Killik Handcrafted Rum “Pure Pot Still” Australian Rum (pre-release) – Review

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Sep 252024
 

There aren’t a whole lot of rums in Australia that charge full bore and headlong into fullproof territory, but Killik, a small distillery from Victoria, has never shied away from releasing some seriously batsh*t crazy rums. These are the same happy chappies who, if you recall, experimented relentlessly with muck pits and dunder, supercharged their wash and unleashed a high-ester, hogo-laden juice — the shuddering white shredder of the 59% Silver Overproof, remember that feral blast? — onto an unsuspecting rumiverse back in 2021. You can be sure Ben and Callan Pratt have lost none of their fiendish delight in making more such spirituous codpieces in the intervening period.

All this sounds like I’m just making stuff up to tell a better story, but not really. Shorn of the flowery language, the basic facts are in evidence: Killik Handcrafted Rum (this is the actual name of the company and a clever way to get around Australia’s two-year “rum-naming” limit) started life as a beer brewing enterprise in 2009 before the brothers had a come-to-rum-Jesus moment and started making the good stuff in 2019. Unusual for distillers, they professed a certain indifference to distillation equipment, and focused their attention on robust yeast strains, bacterial cultures, muck pits and boosting their ester counts like a skilled demo expert laying his charges.

To this day such pot still high ester rums are not huge sellers in Australia, and remain a small proportion of the company’s sales — gins, lesser proofed rums and flavoured editions sell much more briskly. But squirrelled away in the portfolio is the 59% Single Cask Release, which is of similar provenance and style to this rum, and shows the direction the distillery would prefer to go. Alas, for now, it would appear that the Australian public remains unmoved by the style.

Too bad: but if that’s still the case, then I think this 62% ABV pot still high ester rum, which remains unreleased and will be issued in late 2024, will likely shiver their timbers like an anchor to the head. The rum noses so richly, is so luscious and so bright that it’s hard to know where to begin. Right away, it’s pineapples, soft yellow ripe fruits (including some overripe ones) – peaches, apricots, Thai mangoes, and behind that lurk subtler notes of orange peel, a white wine vinegar, figs, cucumbers and sour cranberries, leavened with some vanilla, honey and a light dusting of brown sugar. Nice!

It’s also remarkably easy to sip, in spite of that growly strength. It’s harsh edges have been sanded off and it’s not scratchy at all – in fact, it presents as easier than the proof point would suggest, with a firm, warm taste of very ripe cherries, apricots, marshmallows, toffee, cinnamon and ginger.  And even after an hour, perhaps just to prove it’s not quite dead yet, it coughs up a last note of stewed apples, caramel, vanilla and again, a trace of orange peel and cardamom. As for the finish, it’s shy of biblical – we can’t have everything, I guess – yet it lasts, and there’s a shy exit of fruits, spices, papaya, watermelons and bubble gum that provides a good ending to the experience.

Overall, this is a rum I can only admire, and even for its relatively young age, the 62% ABV is a plus, not a disqualifier, allowing strong, clear tastes to come forward and be counted. The funkiness of a Jamaican high ester rum is on full display, yet it’s obviously not from there – by some quiet alchemy of the distiller’s art, it is completely standalone product that pays homage to its roots in De Yaad without slavishly adhering to every single note from the pantheon, allowing it to be seen as a distinctly Australian product. This may finally be the product that will convince the good rumizens of Oz to take note of what funk is and how interesting it can be when done right.

Back when I reviewed Killik’s Silver Overproof, I remarked that it was so well made that Jamaican rum lovers might want to cast a covetous eye over Down Under.  With this rum, the company proves that that one rum was no mere happenstance, and now it’s just not high-ester funk lovers who should pay attention, but the distilleries themselves. When this thing gets released, if it doesn’t fly off the shelves, Killik should seriously consider exporting it to Jamaica.

(#1091)(87/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

  • Video Recap is here. 
  • The rum is currently slated for release in late 2024 and so will be different when issued because of the additional ageing.  I maintain that it will be close to what I describe though, and is worth considering.
  • Production stats: made from Queensland molasses and sugar, used in conjunction with their muck pits (as far as I am aware, so far they are the only distillery to seriously use this technique). Brewer’s yeast used in the primary ferment for the first two weeks in closed and controlled fermentation vessels: the low wines are then transferred to a secondary vessel for further open fermentation which can vary in length depending on the characters produced from anything to a further two weeks, to a month or more, after which it is run through their hybrid still in a pure pot configuration, and the  set to age in re-coopered, re-shaved and charred American Chardonnay barrels. At the time the sample was prepped for the calendar in early 2023 the rum was just over two years old, but by the time they get around to commercially releasing it this year, it will be closer to four. The ester count, alas, is unknown

Killik Handcrafted Rum “Gold” (2023) – Review

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Aug 252023
 

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

Readers with pachyderm-level memories will likely recall that we’ve looked at a Killik Gold (rum) before – that one was a year or so old and matured in Chardonnay casks, while this one is of somewhat more recent vintage, no finishing or fancy cask, and a different age. When I addressed this question to the Brothers Pratt (the owners), they remarked that although the overall production process remains the same — they continue to tinker with wild yeast fermentation and Jamaican high-ester-style rum making as a core ethos — the small size of their output means that until they expand it to larger sizes, batches are and will be strikingly varied, and those batches come out quite often. In that sense they are somewhat like the six-month ageing-and-output cycle Nine Leaves in Japan used to have.

One thing to look out for is the label. Now recall, Australia has that 2-year rule that states a cane based spirit cannot be called rum until it is aged for at least two years (producers are trying to address a potential revision to this outdated law through the courts)…so strictly speaking Killik should only be able to call it – as before – a “gold” or a “cane spirit” or some variant thereof.  However, in what I personally consider a stroke of marketing genius, they trademarked their name and the image of the anchor device together, as “Killik Handcrafted Rum,” and cheerfully added that to their labels, right above the word “Gold”.  They therefore stayed within the law while simultaneously skirting it and unambiguously stating what they’re making.

This particular version — it’s hard to identify it precisely since there is no notation on the label or the website — was confirmed to me to be at least twice as old as the version from 2022 that had come from the 2021 advent calendar. It is therefore a completely different rum, still made on a hybrid still, with dunder and wild yeast part of the recipe pushing the congener count up.  It is also a blend – of 75% original stock rum now aged to 3 years, plus 25% of one year old fresh make. As before, the barrels are from a local cooperage and I have an outstanding query as to whether it was used or new barrels and if used, what they previously held.

Bottled at the same 42%, the Gold takes a few more chances than the original did – it noses as slightly richer, rounder, fuller. And while the funk and congeners remain as muted as before, there’s an overall sense of something slightly richer here: paint and furniture polish, a touch of wax, acetones and new plastic.  This dissipates over time and is replaced by some middling-sharp fruity notes — apples, green grapes, diluted lemon juice, apricots, pineapples and unripe peaches. There are also, after some minutes, hints of vanilla, cherries, lemon key pie, hot sweet pastries, cookies, and unsweetened yoghurt – very nice for something so relatively young.

The palate maintains that sense of something more complex and richer than its predecessor, even if the strength undercuts that somewhat. And yet overall still it tastes pretty good — green apples, light pineapple slices, bananas, pine tart and grapes, combine nicely with the sense of pastries steaming fresh from the oven, vanilla, light sugar water, lemon zest, and bitter chocolate and crushed walnuts. The finish wraps up the show as best it can, and sums up the tart and creamy fruits and pastries vibe quite well – it is quite easy drinking with a bit of a sour edge, occasionally sharp, not too hot. More cannot really be said here.

Overall, I think the low strength hamstrings a decent rum that could actually be even better — that 42% is okay for casual drinking, but for more appreciation you do need more oomph. The relatively young age is something of a mixed blessing as well, since along with the slightly added complexity comes a bit of roughness — and so I can’t completely recommend it as a sipping rum. That said, the thing makes a really fine daiquiri, and on that front, with those sharp fruity notes leaning up against the warm pastries, the rum walks down strange and interesting yet hauntingly familiar paths inhabited by hot Jamaican patties and fierce white overproofs served in plastic tumblers at backcountry rumshops —  and if nothing else, those are the qualities which define it as a rum too good to walk away from. 

(#1019)(83/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other notes

Killik Handcrafted Silver Overproof – Review

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Mar 022022
 

Photo (c) Killik Handrcrafted, from their website.

When reviewing the Gold (rum) produced by the Melbourne-based distillery of Killik Handcrafted, I was less than enthusiastic, grumbling and mumbling that the mildly aged rum would impress in five years but right now was mostly potential with not enough follow-through. I made those remarks because I knew there was a rum in their portfolio that proved the skills did exist and which really did impress me, and it wasn’t aged or set in a barrel or anything: it was their full proof 59% unaged white. 

For the curious: Killik handcrafted is a small rum distillery started by the brothers Ben and Callan Pratt in 2019 (more background in a separate mini-bio here). They have a hybrid thousand-liter still that allows multiple configurations including that of a 4- or 6-plate column still, or a pot still; also make other spirits for cash flow; use molasses as the base; and have a local cooper help with getting barrels. They proudly represent themselves as the first hogo-centric distillery in Victoria (the Australian state in which Melbourne is located) because they love messing around with fermentation and cheerfully play with dunder and muck holes and wild yeast to see if they can bring some Cockpit to Killik.

Thus far the majority of the stocks they have laid down to age have been pot still distillates, and we have yet to see any of those aside from the Gold; on the other hand, the unaged whites of the Silver and the Silver Overproof are all column still spirits. Which is interesting because usually, when we hear of unaged whites dripping from a column still, we tend think rather more of the French Caribbean islands, or Reunion, even some of the new Asian outfits — not Australia.  But that would be a mistake, because even if they don’t use the pot still for the unaged Silver, Killik is closer to those two badass Jamaicans, Hampden and Worthy Park… in spirit, in production and in results.

And what a result this was indeed. I can’t speak for the standard proof Silver which I haven’t tried, just the overproof, but I gotta say, it’s made so well that Jamaican rum lovers might want to cast a covetous eye over Down Under. Consider first the nose: “Damn!,” went my first notes, expressing some surprise, “Seriously, deeply, pungently, sharply fruity-sweet.” It’s redolent of the tip of a marker squeaking over a new whiteboard; strawberry milk shakes loaded down with extra vanilla ice cream; tart fruity yoghurt. There’s a bagful of sour-sweet fruits – apples, kiwi fruits, hard yellow mangoes (with an odd spicy scent that reminds me of those coming from Sri Lanka). In an odd reversal of standard, the glue, acetones and solvent come late to the party, swirling around a core of peaches and pineapples and very ripe apricots and bananas. They sure weren’t kidding about going for the hogo.

The heat of the 59% comes into its own on the palate. That sharp spiciness attendant on that strength is unavoidable, yet at no point is it really unpleasant: what it does is provide a rock solid foundation that makes each taste not some faint wispy sensation breathily experienced and instantly gone, but something of distinct force.  It starts off with acetones, nail polish remover, flowers and fruit juice, and none of the undesirable rotting-midden scents that admittedly add character when assembled properly, but so often detract from the overall experience when not. It’s nicely sweet, displays some interesting spices – cinnamon, rosemary, cardamom, even a whiff of chamomile – plus musky fruity flavours that develope really well.  Green peas, bananas, orange peel, bitter chocolate and coffee grounds, laban, slightly sour milk all get mixed into the taste profile, and it all comes to a long, dry and heated conclusion that is always crisp with distinct ripe fruity notes and some vegetable coordinates well dialled in.

This is one seriously good rum. I mean, it goes down so well — the flavours just pop, it hits all the high notes and at no time does it feel like it’s out of control and just hitting you with its junk because it can. It’s sweet but not too much; sour but not mouth-puckeringly so; musky within reason, sharp without cutting, and flavourful without throwing the spice cupboard at you and then following up with the kitchen sink. It’s a curiously cultured back-bar brawler that is unashamedly partisan in its inspirations, honestly hearkening back to its stated Jamaican antecedents without apology even as it goes its own way.

I tried the entire 2021 Australian Advent Calendar sample selection over a period of days in December last year, and this was the one that to me, of all the whites, stood out. It not only exceeded those in whose company I tasted it, but handily eclipsed its own siblings and proved once again (as if it needed to be proved at all) that unaged white rums of power are among the best value for money rums out there. With Killik’s Silver Overproof, unlike the Gold, I don’t want to wait five years to see what else they can do with it.  I want another bottle right now.

(#889)(86/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Other Notes

  • As with all the Australian rums reviewed as part of the 2021 Aussie Advent Calendar, a very special shout out and a doff of the derby to Mr. And Mrs. Rum, who sent me a complete set free of charge. Thanks, as always, to you both.