’s not as bad as this sentence suggests) – but don’t get me wrong: it’s medium long, and the rum takes obvious glee in leaving you with a reminder it was there. Overall, I think this rum is top class for its age: perhaps it’s a tad expensive for that age, though I’m sure there will be no shortage of opinions on that score as time goes on. I think I can live with that, however.

The ten year old is a replacement for what once used to be the English Harbour Extra Old, which is now discontinued. The stocks for that rum – the 1981 vintage now exclusively used for the 25 – were being rapidly depleted by the under-priced extra old’s popularity. The spine of the EH10 is in fact the 25, yes…just less of it, and it’s bolstered by the various other rums, the youngest of which is the ten.

Many things go into my opinion of a rum – smoothness, sweetness, driness (or not), blend proficiency, complexity and intermarriage of subtle (or striking) flavours, and how well it goes with itself, with ice, or as a mixer. It should be observed that I get no end of a hard time from the Maltsters in my circle, whose snobby zealotry about how no single malt worthy of its name is ever contaminated by ice or anything icky like a mix is legendary. To some extent they have a point – the mark of a good whisky is how well it stands by itself, and – mistakenly or not – they apply the same standards to rums. But this is to misunderstand rums, I think, because ever since they were first made, they have been mixed in some fashion, and this is as much a part of their heritage and character as the peat used to enhance malted barley…so to me, there is no derision in noting a rum is an excellent mixer. Which this is, price notwithstanding.

Overall, then, how did I like it? Oh, quite a bit, and not just because of its well-known, much admired siblings. Taking all the above remarks into account, I’d say that on ice or in a mixed drink, the English Harbour Reserve Ten Year old is one well-made, almost brilliant drink. It’s really good neat, but I don’t think everyone will like it that way (many will, I hasten to point out). It seems a bit ungrateful to say it doesn’t do well in this way, when it succeeds and is top class on so many other levels (taste, richness, body) but the finish is a bit sharp, and I do believe that if you’re willing to mix the thing, you won’t be disappointed, and will have one of the more expensive cocktails you’ve ever tasted.

Is that worth shelling out a hundred bucks for? Tough call. The stellar El Dorado 21 year old is slightly less than that, as is its fifteen year old. The dry, cognac-like Clement XO is in the same price range, and the Cruzan Single Barrel and Zaya 12 are both cheaper. All are good. So on that basis, I’d have a tough time telling you to run out there and get this one if money is your sole concern. But my belief is that if you’re looking to buy something in this price range, you either know your rums or you don’t, and if you’ve come this far, drunk this much, had your share of popskull and low end hooch, you wouldn’t be going wrong if you forked out the green to buy this ten year old dark-gold gem.

(#093. 84.5/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other Notes

In June 2018 I revisited the 10 YO and inducted it into the Key Rums of the World series.

Bacardi 8 Year Old Rum – Review

 6 Responses »
Sep 172010
 

 

Picture (c) RumCorner.dk

First posted 17 September 2010 on Liquorature

A tentative foray, a single spy, sent into the camp of the premium rums, perhaps to scout out the territory for further invasions to come (we can hope). Capture one and be surprised by its low price and overall quality. If Bacardi can make this one, I don’t know why they don’t come charging into the high-end market in force.

***

Maybe it’s just me, but I sometimes find stronger notes and more positive tastes at the middle and lower end of the price and snoot scale; more premium rated rums can get their cachet from age statements, distillery snobbery and the supposed excellence and uniqueness of their maturation process…but don’t consistently please (or awe) the drinker any more than a regular rum could (sometimes even less). A lesson that does not seem to have been lost on the subject of this review: the 8 year old Bacardi.

Observe this brand. It’s the best selling rum in the world. It smartly moved its operations to Puerto Rico and then to Mexico in the pre-WW2 years to take advantage of favourable tariff regimes with the US, and created a marketing campaign which made it the pre-eminent tropical drink of its time. A series of extremely capable family members (some of them in-laws) kept the voting shares and quality control up to scratch into the modern era. And yet, it is considered fashionable today to bash the brand for its commonality and staid middle-of-the-roadishness.

Part of that is its utility. The damned thing can be used for anything. You can cook with it, drink it, mix it, use it as a base, an ingredient or a mixer. It has no real character except its lack of one. It’s bland. It’s like the a ’40s jeep or ’50s Land Rover or ’70s Toyota. It’s the faceless English banker, the anonymous Japanese salaryman of rums. It is, succinctly put, often seen as boring. But my lord, does it ever sell. The gold, the black, the white…they can be found everywhere

The 8-year old is something else again. Bacardi blends for the most part, but they’ve taken the time to put together this tawny golden blend of rums aged eight to sixteen years old and aged in used white oak barrels that once held sherry. This might account for a softer and more candied nose than one might expect from what could be seen as just another young rum. It’s a tad sharp, yet not so medicinal as others I’ve had. I’ve always meant to try it for that alone.

Tasting is a surprising delight: the slight sting to the nose disappears entirely, and a body of some substance makes sipping this without ice a definite must-try. It’s not as sweet as other rums, and the arrival on the throat is more like a dry, rich brandy, or the Bruichladdich Renegade rums. It’s got a solid flavour profile, with traces of vanilla, nutmeg and light fruity undertones, perhaps peaches. More to the point, it has real body, not some kind of anorexic thinness reminiscent of its cheaper cousins further down the scale. And the finish is excellent, with a slow deep burn, not a sting: this rum is more like a decent whisky, I judge, with just enough sugar in it to keep me liking it. A lot. I’d sip it straight with no problems, on ice without doubt, and as a mixer in any situation.

Bacardi 8 does not try for superiority (although the packaging is quite decent for its price and age…I particularly liked the cork stopper). It really is a good mid ranger, and in its own way, defines what a good rum could be if it doesn’t hanker after any kind of pretentiousness. A superstar it’ll never be: as an all rounder, it may be one of those undiscovered steals that those who patronize the low-end rums feel is a find all their own, and they’d be right to think so. You wouldn’t be wasting your thirty-plus bucks if you dropped them on this quietly impressive product.

(#0053)(Unscored)

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