Savanna Rhum Traditionnel Vieux 2004 9 YO “Intense” (Porto) – Review

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Feb 122024
 

It’s about time to clear up a backlog of older tasting notes that have been shoved to the back by newer and more exciting releases, and so for the next few weeks we’ll try to push some reviews of older expressions out the door. Today we’re going to go back and look at Savanna, that Reunion based distillery which has had a fair amount of good press over the last five years, though perhaps more remaining more popular and well known in Europe than the Americas.

What distinguishes Savanna is the range of what they make. Many distilleries have ranges that are steps of the quality ladder: some have lightly aged and filtered white rums, and cheaper mass-market blends made for mixing, for the budget-minded cost-conscious proles. The next rung would be rums aged up to maybe five or six years, costing a bit more but still affordable to most, moving slightly away from the cocktail circuit without entirely entering the sipping area. Once they get to double figures, say 10-15 years or so, it’s getting premiumised and more to have without mixing, and after 18 years, say, it’s entering rarefied territory. Around this price point are also found special editions, millesimes, limited blends, single barrel releases, commemoratives and other fancy releases that go north of three figures easy. These days secondary maturations or finishes are pretty much found on all levels (except the unaged whites for obvious reasons).

Savanna stands out in that it makes rums from both molasses and cane juice, instantly doubling the potential variety it makes. Just to keep all the permutations clear is probably why they have all those names for their rums: the “Intense” series are molasses-based and relatively low on esters, hence their being named “starter rums;” the “Lontans” (also called grand arôme rums) which are also from molasses but with longer fermentations and with a high resultant ester count; there are also the “Créol” rhums which are straightforward rhum agricoles, made from fresh sugar cane juice; and the “Métis” rums which are a blend of traditionnelle and agricole. Millesimes, fancy finishes and special editions at all strengths pepper their output as well.

From the above, then, you can get a clear picture of what this rums is: a molasses based low-ester blended rum, laid to rest in 2004, aged for 9 years in ex-cognac casks and then finished in a porto cask, released at 46%. These days that’s the spec for a really decent rum, but in 2014 when this came out, they called it a starter, which shows something of how much the world has moved on, and may be why so few reviews of it exist out there. 

Compared to some of the other Savanna rums tried in this lineup, the nose of this 46% rum presents as nuttier and slightly fruitier (strawberries, mild pineapple, cherries); there is a light aroma of acetones and nail polish wafting around and it’s very tart and pleasant…though I’m not sure I could pick it out of a lineup if tried blind.  After some time we have caramel and blancmange and toffee, swiss bonbons, vanilla, and a strong Irish coffee (used to love those as a young man). There is a dry wine-y note in the background, and some slightly bitter tannics reminiscent of pencil sharpener leftovers, none of it particularly excessive, more like a soft exclamation point to the main thrust of the nose.

The palate is somewhat of a letdown: I’ve been whinging about the mild inoffensive anonymity of 40% rums lately, so it’s surprising to find a rum six points higher providing so little character on its own account. It’s light, watery and sharp and none too impressive. Honey, nuts, dry pastries, toffee oatmeal cookies – it’s like a breakfast cereal with some extras thrown in. A bit salty and creamy here and there as the tasting goes on, with red grapes, pancakes, caramel, light molasses and some coffee grounds making their appearance, and they all vanish quickly in a short, sharp finish made exceptional only by its brevity.  

Overall, this is something of a disappointment, coming as it does from a distillery which makes some really impressive drams. Overall, one must concede that it’s not completely delinquent in taste – it does have aspects that are well done, and the assembly is decent: you will get a reasonable sip out of it.  It’s just there isn’t enough on stage for the €90 it goes for, it’s all quite simple and light… and one is left with the question of whether this is a poor man’s sipper or an indifferent high-end rum that got made too fast and issued too early. The fact that Savanna ended up releasing several 12 YO editions from the 2004 distillery outturn (including a grand arome I thought was superlative) suggests the latter may hit closer to the mark.

(#1057)(80/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • This is part of a collection of Savanna rhums Nico Rumlover sent me some time ago when he heard I was interested, long enough back for him to conceivably have forgotten he did so. Well, whether he remembers or not, I’m immensely grateful for the time he took to crate me a great selection of what the distillery can do. 
  • There are several 2004 Porto Finish single barrel editions out there: I have found two Lontans from different barrels, one eight and one nine years old, this 9YO Intense and a couple of 12YO editions. I’m sure there a few others.
  • Distilled April 2004, aged 9 years; outturn 1327 bottles. Initially I supposedly the notation of the barrel number (#973) was what it was aged in, but observed there was also a 2004 12YO which also has cask #973 marked on it and that one has an outturn of 1480 bottles. Facebook netizen Jizeus Christ Guitare set me straight by informing me this was the number of the Porto cask, which makes more sense, as it could reasonably be used multiple times. Given the outturn one wonders whether it’s a port pipe or other large cask.
  • For further reading on Savanna, I wrote a too-brief historical backgrounder on the distillery, here. A more recent visit to Reunion with a tour of the distillery was described by Rum Revelations in 2022.

Dzama Rum Cuvée Blanche (Madgascar) – Review

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Mar 202023
 

Madagascar’s best known distillery’s rums have been the subject of three reviews in these pages, stretching from 2014 to 2021, yet even now it is unclear whether this has made anyone sit up and pay attention. For the most part the rum drinkers’ attention remained resolutely with the Caribbean nations, or the new ones emerging elsewhere – suggesting that while Madagascar was unusual, it was apparently not enough to make it a global seller.

With or without such widespread recognition, Dzama still exists, however, still releases rums (a lot – Rum-X lists 29 of them), and can still be found on shelves, and even has a prestige 15 Year Old out there.  So clearly it’s doing well.  The rum being looked at today is their so called “classic” white (as opposed to the two other “prestige” editions), and irrespective of developments elsewhere in the blanc world is a very slightly aged rum – two to four weeks, apparently, with no further details on how this was achieved, or with what. The rum is also molasses based, column still distilled, released at 40%, and it ended up in Canada somehow, which is where I picked it up.

There’s little else of note here, so we can dive right in. Nose is peculiar: fragrant citrus soap starts things off, something reminiscent of Irish Spring; lots of vanilla, which is sort of a signature with Dzama (see biography below); citrus peel and sugar water make an appearance but the aroma lacks the herbals greenness that marks out an agricole rhum (which in any case this isn’t).  I do like the distinct lemon meringue pie notes, which Mrs. Caner said reminded her of lemonade from Kyrgyz pears, which I mention because, y’know, I promised. These smells are not all that strong or distinct and can be best found in contradistinction to several other standard strength white blends (such as those I was trying that day).

Taste wise, the lemony and custard notes are more pronounced (so is the soap).  It has a decent body, warm, not too rough or sharp, and there are hints of unsweetened yoghurt, laban, milk and a pie crust fresh from the oven.  A touch more licorice and ginger and maybe some cinnamon, leading to a quiet and undemonstrative finish which is too short, too faint … and frustratingly just starts to show off a few fruity notes when it all vanishes without so much as a goodbye.

These comments might lead you to believe it’s something to walk away from, but not really: I’ve tasted worse of this kind.  It’s different, reasonably tasty — kind of an alcoholic 7-Up, which I think is undone by the vanilla, that weird soap vibe, a bit too much sweet and too few real taste chops. Too, the general lack of cohesion of everything else makes for a disappointing sipping experience, and even for something so relatively unaggressive, it’s surprising how little rum comes through in the final analysis — it more resembles a doctored ethanol rather than some sort of well made local drink which has potential to represent its land of origin. That’s a pity, yet the potential of the brand remains, as it always has, which is why I keep coming back to their products: so who knows, one day they might make a white unaged rum I can really get behind. For now, this Cuvée Blanche is interesting for the geography, but not so much for the experience of drinking it.

(#982)(76/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Background notes

Madagascar is that huge island off the south east coast of Africa; and the Dzama rums are made by Vidzar, formed in 1980 due to the efforts of Mr. Lucien Fohine, who noted that the small sugar factory on the tiny island of Nosy Be in the north produced a distillate that had distinctive flavours which persisted into the final distilled products…mostly low level rum for local consumption, to that point. He concluded it came from the ylang-ylang plant (also known as the macassar oil plant, or the perfume tree) whose roots intermingled with that of the cane.

[Now, the theory is that the oils and perfumes of the various botanicals to be found on Madagascar (vanilla, cloves, pepper are often cited) leach from their roots into the soil and are intermixed with the cane plants’ own root systems, into their stems, and thence to the ultimate distillate. I’m no chemist or botanist, but one could just as easily wonder why similar processes aren’t observed on the spice island (Grenada) for example, so I reserve judgement on that score. All the Dzama rums I’ve tried have that question lurking in the background anyway, as to whether something was added to or not. Dzama firmly maintains no synthetic or artificial additions, but this still leaves the door open for natural ones; and according to Rhum Attitude, the Cuvee Prestige white is apparently a kind of filtered infused rum here, so who is to say something similar isn’t happening here?]

But anyway, Mr. Fohine formed a company he called Vidzar (a contraction of Vieux Rhum de Dzamandzar), which initially concerned itself with whisky bottling. It was located close to the sugar cane fields of Nosy Be, near to a village called Dzamadzar, and a few years later, as their operations expanded, production was transferred to Antananarivo (the capital, in the centre of the island). The company, which now claims a majority of rum market share in Madagascar, makes a range of rums, including the Dzama Club, 3 YO and 6 YO, the Millésimé 1998 10 Year Old, Dzama 15 and 25 year old rums and a Cuvée Noire, as well as three blanche rums and a raft of infused and spiced versions. Most of these are untried by the vast majority of rum drinkers, and remain relatively unknown, though some have won prizes between 2010 and 2015, in Miami, Paris, Berlin and Madrid. It may just be a marketing thing, or the inability to get out there and run around the festival circuit.

 

Takamaka Overproof Rum (Seychelles) – Review

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Sep 122022
 

As I remarked in the review of the Damoiseau 2009, there is an emergent trend for agricole rhum makers to make their white rhums stronger. This boosts flavours and intensity and makes for a drink or a mix that has the kick of a spavined mule, and because the rum is unaged, you are getting hit with all those enormous sweet grassy and herbal agricole-style tastes. That not only wakes up a Ti-Punch (or anything else you chose to add it to) but supercharges it.

To some extent I think that this trend is meant to capitalise on the success of the high ester Jamaicans like the Rum Fire, Rum Bar, Wray & Nephew Overproof, together with the realisation by various rum makers (who previously just went with lighter whites) that such unaged rums – whether from cane juice or molasses – can be both stronger than the standard and way more exciting…and still people would buy them. 

One such rum comes from the brand of Takamaka Bay out of the Indian Ocean islands of the Seychelles, which is a distillery founded in 2002 (it’s actually called Trois Frères Distillery), and from the beginning made rums from both cane juice and molasses. Their initial lineup had a brawling cane juice blanc which was in fact stronger than others available at the time (it was 72% ABV), and which for some reason they discontinued by the early 2010s.  They replaced it with this one, three proof points lower and fully from molasses, for reasons that are obscure and may have to do with their major rebranding push around 2013-2014. It is part of their low end “Seychelles Series” of rums which includes infused, spiced and tinkered-with rums for the bar scene.

Now you would think that the producers of an overproof Wray-slaying-wannabe, which of course this aspires to be, would make every effort to ensure its product is packed with flavours of a fruit and candy shop and if it felt like being bellicose, pack itself with a nose the envy of a rutting troglodyte’s mouldy jockstrap. I stand here in front of you saying, with some surprise, that this just isn’t the case. The nose starts off okay, quite spicy, with notes of white chocolate, almonds, soy milk, creamy unsweetened yoghurt.  Then it adds a bit of grass and cumin, a shaving of zest from a lime or two. A pear, maybe two, some papaya. But that’s about it. The rum is so peculiarly faint it’s like it would need to stand twice in the same place to make a shadow.  This is an overproof? It’s more like slightly flavoured alcoholic water, and I say that with genuine regret.

Regret or not, this light faintness dominates the palate as well. It feels quite delicate (though always spicy – the effects of that 69% do not entirely vanish), yet somehow feels less, tastes less, smells less, not just in terms of intensity, or power to originate tectonic plate movement in your face – but in the aggregate sensation. There’s so little coming at you. You get alcohol, vanilla, cream, pears, swank, and that’s if you’re lucky. A touch of lemon zest. Maybe a flirt of licorice, some salt, a light cream cheese on wonder bread. And that’s all. The finish tries to redeem that by being long, dry, coughing up notes of light fruits (pears, Thai mangoes, white grapes), but alas, not enough to save it. For an overproof at this strength, we definitely have a failure to communicate.

Whatever the motivations or economic rationales were for switching the original overproof (which I rated 84 points) from cane juice to molasses, dropping the proof and simplifying the blend, my personal opinion is that Trois Frères might want to rethink that, and maybe even re-tinker. The rum is a disappointment for fans of the company which has other expressions of lesser proof that are really quite good and sells bulk rum abroad which is sometimes even better. It lacks serious tastes for something so strong, it provides no oomph to enthuse the barkeeps and mixologists who are looking for original expressions to enhance their creations, and no incentive for casual drinkers who’re looking for a unique profile. I’m no doomsayer, but I do believe that if something isn’t done to up this rum’s game, it might just arrive DOA and expire in obscurity…and that’s a shame, not least because I didn’t come here to write obituaries.

(#936)(75/100) ⭐⭐½

Other notes

  • The rum continues to be made on a column still, from molasses. Its predecessor was from cane juice and I always suspected it had a touch of pot still high ester juice sneaked in.  I had no such feeling here, obviously. The company website states that the current 38% “standard” Blanc does indeed have some of that pot still distillate added to it.
  • A biography of the company, last updated in 2021 can be found here.
  • The label has changed from the original 72% version, and its lesser-proofed successor which had a big “69” front and center on the label. I think this version was begun around 2020. The word “Bay” was also dropped from the labelling at around this time.

Savanna Lontan Grand Arôme 2007 6 YO Rum – Review

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May 192022
 

After all these years of Savanna’s releases of new series, individual bottlings or millesimes, one can reasonably be nearing the point of exhaustion.  Perhaps no other primary producer outside of DDL, Privateer and maybe the French island distilleries with their annual cask editions, has so many releases from all over the map, relentlessly put out the door year in and year out. This is a connoisseur’s delight and to the benefit of consumers everywhere…but something of a collector’s nightmare. I doubt there’s anyone who has the entire series of this Reunion-based distillery’s Lontans, Intenses, Metises, Creols, Traditionnels, Grand Arôme, Maison Blanches and what have you, or even anyone willing to try (the way they would with, say Maggie’s Distiller’s Drawer outturns, or Velier’s Caronis).

However many exist and remain available, what they really are is elegant variations on a theme, whether that of molasses-based rum, agricole rhums, high ester flavour bombs, or interesting blends of their own that are aged and mixed up to provide a little something for everyone. There are several variations of the Lontans with their characteristic long-fermentations, some having finishes, others of various strengths, and varying ages: this one is a “Lontan” from 2007 bottled in 2014, and also a Grand Arôme, which is to say, a high ester rum. There’s a lot to get excited about here: cognac cask ageing, full proof 57%, and a solid six years old, so let’s dive right in.

Nose first: and as soon as you take a brief snootful, yes, that high-ester profile from Savanna is flexing its glutes, in spades. It’s a fruit salad lover’s delight – pineapples, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and any other kind of berry with a tart sweet crisp tang to it, all drizzled over with lemon juice and maybe some caramel, rosemary and damn, is that some red wine in there too? It’s really quite lovely and the strength allows for a richness that ensures you miss nothing (actually, the person two rooms over won’t miss anything either, as Grandma Caner proved when she shot out of her kitchen down the hall demanding to know what I was tasting today).

The strength allows an assertive and very aggressive, almost fierce, taste to comb across the palate: tart berries again (all of the abovementioned ones plus a few unripe mango slices in pimento-infused cane vinegar thrown in for good measure).  There is a curious and previously-unnoticed brine and olive component coiling around that does a good job of calming down the wild exuberance of what would otherwise have been an excess of sharp fruitiness (assuming there even is such a thing), and after the rum settles down one notices softer, neutral fruits: bananas, papayas, melons, pears, tomatos (!!), followed by avocados and salt, cherries, prunes and, for good measure, even a pinch of dill. I particularly commend the finish which is long, dry and aromatic in the best way: flowers, caramel, honey and a trace of that lemon-infused fruit salad (but not so much).

The whole experience is really flavourful and outright enjoyable, though admittedly the strength and tart sharpness might make it too intense for some who are unused to — or don’t care for — the Dirty-Harry-narrowed-eyes badassery of Savanna’s Grand Arôme rums. It occurs to me (blasphemy alert!!) that maybe, just maybe, some sweetening might take the edge off, but I hasten to add that I would not do so myself: a touch of water is enough to bring down the braggadocio this excellent six year old from Reunion displayed for me; and now, having written all my notes and tasted it a few more times, I think I’ll just finish off what remains. Grandma Caner is hovering casually around, with a glass “just happening” to be in her hand, so you can be sure if I don’t, she will…and given she doesn’t even like rum that much, that’s quite an endorsement.

(#909)(86/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • These particular rums have been called “Lontan” since about 2003 — the word is a play on the French creole words long temps or “long time” (referring to the fermentation), and tan lon tan meaning “in the old days”.  Previously, between 1997-2000 they were titled Varangue (verandah, perhaps a hint and a wink at where you should be drinking it), before which they were sold as Lacaze rhums…but of this last, few records remain and I couldn’t tell you much about them.
  • The sample says it’s aged in a cognac casks, which would explain the richness of the profile, but I can find no reference to that fact online anywhere (least of all on Savanna’s own site), and no photoghraph of the label is available.
  • Outturn 707 bottles
  • My thanks to Etienne Sortais, who generously sent me the sample
  • I’ve written a fair bit about Savanna rums, including a short bio of the company itself, so if your interest is piqued, there’s no shortage of material to go through.

Savanna Lontan 57° Grand Arome Unaged White Rum (Batch #2 2018) – Review

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Oct 312021
 

In the previous review I wrote about the Reunion-made Savanna HERR Blanc 57º White Rum (second batch, from 2018), and was surprised and pleased at the reaction it elicited: quite a few comments were made on various platforms, showing a really positive feeling about the rum. Today we will, as promised, go deeper into its brother rum, released in tandem with it each time one was issued, also 57% ABV, and also stuffed to the gills with an ester count that leaves the rum geek crowd with slightly trembling knees, quivering hands and clenching…well, you get my drift.

The “57” series of rums was part of a skunk works project which the Indian ocean island distillery of Savanna initiated back in 2005 where they let their Maître de Chai off the leash without any clear directions beyond “go”. The gentleman took them at their word, messing around with every variable of the production process he could — and what came out the other end was so off the reservation that when management peeled themselves off the floor, found their voices and timorously looked around for buyers, they realized that none existed if they wanted to sell it as a rum. And so the pungent distillate was left to rest in a steel tank for over a decade, until the rise of the New Jamaicans and a renewed appreciation for high ester rums squirting raw funk from every pore showed that yes, there was indeed a market for the thing.  The first edition was trotted out in the 2017 festival season, followed by this second one in 2018 with a limited run of 1500 bottles, all issued at 57% ABV (the pot still and column still versions were released concurrently).

The Jamaicans would probably sniff rather tolerantly (if not disdainfully) at an ester count of a “mere” 578.7 g/Hlpa which places the rum somewhere between the odd no-man’s land of Wedderburn (200-300) and Continental Flavoured (700-1600). And they would nod with distantly polite appreciation at a column still distillate generated from an experimental long fermentation of six days. On the face of it, they would hardly worry that their own street cred was in danger of being superseded and just on the basis of the numbers, they’re right.

Except that, not really…because the rum turned out to be really rather good, which is why it and its brothers have become sort of underground rumdork cult classics. Consider the nose: it was intense and sweet and tart, and started off, oddly enough, with an aroma of fresh sawdust and pencil shavings 1, combined with a freshly disinfected hospital room, iodine and pine sol. It morphed to sweet fruit infused water, redolent of watermelons and very light Thai mangoes – there were times it was almost delicate. Bags of strawberries, red grapefruit, bubble gum, kiwi fruits and green apples.  Behind all that, there almost seemed to be a sort of whisky finish to the whole thing and overall, what I got was a lot of florals and a lot of fruits, and those easily shouldered aside any other subtle notes.

The palate had an equal quality, though perhaps not as complex.  Here the pencil shavings took something of a back seat and just chilled out (maybe they were sulking), leaving some nice florals, ripe apples, lemons, pineapple, strawberries, grapefruit and licorice to carry the show, backed up by some cereal, cardboard and lightly musty tastes of varnish and damp tobacco. The fruitiness of the whole thing was a constant throughout, until it all came to a conclusion in a finish that was long, fruity, tart — almost sour — and just intense enough for government work.  Like the 57 HERR, it gained from being left alone to open up, because it didn’t do the old soldier thing and fade away, just gathered its forces and presented as solid and complex even an hour later.

So, a funny thing happened as I was tasting this Lontan 57 – I really liked it. What it lacked was some of the take-no-prisoners machismo of the pot still HERR 57, which seemed to revel in its own puissance (and afforded writers the rare opportunity to use the word “puissance”). That did not, however, mean it didn’t have some of the offbeat notes of Boomerang’s Strangé (or her perfume commercial), just that they were better controlled: it moved easily and elegantly through its paces, had a nice balance and just a few off notes. It shared and showed a similar line of descent with the HERR 57, while at all times being its own thing. This column still, molasses-based rum reminded me somewhat of Haitian clairins, even Mexican charandas, but its closest comparator might actually be another artisanal spirit we don’t get enough of yet, the oddly refined Cabo Verde grogues.

Tasting two 57s from the same year — the HERR and the Lontan — side by side, reveals their differing natures, showcases their differing origins, and the differing ways they were made.  It also demonstrates that if you have a maitre de chai who takes “go” to mean “where no-one has gone before,” then with some imagination and cheerful bombast, you can make a really sterling and tasty rum of firmness, originality and serious flavour. Sort of like this one.  It’s definitely a rum worth having on the shelf.

(#861)(86/100)

Other Notes

Savanna very helpfully classifies its rums using various words which tell the curious what its rums are: 

  • Lontan (Grand Arôme / high ester rhums based on long fermentation times of up to 15 days, source can be either molasses or juice), 
  • Creol (aged and unaged agricoles from cane juice), 
  • Intense and/or Traditionnel (molasses based, occasionally finished, aged and unaged), 
  • Métis (blends of agricole and molasses rums).

Rum Nation Réunion 2009 7 YO Rhum Agricole (2016 Release) – Review

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Aug 052021
 

Most independents who release rhums from Savanna, that distillery on Réunion which until five years ago was practically in rum’s ultima Thule, stick with their agricoles – the cane juice rhums, for which the distillery (and indeed the island) is best known. Once in a while a more adventurous indie will go and check out what they can do with their molasses based rums (like Rum Nation did with that badass 2011 7YO Traditionelle in 2018). Those occasional oddballs do succeed, but it’s the cane juice rhums that turn heads, because Savanna boosts and amplifies and juices them up to “12” by running them through the high ester still those boys use with such aplomb. And at the other end, some really good hooch gets wrung out.

Aside from Savanna’s own stable of rhums — their expressions have bred like concupiscent lapines — the indies and their audiences are having a field day with them. Rum Nation, as far back as 2016 and way ahead of the curve, had this one on the grid, and it was a good complement to their Caribbean expressions – laid down to rest in 2009, aged seven years and released to the festival circuit in 2016 and 2017. Surprisingly, almost nobody has reviewed the thing, which may simply be because of the lion’s share of the attention directed at Rum Nation was on other serious hooch on display that year: the Rares, the presentation-level Caroni 21 YO and that amazing 30 YO blended Jamaican, as well as the brawny 60.5% Traditionnelle, a year later.

So on the face of it, it seems to be another one of those really neat Rum Nation products that Fabio Rossi, the former owner, used to wryly refer to and toss off as “entry level”.  45% ABV, agricole, medium-youngish, nothing to write home about, Mommy would probably not be interested. And yet, and yet…it’s really quite a nifty piece of work. 

Take, for instance, that lovely little nose it has. It is sweet, light, aromatic, with occasional whiffs of bubble gum and strawberries. There’s a touch of sweet rosewater and sugar cane juice, light caramel, nougat, almonds and marzipan. And as it opens up over the minutes (I kept this on the go for the best part of half an hour), it happily provides even more: citrus peel, pears, mangoes and green grapes. The estery touch of Savanna is there, never outsized or excessive, out to seduce not to bludgeon, and in that sense the strength is exactly right for its purpose.

The taste is where many rums show their chops and sink or swim: because not everyone really bothers to spend an inordinate amount of time nosing what is, in any event, a social drink. Happily, I can report that all is good here also: initial tastes of cereal, malty cream, seeming to be a dampened down and not as tightly crisp or tart as the nose suggests it might be. There are notes of fanta and citrus based fruit juices, hanging around with light vanilla, tamarind (this was a surprise), more marzipan, almost but fortunately never overstepping the point of vague bitterness.  I must particularly mention the mint chocolate, oranges and a nice sweet creaminess at the back end, and the way it closed up shop: because that is where is many rums, satisfied they’ve given what they needed to, don’t think they need any kind of enthusiastic finale.  Here we have a finish that is light, crisp, sleek, sweet and dry, nicely fruity (light cherries and pineapples slices in syrup), maintaining a delicate citrus action, adding some cereal hints, and ending the sip on a fading, demure note

This is a very impressive dram for something so relatively young and standard-proofed. It lacks the rough-hewn brutality of a full proof rum clocking in over fifty, yet it’s tasty as all get out, softly solid as a Sealy posturepedic, while paradoxically retaining a light and crisp character throughout all those fancy labial and olfactory perambulations. I think of it as an unappreciated little gem, and if still available, it’s a good buy.  Sure, Savanna’s own Lontan and Grand Arome series are quite good (and the 2006 10 YO HERR remains spectacular), but you wouldn’t do yourself a disservice to try this one. It’s an approachable and affordable mid-range rhum that reeks esters while trying hard to pretend it doesn’t, all while serving up a strikingly lovely and winsome profile with sweetly understated verve and panache.

(#841)(86/100)

Other notes

  • Lots of unknown on this. The location of ageing is not precisely identified, though the “Aged in the Tropics” on the back label strongly implies full Reunion ageing.  Outturn is not mentioned, nor, surprisingly enough, is the distillery noted anywhere on the label.  I was told Savanna back in the day (not Riviere du Mat or Isautier, the only other two distilleries on the island), and have an outstanding email to Fabio Rossi asking about the other details

 

Bristol Spirits Labourdonnais Mauritius White Rhum – Review

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Jun 102021
 

As I remarked in a review opener last year, the UK indie Bristol Spirits appears to have fallen somewhat out of fashion of late, and its releases are not held up as ecstatically as they used to be, nor are reviews of their products either forthcoming or swooned over the way they used to be (that may be a function of the current pandemic as well). However, neither that nor the somewhat moribund website of the company should be taken as an indicator of any loss of focus or lack of activity. Mr. John Barret, the owner, with whom I had a most enjoyable conversation this morning (he just so happened to be wandering past the phone when I called and picked it up) rather wryly remarked that they are simply too busy with the real world to pay too much attention to the digital one, and are going great guns with their aged rum program irrespective of whether online attention is paid to their offerings or not.

One of their older products, predating the pandemic, is a cane juice rhum produced at Labourdonnais Distillery on the island of Mauritius (see below for further details on the distillery and estate). The Indian Ocean island is the home of other well known names like New Grove, Lazy Dodo, Grays, St. Aubin, Chamarel — and somewhere around 2010 or so, Bristol Spirits imported some unaged white rum from the distillery, and bottled a part of it immediately. The rest was left to age: some, matured in sherry wood, was released as a five year old rum in 2015 and this year (2021) they are pushing out the remainder in a 10 year old I’d be quite interested in.

For now, let’s just stick with this one: a 43% column still distillate deriving from cane juice, unaged, unfiltered, white, from a distillery few would likely know much about unless it was from The Fat Rum Pirate’s 4½ star review of the Boutique-y Rum Company’s 5 year old, back in 2019.

What surprised me about the rhum (for so we shall term it since it can’t be called an agricole) was how much like a Cabo Verde grogue it was. The nose, for example, channelled some of that same almost easy, relaxed scents as, oh, the Barbosa.  Nosing something like a dry white wine, it was redolent of freshly mown grass, green grapes and apples, sweet, light, and almost — but not quite — delicate. Cherries, raspberries and a touch of sour cider followed, as well as a sly hint of brininess after a few minutes.  Overall, the aroma had a distinctly agricole vibe to it, which of course was unsurprising. I liked it a lot.

The taste hardly faltered, which was a relief since a great nose does not always a great palate make. At 43% ABV it remained approachable, and an easy sip – warm yet cheerfully spicy; I tasted sugar water, the slight tang of tinned pears in syrup, white guavas, pears, papaya, all overlaid with the crisp and tart freshness of green apples, a bite of bubble gum and again, that trace of wine and brine in equal measure, lending character to the whole. That doesn’t sound like it should work, but yeah, it really kind of does.  The finish was nice and long, but here the complexity faded out and left mostly some fruity sugar water, which I accepted with as much grace as I could muster, the smell and flavours having so charmed me to begin with.

Now me, I like white rums. Not the over-filtered, clear, bland, anonymous and unaromatic cocktail fodder that clogs up far too many glasses, but clusterbombs of flavour like clairins or grogues, or the white lightning from Saint James, DDL, Depaz, Capovilla, Worthy Park, A1710, Issan, Savanna….well, the list is long, what can I say? Here’s another one to add to the list – it’s not fierce or feral, and doesn’t want to cause you pain. It is simply a compact and neat homunculus of a rumlet with oodles of flavour that dance and cavort across the senses, and one  that I will remember with great fondness.  

It occurs to me that it would probably retain all its charm and profile even if beefed up to a greater strength…however, I would argue that’s unnecessary, because it’s near perfect as a sipper exactly as it is, even if unaged. Mr. Barrett told me that Bristol never did really good business with it, and fell back to ageing the rest of their stock as a consequence. I think if more people had tried it when it was first released and whites had a better street cred at that point, then this Labourdonnais white wouldn’t have languished in the doldrums, but flown off the shelves. And in point of fact, as soon as this review goes up, I think I’m going  to go looking for one myself.

(#828)(86/100)

Other notes

  • My thanks to Mr. Barrett who was courteous and polite and answered all my usual questions. Couldn’t help but mention I was a big fan ever since I’d had the amazing Port Mourant 1980 all those years ago.
  • Outturn unknown
  • From the other references I saw, the label seem to be misspelled and the distillery name is one word, not two

Company Background

Labourdonnais is a distillery, of course, but is of relatively recent vintage, as are all such companies on Mauritius.  In 2006 the law was relaxed to permit rum distillation – before that all sugar cane planted on the island had to be made into sugar, the prime export crop.  As soon as this happened, the agricultural estate of Labourdonnais – home of the beautifully landscaped gardens and the famed Château de Labourdonnais – built a new distillery on their property, naming it Rhumerie des Mascareignes, and then renaming it La Distillerie de Labourdonnais in 2014, probably to line up with all the other agricultural and horticultural activities of the property for which it was better known. It has been making cane juice rum ever since, mostly white and lightly aged “amber” rums, but also exporting some bulk, primarily to Europe. 

Penny Blue XO Mauritius Rum (Batch #002) – Review

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Jun 032021
 

Photo provided courtesy of /u/HeyPaul. Used with permission, and thanks.

This is a rum whose label tickles the trivia gene lurking within me.  So in the interest of science and the perhaps boring rehash of stuff some of you already know but some of you don’t, let’s go through the background and the details

First of all, that name. Like Fabio Rossi of Rum Nation putting the pictures of the old stamps he once collected on the labels of his rums, the makers of Penny Blue did the same. Not to be confused with the Two-Penny Blue issued in the UK (the second postage stamp ever made (in 1840, following the famed Penny Black), this one is the Mauritius issued version of 1847 which is now one of the rarest (and most valuable) stamps in the world. However this may be a matter of interests only for pedants, philatelists and unread rum reviewers like this blogger.

Secondly, the Batch 002. What is it? Well, so far as I can determine, it’s a follow-up from Batch #001 (natch), a run of 7,000 bottles deriving from 22 casks matured on Mauritius at the premises of the Medine distillery (see below). Of these 22 casks, 7 each were ex-whisky, ex-cognac and ex-bourbon, and the last one was Batch #001 stock mixed back in. The ages are varied though, and I don’t know the true age of the blend — a product sheet I’ve seen makes mention that the oldest portion of the rum is 11 years old (but not how much that is), and the youngest portion 5 years.

Third, the distillery. Most know (or at least have heard) of the Harels and the Grays, the makers of New Grove (and Lazy Dodo), and I have written about rums from Chamarel and St. Aubin.  There are also lesser known distilleries like Labourdonnais (Rhumerie des Mascareignes) and Ylang Ylang (which does not make rum), as well as the Medine Distillery, founded in 1926. It’s suggested that it actually owns two facilities: it’s own original sugar factory and distillery in Bambous in the west of the island, and its acquisition via JV in February 2000, of International Distillers who made the Tilambic 151, though I cannot trace their distillery’s location, just their distribution office…maybe it’s been shut down and consolidated.

Photo courtesy of /u/HeyPaul. Used with permission.

All right, so, we have a rum, a blend, 43.2% ABV, released around 2014 or so (it’s amazing that this is mentioned nowhere, btw), column still, a 5-11 year old blend released by Indian Ocean Rum Co., which is a collaboration with Berry Bros. & Rudd, who also assisted in its development. All that plus the overlong intro suggests a rum of uncommon quality for which I would have a page and a half of tasting notes.  Alas, no. Because the rum, good as it is, feels somehow less serious, by today’s standards of high-proofed single estate bottlings.  Take the nose: it is warm and light, quite fruity, and more than a touch sweet – notes of peaches and cream, orange peel, mint chocolate and rather stronger aromas of butterscotch, caramel, vanilla, and some leather and smoke. Letting it open up provided some additional hints of crushed almonds and breakfast spices, nothing more than a breath, really.

Fruitiness was more evident and welcome on the palate; it was an easy sip, no surprise at that strength, but surprisingly dry and quite supple to try…no discomfort or real sharpness mars the experience of drinking it neat. One can taste bananas and citrus peel, some tart gooseberries and strawberries, vanilla and breakfast spices again.  Smoke and leather mingle well with cumin and cardamom and it remains arid throughout (not unpleasantly so). A few cereals, crushed nuts and light molasses round out a pretty well-balanced profile. The finish is the weak point, as it tends to be for rums at standard strength – tremulous and wispy, and over way too quick, it’s all you can do to track some orange peel, oakiness, and a touch of vanilla and nutmeg.

A rum like this is something of a study in contrasts.  At first it doesn’t seem like much. It takes effort to disassemble, and if you’re used to stronger and more forceful rums, it may appear like nothing in particular.  This would be a mistake.  It’s quite a bit more complex than it’s warm easiness suggests.  Initially it tastes simple and faint, nothing to see here people, move along please…but it gathers some momentum and complexity as it opens up, and ends up (finish aside) as quite a nice little sipper.  Reminds me of a Latin American rum with an edge, or a lightly aged rum from Guadeloupe. This is not enough for me to rate is as high as others did, but I can’t dismiss it out of hand as some sort of low end crap either, because it’s got too much going on and is too well balanced to merit such a casual dismissal.

(#826)(83/100)

Other Notes

  • My sincere thanks to the reddit user /u/HeyPaul who very kindly gave me permission to use his pictures, which were much better than my rather blurry ones.

Rhumerie de la Reunion (Savanna) “Varangue” Rhum Grand Arôme – 1990s

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May 242021
 

Photo pilfered from DuRhum.com

Rumaniacs Review #R-125 | 0823

Many of the rhums from the Reunion Island distillery of Savanna are a high-ester rum-geek’s dreams and fantasies: they are molasses-based, and benefit from longer fermentation times and a pass through their Savalle copper column still. The term for these rhums with congener levels greater than 800g/HLPA and minimum ester levels of 500g/HLPA is Grand Arôme, but Savanna has branded them with other names, now and in the past. 

Since 2003 or so they have been called the Lontan series of rums — this is a play on the French creole words long temps or “long time” (referring to the fermentation), and tan lon tan meaning “in the old days”.  Previously, between 1997-2000 they were titled Varangue (verandah, perhaps a hint and a wink at where you should be drinking it), before which they were sold as Lacaze rhums…but of this last, few records remain and I couldn’t tell you much about them.

The Varangue resulted from a 5-year R&D effort spearheaded by Laurent Broc who was once the Savanna’s Master Distiller and then the Distillery Director (he has since left the company), and was first released in 1997 to much acclaim: it was specifically aimed at raising both awareness and the reputation of Reunion rums, which at the time were not considered anything special. But it was likely ahead of its time, for it found no broad boozing audience in the rum crowd (unless it was domestic, or in France) and was not marketed to a broad geographical swathe. That said, it did great sales in the food and confectionary businesses. 

In the early 2000s when the new Savanna branded estate rums were initiated (Creol, Intense, Lontan, etc), the Varangue was rebranded as Lontan with better results and one could argue that it is with the concomitant rise of rumfests, social media and the New Jamaicans post-2010 that it was finally catapulted to the wider reknown the new name currently enjoys.

Colour – White

Age – Unaged

Strength – 40%

Nose – Initially, does not compare favourably against the Lontan Grand Arôme 40% released a few years later, but not all older rums are better than their replacements, it is true, so we move on. It gets better. Clean, briny, a touch herbal, but not much.  Glue, anise, floor polish and wax, a little rubber and acetones plus a very slight bitterness that I would attribute to oak had this been aged. Develops into a nice sweetness redolent of of pineapples, strawberries and overripe, almost past-their-prime fruit. 

Palate – Rather gentle and easy (no surprise, considering the strength).  Unfortunately this translates into a faint series of tastes one has to pay careful attention to tease out. Some furniture polish, those weird bitter oaky notes (what are they doing here?). Some nice acetones, and light fruity notes: pineapple again, strawberries, cane juice, light herbal notes of dill and rosemary.  

Finish – Short and light, almost watery.  Sweetly and tartly fruity – again, pineapple, plus gooseberry, five finger, and some mild sugar water

Thoughts – Overall, not really that impressed.  There’s a lot going on there, it’s just too faint to come to grips with, the balance among the various elements is poor.  Still, nose and palate aren’t bad at all. It’s pleasantly aromatic and shows something of what the entire Lontan series emerged from. I’d put it slightly ahead of its successor, but it’s within the margin of error

(78/100)

Savanna Cuvée Maison Blanche 2005 10YO Rum – Review

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Sep 172020
 

Savanna’s 2005 Cuvée Maison Blanche 10 Year Old rum, in production since 2008 is a companion to the 2005 10 YO Traditionnel and a somewhat lesser version of the superb 2006 10YO HERR issued a year later, and that one, you will remember, blew my socks off back when I tried it. 

Going strictly  by the numbers, it hardly seems to be very different from the various traditionnel (i.e., molasses based) rums that are released with great regularity by the distillery.  But actually, these “White House” 10 YO rums date back to when the 1998 edition was first released as a millesime and has always denoted something a bit more special from the season.  Such rums are intermittently issued, not annually, and have become something of an underground search-for by some (myself included) even if they are not that well known and are nowadays eclipsed by the various Grand Arômes and special series that pop up with much fanfare every year or two. The title, as an aside, references the original Savanna distillery in Saint Paul which bore the name of “Maison Blanche.”

We know a fair bit about Savanna by now (see here for a mini bio if you don’t), so we’ll get straight into what it’s like. Note, first off, that the name has nothing to do with its type – it’s not a white rum, but an aged dark gold one, which would seem obvious, but isn’t always, so I mention it in passing. 

The nose is very nice for something at 43%, and I’ve always wondered why they kept the strength that low: but for sure it’ll provide its adherents many pleasures, like the warm, creamy aromas of honey and caramel, to start. There’s some vanilla, flowers, oak tannins and bite, the vague fruitiness of peaches and ripe cherries and something a bit lighter (pears, I’d say).  The balance among the various pieces is nicely done, though it feels somewhat faint, which may be my schnozz, not yours.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but I usually do standard strength rum tastings first thing in the morning when the palate is at its most sensitive and I haven’t (yet) been brutalized by a bunch of stampeding overproofs. That helps here, because although it also makes it seem sharpish, what it really is, is clean and fresh and bright, a delicate smorgasbord of caramel, nuts, molasses, vanilla, fresh red and white fruits (apples, peaches, pears, watermelon, strawberries, papaya, cherries). That’s enjoyable, but the finish – short, clear, clean, minty and with some caramel, vanilla and sour cream – departs too soon and is gone too fast for any sort of real appreciation.

That finish is representative of what I consider something of a deficiency for the Maison Blanche’s – the low strength, which hamstrings tastes that need jacking up to be appreciated more fully. The rum walks a neat line between acid and tart and musk, between soft and sharp notes, and I did enjoy it, especially for that peculiar note to it on the end, a wispy salt-tobacco-pineapple thing that to me is the creole island twang of Savanna. But I honestly wish they had bottled it at a higher proof, something to give it a bit more oomph and smack, that would draw out and showcase those tastes more decisively. Too much is lost in the obscuring fog of 43% for me to consider it truly special — and that’s a shame for a rum that is in most other respects quite a lovely drink.

(#762)(83/100)

Other Notes

  • The year of the edition is always on the front label, at the bottom
  • As always, thanks and my appreciation to Nico Rumlover, who sent me the sample.

Savanna Lontan Grand Arôme Unaged White Rum – Review

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Sep 142020
 

It’s perhaps unfair that only with the emergence of the 2016 HERR 10 YO and the LMDW 60th Anniversary white in the same year, that the distillery of Savanna on Reunion began to pick up some serious street cred. I think it’s one of those under-the-radar distilleries that produces some of the best rums in the world, but it always and only seems to be some special limited edition like the Cuvee Maison Blanche, or a “serious” third party bottling (e.g. from Habitation Velier, Rum Nation or Wild Parrot) that gets people’s ears to prick up.  And it’s then that you hear the stealthy movement of wallets in pockets as people slink into a shop, furtively fork over their cash, and never speak of their purchase for fear the prices might go ape before they get a chance to buy everything in sight.

Such focus on seemingly special bottlings ignores a lot of what Savanna actually produces. Starting around 2013 or so, in line with the emerging trend of own-distillery bottlings (as opposed to bulk sales abroad) done by well-known Caribbean island distilleries, they took the unheralded and almost unacknowledged lead in constantly producing all sorts of small not-quite-limited batches, for years and years (the 5 year old and 7 year old “Intense” rums were examples of that). And, as I’ve observed before, it’s good to remember that Savanna’s rums span an enormous stylistic range of both cane juice rhums and molasses based ones, single barrel and blends, standard strength and full proof, and underneath all of those are rums like the seemingly basic Lontan White 40% rum we’re looking at today.

The word “Lontan” is difficult to pin down – in Haitian Creole, it means “long” and “long ago” while in old French it was “lointain” and meant “distant” and “far off”, and neither explains why Savanna picked it (though many establishments around the island use it in their names as well, so perhaps it’s an analogue to the english “Ye Olde…”).  Anyway, aside from the traditional, creol, Intense and Metis ranges of rums (to which have now been added several others) there is this Lontan series – these are all variations of Grand Arôme rums, finished or not, aged or not, full-proof or not, which are distinguished by a longer fermentation period and a higher ester count than usual, making them enormously flavourful.

Does that work, here? Not as much as I’d like – the strength is partly responsible for that, making it seem somewhat one-dimensional.  The nose gentle and clean, some brine and olives, pineapple, watermelon, green apples and a touch of herbs, yet overall the smell of it lacks something of an agricole rhum’s crispness, or an unaged molasses rum’s complexity, and if there are more esters than normal here, they’re doing a good job of remaining undercover. It actually reminds me more of a slightly aged cachaca than anything else.

It’s an easy rum to drink neat, by the way, because the 40% does not savage your tonsils the way a full proof would.  On that level, it works quite nicely.  But that same weakness makes flavours faint and hard to come to grips with. So while there are some subtle notes of sugar water, anise, vanilla, mint, coffee (a dulce de leche, if you will) and cumin, they lack spark and verve, and you have to strain hard to pick them up….hardly the point of a drink like this. Since the finish just follows on from there – faint, breathy and <poof> it’s gone – about the best one can say is that at least it’s not a bland nothing.  You retain the soft memory of fruits, pineapple, cumin, vanilla, and then the whole thing is done.

Ultimately then, this is almost a starter or (at best) a mid-tier rum, clocking in at €35 or so in Europe. I have often bugled my liking for brutish whites that channel the primitive licks of full strength rums made in the old style for generations without caring about modern technology, but this isn’t one of them. That said, it has more in its jock than the bland anonymous filtered whites that are the staple of bars the world over, however…so if you eschew full-proof ester-squirting whites and prefer something a bit more toned down and easy on both the palate and the wallet, then this one is definitely one you could – and probably should – take a longer look at than I did.

(#760)(77/100)

Other Notes

  • Column still rum, deriving from molasses (hence the “Traditonnel” on the label)
  • For a more in depth discussion of “Grand Arôme” see the Wonk’s article.
  • As before, many thanks and a hat tip to Nico Rumlover for the sample

Chamarel 2014 4 YO Rum (Velier Indian Ocean Stills) – Review

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Jan 022020
 

The actual title of this rhum is Chamarel Pure Sugar Cane Juice 2014 4 YO Rum, but Mauritius doesn’t have license to use the term “agricole” the way Martinique, Guadeloupe, Reunion and Madeira do.  And while some new producers from the Far East and America seem to have no problem casually appropriating a name that is supposedly restricted to only those four locations, we know that Luca Gargano of Velier, whose brainchild these Indian rums are, would never countenance or promote such a subversion of convention.  And so a “pure sugar cane juice” rum it is.

Now, Mauritius has been making rhums and rums for ages – companies like New Grove, St. Aubin, Lazy Dodo are new and old stalwarts of the island, and third parties take juice from International Distillers Mauritius (IDM) to make Penny Blue, Green Island or Cascavel brands, mostly for sale in the UK and Europe.  But there’s another distillery there which has only recently been established and come to more prominence, and that’s Chamarel, which was established in 2008 (see historical and production notes below). I hesitate to say that Velier’s including them in their 70th Anniversary collection kickstarted their rise to greater visibility – but it sure didn’t hurt either.

Brief stats: a 4 year old rum distilled in September 2014, aged in situ in French oak casks and bottled in February 2019 at a strength of 58% ABV.  Love the labelling and it’s sure to be a fascinating experience not just because of the selection by Velier, or its location (we have tried few rums from there though those we tried we mostly liked), or that strength, but because it’s always interesting to see how such a relatively brief tropical ageing regimen can affect the resultant rum when it hits our glasses.

In short, not enough.  It sure smelled nice – peaches in cream to start, sweetly crisp and quite flavourful, with lots of ripe fruit and no off notes to speak of; waves of cherries, mangoes, apples, bubble gum, gummi-bears bathed in a soft solution of sugar water, cola and 7-up.  It’s a bit less rounded and even than Velier’s Savanna rum from the Indian Ocean still series, but pleasant enough in its own way.

It’s on the palate that its youth – with all the teenage Groot this implies – becomes more apparent.  There’s peanut butter on rye bread; brine and sweet olives, figs, dates, leavened with a little vanilla and caramel, but with the fruits that had been evidenced on the nose dialled severely back.  It’s dry, with slightly sour and bitter notes that come forward and clash with the sweet muskiness of the ripe fruits.. This gets to the point where the whole taste experience is somewhat derailed, and while staying relatively warm and firm, never quite coheres into a clear set of discernible tastes that one can sit back and relax with – you keep waiting for some quick box on the ears or something.  Even the finish, which was dry and long, with some saltiness and ripe fruits, feels like a work in progress and not quite tamed, for all its firm character.

So somehow, even with its 58% strength, the Chamarel doesn’t enthuse quite as much as the Savanna rhum did. Maybe that was because it didn’t allow clear tastes to punch through and show their quality – they all got into into a sort of indistinct alcohol-infused fight over your palate that you know has stuff going on in there someplace…just not what. To an extent that it showed off its young age and provided a flavourful jolt, I liked it and it’s a good-enough representative of what the distillery and Mauritius can do. I just like other rhums the company and the island has made better — even if they didn’t have any of Luca’s fingerprints over it.

(#689)(81/100)

Other Notes

La Rhumerie de Chamarel, located in a small valley in the south west of Mauritius, is one of the rare operational distilleries to cultivate its own sugarcane, which itself has a history on the island going back centuries. The distillery takes the title of a small nearby village named after a Frenchman who lived there around 1800 and owned most of the land upon which the village now rests. The area has had long-lived plantations growing pineapples and sugar cane, and in 2008 the owners of the Beachcomber Hotel chain (New Mauritius Hotels, one of the largest companies in Mauritius), created the new distillery on their estate of 400 hectares, perhaps to take on the other large rum makers on the island, all of whom were trying to wean themselves off of sugar production at a time of weakening demand and reduced EU subsidies. Rum really started taking off in post 2006 when production was legalized – previously all sugar cane had to be processed into sugar by law. 

The sugar cane is grown onsite and cut without pre-burning between July and December. The harvest is transported directly to the distillery and the crushed sugarcane juice filtered and taken to steel tanks for fermentation after which the wash is run through a copper Barbet-type plate column still (for white rums), or the two-column 24-plate still they call an alembic (for aged and other rums). In all cases the rums are left post-distillation in inert stainless steel vats for three months before being transferred to ageing barrels of various kinds, or released as white rums, or further processed into spiced variations.

Savanna 2012 6YO Rhum Agricole (Velier Indian Ocean Stills) – Review

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Dec 182019
 

Without bombast or any kind of major marketing push, without hype or hurry, Savanna on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean quietly built up its reputation over the last decade with the Grand Arôme series of rums deriving from their high ester still, and probably gave the new high-ester Jamaicans serious conniption fits. Yet for all its burgeoning street cred, it remains something of a relative unknown, while much more attention is lavished on the New Jamaicans and other companies around the Caribbean who are jacking up their taste levels. 

Savanna has of course been making rums its own way for ages, and by releasing this little gem with them, the Genoese concern of Velier might just be the one to catapult them to the next level and greater renown outside Europe.  After all, they did it for Caroini and DDL, why not here? 

The “Indian Ocean Still” series of rums have a labelling concept somewhat different from the stark wealth of detail that usually accompanies a Velier collaboration.  Personally, I find it very attractive from an artistic point of view – I love the man riding on the elephant motif of this and the companion Chamarel rum (although I must concede that my all time favourite design is the architectural-quality drawings of the various stills of the Habitation line). In any event, most of the info is on the back label (repeated in the copperplate-style narrative on the front): distilled November 2012, aged on Reunion in French oak casks, bottled February 2019.  It’s a column still product, but not, as far as I’m aware, of the HERR still.

It’s been said on many occasions of Velier’s rums, especially with the Jamaicans and Demeraras, that “the rum doesn’t feel like it’s X%”.  Perhaps nowhere is that more true than here, where the Savanna clocked in at 61% ABV, but nosed — and later tasted — like it was no more than standard strength. I mean, it started with a truly lovely, sweet, soft, warm nose.  Peaches in syrup and cream melded well with sugar water, ripe yellow mangoes, red grapes,and sweet red olives. Delectable in a good way, and I particularly enjoyed the lemon and cumin background, plus the yoghurt and sour cream with dill.  

The palate was also an amalgam of many good things, starting off tasting of sweet and very strong black tea with milk.  It developed fruity, sweet, sour and creamy notes which all met and had a party in the middle. There was lime zest, bags of ripe, fleshy fruits, cereals, red grapes, apples, cashews – it’s a smorgasbord of ongoing flavour porn, both sharp and crisp, and later one could even taste fanta and bubbly soda pop mixed in with a clean Riesling.  The strength was more discernible than it had been when I smelled it, just not in a bad way, and it was really well tamped down into something eminently drinkable, finishing off with a flourish of olive oil and brine, a touch of sweetness from the fanta, and more crisp almost ripe fruits.

Man, this was a really good dram.  It adhered to most of the tasting points of a true agricole — grassiness, crisp herbs, citrus, that kind of thing — without being slavish about it.  It took a sideways turn here or there that made it quite distinct from most other agricoles I’ve tried. If I had to classify it, I’d say it was like a cross between the fruity silkiness of a St. James and the salt-oily notes of a Neisson.

It’s instructive that although Savanna has been making high ester rums for at least the last two decades, their reputation was never as sterling or widespread as Hampden and Worthy Park who have been getting raves for their new branded rums from almost the very first moment they appeared on the stage. Perhaps that says something about the need in today’s world to have a promoter in one’s corner who acts as a barker for the good stuff. That could be a well known importer, it could be the use of a deep-pocketed secondary bottler with a separate rep of their own (think Rum Nation’s 2018 Reunion rum as an example), or a regular FB commentator.  

These forces have all now intersected, I think, and the rum is a win for everyone concerned. Savanna has greater exposure and fantastic word of mouth dating back to its seminal HERR 2006 10 year old; Velier has shown that even with the winding down of the Demeraras and Caronis they can find tasty, intriguing rums from around the world and bring them for us to taste; and I can almost guarantee that if this rum finds its way into enough hands, there will be no shortage of positive online blurbs and opinions from across the commenterati, many of whom will be happy to say that they knew it all along and are happy to be proved right.

(#685)(85/100)

Other notes

  • Habitation Velier has released a Savanna HERR Unaged 2017 white rhum, which is a good companion to this one, though it’s a bit more energetic and rambunctious and displayed less refinement…yet perhaps more character. 
  • I heard a rumour that Velier intended to release three Indian Ocean rums in this 2019 series, and indeed, around 2018, there were photos of Luca in India that surfaced briefly on FB.  However, nothing seems to have come of it and never responded to my queries on the matter. Update: in 2022 the Habitation Velier Amrut showed us what could have been this series’ third rum.

Rum Nation Réunion Traditionelle “Cask Strength” 2011 7 YO Rum – Review

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Jul 072019
 

“Austere” says the back label of Rum Nation’s massive rum beefcake from Réunion, and they weren’t kidding. The rhum traditionalle from the French Department is bottled at 60.5% ABV, is seriously violent, a tropically-aged molasses-derived brown bomber, and to my mind it’s quite a step up from the lower-proofed 45% 7 year old agricole they had previously released in 2016.  It is not recommended for people who don’t know what they’re getting into.

HyperFocal: 0

Why?  Because insofar as it has those wild, fierce and pungent smells and tastes, it’s very much like the new wave of Jamaican rums now making such big waves – Hampden and Worthy Park in particular.  Because this presses many of the same buttons, shares something of the same rum-DNA, the major one being that it’s coming off a still stuffed with the potential to crank up the ester-count. And while neither of these two bottles says so — for whatever reason — I’m going on record as saying they’re both from Savanna and the wonder of it is that they come off a savalle copper column still, not pot stills like the Jamaicans.  And yet the ‘Nation’s cask strength version from 2018 is in no way a lesser rum.

Just smelling it tells you that.  It releases such an intense aroma when cracked – a beautifully clear piece of work, smelling of caramel, vanilla, leather, wine, and a lot of red fruits: cherries, red currants and pomegranates, that kind of thing.  And that’s not all…esters come out of hiding after five minutes or so, bubble gum, sharp green fruits, sandalwood, cloves, acetones, and that’s accompanied by a sort of woody, almost meaty smell that’s tough to pin down but really quite interesting.  And as if all this was not enough it continued with sugar cane sap, a citrus line, mint, thyme, and even a twist of black licorice – seriously, you should keep that glass going for at least ten minutes, preferably more, because it just doesn’t seem to want to stop.

Some rums falter on the taste after opening up with a nose of uncommon quality – fortunately Rum Nation’s Réunion Cask Strength rum (to give it its full name) does not drop the ball. It’s sharp and crisp at the initial entry, mellowing out over time as one gets used to the fierce strength. It presents an interesting combination of fruitiness and muskiness and crispness, all at once – vanilla, lychee, apples, green grapes, mixing it up with ripe black cherries, yellow mangoes, lemongrass, leather, papaya; and behind all that is brine, olives, the earthy tang of a soya (easy on the vegetable soup), a twitch of wet cigarette tobacco (rather disgusting), bitter oak, and something vaguely medicinal.  It’s something like a Hampden or WP, yet not — it’s too distinctively itself for that. It displays a musky tawniness, a very strong and sharp texture, with softer elements planing away the roughness of the initial attack. Somewhat over-oaked perhaps but somehow it all works really well, and the finish is similarly generous with what it provides — long and dry and spicy, with some caramel, stewed apples, green grapes, cider, balsamic vinegar, and a tannic bitterness of oak, barely contained (this may be the weakest point of the rum).

I noted that it reminds me of the New Jamaican rums and that’s certainly true.  But for anyone who likes the Lontan rums, the 2006 HERR 10 YO or the two 2018 “57” expressions, its uniqueness can’t be described by simply saying it’s a version of a rum from the Caribbean. It’s fiercely and uncompromisingly itself, with tastes that complement — without replacing — the rums issued by its cousins from Jamaica. It’s dry, intense, rich, searing, complex, and that short tropical ageing period mellowed it enough to let subtler notes shine without dampening them down too much or losing the crispness of the more youthful elements. And so, summing up, what we have here is a relatively young rum that tries to wring the very last whiff or drop of flavour from its distillate — and succeeds brilliantly.

(#639)(86/100)

1423 S.B.S. Mauritius 2008-2018 10 YO Rum – Review

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May 022019
 

Like those tiny Caribbean islands you might occasionally fly over, the Maria Loca cocktail bar in Paris is so miniscule that if you were to sneeze and blink you’d go straight past it, which is what happens to us, twice. When Mrs. Caner and I finally locate it and go inside, it’s dark, it’s hectic, it’s noisy, the music is pounding and the place is going great guns. At the bar, along with two other guys, Guillaume Leblanc is making daiquiris with flair and fine style, greeting old customers and barflies and rumfest attendees, the shaker never still. Even though he doesn’t work there, he seems to know everyone by their first name, which to me makes him a top notch bartender even without the acrobatic or mixing skills.

In a dark corner off to the side are wedged Joshua Singh and Gregers Nielsen, a quartet of bottles in front of them.  Part of the reason they’re here is to demonstrate the Single Barrel Selection of their Danish company (named “1423” after the number on that first barrel of rum the outfit ever bottled back in 2008) and how they fare in cocktails. Nicolai Wachmann and Mrs. Caner have been drafted to help out and I’m squished in there as well to do my review thing and take notes in the Little Black Book (since the Big Black Book didn’t fit into my pocket when I was heading out).

Three of these bottles are formal SBS releases by 1423, and there’s a Jamaican, a Trini and one from Mauritius. The fourth is a white-lightning tester from (get this!) Ghana, and I haven’t go a clue which one to start with. Nicolai has four glasses in front of him and somehow seems to be sipping from all four at once, no help there. Mrs. Caner, sampling the first of what will be many daiquiris this evening, and usually so fierce in her eye for quality rums, is raptly admiring Guillaume’s smooth drink-making technique while batting her eyes in his direction far too often for my peace of mind. Fortunately, I know he’s engaged to a very fetching young miss of his own, so I don’t worry too much.

“Any recommendations?” I ask the rotund Joshua who’s happily pouring shots for the curious and talking on background about the rums with the air of an avuncular off-season Santa Claus.  How he can talk to me, pour so precisely, have an occasional sip of his own, discuss technical stuff and call out hellos to the people in the crowd all at the same time is a mystery, but maybe he’s just a better multi-tasker than I am.

“Try the Jamaican,” he advises, and disappears behind the bar.

“Not the Trinidadian?” I ask when he pops back up on this side, two new daiquiris in his hand.  Mrs. Caner grabs one immediately, and, with the skill born of many vicious battles getting on-sale designer purses in the middle of frenzied mobs of other ladies, fends off Nicolai’s eager hands and shoves him into the wall in a way that would make a linebacker weep.  He looks at me like this is my fault.

“It’s not a Caroni, so you might feel let down,” Josh opines, handing the second cocktail glass to another customer. “It’s Angostura, and you’re a rumdork, so…” He shrugs, and I wince.

Since I’m writing an on-again, off-again survey of rums from Africa (50 words and I’m done, ha ha), the Ghana white rum piques my interest, and I turn to Gregers, who is as tidy and in control as ever.  I suspect he lined up his pens and papers with the edge of his desk in school. “The Ghana, you think?”

He considers for a moment, then shakes his head and pours me a delicate, neat shot of the Mauritius 2008. “Better start with this one.  It’s a bit more…mellow. And anyway, you tried the Ghana last year in Berlin. If you need to, you can try it again later.”

The rum winks invitingly at me.  I take a quick moment to snap some pictures of the bottle, thinking again how far labels have come in the last decade.  Velier started the trend, Compagnie des Indes provides great levels of detail, and others are following along, but what I’m seeing here is amazing. The label notes the distillery (Grays, which is a famed family name as well – they make the New Grove and Lazy Dodo line of rums but not the St. Aubins); the source, which in this case is molasses; the still type – column; distillation date – 2008; bottling date – 2018; and other throwaway details such as the non-chill-filtration, the port wine finish, the 281-bottle outturn, and the 55.7% ABV strength.  I mean, you really couldn’t ask for much more than that.

I nose the amber spirit gently, and my eyes widen.  Wow. This is good. It smells of toblerone, white chocolate, vanilla and almonds but there are also lighter and more chirpy notes swirling around that – gooseberries, ginger shavings, green grapes, and apples. And behind that are aromas of dark fruit like plums, prunes and dates, together with vague red-wine notes, in a very good balance. Musky, earthy smells mix with lighter and darker fruits in a really good amalgam – you’d never confuse this with a Jamaican or a Guyanese or a Caroni or a French island agricole.  I glance over at Mrs. Caner to get a second opinion, but she’s ogling some glass-flipping thing Guillaume is doing and so I ask Nicolai what he thinks. He checks glass #2 on his table and agrees it is a highly impressive dram, just different enough from the others to be really interesting in its own way. He loves the way the finish adds to the overall effect.

As I’m scribbling notes into the LBB, I ask Gregers slyly, “Is there anything you’ve been told not to tell me about the rum?” He is like my brother, but business, blood and booze don’t always mix, trust is earned not freely given, and I’m curious how he’ll answer. Nicolai’s ears perk up and he pauses with his nose hanging over the third glass.  Though he doesn’t talk much, his curiosity and rum knowledge are the equal of my own and he likes knowing these niggly little details too.

“Nope. Any question you have, we’ll answer.” Gregers and Joshua exchange amused looks. Truth to tell, there are two omissions which only a rum nerd would ask for or actively seek out.  I wonder if they’re thinking the same thing I am. So:

“Additives? You don’t mention anything about them on the label.”  And given how central such a declaration is these days to new companies who want to establish their “honesty” and street cred, an odd thing to have overlooked – at least in my opinion.

Joshua doesn’t miss a beat. He confirms the “no additives” ethos of the SBS line of rums, and it was not considered necessary to be on the label – plus, if some weird older gunk from Panama or Guyana, say, were to be bottled in the future and then found to be doctored by the original producer, maybe with caramel, then 1423 would not have egg over its face, which makes perfect sense.  Then, before I ask, he and Gregers tell me that this rum is actually not from a single barrel but several casks blended together. Well…okay (there’s full detail in “other notes” below, for the deeply curious).

The bar is getting noisier, more crowded.  Pete Holland of the Floating Rum Shack just turned up and is making the rounds, pressing the flesh, because he knows, like, everyone – alas, his pretty wife is nowhere in sight. Jazz and Indy Singh of Skylark are in-country but must have missed this event because no sign of their cheerful bearded forms. Yoshiharu Takeuchi of Nine Leaves is in center-court, telling a hilarious R-Rated story I cannot reprint here (much as I’d like to) of how he was mugged in Marseilles while taking a leak in an alleyway, and Florent Beuchet of the Compagnie is mingling – I shout a hello at him over the heads of several customers.  He waves back. The cheerfully bearded and smiling Ingvar “Rum” Thomsen (journalist and elder statesman of the Danish rum scene) is hanging out next to his physically polar opposite, Johnny Drejer (tall, slim, clean-shaven); Johnny and I briefly discuss the new camera I helped him acquire, and some of his photographs and the state of the rumiverse in general. There are probably brand reps and other French rumistas in attendance, but I don’t recognize anyone else and the ones I do know are AWOL:  Laurent is still on his round the world expedition with his family (but not the poussette), Cyril doesn’t attend these things and I don’t know Roger Caroni by sight. All I can see is that everyone is enjoying themselves thoroughly and the loud hum of intense and excited (and perhaps drunken) conversation is electric. The energy level of the bar is off the scale.

Guillaume has finished his cocktail twirling demo and lost my wife’s attention, I note happily. He’s mixing more drinks for another small group of people who just wandered in. Mrs. Caner is now deep in conversation with Nicolai about his marital status and that of her entire tribe of single female relatives. After landing me like a prize trout all those years ago, my pretty little wife has developed a raging desire to “help out” any single person of marriageable age — and she’s seen Hitch like forty-seven times, which doesn’t help.  Anyway, they’re both ignoring the rums in front of them, so I roll my eyes at this blasphemy and continue on to the tasting.

And let me tell you, that Mauritius rum tastes as good as it smells, if perhaps a little sharper and drier on the tongue than the aromas might suggest. It really is something of a low-yield fruit bomb.  Raspberries, strawberries, lemon peel, ginger and sherbet partied hard with the deeper flavours of prunes, molasses, vanilla, nuts, chocolate mousse, ice cream and caramel…and a touch of coca cola, tobacco and seaweed-like iodine.  There’s even a sly hint of brine, thyme, and mint rounding things off, transferring well into a lovely smooth finish dominated by candied oranges, a sharp line of citrus peel, and a very nice red wine component that completes what was and remains, a really very good drink.  It is like a curiously different Barbados rum, with aspects of Guyana and Jamaica thrown in for kick, but its quality is all its own, and hopefully allows the island to get more press in the years to come. For sure it is a rum to share around.

With some difficulty, I manage to catch Mrs. Caner’s eye and pass the glass over to her, because I think this is a rum she’d enjoy too.  Somehow even after all the daiquiris she’s been getting, her eyes are clear, her speech is unslurred, her diction flawless, and I may be biased but I think she looks absolutely lovely.  As she tries the SBS Mauritius, I can see she appreciates its construction as well and she compliments Joshua and Gregers on their selection. “This is great,” she remarks, then provides me with a whole raft of detailed tasting notes, which I have mysteriously lost and none of which somehow have made it into this essay.

Nicolai, over in his corner, is happy to cast some other comments on to the table regarding the SBS Mauritius, all positive.  We all agree, and I tell Gregers, that this is one fine rum, and if I could, I’d buy one, except that I can’t. My wife, having delivered herself of her earth shaking opinion, immediately beelines over to the bar area where Guillaume’s fiancee and sister have just arrived, most likely because she’s had enough of all the testosterone in our corner and wants some real conversation with people who are specifically not certifiable about rum.

L-R – Nicolai, Gregers, Guillaume, Joshua and one of the bartenders from that evening whose name I did not get, sorry.

I want some fresh air so Joshua and I go outside the bar for a smoke (the irony does not escape us).  The nighttime air of Paris is crisp and cool and I remember all the reasons I like coming here. We discuss 1423 and their philosophy, its humble beginnings more than ten years ago, though that remains outside the scope of this essay.

“So, the Mauritius was pretty good,” I remark, pleased to have started off this fest (and 2019) on a good rum, a tasty shot.  He courteously does not ask for my score which for some obscure reason is all that some people want. “What do you think I should try next?”

He smiles, reminding me once again of Santa Claus in civilian clothes and taking a breather from gift giving, mingling with the common folk. “Oh the Jamaica, for sure.  That’s a DOK, PX finished, pot still aged in 40-liter barrels…and let me tell you, there’s some really interesting stories behind that one -”

I stop him. My fingers are twitching. “Hang on.  I gotta write that down. Let’s go inside, pour a shot, and you can tell me everything I need to know while I try it.  I don’t want to miss a thing.”

And while it’s not exactly relevant to the Mauritius rum I’m supposed to be writing about here, that’s pretty much what we ended up doing, on a cool evening in the City of Lights, spent in the lively company of my beautiful wife, and assorted boisterous, rambunctious geeks, reps, writers, drinkers, bartenders and simply good friends. You just can’t do a rum tasting in better surroundings than that.

(#620)(87/100)

Other Notes

  • In one of those curious coincidences, the Fat Rum Pirate penned his own four-out-of-five star review of the same rum just a few days ago. However, the first review isn’t either of ours, but the one from Kris von Stedingk, posted in December 2018 on the relatively new site Rum Symposium. He was also pretty happy with it
  • Background on the rum itself:
    • Joshua met with a rep from Grays from Mauritius a few years ago at the Paris Rhumfest; he brought a number of different cask samples from the warehouse. 1423 ended up choosing two, which were about 9 years at this time
      • The first was aged seven years in a 400-liter French Limousin oak, followed by two more in Chatagnier (Chestnut).
      • The second was again aged seven years in a 400-liter French Limousin oak, followed by two years in Port.
    • 1423 ordered both of them but ended up receiving 400 liters of the Chatagnier cask and 120 liters of the Port both now with another ageing year in their respective casks. All of this was blended together when delivered to Denmark and the 2018 release was basically the first 200 liters, all tropical aged. The remaining 320 liters are still in the Denmark warehouse waiting for a good idea and the right time to release.

Isautier “Louis & Charles Isautier” Cuvée 70 Old Rum – Review

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Mar 192019
 

Whether or not you can place Reunion on a map, you’ve surely heard of at least one of its three distilleries: Savanna, and that high-ester still of theirs that’s driving rum geeks into transports of ecstasy.  Yet for almost the same time, there have been two other distilleries on the island, Riviere du Mat (which made the delicious Millesime 2004 and XO rums) and the oldest of the three, another family owned outfit called Isautier, which I wrote about in a brief bio a few days back

Isautier, among all their punches and arranges, make an interesting selection of aged rums as well – the entry level 40% Barrick (3 months aged), plus 5 / 7 / 10 year old rums; and their top of the line “Louis & Charles Isautier” Cuvee 70, released at 45% ABV.  It comprises a blend of 15 year old aged agricole rum, and a 7 year old molasses-based rum. The bottle does not bear an age statement, and it’s simply marketed as a premium rum of the line, going for around eighty euros.

Like Guadeloupe half a world away, Reunion does not have an AOC designation, and its remoteness and relatively small land area makes it impractical to go fully with either molasses-based or cane-juice distillates, and so they occasionally mix and match their blends from both.  This makes them less “pure” and clearly identifiable rums…but also quite tasty, as the profile of the L&C demonstrated.

When I nosed the glass, it occurred to me that it was a somewhat toned-down version of Savanna’s Lontan grand arome series (which I tasted in tandem). I mean that in a good way because high ester rums are not always or necessarily meant as sipping drinks, so one that dials down the noise and goes to the middle of the road can present really well – like the less in-yer-face Hampdens, Worthy Parks, or  NRJ Vale Royal and Cambridge did. In any event, the aromas purred sleepily out of the bottle and there were quite a lot of them: pineapples, pears, strawberries, freshly chopped apples.  No salt, brine, olives here, but some coffee grounds, nutmeg and bitter chocolate, which complemented the fruits quite well. At 45% the whole nose was warm and well controlled, no complaints there (except that I wished for something with more oomph, really).

The taste was surprisingly easy, creamy, almost. Some lemon meringue pie, coffee and chocolate again, and then the rest of the fruit brigade slowly rolled in and took over: pineapples, fresh green apples, soursop, gooseberries, ripe black cherries and five-finger, very ripe – in other words, the sweet of the various fruits was there, but so was a kind of low-key tart sourness that provided some interesting counterpoint and character.  If I had to make a point of it, the finish is probably the least interesting, because it repeated what came before without going any place new, but overall, it was warm and fruity, and perhaps one could not expect too much more from a placid rum that had already gone as far as it could, no matter that it was in absolutely no hurry to get there.

What worked against the rum (for me) was the relatively low strength which watered down what could have been a much richer series of smells and tastes. The dilution makes the barrels go further and the greater rum-purchasing public served better, sure — more consumers will buy a rum which isn’t cask strength and doesn’t try to rip their face off — but it does mute it too, and this to some extent lessens the experience.  Perhaps that is why Isautier themselves remark that the rum be considered a digestif, an after-dinner drink. But admittedly, that’s my own thing and for the most part, I don’t think anyone who tries this product from Reunion and Isautier will either have anything to complain about, or have any trouble distinguishing it from the other big guns coming out of the still-too-little-known island in the Indian ocean.

(#609)(84/100)

Other notes

Although the type of still from which these components derive goes unmentioned, the company website speaks to a steam injected column still which produces distillate with concentrations as high as 89% ABV (used for the traditionnel rums) and 70% (for whites and more agricole-styled rums).

St. Aubin Rhum Agricole Blanc – Review

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Feb 102018
 

#487

Yeah! It screams as you sip it, seeming to want to channel a heavy metal rock star in his prime as he puts together a yowling riff on his axe and squeals impossibly high notes into the mike like his huevos were getting crushed. Pow! Biff! Smack! went the rum on the nose.  Holy pot still Batman, what the hell was this?  I smelled hard, I blinked tears, I coughed out rhum fumes and a hundred flies died on the spot. The maelstrom of clear aggro swirling madly in my glass made me think that if I’d had the St. Aubin Blanc four years ago I would have suspected the clairins of copying them.  This rhum was a hellish, snorting magnificent, pummelling nose: olives, brine, vinegar, acetone, salt beef and garlic pork (“wit’ plenty plenty ‘erb,” as my Aunt Sheila would have said), gherkins, sugar water, and more olives, presenting like a real dirty martini.  Wow.  Just…wow.  Though bottled at a relatively bearable 50%, it was fierce and pungent and tasty and wild and definitely left the reservation far behind, just like the white Jamaicans and clairins did.

What elevated the experience of drinking it was the sensation of sampling a potent escaped white lightning while at the same time understanding (not without some wonder) that it was totally under the control of its makers (St. Aubin out of Mauritius) and no extraneous frippery of blending or touch of ageing were allowed to mess with the monster’ essential badassery.  Some of the salt  took a back seat here, the olives were toned down, and in their place emerged sharp and clear notes of wax and furniture polish, leavened by bleeding sugar cane juice, watermelon, swank, pears and a bunch of heavier fruits, hot and just starting to spoil, reminding me more of a Jamaican white like the Rum Nation 57%, or the Rum Fire, or that faithful old standby, J. Wray 63%.  Oh but this was not all.  Once it settled its hot-snot profile down to manageable levels, came to a sort of grudging equilibrium among all the fierce competing flavours, there was a last cough of cereal, biscuits, oatmeal, salted butter and a dash of cumin to wrap up the show.  And it all led to a suitably epic finish that neatly summed up all the foregoing — and so cool that the sun did shine 24 hours a day when I was trying it, and, as the song goes, it did wear its sunglasses at night.

See, while furious aggression a la clairin was not quite the blanc’s style, the sheer range of what it presented took my breath away; the balance was damned fine and the range of its flavour profile was impressive as hell.  I’ll be the first to admit that such potent whites are not to everyone’s tastes, and if you doubt that, feel free to sample a clairin or three. But man, are they ever original. They burst with crazy, are infused with off-the-reservation nutso, and when you finish one, shudder and reach for the Diplo, then whether you liked it or not you could never doubt that at least it was original, right?  That and the bitchin’ cocktails they make, is, to me, their selling point.

Because of its pot still origins and because of its relatively manageable strength, I think this thing might just be one of the more approachable whites out there, and I’d really be interested how other drinkers, writers and barflies see it.  I make a lot of jokes at Adam West’s 1960s Batman series with their hokey sound effects overlaid on the TV screen and the campy dialogue, but what we sometimes forget is that after all was said and done, even on that series somebody always got hit and somebody always fell down and there was a cool quip at the end.  I don’t have a cool quip on this one, but guys, I drank it and got hit and just about fell down.

(85/100)

Other notes

  • There are some background notes on St. Aubin in the Historical series “Mauritius” and “Isle de France” reviews for those who are interested
  • As far as I know, it’s unaged.
  • Update, May 2021: Based on current EU regulations, the word “agricole” can not be used on Mauritius to describe a cane juice based rum if they want to export there.

St. Aubin “Mauritius” Cuvée Grande Reserve 2004 Rhum – Review

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Jan 282018
 

#483

The History Collection 1715 “Isle de France” Cuvée Spéciale, in spite of being made from cane juice, reminded me rather more of an El Dorado rum than a true agricole, and with the History Collection’s 1814 “Mauritius” Cuvée Grande Reserve we’re looking at today, similar thoughts occurred to me…albeit about a different country. Perhaps that’s the marker of a rum that lingers in the mind and titillates the senses – it reminds you of something, but pinning it down proves elusive…and then it turns out to be quite a distinct product in its own right, as this one is.

So, that said, and similarities aside, it’s instructive to assess the achievement of St. Aubin in producing a rhum that — even at 40%  — was no slouch to sample: it had the same rich and fruity aromas of the Isle de France, brown sugar, cherries in syrup, pineapple, peaches, apricots, vanilla, and to distinguish it from its sibling (perhaps), also a series of coffee and musty, sawdust-y, cereal-y back-end notes.  Sprinkled with raspberries.  What with a hint of chocolate in there someplace, I was actually moving away from comparing the nose to an El Dorado, and relocating myself to Colombia, know what I mean?  This thing was like a crisper Dictador 20 with just enough of the agricole background shimmering through to provide a clue as to its origins.

The nose told a tale that would be repeated right down the line, and what I smelled was pretty much what I tasted, with a few variations here and there.  It was light and clean, yet displaying darker, muskier spicier notes as well: vanilla, coffee, licorice and some sharp tannins, with the musty long-disused-attic tastes remaining.  Some fruits – peaches and cherries for the most part – stayed in the background.  The core was anise and sawdust and unsweetened chocolate, and overall it presented as somewhat dry.  Quite nice — if it fell down at all it was in the finish, which was more licorice and chocolate, thin tart fruits (gooseberries perhaps) and after a few hours, it took on a metallic tang of old ashes doused with water that I can’t say I entirely cared for.

Some background. The date on the bottle (1814) relates to the the Treaty of Paris signed at the end of the Napoleonic Wars by the warring nations of Europe, and it was this treaty which gave Guadeloupe back to France (it had been ceded to Sweden (!!) for a while), but which also formally confirmed Mauritius to be a colony of Great Britain (who had held it since 1810). I was informed that the rhum is cane juice based, 30% pot still 10 year old from 2004, and 70% column still (stored for six years in an inert inox tank), — which therefore does not makes the rum a 10 year old in spite of the bottling in 2014, and so I have had to retitle and amend this post, after checking with St. Aubin directly. Oh and there are 5218 bottles in the outturn, so probably enough for anyone who wants one to get one.

As noted on the Ile de France, by the way, you should expect some dosing here (caramel and “natural flavours”, not sugar, I was informed), and that’s evident after some switching back and forth between a true agricole and this one…not enough to mess it up, but noticeable enough after a while.  On the plus side it gentles the whole experience down a mite, makes it smoother and quieter and more sippable for those who like softer profiles to their rums (plus of course, sweeter ones); on the negative side it dampens and mutes a profile which doesn’t really need that kind of tampering – it’s good enough as it stands.  Underneath the muffling effect of the caramel addition, you can sense what it was and what was there, but it’s like listening to music underwater…the full impact and effect of the symphony is lost. And that’s a shame because I’d be much more interested to see what it was like when pure – based on the quality of what I was sampling, that was probably quite something.

(84/100)

Other notes

As stated above, current versions of the rum are only partly 10 years old, although the components remain the same as older ones – the 10 YO pot still component replaces the 7 YO portion. The label on the bottle I was sold was an older one which is now being changed to eliminate the age statement.  So even if your label says 7, you’re not precisely getting that.

St. Aubin Isle de France Cuvée Spéciale 2005 Rhum – Review

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Jan 212018
 

#481

The current focus on the Caribbean’s rums to some extent obscures interesting developments taking place elsewhere – for example the new Madeira rum from Rum Nation, French Guiana’s Toucan…and rums from St. Aubin in Mauritius, which are not particularly new, but certainly lack wider appreciation, perhaps because they don’t make it to the festival circuit as much as others do.  Anyway, this rum, the Isle de France 1715-2015 is part of their “History Collection”, bottled at 40% for a wider commercial market, and commemorates the year of establishment of French rule over Isle de France for the French East India Company — prior to that it was named L’Ile Maurice, and was a haven for pirates, smugglers and the all-round lawless (in which it parallels the Caribbean, maybe) from whom all of us low-rent rum reviewers claim descent when in our cups.

According to my email exchanges with the company, the rhum was produced from the harvest of 2005, and is a blend of two rhums – pot still (30%) aged ten years aged in ex-bourbon barrels, and column still (70%) stored in inert inox tanks; both distillates deriving from cane juice .  As a further note, although sugar was explicitly communicated to me as not being added, caramel and “natural aromas” were – so some variation from the pure is to be expected and I don’t doubt that hydrometer tests will show the dosage.

Certainly the caramel component was noticeable, and not just in the colour, which was quite dark – almost mahogany. The nose presented with sweet toffee notes almost immediately, and what was remarkable about it was also the surprising richness of it all – fruity to a fault, licorice, brown sugar, pineapple and peaches, balanced off (not entirely successfully) with oak and bitter chocolate.  The rhum smelled sweet, like overripe oranges and bubble gum and that to some extent was intriguing…just somewhat overpowering after a while.

Fortunately it smelled more saccharine than it tasted.  The palate was quite good, rather dry, and much more robust than I had been expecting from a standard strength product – sweetish, yes, also containing coconut shavings, pineapple, more peaches, light citrus, caramel and chocolate, coffee grounds, nougat, and – this is where I felt it faltered – also too much vanilla.  The oak took a backseat here, the bitterness of the nose not so much in evidence and the finish was warm, short with bubble gum, licorice and dry, woody notes that were pleasant, just disappeared too swiftly.

Overall, this is quite a pleasant rhum, and strangely enough, given its cane-juice antecedents, it reminded me a lot of the El Dorado rums, particularly the 12 year old, where the dosage was also quite obvious; and it’s somewhat of a kissing cousin to the El Dorado 15 year old with respect to its panoply of flavours, specifically the licorice and chocolate.  I think that attempts may have been made to emulate some of the high ester profile of the Savanna rums without blatantly ripping them off, and the dosage smoothened things out and provided some balance.  At end, it’s a perfectly respectable mid-tier rum which is likely to find great favour in North America, perhaps less so in Europe.

History always fascinates me, so a few details here: the Domaine de St. Aubin, named after the first sugar cane mill established by Pierre de St. Aubin in 1819 or thereabouts, is located in the extreme south of Mauritius in the Rivière des Anguilles, and has been cultivating cane since that year – however the date of first distillation of spirits is harder to pin down – it’s likely within a few decades of the original opening of the sugar factory (there are records of the Harel family starting a distillery which is now New Grove in the 1850s; they also make the Lazy Dodo brand which I waxed lyrical about last year). In the late 1960s the Franco-Mauritian Guimbeau family – who made their fortune in the tea trade for which Mauritius is also renowned – acquired the estate and retained the name, and gradually developed a stable of rums produced both by a pot still (which produces what they term their “artisanal” rums) and a relatively recent columnar still for larger volume agricoles.

It’s a personal opinion of mine that alongside St. Lucia and Reunion, Mauritius is another one of those undiscovered countries we should be watching. Every day we read about the Jamaicans, Guyanese and Bajans; we regularly get another release from the famous rhum makers out of Martinique and Guadeloupe; and we kinda wish we could get more from St. Vincent and Grenada and other smaller Caribbean islands to round out the area, sure. However, let that not blind you to treasures made on the other side of Africa, on this small, rather-off-the-beaten-track island.  Chamarel, New Grove, Penny Blue and Lazy Dodo rums are all good products, enlarging the scope of what rums are — but my advice is, don’t ignore the St Aubin rums either, because however middling my notes are, they have some pretty interesting wares, and deserve a good hard look by those who want something different and tasty, yet also not too far removed from the profiles of better known rums. It’s just close enough to more familiar products to evince a nod of appreciation and vague recall, while being a memory that remains tantalizingly elusive  “Tastes oddly familiar,” I wrote after sampling the Cuvée Spéciale, “But damned if I remember precisely which one.”  And that’s exactly as it should be.

(83/100)

Savanna Lontan Grand Arôme Vieux 2004 12 Year Old – Review

 2 Responses »
Jun 282017
 

#376

With the advent of the Hampden and Worthy Park rums which pride themselves on high ester counts, it seems that one of the emerging trends in the rumworld may well be such tasty, clear, bags-of-fruit rums with not just a single sapling populating the salad bowl, but an entire damned orchard. Yet on the other side of the world, Savanna has been doing this for some years now with their “Intense” and “Grand Arôme” lines, of which the reigning porn queen might well be the HERR 10 year old that so impressed me.  That rum was startling and original, seemingly cut from wholly new cloth, bottled at a massive 63.8% and aged in cognac casks and my drool dripped into the glass almost continuously as I tried it (well…I exaggerate for effect….but not by much).  And yet, Savanna made one even better than that one – it’s this rum, a Grand Arôme, a rock solid full-proof 64.2% rumzilla that encapsulated all the amazing potential Reunion had to offer, and came in ahead of its own siblings by a country mile.  I’ve now tried about ten rums from Savanna, and it’s my firm belief that this is the best of them all (until I find the next one).

Speaking of Savanna and the stats.  I’ve written a small bio of the company, so won’t bore you with that again, so let’s just reel off the usual details so you know what you’re drinking if you ever try it. It was distilled in 2004 and bottled in 2016, with a strength as noted above, just north of 64%.  It was made on Savanna’s traditional column still (not the discontinuous one of the HERR), and Cyril, in his own excellent 2016 review, writes that it is made from the fermentation of vinasse and molasses, and for a longer period than usual – 5-10 days.  As before it was fully aged in ex-cognac casks.  

Photo stealthily purloined from DuRhum.com

Pause for a second and just look at all those production notes: they make no mention of additives, but for my money they didn’t add anything, and come on, why would they need to? It’s like they pulled out all the stops to make this thing a flavour bomb of epic proportions. Fermentation, distillation, ageing, the works, all that was missing was some pineapples dunked directly into the vat.  And when I tried it, the results spoke for themselves.

The hot, fragrant nose began with dusty cardboard, the nostalgic feel of old boxes in an attic, of a second hand bookshop crammed to the rafters with dry books of ages past nobody now reads.  Ahh, but then it changed – acetone and nail polish mixed with lots of honey and rich (but not tart) flavours of bubble gum peaches, prunes, vanilla, cinnamon and a light trace of brine and avocados drizzled with lemon juice.  Cocoa and some coffee, reminds me some of the Varangue Grand Arôme 40% white, but better behaved and much better constructed. My God this was rich — I spent perhaps half an hour just nosing the thing, and even called over my mother (who was annoyed I wouldn’t let her near my samples that day and was sitting in a huff in the kitchen) to give it a sniff.  Her reaction was so positive I feared for her health and the safety of my table, but never mind – the important thing to note is that even a rum novice loved it, even at that strength.

The real treasures came on the palate, which was firm, strong and intense, as befitted a rum brewed to a ripsnorting 64.2%.  Here the fruits – those amazing, full bodied fruits – blasted out front and center.  The intensity and variety were amazing, yet they lacked something of the single minded purity of the HERR, and somehow manage to create a melange without a mess, each note melding perfectly, combining the ongoing cereals and dusty book aromas with the sweet richness of the orchard without losing the best parts of either.  Some rubber and sweet caramel and honey, warm papaya, and then the fruits themselves – ripe mangoes, peaches in syrup, cherries, cinnamon, cloves, almonds and that yummy Pakistani rice pudding called kheer. There was aromatic tobacco, a faint citrus tang (candied oranges perhaps) and it all led up to a clean, biting finish, gradually winding down to close with green grapes, hard yellow mangoes, lemongrass, caramel and breakfast spices.  Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves something amazing here.

When The Wonk and I were discussing this rum, he remarked (rather disbelievingly) that it had to be quite a product to compare with the 89 points I gave to Velier’s 32 year old PM 1975 a few days ago.   It certainly is that, but really, the two aren’t strictly comparable, as they are quite different branches of the great tree of rum.  The Lontan lacks the dark heaviness of Demeraras generally and the Port Mourant specifically, doesn’t have that wooden still licorice background or its overall depth.  In point of fact The Lontan 12 has more in common with the Jamaicans and perhaps even agricoles, while being distinct from either one. In that observation lies the key to why it’s special.

I noted the other day that one of the unsung heroes of the subculture is likely the below-the-radar rums of St Lucia.  Here’s another company not many have heard of that’s making some pretty big footprints we should be tracking.  Because in summing up Savanna’s remarkable rum it’s clear that it’s a shimmering smorgasbord of extravagant and energetic and well-controlled tastes, melding a nose that won’t quit with a body that could make a metaphorical nuncio review his vows of celibacy.  It mixes a glittering clarity with excellent balance, strength with softness, is crisp and complex to a fault and what we’re left with after the fact is the memory of an enormous achievement. To say the rum is “not bad” is to undersell it.  To say it’s good doesn’t cut it. What we need to do is to admit it’s just about great, and oddly, part of that admission is also that it’s made by a relative unknown, without any of that emotional baggage we would bring to, say, a Velier or a Samaroli, a Rum Nation or a product from the Compagnie. I enjoyed it thoroughly.  I think it’s wonderful. It’s a gift to true rum lovers who want to try something they haven’t experienced before, in their ongoing (often lonely, sometimes thankless) search for the next new rum to treasure.


(90/100)

Other notes

  • Samples provided by two generous and great rum people, Nico Rumlover and Etienne S. who asked for nothing in exchange, but got something anyway.  Thanks guys. Wouldn’t have found this rum without you.
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