Novo Fogo Cachaça “Chameleon” – Review

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Sep 092021
 

In 2017 I wrote about a cachaça I had tried in Toronto from a Brazilian company named Novo Fogo, which means “New Fire” in Portuguese. That was an unaged, one-year-rested “Silver” cachaça that I liked quite a bit, and in doing my research after the fact, I discovered the company also had a number of other such spirits in the portfolio, resolved to try what I could, and subsequently scouted them out in the years that followed.

This cachaça, then, is the next one up the ladder for Novo Fogo. It is a blend of both aged and unaged spirits, derived from (of course) cane juice and departs from more traditional Brazilian cachaças in two interesting ways: it is made on a pot still (as opposed to the much more common column still spirits that dominate the industry); and it was aged for one year in American oak, not local woods like Amburana (which make Brazilian spirits so different to the palate conditioned by years of molasses-based rums or aged agricoles from the French islands). What this does is provide the drinker with the best of three worlds: the terroire of Brazil’s southern province of Paraná (the distillery is located there, not Minas Gerais where the most traditional cachacas are made) coupled with a more familiar aged profile based on American oak… which in turn saves the more endangered Brazilian barrel woods from overharvesting.

The question is whether that translates into a cane juice spirit that we who cut our teeth on French island agricoles could both relate to and enjoy for its own character. The initial nose of the 43% cachaça does indeed smell promising: it is so green it squeaks going into a turn. It’s freshly cut green grass, steamed vegetables and palm fronds….if they were liquid. It smells herbal, of sugar water and citrus peel and kitchen spices, and yet also briny and solid — a bucket of salt beef mixing it up with sharp tannic and woodsy notes, and not too many sweet fleshy fruits.

The taste moves right along from there. Grassy and green tea flavours are prominent at first, but other sweet notes develop over time as well: light honey, caramel, vanilla, peas. After opening up, the fruits that seemed to be missing from the nose turn up here: watermelon, pears, white guavas, even sweet peas and steamed corn, mixed up with some soya, lemongrass and parsley in a mild vegetable soup. It leads to a quiet and short finish mostly characterized by grassy notes and some sweetish, very mild fruits.

Novo Fogo’s one year old cachaça is an interesting variation on rhums we know. The sweet, herbal notes are not out to lunch or abnormal, and the use of the American oak has helped maintain a lightly-aged profile that other cachacas with more aggressive use of native woods might not (as Delicana showed here and here, it can be a bit hit and miss). Overall, the whole experience is somewhat removed from that of young or unaged agricoles generally, which is as it should be, since we’re not talking about a French island rhum, or a cane juice spirit made in the Indian Ocean islands with the esters dialled up to “11”. The ancestry is, however, quite clear, and anyone who has had even a passing familiarity with agricoles will find much that is recognizable and enjoyable with the “Chameleon”, especially at that approachable strength of 43%.

That might be the secret behind the name: it is a rhum – a cachaça – made in Brazil, but hews so close to the profile we know that it might in fact be taken for something else. Only the sly off-kilter notes and occasional divergences are there to tell you it’s not, and I submit that those differences are what make it interesting, and worth taking a chance on…as long as you don’t mind going off the beaten track a bit.

(#849)(81/100)

Other notes

  • The producer was originally a small distillery from Morretes, which is located in the south of Brazil, founded in 2004 by Fulgencio Torres Viruel (known simply as “Torres”) and master distiller Agenor Maccari (“Dr. Cachaça”), and in 2010 the Novo Fogo brand was launched after entrepreneurs Dragos and Emily Axinte partnered up to produce it. Most of the press you will find dates from 2015 which was the date that these four people acquired the facilities of Agroecologia Marumbi SA, a USDA organic certified distillery. This allowed an increase in production which in turn led to exports to North America and Europe around 2017.
  • Ever since its introduction to the festival and bartending circuit in that year, the brand has been gaining in recognition, taking its place alongside old-staple-cachaças like Leblon, Pitu, Avua and Yaguara. Its ever-increasing brand-awareness is tied to their organic and environmentally friendly production processes and stated commitment to sustainable production.
  • Novo Fogo cachaça is derived from sugar cane grown without herbicides or pesticides, and the organic nature of the operations is a major point of their process. The cane is manually harvested and taken to an onsite press that extracts the pure juice, with the leftover bagasse recycled as fuel and fertilizer. Fermentation takes around 24 hours using wild yeast and the 7%-9% wine is then passed through a copper pot still. The resultant spirit is either rested in stainless steel tanks or put to age in American oak casks, though smaller quantities are aged in barrels made of local woods for various other expressions.
  • I reached out to Novo Fogo, curious to find out more about the name, and Luke McKinley responded from the Seattle office and replied “We gave Chameleon its name because it’s a versatile cachaça that can “blend in” to a variety of cocktails. At just 1 year of age, it retains the sugarcane funk of our unaged Silver Cachaça, but picks up enough characteristics from the American oak ex-bourbon barrels to work in stirred, spirituous cocktails.”

 

That Boutique-y Rum Co. Casa Santana 12 YO Colombia Rum – Review

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Jun 242020
 

It’s a peculiar facet of That Boutique-y Rum Company (Master of Malt’s rum arm) and their marketing, that Pete Holland, their brand ambassador (he has some other title, but this is what he is) is so completely identified with the brand. As I’ve noted before, that’s largely because of his inclusion on the brightly coloured, easter-egg-filled, self-referential labels on the company’s rums, done by the talented Jim of Jim’ll Paint It. And yet, he looms larger in memory than in actuality – when you go back and count, there are 33 releases to date and Pete is (to our detriment) only on four — Novo Fogo 1, Diamond 1, Diamond 3, and the relabelled Bellevue.

Well, our loss. Those pictures are bright, well done, artistically impressive and display a sly sense of humour (whether or not Pete is included), and remind me somewhat of the works of Michael Godard or Cassius Coolidge. This one represents the Casa Santana bodega of Baranquilla, Colombia (they supplied the rum directly, though they are not a distillery), which in this instance has blended together rums from multi-column stills in Venezuela, Panama and Colombia (no proportions given). The FB page says it’s been entirely aged “at source” but since that’s confusing, I checked and it was new-make spirit brought into the country, blended and aged in Colombia, and released at 58.4%. Outturn is quite large, 3,766 bottles.

Right, all that out of the way, what’s it like? To smell, surprisingly…gentle, even at that strength. Firm yes, I just expected something sharper and more pissed off. It’s got really soft brown flavours, to me – chocolate, freshly ground coffee beans, toffee, ginger and a nice touch of salted caramel and cloves. There’s some coconut shavings, tea, vanilla and molasses in the background, just not much, and overall smells creamy rather than tart or spicy.

The palate is where most of the action occurs on this rum (sometimes the reverse is true). There’s that smooth, warm coffee, and chocolate note again, caramel, raisins, molasses, honey, as well as brine and olives. The balancing off of these musky, deep flavours with something sharper and crisper is not well achieved – one can sense some vanilla, ginger, brine, but a more delicate floral or citrus note is absent (or ducking), and instead we get spicy tannic hint that perhaps was deemed sufficient. I should mention the finish, which is medium-long, spicy, redolent of nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla and salted caramel, with a touch of rubber more felt than actually experienced…but nice anyway.

The literature remarks that there are no additives and the rum is not particularly sweet. But it is gentle and creamy and tastes that way. I thought it was, on balance, okay, but not particularly challenging or original — an observation that attends many South American rums I have tried over the last years, irrespective of the stills they come off of. Nicolai Wachmann, my friend the Danish rum-ninja who was with me when I tried it, remarked it was “Too closed,” and what he meant by that was that you felt there was more…but never got the payoff, it hid itself a little too well, never came out and engaged with you the way a top-end rum would. As an after-dinner digestif, this thing is pretty good, just unaggressive — and escapes being called placid by the firmness of its strength and the pleasantness of the experience. As a rum an aficionado would cherish? … not so much.

(#739)(80/100)

Other notes

  • Rumtastic and MoM themselves, both mentioned pimento in the profile, but I didn’t get that at all, not did I sense the tar or engine oil that they wrote about. “The provenance is dodgy,” Rum Revelations commented in a September 2020 review, noting that he did not feel it was completely – if at all – a Colombian rum, given the multiple-country sourcing.
  • In the picture you can see the ageing barrels of the bodega in the background; I’m sure the central figure is a play on Carlos Santana’s “Black Magic Woman;” the movies “Vertigo” and “Sound of Music” are in the small paintings left and right (referring to the character Maria, also from one of his songs); the condor is the national bird of the country and the number 20 is represented both in the winning hand and the box of matches (dunno why though); apparently the lady on the right is Jenny, a brand manager for the company, and I have no idea why a game Snakes and Ladders would be on the table. That’s about all I can come up with.

Ron Millonario 10th Anniversary “Cincuenta” – Review

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Apr 302020
 

By the time this review is read, digested and (incredulously) sniffed over and dismissed, somebody out there might well be sharpening pen, tablet or iphone and getting ready to verbally off me online. And no surprise – were I to repeat the hosannas of my original 2012 review of the Millonario XO, which scored what would now be considered a near-unbelievable, is-the-Caner-out-of-his-friggin’-mind? 88 points, I would never be taken seriously again. The rum has become a lightning rod for rum purists, on par with the Diplo Res Ex, Dictador, Zacapa 23 or the Zaya 21, all of which are from South America, feature big numbers and small type and fine print, are almost all soleras (named so or not) and worst of all, are all tarted up with additives of one kind or another to a degree that is off putting in the Age of Foursquare, New Jamaicans and the big Indies.

Such matters in any adulterated rum would itself wouldn’t be all that problematic if (a) these things were spelled out clearly and (b) the labelling wasn’t so self-evidently deceptive and (c) the marketing wasn’t so heavy on the bullsh*t. Rum Nation, which until recently produced and distributed the Millonario (which is made from facilities in Peru), didn’t escape such opprobrium, but since the original XO came out more than ten years back, and since so much of what RN did since then was so well received, I’m guessing some slack was granted for lesser knowledge and expertise back in the day; and as time passed reviews dried up…and the Millonario brand, while it sold extremely well, fell into a sort of limbo.

But Fabio Rossi has sold off the Rum Nation name and portfolio to concentrate on this one line of rums, which he evidently prefers (he remains in a consultancy capacity for the RN brand) or which sells a whole lot better. This deserves some consideration since he does know his spirits and has been in the game of rum for over two decades, and undoubtedly picked up a thing or two. And so, when he handed me the 2018 release (which had been matured in 2nd fill sherry casks and was actually stated to have 20g/L of added sugar), although I initially backed off and mumbled something about this not being my cup of tea any longer, honour and curiosity demanded I give it a shot anyway…so later I snuck back and tried it.

Let’s be clear, this is not in any sense one of the headliners of the various FB fora where people boast about scoring one. The nose is, bluntly, rather blunt. It’s like sucking a fruity snickers bar. It has a solid, smooth and aromatic nose in which the sweet has – somewhat surprisingly – less omnipresence than I would have expected. With that also comes something of a darkish tone to the experience – chocolate, toffee, molasses, coffee, nougat, vanilla and some fleshy fruit – prunes and plums and blackberries I’d say, which lend a certain light citrus element that was unlooked-for and quite surprising. It’s demonstrably not a Demerara, though the resemblance is there…but a newcomer to rum might not see much difference between an ED 12 and this, were they both at the same strength.

What distinguished the taste of the rum then, and again now, through all the years, is its thick firmness which feels akin to having a solid weight brush across the tongue. The original 40% of the XO fails it nowadays (my opinion) but the intriguing thing about pushing the strength up to 50% which this has, is that it kind of works. The tastes on the palate, are, for one, much clearer: there are marshmallows, toblerone, almonds, nuts, coffee, bitter chocolate, caramel, anise, well balanced, melding pleasantly. To this are added berries, watermelon, vanilla and some breakfast spices and cumin if you focus, with a feather bed of a finish closing things off – apples, chocolate, bitter coffee grounds, and again, some fruits and vanilla.

A 50% ABV rum like this, a solera (I assume – there is no age statement), sweet, fruity, heavy, firmer than the XO, less elegant than the Solera 15…well, it’s not as brutal as a Caroni or New Jamaican, softer than the pot column blends of the Bajans (but not as good, sorry – Barbados still gets my coin in a head-to-head)…this rum is not as bad as detractors may feel, and reminds me a lot of what I’ve often said in defense of the XO – “there’s a lot more under the hood of this thing than most admit.” But that said, there’s no denying it’s not for everyone, for the same reasons.

I make no apologies for this, offer no excuses, no defense – it is what it is. It’s been sweetened, it feels sticky, it leaves a residue of aromatic sugar in your glass that any insect would happily swim and drown in, and that’s the rum’s cross to bear. Every person who reads this review and is thinking of buying or trying it, has to make their peace with that, to walk away, or give in and accept. What I maintain though, is that it’s not half bad for what it is (and as long as you come to it knowing that), which is why I score it at 79 and not below the median of 75, beneath which a rum is not at all to my taste. I wouldn’t have it in quantity and some wouldn’t have it at all; others would quaff it by the bottle, and still more would have it after dessert only, perhaps with a cigar. I don’t know all of you and what you would do. But you each know who you are. Hopefully this rambling review helps you make up your mind one way or another.

(#722)(79/100)

Fortin “Heroica” Paraguay Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Mar 022020
 

Every now and then we find some peculiar, almost completely unknown rum in some unlikely spot, and are struck by exactly how far flung and widespread the production of the spirit really is. I mean, if you aren’t a rumfest junkie or deep diver (and perhaps even if you are), can you recall much about Paraguayan rums?

Paraguay — one of two landlocked countries in South America (quick, name the other one) — is something of a newcomer on the international rum scene, and most of the rums they have made that are distributed abroad have only come on the scene in the last two decades — previously, just about the entire production was local, or regional. And according to some basic research, so far they have stuck with the traditional rons and not gone too far off the reservation. All that is now changing, as they begin to seek a space on the export shelf.

The Heroica we are looking at today is a rum created to take its place alongside its siblings the Black label, the Suave, and the lightly aged Anejos – it is named to commemorate the fallen heroes of the Battle of Piribebuy in August 1869 (part of the devastating Paraguayan War which that country eventually and decisively lost). Yet oddly, it is not mentioned on its website, and neither is either of the other two rums which won prizes in the International Rum Conference in 2015 and 2016.

Here’s what we know – made from rendered sugar cane juice (“honey”), fermented for 72 hours using wild yeast, column distilled, then aged in all kinds of barrels – American oak (ex-bourbon), cognac, Pedro Ximenez and also Marcuya “fruit of passion” wood from Paraguay. Once that’s done, the resultant rons are blended to form the final product. The age is currently unknown — I’ll update this paragraph if I get feedback from their marketing folks — but I’ll hazard a guess it’s medium…about 3-6 years. Little of this, by the way, is noted on the label, which only says it is a Paraguayan rum, commemorates the 1869 battle, is aged in oak vats and 40%. Wonderful. Clearly the word “disclosure” gets more lip service than real purchase over there.

All right, tasting notes. The nose begins with a standard “Cuban” profile – honey, caramel, citrus and faint molasses. These are leavened after some minutes by intriguingly deeper earthy and musky notes of damp soil and wet leaves, some salt and lighter fruits. But mostly it’s the first four — quite straightforward, not too complicated, an easy basket of soft and breathy vapours that cause no problems whatsoever.

The taste pretty much continues in that vein. It’s soft, it’s warm, it’s easy, it demands nothing, and provides a feather pillow for your taste buds. That might seem to be a disqualifier, but while it is to a certain extent simple, it also has enough edge and differences to make to display some character too. One can easily discern and separate honey, cherries in syrup, ice cream, salted nuts, citrus, molasses…underneath all that is the loamy sense of a damp, cool, leafy forest floor, both deep and sharp at the same time. There is a vague aftertaste of nuttiness and sour cream and bread, but this is relatively minor, adding little to the complexity of what’s on offer. And it finishes fast — soft, a quick whiff of toffee, nougat and candied oranges, and it’s gone.

In fine, there’s not much urgent vitality and shivering strength here, nothing to wow the socks off or blow the hair back. It lacks punch and vibrancy, is too easygoing to appeal to me (though clearly not to its adherents and national fans) and seems to want to play it safe within the overall ambit of Spanish style rons. Still, it exhibits more of interest than these remarks might suggest and I think the low strength might be key to understanding how it fails to excite the attention that it could get were it stronger, and those background tastes could come out more decisively.

Spanish-heritage-style rums from South and Central America all have a certain similarity, and while I don’t care for their light softness as much as I once did, I continue examining any new one that crosses my path in the hope of finding one that’ll rejuvenate my affection for their softer charms. This isn’t it, but just for the opportunity to dive into a new rum from a country that’s not renowned for rum and that has produced one we have not heard of before, I can’t say that trying this one was a waste of my time. Fortunately, I liked it enough, and for anyone who likes this kind of ron, I doubt they’d be disappointed in their turn.

(#706)(79/100)

Historical Background

Fortin dates from the post-1989 era and takes advantage of a change in legislation regarding alcohol at that time. From 1941 to 1989 the production and sale of alcohol (and spirits) was a state monopoly, run by the Paraguayan Alcohol Corporation in which the Government and producers both had stakes. Officially this was to rationalize standards, assign quotas, regulate competition and prevent tax evasion, but in reality it was to ensure the commercial elites went into business with the government to share in / siphon off the revenues. After Alfredo Stroessner (the last of a series of military jefes ruling since the 1930s) was toppled in 1989 the laws were relaxed and private industry began to revive.

Fortin was formed around 1993 as a sugar producer by Gustavo Díaz de Vivar, and although it started in Capiatá area to the immediate SE of the capital, Asunción, the company soon moved further east to the town of Piribebuy; after the sugar business took off, he and his son Javier Díaz de Vivar (the current president of Fortin) diversified into rum production with a multi-column still bolted onto the already existing sugar factory they had built. I have an outstanding email to them about their production methods over and above what this article provides (e.g., where does the cane and honey come from?) so an update may come if they respond.

Dictador Best of 1977 Solera Aged Rum – Review

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Dec 072017
 

#466

“Sample #18 reminds me of a Don Papa,” grumbled a Philippine friend of mine, who was blind tasting some samples I had sent over to Quezon City. “Hot distillate on the nose, very sweet.” In those few words he encapsulated something of my own unease about the Dictador rums out of Colombia, because while hydrometer tests reveal no adulteration for the 12 and 20 year soleras, and probably none for the Insolent and Perpetual (they measure 3-4 g/L which is within the margin of error), the plain fact is that they simply taste too damned sweet…a characteristic of most solera-style rums I’ve tried. Which would lead any cynical rumhound, in these sad and suspicious times, to posit that maybe they understated the actual ABV so that a hydrometer test would register exactly what the label says.

Given that the zero-additives-registered 12 and 20 somewhat predated the current sugar imbroglio, one could make the case they’re not pulling a fast one, but the question refuses to go away — because when Cyril tried the “Best of 1978” version it came out as 17 g/L and even if this were not the case, when you try this rum from a year earlier, you cannot help but feel that there’s more in its trouser pockets than a pair of hands. That does not make it entirely bad, and since many have said nice things about it, perhaps it’s merely one you should be wary about buying if your personal palate does not run to the lighter, sweeter Spanish style of rums in general, or soleras in particular. And if you want to know exactly what you’re buying, well, that’s a matter for my opinions down below this review.

Anyway, tasting notes: all those who have tried the various Dictador expressions have remarked on the coffee undertones: that remained strong here as well – it’s something of a Dictador signature. It was soft and rounded, exhibiting gentle, creamy notes of sweet blancmange, bon bons and caramel. There was something of a red wine background here, raisins, and a vague fruitiness that was maddeningly elusive because it never quite emerged and came to the fore with any kind of authority. The nose therefore came through as something of a sleeping beauty behind a frosted glass case – I could sense some potential, but was never quite able to get the kiss of life from it…the liqueur note to the smells, while not as overpowering as on the 20, kept getting in the way.

Things were slightly more impressive to taste, because here the strength of 45.5% worked better, and it presented as a little edgy, a little jagged, if lacking that smooth purring of velvet which we might have expected (and the ease of which were other defining characteristics of the 12 or the 20 along with that over-sweetened coffee which wouldn’t go away) – this, to the 1977’s credit, added some character: chocolate, coffee (again), cumin, a light lemony flirt of coriander, ginger, even sweet red paprika: but the core of it all remains the caramel-coffee. Ultimately, however, it remained relatively uncomplex, fragile…even weak — the flavours were somewhat unassertive, flat, jittered around too much and fell away too quickly. My personal opinion was that it lacked punch and staying power, which was most to be remarked on the finish which was a quick burst of caramel, coffee, chocolate and oaken heat mixed up with some black tea….and then it was gone. Poof.

Now that’s not to say we’re sure, when all is said and done, the nose nosed, the palate palated and the finish finished, that we’re entirely clear what we had. Certainly it was some of something, but was it much of anything? I’m going to have to piss off some people (including maybe even my compadre in the Philippines) by suggesting that yes, I think it was…better, at least, than the preceding remarks might imply, or than I had expected going in. For one thing, while it was sweet, it was not excessively so (at least compared to the real dentist’s wet dreams such as Don Papa 7, or the A.H. Riise). It had reasonably nice tastes and smells, so as a dessert rum or smooth, sweet sipping experience, this will do the job. It delivers for all those who like that profile — and from what I am led to understand by many correspondents of mine, this is the style that is preferred in South and Central America, and the Spanish Caribbean, hence its enduring popularity.

So here’s what I’ll do. If you like this kind of thing, add five points to my score. If you detest soleras, sweeter rums or underpowered blended drinks, subtract five. Either way, you’ll probably come out with the perfect number to represent your own feelings on the matter. Me, I rate it as a middling decent rum which needs less sweet, less coffee, more disclosure, more complexity…and the courage to stop with the solera moniker, call it a blend, age it for the full monty, and for sure add quite a bit of extra oomph. Then I might buy not just a bottle, but a case.

(80/100)

Other notes

  • Bottle #84 of 300.
  • In a curious coincidence, the Cocktail Wonk posted an informative article on the whole business of soleras for Punch Magazine just the other day. That and DuRhum’s (French) article on Dictador are useful background reading to my opinion below.
  • Note the “Cask Ref” field in the second photo. The “P” stands for Port Cask aged; other variations are “AO” for American Oak, “W” for Wine, and “S” for Sherry
  • The RumShopBoy reviewed the Best of 1981 in September 2018 and made remarks similar to those here, scoring it 76

Opinion

The “Best of 1977” sounds real good, but is ultimately useless as any kind of standard by which to measure it since no additional information is given as to how old it is, even in solera terms. I wish I could tell you it’s 1977-2016 or 1950-1977 or something, but there’s simply nothing to go on here. Dictador do themselves no favours in this matter by consistently naming their various rums as “Aged 12 years” or “Aged 20 years” (with “solera” in much smaller typeface on the label), when of course they are nothing of the kind by commonly accepted parlance – the oldest rum in the blend is that old not the youngest, there is no mention of how much of that age is included, and even the average age is a matter of conjecture. It may be legal, but it is somewhat deceptive too. The same issue afflicts the entire “Best of…” series and dilutes their effectiveness in all the ways that matter to those who want to know what they’re buying. Because we really don’t know, and can’t tell.

Quite aside from ageing (or lack thereof) consider the the whole question of tasted-but-untested additives. The “Best of…” series are an informational sinkhole of gargantuan proportions, an exercise in enormous frustration. Henrik Kristoffersen nailed it in November 2017 on the Global Rum Club forum where he asked where this stuff came from and were they really sitting on barrels from as far back as 1966 for this long? Others chipped in asking how ageing any barrels that long could possibly leave anything behind after the angels took their bite of the pizza. Still others noted the same barrel reference on both the Best of 1981 and the Best of 1966 bottle labels. Then there were the discussions on whether anything was actually distilled by Dictador or whether they (like Hechicera, also from Colombia) sourced distillate from around the continent. And then there was Cyril’s take-no-prisoners French-language article on Dictador as a whole, which did not leave either the company or their big gun looking too good.

If this isn’t a poster child for the application of The Rum Chum’s First Law (“Drink what you like…know what you drink”) I don’t know what is. It sips well if you like that profile, but God help you if you want to find out what it’s made of, how old it is, or where it comes from. And before you think that I’m being unreasonably snarky, note that a discussion like this is not a mere academic rum geek pastime – knowing what you’re looking at allows you to rate and assess its price in your local shop (the 1977 edition goes for north of $200, and the 1966, labelled as “51 years,” is closing in on €500). If you can’t find out whether the damned thing is five years old or fifty, whether it’s pot or column, solera or true-aged, added-to or clean…then the producer has betrayed his trust with you; and you’re within your rights to not only demand more, but to ask the hard questions of anyone who is trying to regurgitate a bunch of marketing folderol without actually saying much of anything. For sure we’re not getting the whole story here and since we don’t know what we’re buying, I’d suggest you leave this review and opinion, with me having spent my coin so you don’t have to spend yours.

(Closing note: this Opinion dovetails with my other commentaries on the matter of trust, detailed in or as opinions below, the reviews of the Malecon 79, Mombacho 19 and the Don Papa Rare Cask).

Rum Nation Peruano 8 Year Old Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Mar 162016
 

D3S_3649

More tamed Peruvian sunshine.

It’s been quite a few months since I picked up a Rum Nation product to write about. This is not to say that they have either lapsed in sleep or are resting on the laurels of past achievements, since just the other day they put out some promo materials for two new Guadeloupe rums I’m going to keep an eye out for. However, today I wanted to look at one of their other countries’ offerings, the Peruano 8 year old.

Aficionados are no strangers to rums from that country: both the Millonario XO and Millonario 15 soleras hail from there, Bristol Spirits pushed out an 8 year old Peruvian I quite liked, and Cartavio continues to issue rums such as their own XO Solera — all of which adhere to the medium-to-light, easygoing and sweet profile that excites admiration and despite in equal measure depending on who’s talking. This one matches most closely with the Bristol Spirits version, and that was no slouch…it made me reconsider my decades long love affair with pungent Jamaican and Demerara rums (just kidding).

D3S_3650Anyway, the Peruano 8: an dark gold-copper coloured rum, clocking in at 42% ABV, and deriving from the Trujillo gents who also make the Cartavio XO. Fabio told me once that some years back he was seeking a very light, delicate rum to take on Zacapa, and thought he found it in Peru, in the Pomalca distillery which also produces the Cartavio on what looks like a muticolumn still. The initial rums he got from there formed the Millonario 15 and XO rums, and these were successful enough for him to issue a Peruvian in its own right, aged for eight years in bourbon casks. No more mucking about with soleras here.

I certainly approved. Rums like this are easy going and don’t want to smack you over the head with the casual insouciance of a bouncer in a bar at the dodgy end of town, and sometimes it’s a good thing to take a breather from more feral and concussive full proof rums. This one provided all the nasal enjoyment of a warm chesterfield with a couple of broken springs: lightly pungent and aromatic, with a jaggedly crisp edge or two. Cherries, apricots, cloves, nutmeg, some vegetals, chocolate, a slice of pineapple, and sugar water and cucumbers. Kinda weird, but I liked it – the smells harmonized quite well.

The palate was pleasant to experience, and brought back to memory all other Peruvians that came before. The light clarity — almost delicacy — was maintained and demonstrated that it is possible to sometimes identify different rums made from the same source…here it was almost self-evident. Tannins, vanillas, fruits, brown sugar (too much of this, I thought), some caramel, all melding into each other; peaches in unsweetened cream, some easy chocolate and pineapple flavours and a tart cherry and citrus blast or two allowing a discordancy to draw attention to the softness and lightness of the others. What so distinguished this rum and the others from Peru (including Bristol Spirits’ own Peruvian 8) is the way the various components balanced off so no single one of them really dominated…it was like they had all learned to live together and share the space in harmony. Finish was perfectly fine (if short): sweet, warm, and very much like a can of mixed fruits in syrup just after you open it and drain off the liquid.

I’ve unwillingly come to the conclusion that many Spanish style rums — and particularly these from Peru which I’ve tried to date — almost have to be issued at par proof points. There’s something about their overall delicacy which mitigates against turbocharging them too much. The Millonario XO went in another direction by the inclusion of sugar (for which many have excoriated it), but one senses that were it and its cousins be too strong, it would destroy the structural fragility of the assembly that is their characteristic, and they would simply become starving alley cats of glittering savagery and sharp claws, and that does no-one any favours.

The downside of that approach is that it limits the use such a rum can be put to. Rums this light don’t always make good cocktails, are more for easy sipping (that’s my own personal opinion…you may disagree), and to some extent this drives away those guys who prefer the dark massiveness of a 60% full proof. Still, I’ve made the comment before, that I drink different rums depending on how I’m feeling, and for a pleasant sundowner on the beach when it’s time to relax and unwind (and I’m not unduly pissed off at the universe), this one ticks all the boxes and is a pleasant reminder that not all rums have to beat you over the glottis to get your attention.

(#261. 84.5/100)

Other notes:

  • It could just be me, but I think there’s something else lurking in the background of this rum. It’s slightly deeper and smoother in profile, and definitely sweeter, than the Bristol Spirit’s rum which is the same age. Some subtle dosage, perhaps? No idea. If so, it really wasn’t needed…it actually detracts from the profile.
  • Fabio considers this another one of his entry-level rums, and whenever he says that, I always laugh, since his products are usually a cut above the ordinary no matter what they are.

Ron Cacique Antiguo – Review

 No Responses »
Nov 122015
 

Cacique Antiguo 1

Supposedly more premium, but not a whole lot better than the 500.

Here’s a poster child of why a rum reviewer has to have the beady-eyed practicality of a jaded streetwalker. Age, style, marketing, pamphlets, labels, word of mouth, all count for nothing, and all is evaluated without recourse to what anyone else says.

After reviewing the €35 Cacique 500 as well as the Veroes Añejo from Venezuela, and checking around to see what else I could buy from that country, I felt it was only fair to pick up something a little higher up on the value chain (but only one), just to see how the Cacique brand developed as it got older: the Antiguo, selling for around €61, is a 12 year old rum aged in French white oak (Bordeaux, it’s been said) and quite an interesting rum, if not particularly ground breaking in any way: it does however present somewhat better than its predecessor.

My bottle was a cardboard-box-enclosed chubby flagon with a metal wrapped cork topping, so evidently the makers took some time to make the appearance match its marketing pedigree. All good there. It poured out a golden brown spirit with a nose that was light and easy, utterly unaggressive, redolent of perfumed bougainvilleas, lavender and honey. It was quite pleasant, except perhaps even smelling it suggested an overabundance of sugary sweetness, a cloying scent of, well, too many flowers. And it was still a little lacking in the intensity I prefer. Still, it settled down very nicely after some minutes (I was tasting some other rums at the time, so sat it down and came back later) – it got warmer and more solidly aromatic after ten minutes or so. Some nuts, tarts with strawberries but more tart than berry, cereal…you know, like those Danish butter cookies with some jam in the center. And even some lemon peel lurking in the background.

The taste was a country mile ahead of the nose. At 40% I more or less expected a tame, soft drink, and I got that, as well as an unusually sharp introduction which fortunately faded away quickly, leaving just warmth. It was still a very light bodied rum – I suppose we could call it ‘Spanish style’ – flowery, delicate to taste. I want to use the word ‘round’ to describe how the texture felt in the mouth, coating all corners equally, but let’s just say it provided the sensation of a thin honey-like liquid, warm and mild, quite tasty, too luscious to be dry. A pinch of salt, a dab of butter, a spoon of cream cheese, mixed in with a cup of sugar water and honey, a squeeze of lime, and a grating of nutmeg and crushed walnuts. It was good, I went back a few times and recharged the glass (in a period spanning several days), just not something to rave over. Admittedly, what I’ve described wasn’t all – over time and with a little water, some oak peeked out from under the sweet skirts, vague peaches and molasses, and an odd, woody, even anise note popped in and out of view, here now, gone a second later. The finish was something of a let down – medium short, a little dry, flowers, some salt butter and a shade of vanilla; unexceptional really.

You’re going to buy and enjoy this one for the taste, I think, not how it ends. That midsection is decent and lifts it above what I thought were lacklustre beginnings and endings, and perhaps more attention should be paid to beefing this rum up a little. It is a perfectly serviceable 40% rum, and I’ve read many Venos extolling its virtues online.

But it’s nearly twice the price of the 500, and not twice as good. I look for certain things in a rum, and this didn’t provide all that many of them. I’m unclear for how many years this rum has been in production: fairly recently, I think, though it has been noted that the traditions behind the company go back many decades. For now I can say that what the Cacique Antiguo has shown us is relatively new (and interesting), but that, in fine, doesn’t mean that what they have presented is news.

(#240 / 84/100)

Other notes

  • I’ve gone into the company and production background a little in the 500 essay, so I won’t repeat it here.
  • There’s a lot of the profile of the Santa Teresa 1796 here, or maybe the Diplomaticos. Too bad I didn’t have them around to do a comparison, but it would be instructive to try that one day.
  • It is supposedly made on old copper pot stills, but I must say that the taste doesn’t really support that. I accept it…but with reservations
  • The brand is now owned by Diageo.

Ron Veroes Añejo – Review

 5 Responses »
Aug 132015
 

D3S_9085

Frankly, I get more excitement looking for the keys in my pocket.

Like most people, the stuff I’ve tried from Venezuela are the Pamperos, the AJ Vollmer rums of Santa Teresa, and the Diplomaticos from Destileridas Unidas, the latter of which have recently been getting some flak on social media for their over-sugary backbones. Let me add to the Veno lineup with the Veroes, which won medals in 2012 from both the Madrid World Congress of Rum (and again in 2013) and from the XPs at the Miami Rum Renaissance. I think the Cacique 500 is knocking about somewhere, I’ll probably look at that soon as well.

For the history buffs, Veroes is a part of a group of family businesses. With the 2009 acquisition of San Javier Distillery (itself founded in 1974, though 1975 and 1976 are also quoted in various online sources), the inclusion of commercial recreational spirits took off . San Javier Distillery is located in north-central Venezuela and the brand of Veroes seems to have been theirs. Their expansion into the export market gathered steam after a 2009 modernization and while not precisely unknown in North America, their current thrust is primarily into Europe (Spain for the most part).

In a 2015 interview with GotRum Magazine, it was stated that there were no inclusions and additions whatsoever in the Añejo, so we were certainly getting a pure rum here. I should mention, that there are some discrepancies in various online materials regarding its true ageing: Industries Bravo, a distributor in Venezuela, says it’s 4 years old; Mr. Leopoldo Ayala of CEO of Destilería San Javier (DSJ) and Destilería Veroes (DV), Venezuela, said it’s six years old, in 2015; The Madrid International Rum Conference gave it a silver in the “five years old or less” category, and the booth attendant at the Berlin Rum Fest was absolutely sure it was a blend of rums between 2-5 years of age. So go figure. A private message to Veroes themselves gave me the reply that it is a blend of five year old rums…they may be having some trouble getting the word out.

The 40% rum was golden in colour; nosing provided an initially very sharp and spicy entrance, with opening scents of floor wax, herbal tea, incense and alcohol. In some cases such a melange works, in others not. Here, not so much. I endured the unappealing sharpness at the front end, and it mellowed out into more traditional molasses, vanilla and caramel as time passed. I literally hung around with the rum and talked to my glass for over ten minutes exchanging anecdotes (with the glass) about other rums we had known and met over the years, but complexity (or conversation) did not seem to be its ambition or its forte, and apart from some additional light floral and citrus notes, it had nothing further to offer me. So, not being overly inspired thus far (or by its ability to speak), but knowing that sometimes nose and palate diverge widely in quality, I moved on.

The palate: reasonably smooth, a shade spicy, medium to light bodied; clear and clean and much less heated than those nose. It provided pleasant, unremarkable flavours of vanilla and caramel; quite a bit of woodiness in there; the rum seemed to have no particular unique character of its own that would make it stand out, which can be read as both a compliment and a denunciation, I suppose. Adding water helped a little, just not enough to raise the bar. Certainly coconut, some cherries and a flirt of citrus made themselves known, yet I felt that it needed more, more of everything – heft, intensity, weight, complexity, flavours – to succeed better, even as a cocktail ingredient. The finish confirmed this – it was clean and short, nothing additional to report, without attitude or real complexity.

D3S_9088

 

Maybe I’m being somewhat curt with my rejection of what is a workmanlike rum, reasonably made, if unexciting to behold. Perhaps even unfair, given that it is a young rum still growing out of training wheels and likely not made to be a sipping rum. There are indeed older variants of the brand, six and twelve years old, which I have not tried, and it’s likely that satisfaction is to be gained there, as is usual with older expressions higher up the price and value chain. And after all, it did win those medals in Madrid, got a nod from the XPs, so others appreciate it. This one may be all about opinion, then.

But for me, the Veroes Añejo is a young rum, too light and untamed. A mixing agent, that’s all. This is not a rum I particularly disliked, or, conversely, particularly enjoyed. I was left feeling very little of anything. It absorbed enjoyment, anger, challenge, complexity, artistry, character, the way a black hole absorbs…well, everything. Finishing my tasting and writing up my detailed notes, all that remained was a peculiar indifference, hanging around like the Cheshire cat’s grin. Normally I revel in the plunge to dissect a drink’s profile: here, I’d much rather remain on the event horizon and hang around, getting older while waiting for its more aged siblings.

(#226. 77/100)

Other notes:

The rum conforms to the Venezuelan CIVEA “Denominación de Origen Controlada” (DOC) which marks it as Venezuelan rum adhering to certain standards of aging, production and bottling. I have not yet done any research to see how closely this lines up with the French AOC.

Bristol Spirits Reserve Rum of Peru 8 Years Old – Review

 8 Responses »
Mar 312015
 

D3S_9014

A clean, warm and smooth rum from Peru, which is extremely accessible to anyone who doesn’t like cask strength rums.

Into the shadowed world of dronish and often-boring label design, the screaming green of the Peruano stands out like a neon tarantula on a wedding cake. It’s an assault on the visual cortex that can’t help but make you catch your breath, mutter an amused “wtf?” and move in for a closer look. Not that this has anything to do with the quality of the rum inside, of course. I merely bring up the point to remark on the fact that originality in any form is a vanishing breed in the rum world and we should be grateful for such small winks from the craft makers even if it’s only a marketing plug.

Bristol Spirits is an independent bottler out of the UK which started life in 1993, and is therefore something of a recent entrant to the field (Cadenhead, by contrast, has been around for over a hundred and fifty years). Their barrel selection from the various countries around the Caribbean has created an enviable track record of limited bottlings; I’ll always have good memories of the Port Mourant 1980, and the 1970s era editions remain on my must-have list. They don’t seem to hew to any particular ageing philosophy – some of their older bottlings were aged in the UK, while others, like this one, were kept in situ.

Anyway, the obligatory opening remarks out of the way, what have we got here? An eight year old, molasses-based, column-still rum from Peru, made from the blend of eight barrels (distillery not mentioned) which were then aged at altitude in used bourbon casks before being shipped to Europe. And bottled at what for an independent bottler, seems a rather low-strength 40% (with some exceptions, they make most of their rums at 43-46%)…however, they noted in an email to me that they were quite happy with that proof.

Nosing the blonde spirit gave some clues as to why the decision may have been made in this instance: it was soft, clean…almost delicate. No pot still could have created something this light and unaggressive (my opinion). Initial smooth scents of hay and vegetal flavours gave way to more luscious soft fruit – peaches, ripe dark cherries, even a touch of mocha, but all very restrained, even shy. It was a rum that if you really wanted to dissect it, you really had to put some effort in.

As I poured it out and sampled it for the first time, I wondered what Bristol was trying to do here – make a competitor to Rum Nation’s Millonario 15, maybe? It shared many of the characteristics of that product: light to medium body, slightly sweet, immediately redolent of white guavas, flowers and a smooth cream cheese. But then it went its own way, and I noted a slight sharp whiff of bitterness emerging, bright and clear like the inlay on a ginsu knife. It was at odds with the easy-going nature of what had come before, while not entirely detracting from it – it provided, in fact, a kind of pleasing counterpoint, because the balance of the competing elements was pretty good. Adding water opened up more fruits, vanilla, some oak influence and a whiff of dry tobacco. For a standard strength rum it also exited well, though this was short, shy, bright, a little sharp, as if a can of peaches in syrup had been sprinkled with some cinnamon and lemon juice.

D3S_9017

Independent bottlers tend to be more associated with cask strength behemoths than such laid-back fare, so I was not entirely sure what Bristol’s intentions were, with this Peruvian eight year old. Their recent foray into spiced rum territory makes me worry that perhaps they are abandoning their craft-bottler, limited-edition ethic that produced such incandescent gems as the PM 1980, and now they are swinging for easier sales by diluting down to 40% (they didn’t specifically address that point in they communique to me, and I had not asked). On the other hand, the rum is gentle, even elegant (I had similar feelings about the Juan Santos 21 year old), and so perhaps this was something that had to be done lest additional proofage obliterate the subtler harmonies of what I detected.

Be that as it may, for anyone who likes standard strength rums without too much intensity or in-yer-face attitude, this is a good one. I’d be surprised if more editions from Peru don’t follow this one out the door, in the years to come. Because even with its limited outturn, I think a lot of people will enjoy it, and it leaves us all with another colourful tile in the worldwide mosaic of rum…if the label didn’t already provide that, of course.

(#209. 86/100)

Other notes

  • Based solely on the profile, I suspect this hails from the same distillery as the Millonario 15 and XO (Rum Nation never identified it); which implies it was from the Cartavio boys in Trujillo. On the other hand those rums are soleras and this one is not, and Trujillo is at sea level on the coast while Bristol noted the ageing took place at altitude: so the question remains open. For the record, Bristol declined to provide the distillery name or the number of bottles issued, but Fabio Rossi via Henrik from Denmark (see comments below) did acknowledge the source.
  • Marco on Barrel Aged Thoughts has a company profile and product listing for Bristol Spirits (in German), for those who are interested in other aspects of the company.

Ron Cartavio XO Solera – Review

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Mar 232013
 

A Millonario by another name, and as lovely.

Soleras as a rule tend toward the smooth and sweet side, and have a rather full body redolent of all sorts of interesting fruity flavours. My maltster friends regard this type of drink the way they would a sherry bomb (or a disrobed virgin, if one desperate enough could be found), with a mixture of hidden liking and puritan disdain. Still, after having had two fairly dry products in as many weeks, perhaps it was time to relax in a perfumed boudoir instead of the sere desert air. And because the Ron Cartavio XO was from Peru and a solera, I tried it together with the Ron Millonario Solera 15 and the Millonario XO which also hail from there, to see how it stacked up.

The Cartavio XO is pretty much the top of the line made by the company and is priced to match . It arrived in a black tin can and had a wooden tipped cork fixed into place by the twisted wire one might look for in a champagne…nice touch. Liked the bottle too…tapering, blocky, rounded shoulders, absolutely minimal design esthetic, and etched in gold (the tin can had most of the info, which was as it should be.

Smelling this was an exercise in repressed romanticism. Luscious is not a word that would be out of place to describe it. Creamy, almost like a mild citrus ice-cream, quite smooth and gentle on the nose. Apricots, cherries, vanilla, with just enough background of oaken tannins to provide some character. These scents mellowed gently into flower blossoms – in spite of its depth, the nose had a certain soft, clean brightness to it, like the skin of a sleepy baby after being freshly washed and powdered. It was without a doubt better than the Solera 15, but interestingly enough, it lacked some of the complex pungency that so elevated the Millonario XO.

The feel on the tongue was similarly rich and pleasant, though perhaps a shade more acerbic than the Millonario, but beyond that, quiet and heavy and quite aromatic. Here again is a rum that takes its time, being in no hustling rush to get the sipping experience over with. At 40%, there wasn’t going to be any aggro, no yobbish pummelling on the palate, and indeed, from that perspective, I wasn’t expecting any. The rum sang of vanilla and fruit (peaches and dried apricots), dark chocolate, sherry, nuts and a very faint vegetal note, all of which solidified into a rich and serene taste close to the fullness of honey (if not quite so thick).

The one thing it is not quite good at is the exit. Medium long, hints of nuts, caramel, a sweet-salt tang, with a closing flirt of nutmeg. Faintly dry, but not unpleasantly so – the fragrant, almost humid rush of closing scents married well with that profile, yet try it against the Millonario and see if it doesn’t quite come up to that standard. Sure it’s solid and has a pleasant finish (some would sigh beatifically and say “awesome”), yet perhaps it is a shade too quiet and polished and does not demonstrate any kind of singular, individualistic character all its own, that said it was a walk-on-water rum – it reminded me more of a liqueur (a very good one, mind), and here I thought there were similarities to other well-made drinks of some age and real quality, like the St Nicholas Abbey 12 year old, or the El Dorado 25, which were so well put together (and, unfortunately, so sweet) that they lost that sense of individuality exemplified by their own younger siblings. An issue worth remarking on.

Another point I’d like to make is this: the taste profile of the two XOs is extraordinarily similar. In fact, the two are so close together that I wondered whether Fabio Rossi of Rum Nation didn’t source his rum from Cartavio (for the record, he hedged when asked). It would take real effort to taste them side by side and know right off which was which. I’d say that the Millonario has the upper hand based on a slightly better nose, but in all other respects, these two excellent soleras are on par.

The Cartavio brand of rums was originally made in the coastal town of that name, just north of Lima: sugar cane grows in the area and has been since 1891, though the company was founded in 1929 – this XO is an 80th anniversary edition, quite limited in production. The parent company is Distilerias Unidas SAC, and they use molasses as the raw ingredient combined with a continuous fermentation process, utilizing a John Dore pot still and a continuous still.

Let’s sum up, then. Soft, pungent, all-round lovely, and the taste and palate being the best thing about it. I imagine you can make a cocktail with this rum. What I can’t imagine is why. The Cartavio XO may be among the best examples of passive aggression ever seen in the rum world, because clearly the distillers don’t want you to mix it (and my own take – you shouldn’t).. By the time you hit to the bottom of this baby, you’ll still be scratching your brow, wondering what the hell that last tiny hint of savour actually was. It really is that good.

In fine, this is a rum that is quiet, gentle, and flows without fuss or turmoil to a serene conclusion. It is a rural country stream, chuckling dreamily over rocks and burbling to its destination with no agenda – all it wants is to please, and it succeeds. It lacks the testosterone fury of a full- or overproof rum, and avoids the blandness of more commercial rums that sell by the tanker load: drinking this rum and revelling in its unaggressive and unassuming sophistication is something like loving another repressed person like yourself, dearly…and waiting for the kiss that never quite comes when you want it, but is going to happen, eventually, nevertheless — and be worth the wait when it does.

(#150. 88/100)

Other Notes

  • 2024 Video recap available using this link.
  • On the tin enclosure and on the website, Cartavio note that the rum is an 18 year old made in the solera method, aged in white oak barrels (some from Slovenia, how cool is that?) but caution must be exercised in what the age statement really means: is it a blend of rums originating from a solera whose average age is eighteen (unlikely, since the math wouldn’t support that); is it a blend of rums averaging eighteen years which then went into a solera process; is it a solera rum that has been in the process for 18 years (my choice for most likely); or is it a solera blend of rums that was then aged for another eighteen years? I simply can’t get resolution on the matter: and it illustrates the issue with pinpointing the true age of a solera rum. For my money, the oldest part of this blend is eighteen, not the youngest. However, note that Josh Miller in early 2016, remarked in his review of the lineup that there is “no rum younger than 18 years in the blend.” And Matt Pietrek, in a piece on Cartavio, wrote in December 2015 that it was also a true 18 year old.
  • According to wikipedia, Cartavio rums are now made in Aruba. I’m unclear whether “made” means “aged”, “bottled” or both. My bottle makes no such mention, by the way.

Dictador 20 Yr Old Solera Rum – Review

 3 Responses »
Feb 092013
 

 

Attempts a fine balance, but topples ever so slightly at both beginning and end.

I had this 40% seventy-dollar Colombian rum after a fiery Indian food-fest served by the January Liquorature host who had selected Rohinton Mistry’s epic book, and really, what was I thinking? – the fiery heat muffled and deadened the taste buds…but it says a lot for Dictador that even under the assault of such tongue-numbing spices, I was still able to appreciate it. And after coming home, I tried it on and off over the next week just to nail down the nuances.

Coffee. Yeah, that’s what the nose led in from, immediately, like Juan Valdez was tapping me on my shoulder: not aggressively so, just…making hisself felt. Hola, amigo. Que tal? The overall balance between this cafe and the brown sugar, toffee, nougat and cinnamon was impressive as all get-out, because what you got was a subtle melody enhanced by additional notes that supported and defined it without overwhelming the thing. Note this, however: I gave it to my snub-snooted and far-too-clever son to sniff, and he pointed out an oddly discordant, and very faint rubbery note, not enough to spoil anything, but sufficient to throw me off. Plus it was smooth and heated (just enough), and though I have gone on record as getting somewhat snooty about 40% rums, here I think that strength was just right.

This is largely because the Dictador 20 is a solera, and made from (rather confusingly named) “sugar cane honey,” according to their website. Sugar cane honey is simply the rendered down juice resulting from pressing the cane, but with sexier, warmer connotations, mostly marketing-derived. Soleras, at least from the several I have tried, are also a bit smoother and sweeter than the norm, hence the perennial favouritism shown to Zacapa 23, Rum Nation 15 and others of their ilk. I’m not sure that making them stronger wouldn’t shred some of their underlying structural frailty – they are bottled at pretty much the correct strength for what they are, I think, though you can take that as just my opinion. Here it worked swimmingly.

The profile was quite professionally workmanlike: unlike the Juan Santos line, which hews to a more subtle palate that you have to work at to dissect, the Dictador was definitely a rum, a smooth and heated one, a shade astringent, just sweet enough (less than most soleras, more than most “standard” rums people mix or drink) and arriving with notes of caramel, some oak spice, nougat again, and nutmeg and cinnamon dusting around the edges. After I had let it rest for a bit, more earthy flavours came out – truffles, dark chocolate, unsweetened cocoa. Quite chewy and solid, actually, coating the tongue like an electric blanket with the voltage turned up. Not the most unusual or intriguing rum I’ve ever tried, no – but among the most solidly-crafted. The fade was perhaps this rum’s weakest point, short and generally lackluster, indolent without malice, leaving behind the memory of toffee, caramel notes, and a last flirt of licorice…but at least it didn’t try to maul me.

The Dictador line of rums includes the 12 (I keep seeing it floating around, but haven’t gotten around to buying it) as well as the XO “Insolent” and XO “Perpetual”, which at the least are intriguingly named…I might wan to try them just for those names alone. The line originates from the aforementioned “honey” which is then distilled partly in copper pot stills, and partly in continuous column stills, and then aged in oak barrels using the solera system – so what you are getting is a product where the oldest part of the blend is 20 years, not the youngest. I should note that I absolutely love the zen of the black bottle: very chic, very stark, impossible to miss on a shelf. The Distileria Colombiana which produces it is located on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, at Cartagena de Indias, and was formed in 1913 by Don Julio Arango Y Ferro, whose ancestor (the eponymous Dictador) began commercial rum production in the 18th century.

Overall, I like the Dictador, but can’t say I’m entirely won over by it. It’s a straightforward, unadventurous rum that takes itself more seriously than it should, and gains a lot of brownie points for cool presentation. Now, I know I give points for appearance and “how it looks”1 (and have taken more flak than you would believe for that attitude), but, like with every person that ever worked with or for me, in any office for the last thirty years, here’s the bottom line: if you can’t do your job professionally and well, your appearance matters not a damn. So, perhaps this is what it is: the Dictador 20 is not so much brilliant as simply, conservatively solid in its display of rum making fundamentals. It is a well made, well-tasting solera rum that somehow finds a reasonable harmony between its earthy maturity, and the the sweetness and sprightliness of youth, but which misses the boat in overall enjoyment (for me). Over time, familiarity has made me move away from the better known Zacapa 23 and embrace slightly more unusual and less-familiar solera rums: the Dictador 20 may be neither unusual, nor less familiar, but that it is a decent, above-average rum to have on your shelf is beyond question.

What a pity that this isn’t enough to eclipse the other soleras in my collection.

(#144. 83/100)

 

Ron Millonario Solera 15 – Review

 5 Responses »
Oct 232012
 

Like Bernadette from “The Big Bang Theory” – sweet, buxom, lovely…but with a slight edge as well. What a lovely, lovely rum.

Is this the best solera rum currently in production?

Now there’s a statement guaranteed to raise the blood-pressure of lovers of Opthimus, Cubaney, Dictador, Ron Zacapa, Vizcaya, Cartavio, Santa Teresa or others, and draw hordes of disapproving comments from people who will inevitably and disparagingly ask “Well, how many have you tried, dude?” Making a statement like that is akin to throwing a defenseless Christian virgin into the Roman lion pit, isn’t it?

Soleras are a peculiar subset of rums. Dave Broom gives them scant mention in his book “Rum”, rather casually making them a part of the Spanish, Latin style of rums that are lighter and sweeter than more aggressive leather-and-tobacco Caribbean rums. Yet they are distinct in their own way and make as any rum deriving from cane juice, cane syrup, molasses or to which spices have been added…and they’re getting better all the time. Soleras are based on the Spanish sherry system, whereby every year a fraction of one barrel’s aged product is moved to another one down the line in strict sequence. The mathematics works out that after many years, assuming no further ageing of the final product, you’re getting a majority of seven to eight year old components, together with fractions of rums much older than that (the Santa Teresa Bicentenario claims there are rums as old as eighty years in its final product, which may be why it sells for over three hundred dollars up here).

The Peruvian 40% rum of Ron Millonario 15 is, without verbose embellishment, luscious. No, really. Issued from Rum Nation’s excellent stable of products, its Toquilla-straw-wrapped appearance alone is worthy of notice – though why such a product should then degrade itself with a tinfoil cap escapes me. When I poured it out, it was amber, almost walnut in colour, and smells of vanilla, hibiscus and lush sugary fruits arose to hug me and say hello. My dog (and sometimes my wife) growls at me when I return after a two day trip somewhere, but this rum will always have my slippers in its mouth, a drink waiting, slobber me with kisses and be happy to see me.

Ron Millonario is a company owned by the founder of Rum Nation: it was no coincidence that the first time I tried this was at the tasting where all the RN products were trotted out. The 15 is made from molasses in Peru and is the product of imported Scottish column stills, and the solera system is American and Slovenian oak barrels in four rows. Depending on how you read the website, they age the oldest part of the blend for fifteen years or the final blend for fifteen years, but truly, I don’t mind which it is, because the resulting taste is superb.

Beautifully smooth. Thick, oily, creamy. A shade spicy, cherries, toffee, bananas, red flowers, all sweet and luscious, dissipating after a bit to be replaced with a tartness right up there with the sharp rejoinders of my friend and colleague Mary B.-H. when faced with inimitable idiocy…and this saved it from becoming just another liqueur, thank God (otherwise I might have been snorting “Pyrat’s!!” into my glass). The 15 deepened and became even warmer and more inviting as it opened up, and quite frankly, the fade is remarkable for something this cheap: long lasting, slightly dry, very smooth, saying a pleasant goodbye with aromas of chocolate and pecans.

My father has often been quite vocal and disapproving of my hedging (he once asked me the same question seven times in order to get a definitive answer, which is either a statement about his persistence or my evasiveness). “Make a stand, dammit!” he would snap. “And live with it.” I thought of him as I wrote this: and so yeah, for all those who have been patiently read this far, let me say it out loud.

The answer to the question at the top of this review is “No”. I must concede this definitive answer not because it’s a poor product, but because I know there are more out there I haven’t sampled, and the XO made by the same company is on par. But my take from my experience, is that it’s without question one of the best soleras I’ve ever tried, the best value for money product of its kind. It’s a worthwhile addition to the cabinet of anyone who is tired of the standard fare, prefers a sweetish, smooth, deceptively complex rum with a shade of attitude…and is getting bored with the more well-known Zacapas of this world.

(#126. 86/100)

Other Notes

Update August 2016

In the years since this review came out — I tried it in 2012 — I’ve taken a lot of flak for my positive assessment of the two Millonarios. Fellow reviewers and members of the general public have excoriated this rum and the XO for being loaded – destroyed – with so much sugar as to make them a “candied mess.” I acknowledge their perspective and opinions, but cannot change the review as written, as it truly expressed my thoughts at that time. Moreover, the profile I describe is there and cannot be wished away, and if the rum is too sweet for many purists, well, I’ve mentioned that. About the most I can do at such a remove — short of shelling out for another bottle and trying it — is to suggest that if sweet isn’t your thing, deduct a few points and taste before you buy.

And a note for people now getting into rum: sweet is not a representative of all rums, least of all high end ones. The practice of adding sugar in any form to rums, to smoothen them out and dampen bite (some say it is to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear), is a long-standing one, but gradually being decried by many who want and prefer a purer drinking experience (Plantation and Rum Nation are two companies which sometimes engage in the practice, which they term “dosing”). It remains legal in many rum producing nations. As with most aspects of life, sampling a variety will direct you to where your preferences lie.

Ron Millonario XO Reserva Especial – Review

 3 Responses »
Oct 192012
 
The lush voluptuousnes of Raphael, captured in a bottle with a bit of Peruvian sunshine

Soft. This rum is so soft. It is breezes in the warm tropical twilight, the lap of waves at low tide on a deserted Caribbean island, the first unsure, hesitant and oh-so-sweetly remembered kiss of your timid adolescence. It is your mother’s kitchen on a rainy day, fresh bread baking in the oven. It is a 40% Peruvian piece of magic, and if it costs a shade over a hundred bucks, I can only say that I believe it to be worth every penny. Want a slightly pricey introduction to sipping quality rum that seduces, not assaults? Here it stands.

I asked the question of the Ron Millonario 15 Solera whether that was the best solera in current commercial production, and had to say no, largely on the strength of this one – not because the XO is better: it’s simply as good in a different way. Note that both rums are made in the solera system from a Scottish column still distillate; the 15 is made from a four barrel solera, but the added richness of the XO makes me suspect (like my Edmontonian friend does) that either this is a five barrel system, or they aged it longer somehow. Details remain sparse. The two are almost twins with obscurely opposing characters, and while the 15 is cheaper and therefore better value-to-quality overall, I must concede that on a complete aesthetic, the XO probably has it.

Consider the appearance, which would probably make my departed Maritime friend the Bear weep with happiness: cheap black cardboard cutout that won’t add to the price, embracing a flattened squarish bottle that has handsomely gold etched lettering and a faux-golden tipped cork. It looks just classy enough to not be considered a cheap knockoff aspiring beyond its pedigree.

I should remark right at the outset that the XO is a rum deserving to be savoured, not swilled, because while the nose began just swimmingly – honey, a slight minty zest, mango and papaya and flowers – it only got better as it opened up, adding a delicate green and vegetal background, and subtle aromas of coriander and brown sugar. I tried this in tandem with the Millonario 15 solera and that one was excellent also, but it was eclipsed by the sheer complexity of this baby.

And the taste, nice. Again, gets more complex and interesting as time goes on: right off the bat I was enthused about its gentle, velvety smoothness (not altogether surprising for a 40% solera), and the arrival of white chocolate, buttery, creamy caramel. A shade heated without malice, spicy without bitchiness, which was a perfect offset for the sweet notes that coiled around it. That sounds straightforward enough but tek a chill and wait (as my brother back in Mudland would say). Just like with the nose, further flavours shyly emerge and when I tell you that I got a slight smokiness, old dusty leather, fresh fruit and white flowers all in tandem, you can understand why everyone I’ve ever shared this with sings its praises. I’ve already distributed a bottle or two in tasters over a mere few months (and that’s phenomenal given my hermitlike nature and how few friends I have who like rums). As for the exit, it is excellent, chocolate-like (of the milk kind), smooth, long and departing with a last mischievous fillip of those fruity notes.

In fine, unlike the 15 which began well but simply stayed at that level of excellence, the XO started slowly, built up a head of steam and then gently and powerfully released its character over time. For sure this is not a mixing agent, and it rewards the patient – it gets better as it opens up. I’m not sure a higher proof would improve this marvellously made Peruvian product, and I’m not asking for it to be made so (though I might not object either). It’s great as is…don’t mess with it, except perhaps to dial down the sweet a shade.

If you are a raw, uncompromising Caledonian or his Liquorature acolyte (did someone say “Hippie”?) who likes harsh briny sea salt in your beard and the wind in your face and peat in your cask-strength drink, then the softness and relative sweetness of this rum, harking as it does of sunlight and warmth instead of rocks and northern waves, is definitely not for you. The cask strength whiskies are savagely executed Goyas compared to Ron Millonario’s voluptuous females painted by Raphael and Titian, so it comes down to taste and character and preference. My own take is merely that the makers of Ron Millonario XO Especial, with this lovely rum, have pressed all the right buttons and made all the right incantations in producing a rum that raises the bar of rums in general, and soleras in particular. Yet again.

(#127. 88/100)

Other Notes:

  • 2024 Video recap is here.
  • Like most solera rums, this one is sweeter than the average and that may be off-putting to drinkers who prefer a drier, sharper and more ascetic “rum-like” profile. Personal preferences therefore have to be taken into consideration when deciding whether to buy it or not.
  • In 2019 the Millonario Cincuenta (“50”), a 10th Anniversary companion to this rum, was issued. It was also added to. I reviewed it in 2020 with a much more modest sub-80 point score.

Update August 2016

In the years since this review came out — I tried it in 2012 — I’ve taken a lot of flak for my positive assessment of the two Millonarios. Fellow reviewers and members of the general public have excoriated the rum for being loaded – destroyed – with so much sugar as to make it a “candied mess.” I acknowledge their perspective and opinions, but cannot change the review as written, as it truly expressed my thoughts at that time. Moreover, the complexity I describe is there and cannot be wished away, and if the rum is too sweet for many purists, well, I’ve mentioned that. About the most I can do at such a remove — short of shelling out for another bottle and trying it — is to suggest that if sweet isn’t your thing, deduct a few points and taste before you buy.

And a note for people now getting into rum: sweet is not a representative of all rums, least of all high end ones. The practice of adding sugar in any form to rums, to smoothen them out and dampen bite (some say it is to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear), is a long-standing one, but gradually being decried by many who want and prefer a purer drinking experience (Plantation and Rum Nation are two companies which sometimes engage in the practice, which they term “dosing”). It remains legal in many rum producing nations. As with most aspects of life, sampling a variety will direct you to where your preferences lie.

Santa Teresa Bicentenario Rum – Review

 14 Responses »
Jun 022012
 

A good, and very pricey ultra-premium solera, the top of the food chain from Santa Teresa A.J. Vollmer in Venezuela. I’m going to go on record as thinking it’s too much price for too little premium.

The $315 Santa Teresa Bicentenario solera rum is made by the privately owned Venezuelan outfit A. J. Vollmer, who also produce the 1796 rum (also a solera, and about which I was unenthused at the time…it may be due for a revisit). It’s a rum I have avoided for over two years in spite of its premium cachet, and because of its price. Every time I’ve tried it (four times to date) it reminds me somewhat of a fellow I once met on my sojourns, who dressed sharply, was educated at an Ivy League university, and was, alas, a bit of a bore. Pricily dressed and well put together…just not that interesting.

The bottle I had was labelled #5820 and given that only about a thousand liters a year are made, and since the product (according to the Spanish edition of Wikipedia and other sources) was introduced in 1996 as part of the company’s bicentennial, you could be forgiven for assuming this one was issued around 2002…but personally I find that doubtful. KWM only got this batch about two years ago, and I don’t think it’s been mouldering around for eight years prior somewhere else (it remains an unanswered question). Still, the bottle, however startling (some might say ugly), is distinctive, and while I didn’t have the box it should have come in, pictures I’ve seen suggest it is pretty cool.

Santa Teresa Bicentenario is a solera, and therefore has a whole range of column- and pot-still, aged rum components in it — 80 year old product was noted without any indication of the average age, and the whole blend is aged some fifteen years in oak barrels; as the premium product of its line, it had all the hallmarks of care and love given to it: for the price, could it be otherwise? It was, for all that ageing, still somewhat light in the glass, a darkish golden colour with thin legs running down the sides. On the nose it presented itself with a light aroma containing citrus, light and white woods, white flowers, pineapple and a slight hint of dark berries in cream, caressing as a baby’s breath on your cheek.


The overall quality on the palate led on from there: soft and gentle, without a hint of the astringency of a stepmother’s ire. It was put together well enough that separating out individual tastes was as tough as analyzing the Juan Santos 21: about the most I was able to discern was vanilla, faint breezes of brown sugar, and a certain overall creaminess. Perhaps blackberries, and that’s reaching. To me it was just a bit too light and delicate (while nowhere near the effeminate nature of the Doorly’s). And this continued on to the fade, which was long and billowy and lasting, yet so soft that one barely knew it was there at all.

Rating this baby is a bitch. I can tell the work that went into smoothening out the intermarried solera components, and the fifteen years of ageing that blend was well done, because the smoothness is there, as it should be for any premium product. Yet the Bicentenario failed somehow, perhaps in the flavours being so light and commingled that I had little idea what it was I was tasting beyond the obvious. In short, I felt the rum had too little character, balles, cojones, or whatever Venezuelans call badassery.

So the question arises, for what are you paying this kind of money? The storage costs of rums aged to eighty years? Its purported exclusivity and relative rarity? Bragging rights? Probably. But three big ones (I’ve seen it go for about €150 on European webstores) just strikes me as too much. No me gusta, amigo. I’d rather get three El Dorado 21s, or maybe a few bottles of the feisty Pusser’s 15.

Let me put it this way. I raged about the Pyrat’s Cask 23 and wrote a overlong, scathing indictment of the divergence between quality and price. Santa Teresa is not quite in that league, because overall, it has elements to it that many appreciate and froth over, even if I don’t. It’s a decent rum, no question. The Bicentenario — pitted against premium choices like the Rum Nation’s Panama 21 (one third the price), St. Nicholas Abbey 10 year old and English Harbour 1981 25 year old — carries on its founders’ traditions of taste, clarity and lightness, good blend quality and decent value. Everything more or less works, everything fits. What’s not to like?

Please take a left turn here, because the real issue is, what’s to love? The rums we care about display characteristics which say something about ourselves that we wish trumpeted to the masses. I’m fun and unconventional (Koloa Gold). I’m big on Bay Street (Appleton 50 year old or maybe the G&M Jamaican Longpond 1941). Ask me about my retirement (Pusser’s, El Dorado 15). I am staid and prefer to mix and just get hammered…and like meself just so (Screech). I’m a bit nutso (Rum Nation Jamaican 25)…and so on. What does the Bicentenario say? The trust fund is ticking over? I use a discount brokerage house? I have a summer abode, a nice catamaran and drive a Volvo? By that standard, I have to stick with my assessment: good rum, overly ambitious, lacking attitude, a shade boring…and, alas, overpriced.

(#112. 84/100)

Other Notes

  • My thanks go to the Scotchguy from Kensington Wine Market, who gave me his last heel for nothing, so that I could write this review and take the photographs, without incurring the ire of my parsimonious better half.
  • Here is a good write up on the company’s history, too detailed for me to abridge.

 

Ron Viejo de Caldas Añejo 8 años – Review

 2 Responses »
Jan 062012
 

A low proof rum that is impressive right out of the gate, suggests quality and subtlety past compare, and then gives up and runs full tilt into the wall. What this rum might have been with some extra strength….

First posted 6th January 2012 on Liquorature.

Right off the bat I have to state my preferences: I am not a fan of underproofs. They have a fake air of smoothness that has less to do with a blender’s art than with a low alcohol content. Spirit imparts depth and character to a rum (as I have observed with overproofs from time to time), and the lack thereof forces the distiller all too often to make up for the shortfall with additives.

With the Colombian Ron Viejo de Caldas 8 anos (bottled at 35% according to the label), however, I may have to revise this assumption, since not only did the Colombianos age this for eight years as if in defiance of all conventions for a rum less than 40%, but the thing is actually quite a decent drink which, because of its relative weakness, can be had as is without embellishment. I can’t say this makes me an instant convert…but it does make me less of a detractor.

Ron Viejo de Caldas is made by the Industria Licorera de Caldas from Colombia. It started small, as a little known artesinal rum from the provinces, but clever marketing and its own quality have made it a more internationally known brand than heretofore. It was created by a Cuban Don Ramón Badia at the behest of the Caldas Fine Perfume and Rum company in 1926 (not as unusal as it may sound, since a good nose is key to both) and in 1959, boosted by good sales, a distillery was set up; in 2009, the company produced 25 million bottles of various rums. Nowadays, the brand is produced in Manizales, the provincial capital of Caldas, 7,200 feet above sea level. Located in the shadow of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, the distillery is now equipped with column stills and sources its sugar cane syrup from the Cauca River Valley, where sugar cane is cultivated all year round.

On the nose the first impression one gets is a kind of supple fruitiness: peaches, citrus, nectarines and maybe a ripe mango or two. Raisins and cinnamon and maybe nutmeg can barely be made out. The aroma is rich and deep and actually reminds me a bit of a good bourbon, or a rye (just a sweeter one). And upon opening up, the brown sugar notes start to dominate in a very pleasant burnt sugar I always love.

The dark copper liquid has a pleasantly heavy body, and is smooth and a shade sere: there is less sugar and and molasses on the taste than the nose suggested, and this might be because the rum is not made from molasses, but from sugar cane syrup. The ageing in bourbon barrels certainly left its mark in a slight woodsy note at the back end, and this was not unpleasant, just distinctive…a bit of character added to the gene pool, so to speak

The fade might be the weakest part of the rum, and this is where the low alcohol content shows its true colours and abandons your snoot — just as you expect a lingering smooch from what you may have thought was a lovely undiscovered gem you alone have sampled, it…disappears. No seriously. It has one of the shortest finishes of any rum I’ve ever had, and that’s something of the character that’s missing along with the true 40% or greater ABV content.

All things considered, I just don’t get why this rum had to be an underproof at all (unless I got a variant that’s not commonly exported). It has a lovely body, a terrific nose, a good tart and tasty palate, and then, just like Dick Francis’s horse all those years ago, it just falls flat on its belly and skids to a sudden sharp stop without explanation or apology. The 40% variation I did not have won a bronze medal in 2007 and a gold in the 2009 Ministry of Rum tasting competition for premium rums, but fellas, all I can say is that good as that may make it, ensure you check the label for the proof before you buy this in a duty free shop someplace, or you might be a little disappointed

I’m giving this baby 77 points on the strength of its great opening act, and had it not been for the weak conclusion, it would surely have topped 80. It reminds me of unadorned rums, subtle, complex and not too burdened with noticeable additives of any kind. I just wish I knew what the real forty percenter was like – on the strength of this one, it must be quite something.

(#099. 77/100)

 

Juan Santos 21 Year Old Antigua Reserva Colombian Rum – Review

 3 Responses »
Aug 062011
 

Publicity Photo (c) Casa Santana

First posted 06 August 2011 on Liquorature.

A steal at the price, the 21 holds its own against rums costing twice as much, and might be better known and sell more if the tag was higher. I think of it like I do a Nissan GT-R – too cheap to be taken seriously as a supercar, but a performer that can give any of the top dogs a run for their money. If you see it and you have the cash to spare, my recommendation is to get it.

The Juan Santos 21 year old is the epitome of the Casa Santana group’s rum line. It is a poem in a bottle, a liquid symphony of brown and gold, of smell and taste, and quite possibly one of the best aged rums available for under a hundred bucks. Anywhere.

It is made in Colombia, an unappreciated nation in South America better known for narcotics and coffee, violence and political upheaval. Yet they speak the purest Spanish in the world outside of Iberia. Democratic traditions survive in spite of FARC and narco barons that would derail many another state. Colombia is the world’s largest supplier of emeralds, possesses a dynamic and educated workforce (I know – I worked with four of them and was hugely impressed by each), and, like every country under the sun, claims its beaches are whiter and its women more beautiful than anyplace else on earth. Now they can add another cachet to their national pride – this rum. The Santana company has been making rums in the Cuban style since 1994 – I’ve heard that it was Cubans who started the enterprise, see below – and yet have made only limited inroads in the Canadian market. Bacardi, Lamb’s and Screech, together with Cruzan and a few other one-rum-here-one-rum-there variations still dominate liquor shelves here, in spite of both the Arctic Wolf and myself suggesting the product is good value for money.

The 21 is all wrapped up in a look that does a neat jiu-jitsu on the Pyrat Cask 1623 rum, which had a phenomenal aesthetic appeal and little else. Perhaps the trick is not to let the 21’s presentation put one off – it’s not lackluster, precisely…more like undistinguished. The label is cluttered and busy with a pattern of muted colours (contrast that against the vivid backdrops of the Appletons, or the simplicity of the Mount Gay labels), and the bottle is, umm, just a bottle. One might be forgiven for missing the “21” in the title altogether, and tripping over it in some surprise. Huh? Veinte-uno? Que es esto?

The rum itself is a light brownish gold. It poured nicely into the glass and swirling gently showed thinner legs than I would have expected – it evidently lacked the heaviness, the oiliness which would have indicated a deeper flavor profile and a longer fade. Still, the nose was nothing to sneeze at: it was all soft and silk, no sting and no burn, and held promising notes of toffee, brown sugar, a very delicate hint of flowers…and a bit of coffee. Given that Juan Santos also makes a very pleasant underproof café, I found this to be no more than appropriate.

The taste was by any standards nothing short of excellent. Juan Santos 21 arrived unheralded, with no blaring tantara of orange trumpets such as you’d find in the rather obnoxious Pyrat’s XO or 1623. It slunk onto my palate, and stayed there. What I got was a smooth and soft liquid gold that some master blender may well have put his cojones into hock to the Almighty to produce. There was hardly any bite or burn at all – pretty good for a rum at 40% – with a remarkable depth of flavor for which the initial pour I noted above had done nothing to prepare me. I was expecting something a tad on the thin side, maybe some citrus hints, a clear sort of taste in line with the lighter colour and clean nose – what I got was a rye-and-rum combo that was deeper, darker and more flavourful than it had any right to be. Caramel, burnt sugar, yes, of course – but also breakfast spices, some cinnamon, that coffee again (maybe Juan Valdez is a relative?) and nutmeg lending some gentle muskiness it all. I was, to put it mildly, impressed – twenty one years in oak had been mellowed and balanced out and blended so well that it was a smooth balm to the taste buds.

And the finish was no slouch either: thin legs or no, there was enough oil left in the rum to make a lasting impression that did not bail in a hurry with a harsh knock to the tonsils, merely stayed and lingered, like an old friend whose goodbyes can take a few minutes longer than the average, simply because there’s always one last thing to say. The 21 was so smooth and so languorous, that it actually seemed to stay a lot longer than it did. There were no harsh afterburns or tastes or anything, and quite frankly, if my personal preference hadn’t been for darker rums of greater body, I’d rate this one even higher than I do – for those that like a good quality sipping rum that’s right up there, look no further, since this single ~$85 rum will give you just about everything you’re after.

In discussing the Juan Santos with the store manager at Co-op where I bought it, he remarked that for him this absolutely eclipsed the Zaya which had been his go-to tipple of choice up to that point. I don’t quite agree it should eclipse anything, since I have a pretty good collection of rums I like as much or more than the 21, and each has their place in my life, depending on the crabbiness of my mood (I drink harsh rotgut rums with minimal cola when I’m angry) whether I want to mix it and get a pleasant buzz on (medium-tier five year olds are good for this), get loaded fast (pick any 151, alert the wife and move out) or simply watch the sun go down (any top end sipping rum of your choice). That said, there’s no question in my mind that the Juan Santos 21 year old, for its price, offers a value for money that other top guns costing twice as much (and with only incrementally greater quality) would do well to observe. Price is no guarantor of quality, I wrote for my negative Pyrat 1623 review, meaning that a high price sometimes nets you a dog. Here, with this rum, Juan Santos proves that the reverse is also true, and that a reasonably low cost for an aged rum is no indicator of a lack of any kind.

(#081)(Unscored)

Background (Added in 2021)

Juan Santos rums are produced by Santana Liquors out of Baranquilla, a free trade seaport zone in the north of Colombia, on the Caribbean Sea. The company also makes various brands for other markets, like the somewhat better-known La Hechicera and Ron Santero labels (Ron Santero is the US brand name for Juan Santos, the latter of which is only sold in Canada). Their website and Forbes notes that they started operations in 1994 when their founders – assumed to be the Riascos business family – brought over some rum makers from Cuba, and an article in el Tiempo notes they are the only family owned (private) rum company in Colombia — all others are apparently part of the Colombian government monopoly.

However, it does not appear that they are actually in the business of distilling themselves, not are they primary producers of anything. They have no sugar cane fields, nor a refinery nor a distillery – at least not that they promote on their own materials and company websites – unless it is the winery they also own and operate, which is where their barrels of rum are aged. What they do, appears to be to act as third party blenders, much as Banks DIH does in Guyana. La Hechicera, their companion brand now distributed by Pernod Ricard who bought a stake in 2021, is often spoken about in rum circles as sourcing barrels and stocks of rum from around South America and then blending and bottling them in Colombia as “Colombian” rums. But they certainly don’t make anything of their own on a distillery.

As an additional note, Juan Santos rums no longer appear to be available in primary markets and online web shops – it has been almost a decade since I sourced mine, so sometime in the mid-2010s I suspect it may have been discontinued.

Juan Santos Añejo 12 Year Old Gran Reserva Colombian Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Apr 252011
 

First posted 25 April 2011 on Liquorature

Smooth, soft and unprepossessing, this may be one of the best 12 year old you never heard about. Coming from a maker formed less than two decades ago, it’s quite an achievement to create a rum of such overall worth.

It seems that sooner or later one always makes a discovery both unexpected and wholly pleasant. In recent months since I first tried the excellent 9 year old, I’ve realized that Juan Santos rums have been one of mine, and with the exception of the coffee infused underproof, which I do not really regard as a true rum, they have, for each age, been quite and quietly superb. And yet they have a surprisingly low profile – they rarely get mentioned in online fora, reviews of their products are practically nonexistent (aside from web-shop listings with a note or two on flavour), and their rums are to be found intermittently at best. Odd for a rum this good

Here I had the 12 year old to take a look at. The labelling and bottle shape are consistent with the 21, the 9, and the 5 – the Santana company has been at pains to ensure conformity across their line with only minor differences in the labelling – within a clear etched bottle possessing wide shoulders and a sloping bottom. Plastic cork – I can’t stand cheap tinfoil, and have recently concluded the plastic corks are pretty good for ensuring a tight seal that doesn’t flake like old cork sometimes does, so this is all to the good. And, oh yeah – a bunch of the Edmonton Rum Chums around me. I was tasting this informally, in the company of the Arctic Wolf and some of his compadres, with a follow-up when I got back home two days later to formalize my rather incoherent notes.

There was a smooth and oily consistency to the dark golden liquor (darker then the 9) when poured into the glass; it sheened slowly down the sides and only later separated into fat plump legs. And the nose was like the 9 year old…but better. No sting and medicinal nasties here, but a softness mixed with spice – faint caramel and sugar entwined with molasses and fruits and burnt sugar. None of these aromas were in any way assertive or overbearing or dominating: they were each and every one distinct, clear yet subtle, and balanced in a way I had not yet experienced in a rum.

On the palate, the Juan Santos 12 year old retained some of that clarity and medium bodied nature; and it was soft too – it seemed to be more like a ballet dancer, hiding strength and power behind a pattern of smoothness and elegant moves. The rum coated the tongue so well and was such a smooth spirit that one could easily get lost in the softness and never remember afterwards exactly what had been tasted – though for the record, the arrival was of caramel and burnt sugar, cinnamon and breakfast spices, and just enough sugar to marry these tastes together well. It reminded me in its cleanliness of taste of nothing so much as very well steeped medium dark tea.

Where I’d have to say the rum fell down was, oddly enough, in the finish. Not that it was bad. Far from it. What it was, for me, was that it was cursory. It was too quick, and veiled itself too fast, as if, after all that excellent smell and taste, it suddenly grew shy and with a flirt of flavour it disappeared in a noncommital fade that left almost no taste behind, only a sort of buttery caramel, and a slight and expected alcohol sting. A shame after the overall worth of the beginning, but not enough for me to say it’s bad, merely a tad disappointing.

The Casa Santana company was formed in 1994 in Columbia with the avowed intention of producing the country’s premium rum. Currently they produce the Ron Santero brand which is what the Juan Santos, relabelled for import to Canada by the Liber Group, actually is. A rose by any other name, is my response to this relabelling, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re doing a good job with their rums no matter what the title, and I want more. Aged in American bourbon barrels, the aged rums, as per Columbian nomenclature laws, state the age of the youngest rum in the blends, and for this also, I give them full marks.

It is, then, an excellent entry from Juan Santos into the middle aged category, and if perhaps it is not quite on the level of the English Harbour or the St Nicholas Abbey 10 year old rums, it is at the very least on par with the El Dorado 12, is a good rum to sip or mix, and in no way a bad rum, or a lesser one: and once again I’m thinking that we really should agitate to get more of these rums from Columbia on our shelves.

I must concede here that good as it was, the 12 wasn’t solely responsible for the stellar evening I had with the Chums, for sure. But it didn’t hurt, aided quite a it, and just as some tastes and scents evoke specific memories, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have this unassuming, unpretentious Columbian gem again without remembering a laughter filled evening of jokes and rum talk and the company of new squaddies, pleasantly found, enjoyably experienced and around whose table I felt right at home.

(#076. 81/100)

Background (Added in 2021)

Juan Santos rums are produced by Santana Liquors out of Baranquilla, a free trade seaport zone in the north of Colombia, on the Caribbean Sea. The company also makes various brands for other markets, like the somewhat better-known La Hechicera and Ron Santero labels (Ron Santero is the US brand name for Juan Santos, the latter of which is only sold in Canada). Their website and Forbes notes that they started operations in 1994 when their founders – assumed to be the Riascos business family – brought over some rum makers from Cuba, and an article in el Tiempo notes they are the only family owned (private) rum company in Colombia — all others are apparently part of the Colombian government monopoly.

However, it does not appear that they are actually in the business of distilling themselves, not are they primary producers of anything. They have no sugar cane fields, nor a refinery nor a distillery – at least not that they promote on their own materials and company websites – unless it is the winery they also own and operate, which is where their barrels of rum are aged. What they do, appears to be to act as third party blenders, much as Banks DIH does in Guyana. La Hechicera, their companion brand now distributed by Pernod Ricard who bought a stake in 2021, is often spoken about in rum circles as sourcing barrels and stocks of rum from around South America and then blending and bottling them in Colombia as “Colombian” rums. But they certainly don’t make anything of their own on a distillery.

As an additional note, Juan Santos rums no longer appear to be available in primary markets and online web shops – it has been almost a decade since I sourced mine, so sometime in the mid-2010s I suspect it may have been discontinued.

Juan Santos Añejo 9 Year Old Rum – Review

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Feb 202011
 

Publicity photo (c) Casa Santana

(First posted 20 February 2011 on Liquorature)

A rum that doesn’t seem to be trying, and yet, when you’re done and you try to analyze your experience, you unexpectedly find yourself admiring it more and more, surprised by its overall quality.

The other day a lady from my department quit: an overseas posting came up, and she’s upping anchor and bailing with her family. I’ve thought of Cecilia often in the days since her resignation. She took no crap from me, did the work of a full time employee in half the time, and was quiet, efficient and professional. She and I did some really stellar work together, more from her technical expertise than any inherent qualities of mine, and I know she’ll be missed: by me in particular – class acts are tough to replace. I think of her, and have nothing but fond memories and great respect.

It was in this frame of mind that I sampled the Juan Santos Anejo 9 year old, and perhaps because she was on my mind, thinking of one led to the other. Juan Santos hails from Colombia, as does Cecilia, and actually my first introduction to their wares had been a coffe infused liqueur that I still take on the odd occasion when I want some thing with a little less octane than the usual. The distilling company, Santana Liquors is not a very large concern, and it is young (formed in 1994) but they certainly do have a good range of rums: 5, 7, 9 12, and 21 year olds…and I have to note that even though they planned a sort of invasion of Alberta a couple of years ago, their wares remain puzzlingly unavailable…though I did spot the 21 year old the other day at a nearby Co-op. Just one. What’s up with that?

Chip Dykstyra, who popped down to Calgary a few weeks back to sip rums and speak of affairs with some of the members of Liquorature, gave me this sample and asked me to do a write up , give the thing some visibilty if deserved, pan it if it didn’t. Having done so, I suggest you agitate gently with your local bar, rumshop, beer garden or pub, , and get them to start stocking this excellent midlevel rum.

All right, enough of this generalization, what was it really like?

Well, first of all, it came in a tall, heavy shouldered bottle reminiscent of , and an excellent, tightly seated plastic cork. The colour was a dark gold, and what I had managed to research suggested this was a rum made in the Cuban style. I’m not entirely sold on the classification of rums into main “make” styles (Cuban, Demerara, Jamaican, and Cane Juice, with some adding Bajan and Dominican), but here’s one that stated front and centre that this was what it was like: and that would lead you to expect a light, somewhat dry and spicy rum with a not to sweet, cognac-like character.

Indeed, the nose seemed to confirm that. It swatted me on the snoot with a quick sharp sting which never relented. Caramel and brown sugar came to me, but also rich coffee. And after a while, the rum did indeed open up and released a delightfully light and floral scent that coiled around the core of the base scents like lone Tie fighters circling the Death Star. And on the back end there came the scent of ripe fruit, perhaps papaya, or mango.

The taste was something else again. A Cuban styled rum is supposed to be light, dry and peppery, but the 40% ABV Juan Santos 9, which is aged in white oak barrels from Kentucky, pleasantly surprised me by having a heavier prescence than its rather thin legs would suggest, coating the tongue quite nicely and delivering a burst of flavour that was a shade arid, yes, but also bringing with it caramel, vanilla, nutmeg – and that coffee again, though fainter – and to my mind, just a bit too much spiciness. I’m not sure I can blame it for that, though…it adds a shade more character than might otherwise have been the case, and makes the sugar less aggressive. But the flavours blend well into that spice: a good balance overall. The finish was also pretty good, medium long and fragrant, biting a little yes, and in a good way. It was that deep burn I like in a decent aged rum, and if I thought it could use a little more ageing, well, that’s me. I’m sure others will accept it and like it exactly as it is.

This is going to sound funny, but I tasted this thing and thought about it, and it really reminded me of Cecilia (and not just because they share a common geographical point of origin). It’s something to do with its unpretentious nature, the way it gets the job done without undue fanfare: it’s a really decent rum that way. I don’t mean to compare Cecilia to a rum: that would be indecent, and fair to neither. It’s more a question of character. Looking at my numeric score after tallying up the points, I was surprised to see Juan Santos beating out more famous, well-known marques without actually looking like it was excelling at anything or making any great effort. There are some people like that too, and I meet them all too rarely. They don’t talk much, they have no bombast or bull in their natures: they are simply and unassumingly good at what they do.

I tasted the Juan Santos 9, appreciated it as both sipper and mixer, and admired Colombia a whole lot more: if they can produce both professionals and rums of this calibre, we should be paying more attention to both.

(#067. 80/100)

 

Background (Added in 2021)

Juan Santos rums are produced by Santana Liquors out of Baranquilla, a free trade seaport zone in the north of Colombia, on the Caribbean Sea. The company also makes various brands for other markets, like the somewhat better-known La Hechicera and Ron Santero labels (Ron Santero is the US brand name for Juan Santos, the latter of which is only sold in Canada). Their website and Forbes notes that they started operations in 1994 when their founders – assumed to be the Riascos business family – brought over some rum makers from Cuba, and an article in el Tiempo notes they are the only family owned (private) rum company in Colombia — all others are apparently part of the Colombian government monopoly.

However, it does not appear that they are actually in the business of distilling themselves, not are they primary producers of anything. They have no sugar cane fields, nor a refinery nor a distillery – at least not that they promote on their own materials and company websites – unless it is the winery they also own and operate, which is where their barrels of rum are aged. What they do, appears to be to act as third party blenders, much as Banks DIH does in Guyana. La Hechicera, their companion brand now distributed by Pernod Ricard who bought a stake in 2021, is often spoken about in rum circles as sourcing barrels and stocks of rum from around South America and then blending and bottling them in Colombia as “Colombian” rums. But they certainly don’t make anything of their own on a distillery.

As an additional note, Juan Santos rums no longer appear to be available in primary markets and online web shops – it has been almost a decade since I sourced mine, so sometime in the mid-2010s I suspect it may have been discontinued.