Plantation – The Lone Caner

Opinion – Planteray Isn’t Going Anywhere

Feb 252025

This 7,000-word essay is the transcript of a four part video opinion I released in February 2025, based on an unpublished essay written mostly in 2023 and amended over the subsequent months and years. I have elected to not include a bunch of graphics and pictures to go with it, because it’s long and deserves to be read as it is without distraction.

If video is your thing, they are on YouTube

Part 1 – Introduction and Background

Hello everyone

Today I’m going to do a fairly long four-part opinion piece. This is something that has been on my mind for a fairly long time. It’s part of a much longer essay that I wrote but I never published,whose genesis was a small opinion I tacked on to the end of the OFTD Key Rums review back in November 2023 but it got too long and I removed it. That in turn was based on my observations and thoughts over the last decade, and it kept percolating in my mind ever since, because the subject keeps coming up – as well as questions by new entrants into the rum world, who don’t know the story; and although the rhetoric has died down quite a bit of late, the underlying issues behind it really haven’t. The situation is sleeping, not dead.

To state it succinctly, Planteray (still sometimes referred to as Plantation, its previous name, or Maison Ferrand, its parent company) is a love or hate proposition. There is no indifference, no reflective centre where the opposing sides can meet, no middle ground. Anytime you start mentioning the company or its rums in a public space, a position is taken, will be taken, must be taken — and then inevitably, you’ll be drawn into online fights that stand for one side or another.

You either like their rums or despise the outfit, or dislike both (few that I know have the courage to say they like both, fewer still accept anyone else can), and if you need to ask “why?” then you’re not as much into rums as you think you are. In all my time of writing about rums and personalities and companies that are involved, I’ve never seen anything near this level of despite, and I go way back to the days of the original Ministry of Rum forum, where Capn Jimbo was always doing his schtick, back in the day.

I think this ongoing brouhaha hurts the category of rum more than anything else…the more so since it is clearly egged on by agendas which are not always clear. And all this incendiary back and forth over the last ten years has not, changed the facts on the ground one iota … and frankly, I doubt it ever will.

Background

So…let’s rewind a bit and let me give you a precis. Founded in 2003 as a branch of Maison Ferrand the cognac maker, Planteray – Plantation back then – had a decent enough reputation until about 2015 or so. They made good low rent efforts like the white Three Star and the Original Dark, and were starting to be an independent bottler of some note; they were putting out the same kind of Barbadian or Grenadian or Guyanese or Jamaican rums as others were. I had actually written some reviews of those early releases.

Their labels did leave something to be desired, but this was not unusual for the time, and if eyebrows were raised about the whole business of secondary maturation and finishes — though they were following a practise which was not entirely new — it was mostly because, rather than an exception, Plantation made it a rule for pretty much all their products. But we could live with that.

Starting around 2015 and going on for the next years, however, four things occurred that changed the face of the rum landscape generally, and impacted Plantation quite significantly:

For one thing there was the undisclosed sugar controversy which implicated scores of distillers around the world, and several independent bottlers and brands including Plantation (of course, this was the hydrometer test and Scandinavian liquor monopolies that started to do serious tests and publishing them, and this created a huge uptick of interest as to whether rums were adulterated or not, especially since we had been told all these years that “Oh no, we haven’t been doing that”) .. so that was a thing
the purchase of WIRD in Barbados in 2017 — after bailout attempts went nowhere and other commercial enterprises declined to buy it, Maison Ferrand bought it
Then of course there were the subsequent battles over the Barbados and Jamaican GI – which, by now, has entered the rum zeitgeist and everybody more or less knows about it, and
the eruption of indignation over the name “Plantation” predating but lent strength by the BLM movement (a complete and total PR balls-up by MF), which last finally evoked a promise to change the company’s name to be less offensive in a culturally-charged world…and for which we waited for years, only to get the completely original name of “Planteray” in January 2024 (you just gotta ask yourself what these guys were thinking, honestly).

Those were the highlights that created some of the issues and dislike for the company … but there’s more and other issues raised their heads over time deriving from these:

The commentariat in more than one country consider their business practices unethical (at best), dating right back to the acquisition (or “theft of”) of the Ferrand family name and ousting of the original owners of the original cognac company that is the corporate umbrella
The reputed and purported strong-arming of retail establishments to stock their products at the expense of others (the old Bacardi distribution model). You know, “you get to stock our rums, but if you do, you can’t stock those from over there if you stock mine.” That kind of thing.
They have been accused of misleading the public on their blends and in their various press releases: to the extent that it has become — and I swear this is true — an article of faith that they flat out lie with every breath — this is actually a thing now (which has led to a microscopic examination of their every utterance, every promotion, every ad, every release). And this probably goes a long way to explaining why Mr. Gabriel does not engage in public any longer – he’d get his ass handed to him if he tries
Those with long memories would also recall Mr. Gabriel’s somewhat tone-deaf comments that casually invalidated centuries of Caribbean rum-making tradition, by baldly stating how he was there to “save Barbados rum” and how rums should be made like cognac, dating from early years of his public engagement.
But more than any one thing, calumny has been hurled in their direction for their intransigent stance on weakening the Barbadian and Jamaican GI proposals, for the stubborn insistence on secondary ageing of Caribbean rums in France and using all sorts of experimental techniques (and calling them “traditional” when they were likely not) while somehow still touting the majesty and originality of the terroire they supposedly represent.
Aaaand…that strikes a lot of people as being not just discourteous and disrespectful comments by a Johnny-come-lately foreign interloper, of rums made for centuries in the Caribbean…and complete and utter bullshit. And that’s consumers, producers, commentators … you know, everyone has a stake in this and talks about quite a bit

Impact

Stoked by online netizens and their like minded supporters who use personal attacks, constant criticism and vicious trolling on social media, this has resulted in an appalling split in the online community.

The frenzied denunciations of this one company have taken on a life of their own; they are brought up at every opportunity (sometimes with the flimsiest of connections), and in so doing tar everyone associated with the brand, for or against — writer, influencer, blogger, consumer, employee, shop owner, barman…everyone. Liquor store owners have been known to downplay that they even stock the company’s rums; writers withhold their reviews; consumers hardly dare mention that they enjoy the brand’s bottlings for fear of the inevitable backlash; (the only exceptions are the young blood and new reviewers who don’t know the story) it has become so intense that it is no longer possible to have a rational discussion with anyone on the subject.

In one particularly egregious (I’m thinking of a stronger word) example, a local WIRD employee who copped a prize of excellence in rum making a few years ago was not congratulated for his achievement, as you might expect, but told he (and all other employees) should quit in moral outrage at working for such a company. It’s gotten that stupid.

The anger and associated hate that this thing has started has driven more people away from engaging thoughtfully in public than even the dosage issue from a decade earlier which started in 2014 or so (and trust me, I was there – that was no picnic). If you were to listen to all those who without fail berate, bully, belittle, and correct every single statement and every single action taken by Plantation (or any commentator on, let alone defender of, the company) you’d be forgiven for concluding that this one outfit is Voldemort personified, without the redeeming qualities. Really, it’s like it no longer matters what they do: they could sh*t diamonds from a platinum asshole, donate the entire proceeds therefrom to the eradication of poverty and climate change simultaneously, and still they would be considered one step removed from the sweat of Beelzebub’s sulphur ridden testicles. That’s, really, where this has gotten to

I’ll continue this in Part II

Part 2 – Critical Commentary, Pros and Cons

So, In Part 1, I was talking about the background of the problems that Planteray faces, and the reasons why there is such polarization of opinions about the company, and why people are both fed up with it and love taking sides about it, and how this has split the online rum community.

There’s a lot of critical commentary out there. Some of it is led by advocates for the consumers, some by producers, some by industry advocates, some by bloggers or reviewers, many by consumers themselves, but there is no question that everyone has an opinion, and usually that’s against Planteray.

I contend that this is ultimately not only counterproductive for rum as a whole, but does the reputations of those who indulge in it no favours whatsoever (whatever delusions of being Defenders of the Faith they might tell themselves…and they do).

It makes the ongoing and condescending ad hominem dismissals, even insults, directed at anyone with a voice raised in favour of Plantation (even those who recount facts and don’t traffic in opinions), seem like personal, private vendettas against them, because it’s always so personal — and, if you read them over time, it’s hard to avoid that many of them actually are, and to me, that dilutes their effectiveness quite a bit.

If you think I’m kidding about this, just go through Facebook and Reddit or whatever, or google the stuff, and, trust me, the arguments will come up, as well as the invective and dislike and even hate — it’s right out there in the open.

But let’s just consider some of the main points of contention

Secondary ageing in another country, which is one of the original bete noirs of the commentariat is a thing, and always has been.

It’s done by a majority of rum making or rum producing companies and brands – especially the independents – and with Sheer and various dealers, sellers and brokers in the frame, it is unavoidable. Sometimes it’s all in the country of origin, sometimes it’s in another. It’s not unusual. It happens and always has, and that’s the issue, because real value is seen to be accruing to the country of issue, not the country of origin.

Be that as it may, there is no law prohibiting it – at least, no yet. If the charge is that it should not be called or labelled as a Jamaican or Barbados rum when aged externally for any period – which is a tenet of some (but not all) GI requirements – that’s perfectly fine and should be fought for…but in the courts and with the Government of the affected country and in educational seminars and masterclass sessions of international rum festivals, not in the pages of social media where f*ck, it just goes off the rails and dissolves people’s thinking like acid.

Whether nor not Plantation likes to use the word terroire in its marketing, as another point … and you know, they’ve gotten ten different kinds of shit about it .. but it is just that – marketing…and anyone who expects truth in advertising, in marketing, is clearly not in business and worse, is begging to be lied to.

To make an argument on the nefarious nature of Plantation because (gasp!) they lie about terroire (or deliberately use it incorrectly in their promotional material) is to repeal modern consumer targeting.

Moreover, by focusing on this one company, you’re giving everyone else who does the same thing a free pass, which I think is both blinkered and unfair – I mean come on, be consistent and complete in your criticism, would you please?

And come on – do we really expect truth in advertising? It’s like a real estate agent assuring you as he pats you on the back while picking your pocket “It’s about you, not me.” Sure.

Another point I wanted to make is this: If Planteray fights to get a weak or amended GI in place, that’s a business decision on their part, just as it is a business decision on the part of the other distillers to fight it, and the attendant moral outrage that everyone pretends to, is completely irrelevant: is nothing but a way to get people fired up, because if you think about it, the morality of the case each side supports conveniently aligns with each side’s financial interests – and that highly vocal minority which makes the most noise have exactly zero impact on any of that.

And if you ask what those interests are, well, here are some matters to consider:

A strong GI which codifies local rules of production and labelling – especially the various value-added processes like fermentation, distillation, long ageing and premiumization that speak to the uniqueness of the country’s rum making heritage and the rum’s profile (Jamaica is a really good example of this) is clearly in the interest of producers who set that standard

It is the producers who set those standards – not unnaturally, in their own interest – and the Governments take those recommendations into account when enacting the law that enshrine them. However, as an aside, just because a country has a GI, and many already do, it takes a much more concerted political effort to have that accepted by major trading blocs like the US and the EU. If they see their own tax paying indie bottlers, brands and producers being hamstrung by such rules, they may demand changes from their own position of economic strength.

Existing companies like Planteray have a huge footprint in markets like the EU – in 2022, for example, they moved 400,000 liters of their rums through Sweden alone. Further, In some Scandinavian countries, shelf space, shelf locations and retail access to the Government monopoly stores is determined by a points system based on sales, and the name of the product is linked to that – changing the name of a rum from “Barbados Rum” to “Rum from Barbados” means it is treated like a brand new product and they have to start again from the very bottom (literally), rebuilding a presence and market share that took a decade or more to create – and you wonder why Planteray would fight a regulation that would kneecap them and hand sales to its competitors, for that kind of sales volume in a single country? People, you cannot be serious.

It somehow seems never to compute that if Planteray fails, or reduces its output and goes under because of such rules, a lot of people will be out of work and a lot of taxes would be foregone, which is also something not often considered or discussed when the GI comes up.

In any case, the final ruling on that GI is ultimately not the province of outspoken European or North American rum lovers (no matter how well intentioned they are), but that of Barbadians and Jamaicans, lawyers, Governments, actual producers, their local employees and consumers, and people who are actually, you know, impacted by this.

It always irritates me when I see a bunch of people from the global North who have no commercial interest, no Barbadian or Jamaican connections outside their love of the rum, act as if their whole lives will come to an end if Plantation “wins” (whatever the f**k that means) and then go scorched earth with an air of martyrdom in their words. It disrespects the ability of the islanders to come to a decision of their own or anyone else to have a dissenting opinion. So it’s like you can either have one or the other, you’re for us or against us. I mean, what?…whatever happened to constructive debate and engagement in these matters?

Such critics as I mention may not be buying the company’s rum on principle, or even banning the company from their review queue or their festivals – which is absolutely their right — but in what universe do they think they are doing regular islanders or the country affected a favour?

By what right do they claim to speak for Jamaica and Barbados? Because they took a holiday there and bought a Foursquare rum? Because their grandparents came from there? Give me a f***ing break. They don’t live there.

Richard Seale can do that and has every right to do so because it’s his country, his company, his livelihood and his employees at risk, so he has every right to get up on his soapbox and talk the story that he wants to have told, and to make his case … but… all the other moral crusading asshats I keep reading and hearing (almost all of whom, remember, are not from Barbados or Jamaica at all) should just chill. Their arguments at end don’t matter, because they have no impact, and will have no impact — none — on what the Barbadian and Jamaican Governments will enact into law. All they do is walk around pretending they are influencers, make a whole lot of damned noise, destroy relationships, break friendships and make people swear off rums altogether because it’s “just too much bloody drama.”

Again – who does this help, since all their vitriol has so far not moved the needle one single inch? I submit that their attitudes and for sure those who egg them on with regular incendiary posts of their own, have done more damage to the rum community than to Planteray ever has.

“They make a desert and call it peace” wrote Tacitus nearly two thousand years ago, and that pretty much sums up all that they have accomplished so far.

We’ll continue this in Part III

Part 3 – The Reality And A More Balanced Approach

So, in Part 1, I talked about the background and issues that explained why Planteray is so hated and derided in the global rumworld – the rumiverse if you will. And in Part 2 I discussed some of the points of view and weaknesses, as I saw them, of the commentariat – both who was doing the commenting and some of the arguments they liked to make.

Now, these arguments do exist, and they do sway people’s minds, except that … what have they accomplished? Because to my mind, in spite of all these herculean effort to diminish, control or otherwise hinder the company, Planteray shows no sign of slowing down at all.

It continues to exist, its balance sheet is healthy and sails on in the face of all this dislike and negative online posturing. It is a successful rum producer, like it or not, and a successful indie bottler, like it or not. Moreover, they have actually adapted quite a bit to some of the critiques they have received, so it’s not as if they ignore everyone and do their own thing as conventional wisdom suggests.

For example, although initially getting a hit for the sugar imbroglio, they now provide this information on dosage levels, and their high-end single barrel offerings are usually free of additives. Too, some of those Jamaicans they have released (I’m thinking the 1996 and 1998 single barrel editions) are really very good.

The company, then, seems to be well run commercially, has a good eye on developing trends and emerging markets, and its line of rums is to be found just about everywhere, which is no small feat. Given the enormity of its output and ageing space in Barbados, you have to ask whether a GI in any form, in any country, would actually hurt them — and, consequently, why on earth they are fighting it so hard – it is not, after all, an existential threat to their business model as it supposedly is for the others, aside from the naming of rums, and shelf space issue I spoke about in Part 2.

On the flip side they may not be impacted very much by the criticism they get from all and sundry, but fuck me, they really are masters of the own-goal at times, and their PR can be summed up as “doofus amateur hour” at best, as attested to by the various intemperate comments, clumsy attempts at justification and damage control, and the long-delayed multi-year name change. They really have not helped themselves very much, and that just gives their critics loads of ammunition.

“What abut their business practices?” you might reasonably ask.

Maybe there have been side deals to get them there and shoulder others aside from markets, bars, cruise ships and store shelves. Maybe they have indeed recruited cold-eyed legal eagles and soulless lobbyists to ram a piss-poor regulatory regime down everyone’s throat. Maybe their business practises skirt the edges of ethics or toe the very fine line of legality as many people claim – I myself don’t know and won’t speak to that, because so far precious little facts that have been put into evidence (perhaps because to do so is to invite a libel suit).

But the harsh truth is that for all the rather innocent comments about how companies should be open and transparent in their dealings, come on, let’s face some reality: business is business, you don’t freely hand out competitive advantage, you do what you have to to get market share, and you make what you have to that sells.

Now, I don’t like this brutally cynical modus operandi, which goes all the way back to the 1970s when the Friedman Doctrine emerged, and various business titans like Jack Welch maintained that shareholder value was the only that mattered, profits by whatever means was everything, and the people can go to hell. I completely despise that attitude.

But it is a real fact of modern commercial operations, and I do live in the real world.

Few organisations in this day and age have the luxury of ethics not mandated by law, they do the bare minimum they need to comply with the rules, and skirt ‘em every chance they get — everyone does it and let’s not pretend otherwise. And, fewer still bind themselves voluntarily to such a concept of transparency and fairness. You don’t have to respect or even like Planteray, to accept that this is a business tenet just about all companies practise.

The idea that companies should somehow forego market share, competitive advantage, sales, or revenue potential by being honest and open about all things is to close one’s eyes to hundreds of years of corporate shenanigans that prove the exact opposite. And it leads to the farcical conclusion, for example, that the 2008 global meltdown that the unhung criminals who called themselves the financial Masters of the Universe created, was just an honest mistake. And, if those Wall Street hucksters and con artists had accepted Jesus into their hearts and been honest and transparent, it would never have happened.

Nonsense. No no no no no…. Business is business, the weak go to the wall, and that’s just a fact of life, and we’ve got to accept that — that’s the rulebook that Planteray seems to be playing by. And I’m sure that in one way or the other, so does everybody else. We just don’t know about it, since the incessant and obsessive focus on just this one company makes them a convenient lightning rod that obscures our ability to see – and point out – what everyone else is doing.

So who wins?

In the final analysis, almost a decade of attacking the company has not changed anything at all, and has had no effect on what will end up happening to the company. Even now, they remain every bit as visible as they ever were, if not more. It sure looks like Planteray has taken the approach that all press — good or bad — is free advertising and that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

Since Planteray can’t be wished away by constant negative articles or made to go away by insulting it in public, let’s just deal with some reality and acknowledge that perhaps, just perhaps, it’s time to consider that an accommodation with the company will have to be reached one day, however distasteful that is to so many people whose egos are now so vested and bound up in this one issue.

Because you see, if its many critics and detractors in and out of the industry are to be believed, Planteray has a lot of political, legal and commercial influence, and no hesitation in using it. While the GI stalemate goes on and on and wends its way through the regulatory agencies, ministries, Parliamentary committees and maybe one day the courts, while compromise is off the table and no middle ground can be agreed on, time is passing, and WIRD has thousands of barrels ageing nicely in their warehouses that will one day conform to whatever GI is agreed on, strong or weak, and if done right might then cause the existing distilleries some loss of market share anyway. WIRD is the single largest distiller in Barbados, — whatever it is they produce and whoever they sell it to — employs people and pays a boatload of taxes (which is what Governments like to see) and that ⅓ share in National Rums of Jamaica is not chicken feed either.

In fact, so potentially lucrative is the whole edifice that is Planteray and WIRD — and even its detractors clearly see that and maybe even fear it — that it really begs the question as to why a consortium of Barbadian producers or investors could not have ponied up or arranged Government backed external financing for the purchase of WIRD themselves, back in 2017 – I mean, wasn’t it sold for something like US$28 million?

The cynic in me suspects that while Barbadian producers were initially pleased that someone had bought it, privately they would not have been unhappy to let this ageing mastodon go dead because

(a) the shortfall of the discontinued rum production from the island on existing contracts (like malibu) might go to them

(b) they wouldn’t have to cover the cost of upgrading and refurbishment to modern standards and keeping employees on payroll and bearing short- and medium- term losses if they themselves bought it

On the other hand, maybe they simply didn’t do a cold eyed analysis of what the long term benefits could be — and rather than thinking about the sort of multi-island blends and brands Planteray came up with, they thought only of the impact on their own. Which is completely understandable, but you see why this is an issue.

I imagine they were all quite surprised that instead of going belly-up, or delving a deep hole in Ferrand’s cash flow, those guys invested, upgraded, spent money, made sales, opened markets, and in so doing, became quite successful. In fact, I have a feeling they may have underestimated Mr. Gabriel from the outset, because I personally believe that this is more than just a business venture for him – sure, that’s part of it, but it seems to be something of a passion project too, and he is willing to stick with it for the long term.

The others are playing a similar game now, trying to distinguish themselves via premiumisation, brand distinctiveness, experimental releases like the 4S LFT or Mount Gay Single Estate Series), linking themselves to one way of rum production (the all-Barbados model) that is the better way, surely, but perhaps harder to sell at this juncture. That it will one day help put a spoke in Planteray’s wheel I don’t doubt, but by the time the smoke clears, perhaps not to the extent everyone hopes.

Because all this time, Planetary is growing, expanding its stable of rums, adding capacity, issuing new releases – Mr. Fogg is just the most recent example of that — and so again, if and when an accommodation or compromise of some kind will inevitably be forced on everyone to get the GI passed: yes, Planteray will still be there.

Part 4 – Summing Up and Where I stand

So in Part 1 I started by sketching in the background to the Planteray issue and what has resulted from it, in Part 2 I briefly touched on some of the common commentary and flashpoints that surrounded the company, and in Part 3 I talked about business and suggested a more even-handed and reality-based approach for those opposing Planteray.

But in this part I wanted to wrap up, and issue a disclaimer as to what my own personal opinions on this matter are, since I have stayed out of the argument for a very long time

So. Am I onside with Mr. Gabriel and Planteray? Clearly the preceding paragraphs almost make it seem like I’ve drunk the Cognac-aged sugar-laced kool-aid, been bought from top to bottom, and am now just another soulless, morality-bereft shill toeing the company line (which, for those who will inevitably accuse me of that, says rather more about the brain-dead knee-jerk reflexes, than about their ability to think critically).

But no, I’m not. I’m absolutely not, and I’m going to say that for the record. I disapprove of their methods and dislike their overly generous interpretation of what constitutes a Barbados (or Jamaican) rum, using any old pretext, deliberate historical misinterpretation, any old document they can find on some failed experiment from f*ck knows how long ago, so that they can muddy the waters just so as to justify whatever it is that they do, and shoehorn that into what will end up being a substandard regulation. I mean, I just don’t like that, and think it’s been taken much too far already.

I also have not asked Mr. Gabriel or Mr. Seale to comment on this article, and with respect to Mr. Gabriel, have met and spoken to him exactly one time in my life (for all of two minutes), never visited his distillery or his place in France, and am in the fortunate position to have never taken any coin from him, which has reliably trotted out to attack one particular freelance writer I know about (but no others).

I’m also not emotionally invested in this, the way that always puzzles me when I consider the anti-Planteray mouthings of some people whose entire online personas seem to be bound up in this one issue, and who you would think would spontaneously combust if Planteray was to ever get it way.

And so, I’m in a position to take a colder, more nuanced approach to the matter.

Not a more tolerant approach either, because in the matter of the GI my vote – as a Caribbean native – goes for a strong version espoused by the pre-existing distillers who make up “the other side”

As an aside, I think the nations of the Caribbean and the rum producers of WIRSPA should band together on this one and make a regional GI that encapsulates the best parts of such a strong version. That way value is indeed kept in the islands, and there are movements towards that, but it’s too island-individual as opposed to something a bit more regional and comprehensive, and I’d like to see that happen. Perhaps I’m just as idealistic or naive as everyone else, who knows?

But in any case, I believe this constant refrain about better rums being made with secondary ageing in cognac and the region of Cognac should stop (or at least be reduced), that the completely unnecessary dosing they practise should be reduced if not eliminated and more respect be given to keeping value and production wholly in the islands. Sure, the theory is that using cognac methods to make rum enhances the rum, but come on – rum has a storied and noble tradition of its own that requires little such “enhancement” and if you want to make spirits in the cognac way, then make a bloody cognac and leave rum alone.

I also believe that the company name change took too damned long but now they’ve done it, so that’s gone away, and the only fallout is that they publicly committed to it, people thought it took too long and was being deliberately slow-walked, which to detractors simply proved (as if it was needed) that nothing Planteray ever says can ever be trusted.

Closing thoughts

Okay – so, what I won’t do is proselytise for either standard or either of the two sides: because of course it is – Planteray on one side, versus everyone else. And I have a preference, yes, but not a bias, a subtle distinction that eludes far too many who get all offended when called out on it.

I will not hammer anyone who professes a liking for Planteray or for Mount Gay or for Foursquare. I won’t bugle my preference from the rooftops, nor will I shamelessly genuflect to either side in order to show my supposed patriotism or support. There’s a reason I don’t have “Save Barbados Rum” apparel — Barbados rum doesn’t need saving, it’s doing just fine on its own – it’s which form of the Barbados rum that needs saving that you might actually talk about.

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, or as clear cut, we don’t have enough information to go on, and not enough is known of the moves by the parties behind the scenes to make the case conclusively, no matter how much people believe otherwise.

Some element of balanced thinking and fairness has to start making its way into the sphere of public discourse, because too much opinion is already masquerades as fact, and too few facts are available at all (the current iteration of the GI, which almost nobody commenting on has actually read but on which everyone has a strident opinion, is a good example of facts not being in evidence).

I also think – probably with equal innocence or optimism as everyone else’s – that reviewers’ and writers’ egos should be taken out of the equation, and that they all should make a conscious effort to be more honest in their motivations and more alert to being led by the nose by public relations. Opinion shapers, writers and commentators who claim to serve the public good by keeping it informed (and all of us like to believe we do) cannot and should not be seen as taking sides in such a producer-led issue (and it is a producer led issue…it is) – what are we doing, taking sides for one or the other? We are surrendering our own independence and ability to comment objectively and fairly when we so clearly represent one or the other side.

Now you can, as a human being, have an opinion for one side or the other that is separate from your platform as a reviewer, writer, vlogger, blogger or whatever, but I argue this should be separated. So Lance Surujbally can have his own opinion and voice it offline, but the Lone Caner doesn’t have the luxury of doing so, and owes it to his audience to be more balanced in his reportage if he claims to being an impartial, balanced voice.

And if you think this is all harmless, let me remark that one writer I know, whose work on rum as a whole is exemplary, is so clearly biased in favour of one side here, that the moment I see him publish anything about Barbados or Jamaica, I almost never bother to read it any more. Because what’s the point? His mind is made up, his bias is right there, and nothing I or anyone else can say (including the provision of facts) can shift this immovable point of view. That’s the difference with a preference, which allows for facts and evidence to be weighed and a permits a modification of a point of view which is then not set in concrete, you see?

Can one appreciate or impartially consider a rum if one disagrees with or disapproves of the company that makes it? This was an issue that haunted Flor de Cana about a decade ago – remember how much crap they got for the Chronic Kidney Disease business? I argue that while any consumer can do what he wants because they have that right since it’s their money going out the door, a reviewer cannot be so blase about what they put into the public arena, because anything else — if you start to take sides — would not be in service of consumers, for whom they should be writing, but for producers … on whose behalf they have now become unwitting shills themselves.

And this goes beyond writers. The hypocrisy of liquor store proprietors speaking for Barbados, wearing the T-shirt and decrying MF’s shenanigans in public while quietly stocking Planteray on their shelves is not the greatest example of putting their money where their mouth is; and when even showrunners of international rum festivals start getting involved, and favour one over the other or even exclude them altogether, well, then there’s surely more than moral indignation at work, and it starts to become obvious that it is all about the money (as I am convinced it always has been).

It’s always strikes me as odd, that the loudest commentators never see a contradiction in taking aim at Planteray at every opportunity but are unable to identify a rum from there in a blind taste test; never seem bothered by not having all the facts and yet opining on things that are nowhere near as clearcut as they make it seem; or that the business case behind the scenes that motivates the players is always left out of just about all discussions, which are then portrayed as if it was all a black-or-white good-versus-evil situation, when the real story is much more complex and nuanced.

But then, as I have found, critical thinking, an understanding of irony or even a sense of humour is way beyond most of these sanctimonious loudmouths who pontificate so often. I can tell you this for sure: most people who observe these ongoing social media fights from the sidelines without ever commenting themselves, privately tell me that they wish that all parties and their enablers, would just calm the f*ck down. Because since they are not part of the solution, it is clear they are part of the problem…

…and for all the histrionics and hate directed at this one company, Planteray is isn’t going anywhere, hasn’t gone anywhere, and surely isn’t going to.

So that’s pretty much my rant. A four piece thing on Planteray. It’s really quite an emotive matter, all this fallout, and I’m trying hard to be polite, but sometimes … I just saw another one of these heated commentaries start up n the /r/rum subreddit not too long ago, a bit more polite than usual, but it’s never going to stop, and at some point, somebody has to inject some sanity into this discussion before it really and truly gets out of hand …

Because, I’m going to issue this warning, to everyone. I once commented in an interview I did that the hate and the invective hon this matter had gotten so bad, that I have no idea where it’s going to end. People are already not talking to each other and sundering friendships over it — is it really going to be a fistfight starting on the floor of a rumfest somewhere, between the adherents of one side and the other, who simply don’t like what one party or the other said in an almost-forgotten post from six months before? Have we really gotten to this level of Trumpism? That this is where we are now?

It’s just like … guy, guys, people…let’s just calm down.

And that’s it from me, four parts on one of the divisive aspects of our little world. If you have a comment – and I’m sure you will – just let me know what it is, and…well, I’ve had to develop a thick skin for this gig… and yeah, I’m actually a little bit nervous about posting this. But I think it’s time somebody does, because nobody else is.

Take care everyone. Goodbye.

Key Rums of the World – Plantation OFTD Overproof Rum

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Nov 102023

In 2015 an up and coming small rum maker called Plantation wanted to make a bar mixer to go beyond its decently regarded and well-selling Original Dark, which back then was primarily Trinidad distillate. The company had already made a name for itself in the bartending circuit with its blends like the Three Star, and its initial attempts at becoming an indie bottler got some decent reviews (mine among them). People liked them. The secondary maturation abroad and dosage, had not yet become issues. Their rums were deemed pretty good.

To the end of filling a gap in the overproof dark rum segment of the mixing market, Alexandre Gabriele the owner, repeated the process he had used to make the Three Star – he consulted with people who were in the industry, and brought together six personages of the rum world whose experiences behind the bar and within the cocktail culture were such that their opinions held real weight: Jeff “Beachbum” Berry from Latitude 29, Martin Cate from Smuggler’s Cove, Paul McFadyen who was then at Trailer Happiness, Paul McGee from Lost Lake, Scotty Schuder from Dirty Dick, and Dave Wondrich, a cocktail historian. Based on lots of samples and lots of tastings (and probably lots of cheerfully inebriated arguments) they set to work to make a mixer that it was hoped would elevate tropical cocktails and Tiki drinks to the next level, take on Lemon Hart and Hamilton’s overproof rums, and carve its own niche in the world.

Products designed by committee rarely succeed, but here may be the exception that proves the rule: from that beginning so many years ago, the OFTD, first released in July 2016, has become one of the most popular mixing drinks ever made, perhaps not quite rivalling Bacardi in ubiquity, but so versatile and affordable and let’s face it, even drinkable, that it has become a commercial and private bar staple. Even as the groundswell of dislike for Plantation has grown into ever more poisonous online discourse, the Old Fashioned Traditional Dark, made from rums deriving from Barbados, Guyana, and Jamaica, has flourished. It eclipses every other rum in the company’s “Bar Classic” series of the line (Stiggins’ Fancy and Xaymaca are popular for other reasons); it is a step above and much more interesting than the overly sweet “Signature” blends and surely easier on the wallet than the Single Cask, Extreme or Vintage editions.

What makes it so popular and so well regarded? To some extent it really is how well the blend works; the strength certainly helps, and for sure so does the lack of any additives – it is one of the few rums Plantation makes which is not dosed. When one looks under the hood, it’s really quite a bit more complex than at first seems to be the case: back in 2018 The ‘Wonk said that the makeup was Guyana (Port Mourant distillate aged 1-2 Years in new and ex-Cognac French oak), Barbados (WIRD distillate, 4 years in new French oak and 2-4 Years in heavy toasted American white oak); and Jamaica (Clarendon MLC 1-2 Years in new French oak, Long Pond TECC 1-2 Years also in new French oak, Long Pond STCE 8½ years in ex-bourbon and ex-Cognac, and lastly some Long Pond TECA 19½ years in ex-bourbon and ex-Cognac). All blended and tied up in a bow at 69% ABV, and while perhaps by 2023 the blend has shifted somewhat, that’s not an inconsiderable amount of taste profiles to be balancing against one other — that anything drinkable comes out at the other end is some kind of minor miracle, because my experience is that blends trying to do so much with so many things, often crash and burn.

Not here, I don’t think. The nose is no slouch and gets going immediately: hot fierce and sharp as befitting the strength, and starting the party off with banana (at one point I got banana bread, at another flambeed), caramel, and brown sugar damp with molasses. Coffee grounds, unsweetened chocolate, anise and allspice are there, leavened with coconut shavings, a touch of anise, brine, and even a mild pinch of citrus. It’s initially quite sharp and alcoholic and it’s recommended to let the glass stand a bit to let that burn off, and once you get there, it’s a nose that sticks around for a long time.

The palate is where one has to make a decision regarding the strength because it is young and it is rough at the inception – many reviews and write ups suggest adding a bit of water to tame it. I don’t think that’s really necessary but then, I have had a lot of rums north of 70% so maybe I’m just used to it. Anyway, the initial palate is all ethanol until it burns off; some rubber and licorice and damp sawdust (that may be the PM talking), molasses and caramel, bitter coffee grounds and chocolate again with traces of ripe mangoes, grapes and even some pineapple (which may be the Jamaican tekkin’ front). There are some vanilla, bon-bons, citrus notes and black pepper here and there, and a finish that oddly reminded me of chocolate oranges mixing it up with salt caramel ice cream topped with a few strawberries…go figure, right?

Evaluating it after trying it maybe four or five times over a period of a year, I get why it’s popular: once you get past the initial burn, you can sip the thing. It is dark, strong, noses nicely and tastes a treat, and such burn and sharp stabs as it displays are, to me, just products of its relative youth (I doubt that there is a whole lot of the aged Longpond elements in there), and in fairness it is designed to be mixed, not sipped. It makes a cool rum and coke of course, and does yeoman’s work in both a daiquiri and a mai tai as well as any other libation a creative bartender can come up with. On top of all that, the damned rum is really affordable: I’ve heard that bars are incentivised with huge cash-back enticements, and that the bulk capacity of WIRD helps keep production costs down, but all that is behind the scenes – this is a rum that subjects itself to the Stewart Affordability Conjecture and takes it seriously.

And if the taste doesn’t sway you, consider the popular statistics. It is a fixture on just about every “with what do I start stocking my home cocktail bar?” recommendation list I’ve ever seen, and the reddit comment sections are filled with people remarking that it’s a rum worth having on any shelf. There is almost no negative review on any subreddit that I’ve looked at, and even those that are less than complimentary usually concede that some aspects of it are fine, or that it has its points here and there and that it’s a moral decision for them not to buy it or stock it. Of the 185 consumer ratings on Distiller from 2016 to 2023, 95% are three-star or higher; on Rum Ratings, nearly 90% out of 257 raters gauged it at 7/10 or better and on Rum-X it has an average of 7.5/10 from 194 people who left a score. These are representative of wide cross sections of the rum drinking public and cannot easily be discounted, whatever one might think of the parent company (and nowadays that is almost all negative). Paul Senft, The Fat Rum Pirate and Rum Shop Boy have all written about it and liked it.

Summing up, the Plantation Old Fashioned Traditional Dark is a deserved yet unusual — perhaps even controversial — entry to the Key Rums series. It is a multi-country blend, not something that showcases a certain country. Yes, it was deliberately created to do only one thing, and therefore its value as an all-round consumer drink is somewhat circumscribed; yes it’s really strong, and sure…in that segment it stays and plays. Yet as I have suggested here, it has qualities over and above all that. It supercedes the modest aims of its creators, to the point where it actually can stand by itself. It remains, nearly a decade after its introduction, one of the most reviewed, commented on and widespread rums around and if its shine is less now than it was when first introduced and now that it has stiffer competition, there is no reason to doubt either its many uses or availability. It remains, for all its parent company’s woes, an incredibly popular and in-use bar staple and drinking adjunct to this day. It demonstrates, if nothing else, how well the Caribbean distillates work with each other in a way that is not often seen. And that’s no mean accomplishment for any rum – especially one made by this outfit – to claim. One can only ask why more of the company’s rums don’t adhere to its philosophy.

(#1038)(84/100) ⭐⭐⭐½

Other Notes

In this essay, I have made a deliberate decision to focus on the rum: not to get into the conflict and bad press Plantation gets (or why they get it), not to express my personal opinion on the issues surrounding the company, and to simply mention that such issues exist. There are sufficient resources around — reddit has some good if heated discussions on the matter — for anyone with an interest to find out what the story is.
I am unsure if any part of the ageing takes place in Europe and was unable to confirm it one way or the other.

Plantation Barbados Grande Reserve Aged Rum – Review

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Apr 102023

At first I thought the Barbados Grande Reserve Aged Rum was a replacement for the five year old Barbados rum from Plantation which I had tried many years ago, but further investigation showed them to be quite separate. Both, however, are part of the Signature blends which include the Barbados 5, the XO, Grand Anejo and Xaymaca — these are what one might infer are entry level rums for the curious (to call them ‘premium’ would be a stretch). They are neither bartenders’ mixing staples like the Three Star, OFTD or Original Dark, nor expensive limited editions like the upscale Extreme, Single Cask or Vintage series, and exist in a kind of everyman’s universe where “reasonableness” is the watchword.

That said, the production ethos of the company pervades even this introductory rum. It originates from the West Indies Rum Refinery in Barbados (we all know Ferrand, Plantation’s parent company, owns it) where it is blended from pot/column still molasses-derived rums aged from one to three years, before being shipped off to France and aged in Ferrand’s facilities there for another year. It’s released at 40%, the sweetening is glossed over, and overall, like most rums of this kind from this house, it attracts equal parts dislike and appreciation depending on who’s doing the talking.

It’s not my intent to rehash the polarising nature and background of either the company or its production practises here, except insofar as to note there aren’t many reviews of this rum to be found¹, and wonder if the vitriol surrounding the company may have an impact on any writers’ desire to get sucked in. Be that as it may, the rum has to be tried sooner or later, and for new rum drinkers who wet their beaks for the first time with it, there’s little to actively dislike: it’s as good a rum to start one’s journey with as any, and better than quite a few I’ve looked at of late.

So, let’s get started. Nose: an introduction of crisp yet ripe fruit, like raspberries, red currants, pineapples, around which coils a waft of stinky sweet bubble gum in hot weather. Brown sugar and molasses and coconut shavings are discernible, plus some mushy bananas and tangerines that have seen better days. Nice enough nose, with enough going on not to be categorised as simply an entry-level molasses based product: it’s a bit better than that.

The palate now…not too shabby. No, seriously. A touch sharp going in at first sip, then it steadies: sweet and sour pork, hot black tea sweetened with condensed milk and cardamom (bush tea, we called it and I still make a mug a few times a month), light fruits plus a touch of unsweetened salt caramel, vanilla, cinnamon, honey, orange juice and even marzipan. The problem is it tastes a bit…flattened, even dull, like Emile’s sense of taste compared to Remy’s in Ratatouille. The music is there but the bass is too high and the top- and mid-range notes don’t come through clearly enough and this is also the case when considering the finish; which turns out to be nothing we haven’t seen before, and is even a bit boring — slightly briny, sweet, coconut shavings, vanilla, light citrus and some chocolate.

It goes down easy without reaching and that may be the key observation. Overall, it’s a relatively simple rum compared to others I’ve had (including some from Plantation themselves), yet a rum one can, with care and lowered expectations, have neat without too many issues. To be honest, I thought the rum was better than it had a right to be considering the sweetening Plantation is known for (I tested it after the session, not before…so the level was unknown to me while trying it).

The Grand Reserve stops short of being a cloying muddle, and is fortunately a ways from being a complete sugary mess — yet the additives/sugar do spoil it and make for a lesser experience, especially if one knows what one is looking for. For someone now getting into rum, it’s serviceable and they could use it as a stepping stone to get more into the field, though for getting into the Barbados style it’s useless, so forget that aspect. Those with more experience can use it as a bellwether for what to look for in Plantation’s successively more upscale (and expensive) offerings; and for those who’re really into rums, well, there’s not much to say to them, since they already know all there is to know.

(#987)(78/100)

Other notes

The Plantation website has no details on any of the Signature rum series at all (the “learn more” link does not work)
Most articles mention 15-16 g/L sweetening, or “dosage”. My hydrometer shows 36% ABV when measuring the rum, which works out to 15 g/L
Leaving the empty glass in the sink to evaporate overnight leaves a slightly sticky residue to be found the next morning.
The rum has been in production for a very long time, hence the various label changes. The first reference I can find for it dates from 2008, and is on one of the first rum review websites, Refined Vices, run by an old friend from Finland, Tatu Kaarlas (who now lives in Australia). That Grand Reserve Barbados rum had a label which stated it was from cane juice (felt by most at the time to be unlikely) not molasses…and came from Foursquare. Yeah, that’s not happening now, for sure.

Revisiting the Plantation Barbados XO 20th Anniversary Rum

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May 012022

It’s an old saw that time grants experience at the expense of youth, and indeed the entire review of the El Dorado 21 YO rum was an extended meditation on this theme. But perhaps, had I wanted to illustrate the issue more fully, it would have been better to reflect on the descent of the Barbados 20th Anniversary XO in my estimation over the intervening years since I first tried and wrote about it in 2012. Back then I awarded it what by contemporary standards is an unbelievable 88.5 points and my opening blurb naming it “one of the top sipping rums of my 2012 experience” can in no way be repeated a decade later without causing howls of disbelieving and derisive laughter from all and sundry, and a recent re-tasting of the rum shows why this is the case.

The rum’s nose opens with a light, medicinal sort of aroma reminiscent of quinine, except that it’s sweet and not sharp at all. It develops into hints of honey, caramel, blancmange and soft ripe fruits – flambeed bananas, raisins, apples on the edge of spoiling – that combine into a softly congealed sweetness that hides the sharpness one suspects may be lurking beneath it all. There are marshmallows, coconut milk, sweet pastries with a surfeit of icing sugar, but little acid bite or edge that would balance this all off. It’s a heavy dull, sweet nose, covering the senses like a wet blanket.

The deepening disappointment I feel about the rum has nothing really to do with the War of the Barbados GI (as I’ve heard it described), or the choice of Plantation as a brand name (with all its subsequent negative connotations), or some of the questionable business practices of the company. Those matters have been discussed and dissected at length and will continue to raise blood pressures for years to come. It doesn’t even have anything to do with Ferrand’s careful marketing, problematic labelling and the cold-eyed sales strategy, none of which, after all, is personal – it’s just business. But all these dodgy issues aside, the fact remains that if ever there was a poster child for how tastes evolve and how what was once a real favourite can turn into a symbol of so much that no longer works, this rum is it.

On the palate, the initial sensations suggest all is well. The tastes are nicely fruity: sugar cane sap, vanilla, coconuts shavings, white chocolate, giving one the impression of a liquid Ferrero Raffaello Confetteria (but not as good). And yet, all the fruits striding forward to centre stage are too ripe, here – yellow mangoes, peaches, apricots, cherries. Thickly sweet tastes overwhelm the sharper rummy notes of caramel and light molasses with a barrage of marshmallows, candy floss and sugar water and blattens everything flat.

That profile as described might surprise many emergent rum fans from America in particular. After all, if one were to consult those three great repositories of crowdsourced rum opinion – Reddit’s /r/rum, Rum Ratings and Rum-X – the vast majority of the respondents just love this thing, as the high consolidated scores on those platforms attest (the last one is the lowest with a 79 point average from 414 ratings).

And on the surface, there’s no question that it presses many of the right buttons: it’s been widely available (since 2007) at a slightly-higher-than-cheap price, has got that faux-ultra-premium bottle and gold etching; and it’s not part of the “standard backbar line” of the 3-Star, OFTD or Original Dark but one level higher (the “Signature Blends”). It remains bottled at 40% ABV and continues to be touted as being a blend of “quintessential extra-old rums from Barbados”. The company website provides disclosure: the various ages of the blend, the pot/column still makeup, the dual-ageing regimen, and of particular note is the 20g/L “dosage” element, which is considered to be the sugaring that makes it sweet (it’s not, really, but serves as a useful shorthand). So all that provision and declaration and presentation, and it’s all good, right?

The finish is smothering, though light, and thankfully escapes the kiss-of-death word “cloying”. There’s stuff going on here and it’s delicious: caramel, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, raisins, honey and even some tamarind, but there’s not enough of it, and what is sensed remains covered over by a sort of placid languor, a dampening effect of the sweetening that provides a sweet and warm conclusion, just not a memorable one.

Not entirely. For all its current disclosure, Plantation sure wasn’t talking any more than anyone else, back in 2012 and it was only after 2014 that they started to come up to scratch (trust me, I was there). That’s when they and many (but not all) others belatedly came out of the closet in a come-to-Jesus-moment and said “Yeah, but we always did it this way, it’s been a long standing practice, and it makes the rum better.”².

What’s often not addressed in the denunciations of dosage is exactly why the sugaring was and remains considered such a bad thing, so here’s a recap. A common refrain is that it destroys the purity of rum, the way spicing does, so one is not getting an original experience – and worse, one may be paying a higher price for a cheap rum cunningly dosed to make it seem more premium. Secondly there’s a lesser but no less important point of reasons related to fitness and health. But those matters aside, it really is because rum chums hate being lied to: the practice was never disclosed by any producer, while being fiercely denied the whole time. These and other social issues surrounding the parent company go a long way to explaining the despite the rum gets, though at end, much of this is window dressing, and it’s how the rum works (or not), and perhaps how it’s classified, that’s the key issue, since disclosure is now provided. Other than that, the matters above don’t — or shouldn’t — impact on any evaluation of the rum at all (though no doubt many will disagree with me on this one).

By that exacting, laser-focused and narrow-bore standard, then, all the markers suggest a rum with luscious potential…but one which doesn’t deliver. It is really too faint to be taken seriously and too sweet to showcase real complexity — although this is precisely what many new entrants to rum, weaned on Captain Morgan, cheap Bacardis, Kraken, Bumbu or Don Papa, consider smooth, sippable and top end. As with earlier El Dorado rums, nowadays for me the real question is not the dosage per se (after all, I can simply chose not to drop my coin on the rum) just why it continues, since it is really quite unnecessary. The rum is discernibly fine and can be better with less additions, or no sweetening at all; and I think that the state of the rumiverse generally is now sufficiently educated and aware – in a way we were not back in the early 2000s – for it to be re-released as an adulterated / spiced rum or reissued without the dosage as something more serious…rather than pandering the way it does and having the best of both worlds.

That might make me a purist…but I chose to believe it’s more that I don’t think that a rum that’s already intrinsically decent needs to have such embellishment, which we never asked for, no longer need and really no longer want. It cheapens the whole category and lessens any kind of serious consideration of the spirit as a whole

All that, and it really is just too damned sweet.

(#904)(76/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Other notes

My hydrometer tested this out at 35.07% ABV, which works out to just about 20g/L so the website is spot on. This is a reduction from the decanter version I had originally reviewed a decade ago.
In this retrospective, I have deliberately chosen not to go deeper into the theme of “separating the artist from the art”, as that is a subject requiring a much more nuanced and opiniated exploration. It is, however, on my radar, and not only for this company.
What exactly the “20th Anniversary” is, remains debated. Some say it’s of Mr. Gabriel’s becoming a master blender, others have differering opinions. It’s not the age of the rum, though, which is a blend of 8-15 YO distillates. It may of course be simply a number put there for marketing reasons, or something of significance to Maison Ferrand.

Plantation 3 Stars White Rum – Review

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Jan 242022

The Plantation 3-Star rum is part of the “bar classics” range of Plantation’s stable, which includes well-regarded rums like the OFTD, Original Dark and Stiggin’s Fancy. Of course the whole “3 star” business is just marketing – it’s meant to symbolize three stars of the Caribbean rumworld whose rums from a part of the blend: Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados. This conveniently elides the stars of Guyana, Martinique, St. Lucia and many others, but ok, whatever. Ditto for the “World Best Cellar Master” – uh huh. Still, Plantation’s webpage for the rum provides a nice level of detail for those who want more depth on what’s in there: briefly, two of the components hail from Barbados, meaning WIRD (pot and column still) and Trinidad, which is Angostura (column only), but it’s never been clear which Jamaican distillery made their part. Longpond, perhaps, since Ferrand has an association there ³.

Taking it for a spin and trying it, ten years after its initial release — and after deliberately seeking it out — I honestly wondered what the fuss was about and why people kept singing ecstatic hosannas to the thing (when not aggressively pressing me to try it). The nose, for example, struck me as too faint (if reasonably interesting): some vague hints of glue, burnt rubber, smoke, leather, a touch of tar, bananas and ethanol. I had to wait a long time for secondary aromas of pears, white guavas, papaya, and sugar water to emerge, and there wasn’t much of that to speak of here either. It seemed to degenerate into a lightly fruity watery alcohol rather than develop serious chops and character.

The palate was much nicer. It remained delicate and faint, but there was more to work with, somehow. Much of the nose translated over well (usually the reverse is the case, but here it was just…well, firmer). Sweet ethanol flavoured sugar water with a touch of flowers, pears and very ripe yellow thai mangoes. Watermelons and a strawberry infused water. Cane sap, some unsweetened yoghourt and perhaps a green grape or two, but if this thing had any serious Jamaican in here, it was taking a serious step back, because the funk some mentioned wasn’t there for me. There was some shy and retiring hints of nuts, vanilla and aromatic tobacco on the finish, which was nice enough…it’s an easy and reasonably tasty alcoholic shot to pour into whatever mix one has on hand, and can be sipped, I suppose, though it’s a bit too sharp for that, IMHO.

The wider rumiverse’s opinions on the rum vary, either falling into the camp of those who have no problems with a cheap cocktail rum being dosed, or those who do (the latter are usually the same ones who have issues with Plantation for other reasons). Few remark on the taste of the thing, but solely on that basis and ignoring all other aspects of the company, my own feeling is that it’s really not that special. After trying it (twice) I must simply say that while it’s a decent dram, it’s hardly spectacular, and though it got really good scores back at the time it was introduced, to chirp its praises now when so much other, better stuff it out there, is simply unrealistic.

(#878)(75/100) ⭐⭐½

Other Notes

The proportions of each part of the blend are unknown, as is the annual outturn.
As a companion piece to this review, I have written an opinion piece / essay that provides more historical context and background into the rum’s original milieu, development and possible decline, but is longer than this review allows for.

Plantation Grand Reserve Barbados 5 Year Old – Review

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Jun 042013

Among the best of the five year olds, and may actually be the best 5 I’ve had to date.

One of the surprising things about the Plantation Barbados 5 year old is the fact that it is bottled at what, for Plantation, is a relatively mild 40%. Still, for all my whining about wanting rums to be stronger, I can’t deny the overall quality of what many would dismiss as a mixer’s rum, because it’s a quietly impressive product that is the equal of the El Dorado 5 year old in every way, and exceeds it in others.

Cognac Ferrand is noted for taking rums from various plantations around the West Indies and Central America, ageing them in situ and then bringing them over to France where the finish it in cognac casks for a few months. This double ageing gives their rums a certain richness and depth that is really quite something, and while they simply classify the rums by the date of distillation (one is left to guess how old a given rum therefore is), in this case they have stated front and centre that it is a five year old rum, which makes comparing it against others a much less theoretical proposition.

A while back, I ran four fives against each other and commented on their various characteristics and how they stacked up – based on that, I felt (at the time), that the El Dorado five was the best of the (limited) lot. Well, here Plantation does it one better, and steals the crown. I got this impression right from the get-go, when opening it up and taking a good strong sniff. Most five year olds I’ve tried tend towards the slightly raw – there is usually a sense of better to come, with a spiciness and burn deriving from some ageing, perhaps not so complete. Here, precisely the opposite was true: the rum was quite soft, quite smooth (a bit of a nip, yes…just less than you might expect), quite pleasant on the nose. Vanilla, plums, dark berries (blackcurrants and blackberries with ripe cherries), and a dusting of coconut shavings were all in evidence, leavened as it opened up with some pineapple and cinnamon, butterscotch and toffee.

As for the taste, well now, colour me impressed: amazingly robust on the palate, deep and intense, oily and quite smooth, warm and easy to sip. Just sweet enough to please, with simpler, forceful notes of vanilla and cinnamon segueing gently into molasses, burnt sugar, caramel, the aforementioned coconut shavings and a dark chopped-fruit melange. The feel of this rum as I drank it was of a warm freshly laundered pillow, something quite soft enough to hug, definitely more polished and nuanced than the ED5. Finish was sweet, honeylike, relaxed, and gave you no attitude whatsoever. In it, you could see the Plantation Barbados 20th Anniversary take shape. It’s that decent.

On its own you’re not necessarily going to get all this: but trying it in tandem with a few other similarly aged offerings gives you a gist of the quality I describe here. It really is quite an experience, to be able to sip – not even adding water – a rum this young and this cheap. I thought Josh Miller at Inu a Kena was kidding when he muttered disbelievingly “I’m sipping a sixteen dollar rum! Neat!” But he was doing no more than telling the absolute truth.

The Plantation Barbados 5 year old may be relatively uncomplex compared to older rums, not too much oomph in the trousers alcohol-wise, but you simply cannot argue with its put-togetherness. Okay, so maybe it’s not a top ender, but in my mind, it perhaps should be – it takes its place among the best young rums out there. On smoothness, taste, texture, mouthfeel and finish, all for that one low low price, it is a rum that will be difficult to beat even by products many times its age.

(#166. 84.5/100)

Other notes

I am aware that I scored the El Dorado 5 78 points back in 2010. For that time, it was right. Now, three years down the road, I would probably rank it quite a bit more generously (and may yet do that, if I pick up another bottle). I’ll just note the discrepancy, and remark to my fellow bloggers who are kind enough to read this review, that this is why one should never taste a rum for scoring purposes in isolation but always as part of a series of some kind.
Also, it may cost twenty bucks or less in the US, but in Canada it’s closer to forty.
Plantation has been known for (and has admitted to) the practice of “dosing” which is the adding of sugar to round out and smoothen their rums. In this case the various sugar lists maintained by the fatrumpirate and others work out to about 22 g/L for this rum. Different people have different attitudes towards this practice, so I mention the matter for completeness.
Update 2021 – No, I would not now score this as high as I did back in the day. In the last eight years I have gained much more experience in the dampening effects of this kind of dosage, and my preferences have evolved towards less rather than more. So the enthusiasm displayed above is muted, as I’m sure Josh’s is, as well. (NB: The issue with Plantation’s business model and the Barbados GI do not affect this comment, which is a puzzling linkage I find on many others’ remarks on the rum).

Plantation 1999 Guyana Old Reserve Rum – Review

2 Responses »

May 072013

Crackers and butter

Given how much I care for Guyanese style Demerara rums (even if some of them actually originate from plantations closer to Berbice), and knowing something of the various profiles hailing from these old sugar estates, I must confess to being quite surprised at the sharp left turn this 45% ABV Plantation rum made.

No really. As soon as I opened the bottle to pour the gold-amber rum into my glass, the very first scent that reached me was salt biscuits and creamy, unsalted butter. This, to me was quite unmistakable, because in my youth I was once caught on a tramp steamer in the Atlantic for three days, and all we had to eat was salt biscuits, crackers and peanut butter (and some jam) – and the Guyana 1999 rum mirrored those scents so faithfully it was, quite frankly, like being back on board. Okay, it did mellow out, I can’t kid about that – into smoke and wet, rain drenched wood, tannins from oak, only slowly deepening into almonds, faint citrus, hibiscus flowers and softer caramel and burnt sugar (for which I was thankful – I’ve never appreciated salt biscuits since that time).

The Guyana 1999 suggested a certain clarity and hardness rather than softer, more voluptuous tastes. Very little soothing gentleness here, yet also no real bite and sting on the palate. Indeed, the somewhat briny, tannic nose transmogrified into a creamier, very pleasantly oily feel on the tongue, and the previously restrained ponies of sugar, vanilla and caramel were allowed freer rein, though they never went so far as to dominate the overall flavour profile. Indeed, were it not for that clear, dominant “I am here” taste of butterscotch and burnt sugar, this rum would have been a lot more delicate and flowery to taste. And there were few, if any fleshy fruit or citrus notes here at all, nor where there any on the finish. It’s a very strange rum to try, yet also a pretty good one – this is one case where the palate exceeds the nose (I often find the opposite to be the case). The fade is medium to long, with a rather hard denouement of blackberries and almond nuttiness that goes on for quite some time.

Plantation is one of the famed rums made in series and in quantity by what is termed an independent bottler – Cognac Ferrand from France, in this case. There are many others – Rum Nation, Renegade, Fassbind, Berry Brothers & Rudd and Velier are just a few examples – but most of these tend towards a few thousand bottles per run, originating in a few casks, while I get the impression that CF does quite a bit more than that for each of its editions. The claim to fame of the Plantation line, and what gives them such a great street rep, is their finishing for a final few months in cognac casks, which imparts an intriguing flavour to each and every one of their rums I’ve been fortunate enough to try thus far, providing an intriguing counterpoint to the Renegade line, which to my mind attempts the same thing a little less successfully.

Also, I think that the slight saltiness and background cracker taste on the fade makes the rum drop a bit more than usual for me – oh, I liked it, but I enjoyed other Plantations more (the Nicaragua 2001, for example, and the Barbados 20th Anniversary for sure). For a Mudlander, even one in exile as long as I have been, that’s nothing short of embarrassing. Still, I have to make this observation – I tried it side by side with the Renegade Barbados 2003 6 year old (coming soon to the review site near you), and doing the tasting in tandem revealed something of the character and richness of the Plantation rum which Renegade lacked…so it’s certainly better than a solo-only tasting or my ambivalent wording here might imply.

There aren’t many rums I try that evoke such strong, definitive memories. I may not have enjoyed eating stale crackers and jam for three straight days on the Atlantic Ocean, no…what I took away from that experience was more of the black, moonless nights, blazing with stars, phosphorescent green water lapping against the hull, desultory conversations with the mate at three in the morning (while sharing some unspeakable hooch), being young, immortal and seventeen, and considering myself part of a grand adventure. This rum, with a middling nose and finish and a very pleasant palate, brought back that experience in a way that was nothing short of amazing.

Don’t know about you, but for me that’s beyond price.

(#160. 84.5/100)

Other Notes

According to Master Quill, his bottle of this rum has April 2009 on the bottle, so I am taking that as reasonable proof of age.
No mention of the stills is made anywhere except Difford’s which referred to it as coming from “a small traditional copper still”. Plantation’s own site page for the vintage series doesn’t go back as far as 2009, let alone 1999, which is an issue of longevity and preservation of information about which I have serious concerns, but a subject too long for a quick comment here.

Plantation Nicaragua 2001 Old Reserve – Review

4 Responses »

Apr 112013

D7K_1222

A very good double-aged Nicaraguan rum, from France. If this is what a random selection of Plantation rums is like, then I have high hopes for all the others.

Finally, I have managed to start acquiring some of the Plantation rums (long regarded by me as a major hole in the reviews of rum “series”), and if the Law of Mediocrity holds true, then this is a set of bottlings that would remedy all my bitching about the inconsistencies of the Renegade line. If it is true that the characteristic of the parts is a function of the whole, then we’ll be in for a treat as we work our way through them.

The Plantation line of rums is made by Cognac Ferrand of France, based on stocks bought from around the Caribbean and Central and South America, and some of their uniqueness rests in the fact that they are finished in cognac casks prior to final bottling (so they can be regarded as double aged). This gives the rums in the line a certain heft and complexity that many comment on quite favourably, to say nothing of the line stepping away from 40% as a matter of habit – this one from Nicaragua was bottled at a pleasant 42%. Note also that Plantation indulges the practice of dosing – the addition of small amounts of sugar or caramel to create the overall assembly.

D7K_1227

The bottle itself conformed to the Plantation standard of presentational ethics: a straw-netting enclosed barroom bottle, with the label identifying the year the rum was laid down (2001 in this case), and a map of the source country. I guess they saved the really fancy presentation for stuff like the Barbados 20th Anniversary edition, which was nothing near to this kind of standard (it was better), yet I have no fault to find here, since aside from the lack of an age statement, it provided most of what I needed.

It’s been a while since I tasted the Flor de Cana series of rums (my stocks are long since drained and not renewed), but I remembered the solidity of those, the depth of flavour, whether simple or complex, and they remained among my favourites until supplanted by other Panamanian and Guyanese expressions. This rum brought back all my memories of why I liked Nicaraguan products so much

The nose was deep and rich, redolent of vanilla, oak (not excessive, very well balanced), caramel, citrus (orange peel, even lime zest) and peaches (minus the cream). There were herbal notes flitting around the initial delectable aromas, and I reveled in the lemon grass scents which reminded me somewhat of crushed lime leaves in spicy Thai cuisine. There was no offensive astringency or bite here, just solid, complex notes I spent an inordinate amount of time admiring.

The palate was lovely. 42% ABV sent a pleasantly heated, medium bodied spirit to announce its prescence with a smoothly powerful fanfare. Honey and caramel flavours led the charge, with subtler tastes of pineapple, a ripe-but-firm mango and vanilla rounding things out. The Nicaragua 2001 was not overly sweet (so what dosing they did do was judiciously restrained, at least), slightly dry without being either cloyingly sugary, or acerbically briny. The rum was all well-balanced flavour and profile, speaking well for more expensive and older rums up the chain of the Plantation line. And I had little fault to find with the finish, which was longish, slightly dry and gave me some oak and vanilla that was not exceptional, just well put together

D7K_1228

What’s not to admire about a rum like this? Much like the Dictador 20 written about some weeks back, it displayed a solid mastery of rum-making fundamentals. It’s probably the finishing in cognac casks that gave it that extra note of complexity and balance I so enjoyed here, with the body being somewhat enhanced by the sugar (estimated at 14 g/L). In part, I see the production of these limited edition bottlings by European makers as an act of homage for the traditions of the old rum makers and their lost arts. W.G. Sebald, whose works often concerned the loss of memory, once wrote about journeys made through the half-abandoned remainders of the past, through signs that men had once been here and are now forgotten. When you try the Nicaragua 2001, you see what rum can be, once was, and maybe what it will aspire to in years to come.

(#154. 85.5/100)

Other notes

The Law of Mediocrity isn’t quite what it sounds like: it basically takes the position that if one takes a random sample from a set and that sample is good, then it suggests that others in the set will also be.
There is no literature I can find that says precisely how old the rum is. Of course, since it was casked in 2001, it has to be less than fifteen years old. One German site stated it was six years old, and the Fat Rum Pirate (the only other review out there) says he guesses 8-10, so I dunno…..
There is some confusion in the online literature as to whether this is pot still or column still distillate. However, the Cognac-Ferrand site notes it as coming from a columnar still.
People have differeing opinions on the matter of additional sugar, an imbroglio which became a major issue in late 2014 onwards. Some like it, some don’t, some are indifferent. The 14g/L number is taken from The Fat Rum Pirate’s list.

Plantation 20th Anniversary Barbados Extra Old Rum – Review

4 Responses »

Dec 282012

This lovely product will always be one of the top sipping rums of my 2012 experience. The awards it has garnered since 2007 state boldly that many others think so too.

Stirred by the Rum Howler’s listing of the Plantation Barbados XO in his intriguing top 30 rum list, and having brought back a bottle from the amazing Rum Depot store in Berlin back in August (yes, it was gathering dust for several months, them’s the breaks when you have a day job and a family and other interests), I resolved to check it out after finishing off the St Lucia series. It was run up against three enormously different rums which could not possibly be mistaken for each other: the Renegade Cuba 1998, Downslope Distillery’s wonky 6-month wine-barrel aged rum from Colorado about which I can’t say enough bad things, and the amazing 2012 Rum Nation Demerara 1989-2012 23 year old about which I can’t say enough good things.

The Plantation series of aged rums from Cognac-Ferrand are the major remaining hole in my review lineup (as of the beginning of 2013) of widely available commercial rums, if you don’t count other rather more exclusive European independent bottlers like Bruichladdich, Cadenhead, Berry & Rudd, Bristol Spirits or Fassbind (among others) which rarely touch the Great White North. Knowing what I know now regarding how to begin a review site of popular spirits, I really should start with the younger Plantation variations and move up the scale, but when you have twenty to chose from and can only pick one, you might also do as I did, and start at the top…assuming your wallet holds out.

And I’m glad I did. Barbados rums tend to be on the soft side, but this one was like a feather pillow for the nose, truly…it handily eclipsed the Mount Gay 1703 with scents of white chocolate, buttery toffee, the nutmeg of a good eggnog, vanilla and caramel, and a lovely background of ground coconut shavings in a melange that was utterly terrific. It was a rich sensory love-in of a nose, solidly constructed, soft and breezy and if you ever wanted to have a Christmas rum to sip by a roaring fire, you would never have to go further than this one. I thought of it like a liquid, warm Hagen-Dasz, with all the sweetness that implies.

The palate was similarly excellent: sweet and a shade briny (not too much), soft as a mother’s hug before school on a cold day. It had hints of bananas and orange peel on the medium-heavy body, salty caramel, white chocolate vanilla. My lord this was good, rich and pungent and smooth as a cat’s tummy fur, with just a shade of heat to lend character, a touch of oaky spice and burnt coconut…if this rum was equated to a painting, it would be a lush impressionist Monet or Degas, colourful, vibrant and above all, real. And for once the finish completed the overall picture without failing, warm, medium long and rich, with traces of almonds, citrus and oak on the slightly astringent close.

The XO is a rum that is a blend of Plantations’s “oldest reserves” (not sure how old these reserves were, since no further details are available). The blends are first aged in Barbados in ex-bourbon casks, then taken to France where they undergo secondary ageing in smaller French Oak casks for a further year to eighteen months. I must concede that this process of double ageing (somewhat akin to the Dos Maderas 5+3 or 5+5) is much to my taste…it provides the resultant spirit with a depth and creaminess that is quite becoming and is absolutely meant for leisurely exploration when time is not a factor and a buzz is not on the menu.

As I noted above, this is a solidly built, well presented, utterly traditional all-round excellent premium rum. At €45 I think it might be one of the better value for money rums available for a 40% product. That sentence should be parsed carefully, because what this means is that it is superlative at genuflecting to all the expected traditional rum expectations…but without rising above or vaulting beyond (or violating) them…it lacks the passive agressive adventurousness of Fabio Rossi’s Rum Nation Demerara 1989 23 year old (45%) or the stunning-if-somewhat-oversweet Millonario XO (40%). This is not to diss the Plantation product, mind you, just to give you a sense of both its quality and what else it could have been had someone taped a pair of balles to it.

I wish I could tell you which rums in the Plantation lineup this one compares well to, but I can’t (Plantation Rums are not widely available in Canada). Suffice to say, the Anniversary XO is phenomenal taken merely by itself. It has a complex softness and style recalling the St. Nicholas Abbey 10 or 12 year old, or most of the top Panamanian rums, and a finish that is close to conjugal harmonies. If it has a weakness at all, it’s in hewing too closely to the profile of rums, and not daring to step a little outside the demarcations: I think that had it done so, beefed itself up, perhaps aged it a little differently, they may have been one of the top premiums in the world which all others had to beat. As it is, it’s a great sipping rum that any aficionado should have on his shelf, and share generously with people who simply don’t get how good a premium rum can be when made by people who are fully invested – and who care about – the resultant ambrosias they create.

(#138. 88.5/100)

Other Notes

This review was written in December 2012, and already there were cracks in the firmament: I had had the Panamonte XXV, various Panamanians, the Cartavio XO, Rum Nation’s Millonario, most of the DDL standard lineup, and was beginning to understand that dosed rums (an issue which would go on to explode two years later) could be bettered. By the end of 2014, my opinion on these smooth and sweetened rums had undergone a major shift, and if it hadn’t been my policy to keep rum reviews and scores intact, as they were when originally posted (I have to live with and defend the opinions and scores as they were then, not as I would like them to be later), I would have marked them a lot less generously than I had.