Plantation Grand Reserve Barbados 5 Year Old – Review

 No Responses »
Jun 042013
 

D7K_2039

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

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

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

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

D7K_2035

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

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

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

(#166. 84.5/100)

Other notes

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

 

Renegade 2003 Barbados (Foursquare) 6 Year Old Rum – Review

 No Responses »
May 122013
 

D3S_5540

Schizoid, androgynous, curious rum. Too well made to ignore, but not appealing enough to collect.

Right during the tasting, before I had done a single bit of research or perused the label beyond the obvious, I looked at my glass, smacked my not quite toothless gums and opined loudly and dogmatically (if not quite coherently) to an empty house that this was a rum from the Foursquare distillery in Barbados.

You might well ask whether my snoot is that good (it’s not), my memory that clear (it’s not) or I knew it for sure (I didn’t). It was more a process of elimination from the Bajan rum canon – it was too clear taste-wise — and not soft enough — to be a St Nicholas Abbey, lacked the discombobulated, raw nature of the Cockspur and sure wasn’t a Mount Gay.  That didn’t leave much, no matter how or with what cask Renegade decided to finish it.

Take the opening: soft, flowery, dark sugars, bananas and unsweetened dark chocolate.  A bit sharp (it was bottled at 46%, so, okay). Red grapes just starting to go off, bananas, orange peel (not anything sharper like grapefruit or lemon), and a final flirt of cherries, yet overall, the scents married uneasily, resulting in something vaguely androgynous, neither strong or puissant enough to be a bellowing buccaneer (it waved the cutlass to genteelly for that) nor weak enough to be an underproof…it was an uneasy mix of delicacy and clarity without strength of real character (did someone say “Prince Myshkyn”?).

D3S_5543

No relief on the palate, however original it turned out to be. The medium bodied amber spirit was drier than I expected, and even a bit briny, and pulled an interesting rabbit out of the bottle…it tasted good enough, full enough, to seem more robust than it actually was. Bananas and white chocolate, a certain creaminess (like unsalted butter, really), white guavas and pecans.  I know this sounds odd, but it almost seemed a shade…crunchy. It’s the craziest thing, a sort of dichotomy between the taste and the nose that had heat and citrus-plus-grapes to sniff, yet more settled and softer to sip, finishing off with a sweet, dry exit, segueing into final notes of bananas, apricots and salt biscuits.

I have some mixed feelings on the Renegade here, admiring its professional make and the clarity of the various notes, without actually enjoying the overall experience due to a discordance in the overall marriage of constituent elements.  It’s not a bad rum at all, just not one I really felt like raving about to any who would listen.  Yet I cannot help but admire how Renegade doesn’t really care – they tried for something off the reservation, and they succeeded. It’s original, that’s for sure.

Unlike most of the Renegades I’ve tried thus far, the label gave me little to work with on the details (I like knowing as much about a rum as possible when doing the write-up). Nothing about the finishing which Bruichladdich usually likes to trumpet front and center, for example…I don’t know why, so here’s what my research (and the bottle) did bring up.  Pot still origin. Finished in Ribero del Duero casks – this is a fruity red wine from north central Spain, which explained something of the profile.  Yes, the Foursquare distillery supplied the rum, so I called it on that one…though it wasn’t until I took a hard look at the label that I saw it self-evidently mentioned.  I should get my glasses changed, or perhaps research before I drink, not after.

D3S_5538

But it’s not that any of this matters, really.  I’ve said before that Renegades are something of an acquired taste, should never be one’s first try at a rum, and are all quite fascinatingly different — this may be, as I’ve remarked elsewhere, because they are made by whisky makers for whisky drinkers with rummies perhaps as an afterthought.  They fail to craft a consistent rum from one bottle to the next (the variations in the line are occasionally awe-inspiring) but they know that the best way to approach making any of them is with a bold and unapologetic take-that attitude that finds ‘em swinging — hard — for the fences, every time, with a sort of giddy, joyous abandon one simply has to admire.  So, the end product may not always be what we expect…but man, it’s like watching a Sobers, Worrell, Lloyd or Lara on a weird day.  It’s never, ever boring.

(#161. 82/100)

Other Notes

Plantation 1999 Guyana Old Reserve Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
May 072013
 

D3S_5509

Crackers and butter

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

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

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

D3S_5507

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

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

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

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

(#160. 84.5/100)

Other Notes

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

Plantation Nicaragua 2001 Old Reserve – Review

 4 Responses »
Apr 112013
 

D7K_1222

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

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

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

D7K_1227

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

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

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

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

 D7K_1228

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

(#154. 85.5/100)

Other notes

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

 

 

 

 

Renegade Cuba 1998 11 Year Old Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
Jan 042013
 

 

Great noser, lackluster on the palate, and all-over unusually light. I think of this as an agricole, more than a “real” Cuban rum.

I’ve said before that Renegade’s series of rums are occasionally squirrelly – some are pretty cool, like the St Lucia variant, while others strive for greatness and stumble at the end, like the Grenada or the Guyana 16 year old. But in few other editions of the series, is that periodically discombobulated nature more on display than in the Cuba 1998 11 year old, which was not only a leap away from what might loosely be interpreted as a Cuban rum profile, but is actually a bound over the skyscrapers of rum taste that might conceivably make Superman shred his cape in rage (assuming he drinks the stuff).

The Renegade Cuba 1998 11 year old rum is a non chill-filtered, limited bottling of 1800 bottles, originally distilled in 1998 in the Paraiso distillery in Sancti Spiritus in Cuba and matured for 11 years in white oak bourbon barrels, and then finished in Amarone casks. The founding family of the Paraiso distillery, the Riondas, began their sugar business in 1891 with a company called the Tuinucú Sugar Company in the Central Cuban province of Sancti Spiritus (which was also near to the original Bacardi distillery). In 1946 the Paraiso Distillery was created and in 1951, the Tuinucú Sugar Company was consolidated into both plantation and distillery operations. Poor timing, if you ask me, since the revolutionary Government took over the entire kit and kaboodle not long after and has run the show ever since.

What the hell is this thing? I wondered, as I poured myself a glass of this bright amber spirit. Yes it had been finished in Amarone casks – this is a rich and somewhat dry Italian red wine – yet what I was getting was less red than white, cheekily light and flowery, with notes of cinnamon, marzipan, juniper, jasmine and light caramel (this last almost imperceptible). In fine, it had the aromatic nature of the perfume department at HBC at Christmas, and French perfumes redolent of the fields of Provence in the summer time. Gradually, as it opened up, slight leathery hints, maybe sandalwood, stole coyly around the others. A wonderful, if very unusual, nose, and I spent a lot of time enjoying it.

All this changed on the palate, which had these light perfumes degenerate into a chemical plastic that was – after that almost delicate nose – as shocking as a kick to the rubs. at 46% I couldn’t avoid some heat there, not too bad and medium-to-light-bodied, not so much smooth as clean. Briny, salty, vegetal and herbal, this thing was more in the dry, straw-like nature of (get this) a tequila. Apples almost beginning to go and some dry fruits mellowed slowly into the weirdness of Joaquin Phoenix with a beard on Letterman, and I can’t say it impressed me much. The finish was spicy, herbal (again those green apples beginning to end their shelf life had their moment) and medium long, but was marginally redeemed by the zestiness of those perfume notes stealing back for one last hurrah. The rum as a whole was perky, then morose and then zippy all over again, like it needed a serious dose of lithium to get it on an even keel. The best part of it, I judge, was the nose, which really was quite spectacular. But overall, as I noted above…squirrelly. This may be because some of the products of this distillery which are sold in Europe, are actually agricoles (made from sugar cane juice, not molasses), but this is an educated conjecture on my part….there’s nothing in my research about this rum for me to say that with assurance.

I want to be clear that on the whole, I respect and admire Renegade’s lineup and my 84 score here reflects aspects of the quality of this particular rum which is undeniable. It was the first of the European series I’ve really made a dent in (Rum Nation is the other, and I have hopes for the Secret Treasures, Cadenheads and Plantations). For sure it’s a boutique set of rums, taking its cue from the various finished whiskies that launched the fashion many years ago. Perhaps there’s where the issue lies – I say they’re inconsistent, but maybe they’re just not made the way a major rum distiller would, but in the fashion of, and for a palate to please, a whisky maker. And as a result, the end product veers away from a profile which a person who is used to Caribbean tipple would prefer — or is accustomed to — his drink to be.

I’ve been asked many times, and see many posts on the Ministry of Rum about “Which rums are good?”, or variations on “Where does one begin to start in a rum appreciation journey?” – I’d hesitate to tell any such curious individual to begin with the Renegade rums, any of them, because of this dichotomy. Most of the Renegades are excellent products, some spectacular, some more “meh,” and all are interesting – but occasionally one comes across a wonky off-side spinner like this Cuban rum which, at end, only a die hard rum fanatic – or a mother – could truly love.

(#139. 84/100)

 

Downslope Distilling Wine Aged Rum – Review

 1 Response »
Dec 232012
 

Fair warning: the wine is strong on this one.

(First posted on Liquorature, December 23, 2012)

I would like to wax rhapsodic on this 40% rum; spout literate encomiums to its puissance and scintillating quality, write heady metaphors with words like “ambrosia,””zoweee!” and “wtf”. I’d like to share with you, reader, the happiness of Unicaworld (“would place this alongside my good Martinique rums on my top shelf”) or the Whatsnewinbooze blog (“…a great product from a new distillery…” and “This is an absolute must try…”) or the remarks of the Big Kahuna, when he referred to this rum as one of two shining standouts he tried from Downslope Distilling.

Unfortunately I can’t. And the short version is that in my opinion the rum, sorry to say, doesn`t work. At all.

Have you any idea how frustrating that is? Here I am, tasting rums in their tens and hundreds on mostly my own dime, month in and month out, fighting the long defeat in a desperate championing of rums in a resolutely whisky drinking country (and as part of a primarily whisky drinking book club in a whisky mad province), plaintively trumpeting the case for distilleries to go beyond, seek new horizons, rise above 40%, push the envelope, experiment…and now this rum comes along from an enthusiastic bunch of guys in Colorado who’re trying to do everything I ask for, and it…just….fails. Aaargh. It’s enough to drive a man to drink, honestly.

Downslope Distilling is an outfit set up in Colorado in 2008 partly because of some peculiar laws regarding making and distributing spirits in that state, and partly as a consequence of the rabid interest of its founders in producing what one might term craft spirits: reading around I get the impression their real interest is whiskey and vodkas, perhaps gins, with rums almost an afterthought, but maybe that’s just me. At end, I see it as a logical evolution of micro-breweries which took off in popularity some years back. Hey, we can make a decent beer…let’s try something different.

Now, with respect to its rums, DD uses unprocessed Maui cane sugar as the base from which to distil its blend, running it through a pot still twice, and then, without any filtration, chucks it right into a barrel that once held wine – each barrel used (or set of barrels) held a different wine so output is not only limited to several hundred bottles per individual run, but widely divergent from batch to batch depending on the wine it once held. I suspect that the bottle I got was aged in Merlot casks from the Napa valley where they host those popular limo tours (other bottlings are aged in Tokaji casks which is a sweet dessert wine from Hungary, or in California Chardonnay casks).

When I poured this light blonde spirit into my glass, what I smelled from three paces was a cloying reek of enormously beefed up Muscatel grapes, as if the Legendario from Cuba had enhanced itself by snorting enough coke to keel over a Himalayan yak. I mean, it was so pervasive that I could barely make out anything else – not even the usual burnt sugar and caramel notes that so characterize most rums. That’s not surprising, since they use sugar, not molasses to begin with, so to some extent what we’re getting here is a faux-agricole (true agricoles (a) are allowed to use the term and (b) start with cane juice, not sugar). It was raw and harsh and burning, grudgingly gave up a hint of nutmeg and grassy notes, before morphing into a wine on the edge of turning to vinegar, or overripe oranges just starting to go. Sharp and unappealing.

I was not reassured by the palate either: yes the wine aged rum was sweet, but also briny, and as sharp and grasping on the tongue as a vindictive ex-wife’s lawyer. It was dry as a bone and even after several minutes, all one could ascertain taste-wise was more grapes and more table plonk — way, way too much — that flooded the taste buds with their own omniscience so intensely that eventually I just had to give up, because nothing was gonna make it through those three hundred Spartans of wine. About the only thing that even marginally redeemed what I was tasting was the attendant finish, quite long, with banana, cinnamon and bitter wine notes. Not enough to save it. If they had not labelled the rum as such, I wouldn’t have known it had it been placed before me blind.

Part of the issue here is the ageing. Rums are aged in oak for years – at least one, preferably three to five, and good ones for many more – and then finished in wine casks for a few months. To try and combine the two processes for six months in barrels that impart such enormous influence is too little of one and too much of the other, and it sinks this drink utterly. No, really – it’s too raw to have neat, and I could not find a mix that even remotely ameliorated the overarching wine bedrock. This is a product in need of severe oak support for at perhaps another five years. It was a mistake to issue it so early, since what it accomplished was to give startup rum makers a bad name and makes buyers avoid rum-creating micro-distillers on principle (to the detriment of all of us boozers). Compare this hastily issued rum to the years of preparation St Nicholas Abbey did in the late 2000s before issuing their first rum, and you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

In fine, Downslope Distilling’s wine aged rum is too sharp, too young and too far out to lunch for me to even admire its adventurousness much as I usually applaud such efforts. What this padawan needs is a Yoda to guide it to adolescence, and a little less enthusiasm from online writers or distillery visitors who should be more stinting with their praise and more comparative in their approach (come on, are you seriously trying to tell me this rum compares magnificently to a top Martinique agricole? gimme a break). In years to come, Downslope Distilling may grow into something, and I really hope they do, because at least they’re trying, and have the advantage of enthusiasm, obsession, perhaps even love for what they do (so more power to them for that); however, right now, they’d do better to be more self-critical about the hooch they’re passing off as quality. They may have thought they were putting some James Brown into their spirit: what they got was his sweat instead of his style.

(#137. 71/100)

Other Notes

  • As of 2021, the Downslope Distillery continues to operate and, like so many other small outfits in the States, wrings the most out of its equipment, and makes a plethora of spirits on its “double diamond” pot still: agave, gin, whisky, rum and vodka. I’ve made my disapproval of this kind of lack of focus clear before before, and to repeat: being a jack of all trades makes you a master of none, and your products suffer for it, as this one does.

Sources

Because this is a small distillery not really that well known, and because I’m quoting directly, I’m including my references here: unfortunately, seven years later on, two of the three websites I quoted were already defunct.. You will have to take my word for it that the quotes were (and remain) accurate as posted.

  • Unica World “…would place this alongside my good Martinique rums on my top shelf.” As well, the “James Brown” comment. (As of 2021, this site is dead).
  • What’s New In Booze “…This is a great product from a new distillery…” and “This is an absolute must try…” He rated it 90 points. I can only raise my eyes to heaven.
  • The Big Kahuna commented that this was “…wonderful with two shining standouts…” referring to both this one and a vanilla flavoured variant. (As of 2021, this site is also defunct, and the link redirects to a Chinese site (Ziyang Apple Equipment Co).)

Rum Nation Demerara 1989 23 Year Old – Review

 2 Responses »
Dec 202012
 

Desert island quality, a hardcore, tasty, subliminal man’s rum of rums. I’d ditch the mermaid for this one, no problem.

Rum Nation have done it again, upping the ante on the already brilliant Demerara 1985-2008 23 year old which I so admired before, and issuing a 2012 edition which is something like, oh, the Bugatti Veyron being overtaken by the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport…just not as expensive. And look: they upped it to 45%, which regular readers would know is the area around which I am becoming convinced lurks the best proof point of top end rums.

With a rum about which so many good things can be said, where do I even begin? Let’s start with the presentation. No changes were made to the wooden box and jute sacking of the 1985 I bought two years ago, and a decent plastic tipped cork surmounted the standard barroom shaped bottle, which decanted a dark amber, almost ruby-red liquid lazily into my glass. Thick, slow, dark, lazy legs promising depth and flavour rolled serenely down the sides.

No real bronco-bustin’ Alberta cowboy would ever be enthused about the initial scents arising from a glass of this: white chocolate and estery-floral harmonies, buttery toffee, and a lovely kind of chewy creaminess, all preceded by that characteristic feinty and rubbery note that would make the unwary swear off rums forever. But before the sniffing extravaganza was over, those scents, good as they were, transmuted into a sort of musty driness, almost like the well-oiled leather of an orderly tack room just off the stable, through which golden seams of early morning sunlight spear the motes of dust hanging in the air. It’s at this point you can almost see the rancher coming back for a second look (maybe to see if he dropped a Trojan).

The taste on the palate was stunning – I tried it side by side with the 1985, and it equalled, nay, superceded it, with a rich, thick body of a rodeo horse that wants to bite you married to deep dark notes of caramel, dried christmas cake fruits and toffee, some spices I could not quite classify (licorice, maybe black tea, I thought), all enveloped in the working-stiff background of fresh smoke and sweat-soaked, well-used, well-cared-for old leather. And at 45% it had just enough power – and just enough sweet – to it to balance out these various competing flavours, ending with a medium long finish redolent of cafe-au-lait, chocolate, faint dust and smoke. You could put a stetson on this rum and let ‘er rip: no hard-riding, hard-working cowpoke would be ashamed of slugging back a neat glass of this baby after a tough day, trust me. Even before he had a bath. This rum is all man…hairy chested, smelly, and reeking of burnt motor-oil goodness. Drink a shot or five before heading to the nearest beer garden for fries and a fight.

The 23 year old has a real fruitiness to it, and originally I suspected that it came from the same high ester still with which DDL makes the Pyrat’s XO and Cask 23 stocks. Rum Nation informed me that no, this was sourced from the Port Mourant double pot still, aged for about a year in Guyana, another two in the UK, three years in an oloroso sherry butt (aha!!) in Bristol, and the remainder (same butt) in Piedmont, ending up in 947 bottles. Consider the difference this ageing made when compared to the Pyrat’s: none of that over-candied orange liqueurishness; none of that syrupy consistency of a well put together cough medicine. Just a smooth, dark melange of complex flavours and luscious mouthfeel, a palate and a finish that, I dunno, exceeds even the loveliness of the 1985 23 year old. How does Fabio do it? Can’t say, but I sure hope he doesn’t stop anytime soon.

So: superb; stunning; superlative. Yes, I know I’m a Rum Nation fanboy, but the thing is, the rums they make are good. Some people complain about rums getting too expensive and boast about restricting themselves to the excellent younger products that hit their self-proclaimed sweet spot of price and quality. Guys, you’re welcome. You’re probably even correct (partly, anyway). But don’t ever try to convince me that every now and then, when a slightly more pricey rum comes sashaying smoothly through the door and you taste it, and you realize that here is the babe you’ve been waiting for and its quality is so good you’re just left gaping…don’t ever try to convince me you won’t (a) love it and (b) buy it. Maybe even twice. Because if you love rums (as I do), you simply should not ignore a piece of artistry like this, or leave it alone on the shelf…and if you do, it’s my firm belief that you’ll never forgive yourself when it’s gone.

(#136. 90/100)

Note: Publicity photographs courtesy of Rum Nation

Other Notes

  • Fabio Rossi bought three ex-bourbon casks of this rum from a vendor in the UK in 2002 – all bore the PM designation, i.e., Port Mourant. These were transferred into a sherry butt (Oloroso N. 61) in 2004 and were left to age in an underground cellar in Bristol, England. This cellar was unfortunately closed in 2007, and the rum was brought to the Piedmont area of Italy where was aged until 2012 when it was bottled (in Italy). Since it’s unclear what the vendor had done in the UK prior to purchase, we must err on the side of caution and assume that it was all – or at least mostly – aged in Europe.

Renegade St Lucia 1999 10 Year Old Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Nov 232012
 

In my opinion, the best of the St. Lucia rums hailing from the eponymous distillery

We choose friends for many reasons: in my case it’s a question of what quality they add to my overall existence and what I can contribute to theirs. I may not like everything about them, or they about me (admittedly, I occasionally piss people off, sometimes just by being in the same room breathing the air they’d rather be smoking) – yet all my friends are interesting, all have quirks and characters that are appreciated and savoured. I feel the same way about rums – they may not be the best at what they try to be, but if they go for the fences with cheerful abandon, well…how can I not appreciate that?

Renegade Rums are a subset of what I term “series rums” (like the Rum Nation, Secret Treasures, Bristol and Plantation series, for example – in years to come they came to be called independent bottlers) with which I have had a love-hate relationship since I first began trying them four years ago. Some were too much like whisky, others were not aged enough, in some cases the finish just didn’t work (for me – others may differ in their assessments), and in yet others it seemed like they weren’t loved enough by the maker. In other cases they succeeded swimmingly

The Renegade St. Lucia 1999 10 year old was firmly in that last camp. Bottled at a pleasant, tongue-titillating 46% and presented in that frosted, etched bottle I’ve always sighed over, it was distilled ina  double retort pot still, aged for ten years in used Bourbon casks and then finished (for three months, I think) in Chateau LaFleur casks, which provided something of a fruity Bordeaux hint to the final profile. It was probably this which made me appreciate it more: quirky it might have been, but I couldn’t argue with the originality.

The amber, medium bodied rum was the lightest-coloured of the rums hailing from St Lucia which I tried (Forgotten Casks, Admiral Rodney and the 1931), and right away after decanting it leaped up and stabbed me in the nose with the now familiar pitchfork of Renegade’s slight overproofishness (is that a word?). Plasticine, rubber and play-dough were evinced right out of the gate – not aromas I particularly cared for, but bear with me, reader: stay with it. I had a similar experience with the Rum Nation Jamaica 25 and 1985 Demerara 23, and you gotta let that sucker breathe a bit. Do that and the next wave comes over the beachhead…smokiness, cherries, sweet breakfast spices, nougat, well-polished leather and aromatic pipe tobacco in an antique tobacconists shop found in an old European capital, along a well hidden cobbled street on a blustery day in autumn.

The taste followed right along, heated, yes, just not overbearing and mean. It wasn’t the smoothest of sipping quality rums, no – strength and youth showed in a slight bite for which I marked it down, and it had a dry tang and brininess that at first startled me – but the rum was decently aged, there was a woody backdrop to which was gradually added salt water taffy, candy, caramelized apples…plus cherries and apricots, all held in balance and harmony by scorched pine wood. Coiling around all of these sumptuous tastes were notes of Russian or black china tea…lapsang-suchong. I mean, this was just heavenly, especially since the relative youth of the rum made it spry and agile and almost mischievous, without the deep, mellow ponderousness of grandfathers (in rum years) like, oh, the Panamonte XXV or the El Dorado 25. The long finish was similarly good, exiting in the leisurely, sauntering fashion of a prima donna who knows she’s good, leaving behind the memory of salty biscuits and marzipan.

All three of St. Lucia Distillers rums scored within a few points of each other, weaknesses and low scores in one area recouped by strengths in another. Tough to choose between them all, yet, at end, I absolutely preferred the Renegade version of St Lucia’s rums to any of the others, good as they were. What it came down to was a question of character. The Admiral Rodney and 1931 were solid well-made rums: they merely hewed so closely to the line that some of the characteristics of playful experimentation were lost. For sheer originality, for sheer joy and exuberance and verve, for complexity and interesting profile, the Renegade had it.

(#133. 83.5/100)

Opthimus 25 Solera Whisky Cask Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Oct 042012
 

Smooth, soft, voluptuous Tomatin-cask-finished solera rum that expresses its admiration for your awesomeness without coyness or complexity, just unalloyed, warm affection. And a bit of a quirky side.

You are entirely within your rights to ask what the number actually means in the context of a solera’s given “age”. Generally accepted useage holds that it does not mean the oldest or youngest component of the blend, but the average of them all: which is no more than proper given that the solera process is based on a percentage of the rums in one level of barrels being progressively poured (and mixed) with barrels containing yet other percentages in another level over a period of many years. The Bicentenario out of Venezuela, for example, claims that rums as old as eighty years of age are components of the final product (hence the price)…but no solera maker I’ve ever researched makes any mention of how much of each age forms the final blend, though sometimes you are informed of how long that final blend is itself aged.

None of this would be more than an academic exercise unless it was for the fact that since we are never quite sure what percentage of what age is in our “average x years” solera, we therefore are never certain whether the price we pay is worth what we are getting (unless we get a taste first, in which case…). However, some general observations I’ve made is that soleras are sweeter and smoother than the average, get better the higher the number is, a bit pricier, and are much liked (look no further than the Ron Zacapa 23)….yet lack something in the way of real complexity, real depth…real oomph. I like them just fine, and they sip quite well, mind you, so let these remarks not dissuade you. When I meet persons who know they want to try one of my rums, but not which one, it’s almost inevitably a solera I trot out, ‘cause I know they’ll enjoy it.

One of the best I’ve ever tried is the Opthimus 25, originating in Dominican Republic, home of the Brugal, Bermudez and Barcelo (and Matusalem) and bottled by Oliver & Oliver, a company in existence since the mid 19th century and founded by the Cuban family of Juanillo Oliver, a Catalan/Mallorcan emigre. Abandoning Cuba in 1959, members of the family re-established the company in the early nineties in the DR after finding the supposed original recipe for their forebears’ rum. They also produce the Cubaney line, and the sub-par Opthimus 18 (at a jelly-kneed 38%) and the fully awesome Opthimus 15 (which may be the best of the lot simply because it is a shade younger and has therefore not been smoothened out so much as to eviscerate its more complex nature). The 25 I tasted was bottle 795 of 1350 the 2011 production run, and cost an eye-glazing €108 for the 500ml bottle pictured above.

Like most soleras I have tried, this 43% ABV version was warm and soft and billowy to the nose, with scents of caramel and burnt sugar being subtly upstaged by nutmeg, banana and cinnamon…and an odd kind of brininess hinted at, not driven home with a bludgeon to the schnozz. And the label makes it clear why: the rum was finished in Tomatin malt whisky casks in Scotland (no info is given as to how long, alas). That’s quite different from many other rums, which finish in wine casks of some sort (though Cadenhead, you’ll recall, does have the Laphroaig-finished Demerara rum). I shrugged and passed on – after all, the feinty wine notes of the Rum Nation products enhanced the overall profile, so who was to say this was bad?  Not I.

The arrival was also a bit off the beaten track, with the brininess I had noted sticking around as if to see wh’appenin’ (as my West Indian squaddies would say); a bit sweet, a bit salty, like biscuits in a teriyaki sauce (I kid you not). There was a touch of iodine-like peat in there, but the rum itself was brown-sugar-sweet and smooth and strong enough not to be overwhelmed by it, and that sly touch of mischief appealed to me a lot, a fact aided by a lovely, warm finish with no hint of malice or bile in spite of the 43% strength, redolent of caramel and breakfast spice (and yup, that touch of brine again, sneaking in through the back door). Honestly, this reminded me nothing so much as of the lovely brown-skinned, dark-eyed Guyanese lasses I regularly fell in and out of love with in my teenage years…warm, friendly, smart, inviting, funny and with just a touch of the flirt to keep me at bay.

I’m going to go on record as saying this is a pretty good rum, it beats out the embarrassingly underproofed 18, and yup, it’s a bit pricey; still, for my money it is eclipsed by the cheaper 15, the same way some believe the El Dorado 15 is a better rum than the 21 or 25 (my father among them). I don’t often hold with such uninformed opinions from my supposed elders and purported betters, dogmatically held and long (and loudly) proclaimed. Yet in this case I have to concede that while the 25 is a really well put-together rum which presses all the right buttons (and loves me, unlike all the aforementioned lasses, who probably had better sense), it somehow, through a subtle loss of alchemy, fails to quite be the Prime it may have been meant to be. Note that there are other variations of the 25 out there, some weaker, some finished in different casks

Let that not stop you from trying it if you have a chance, though. You won’t be sorry. It’s a lovely rum.

(#124. 86/100)

Other notes

  • I sampled this in 2012, and going at it again in 2016 suggested how my preferences and perceptions charged.  There’s an undercurrent of sweetness to it I had not paid enough attention to before.  I have not done an in-depth check for additives but it’s likely (based on taste alone), so caveat emptor.

Renegade Guyana (Enmore) 1990 16 Year Old Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Sep 152012
 


Slightly rougher than expected, but with a lovely taste all its own.

You’re unlikely to get Renegade Rums anywhere in Canada unless you troll in obscure stores that may have ‘em gathering dust somewhere. In speaking to purchasing agents and spirits managers from Co-op, Liquor Depot and KWM, they all tell me the same thing – the rums are loss leaders and move off the shelves too slowly. And that’s a shame, really, for while I’ll be the first to concede that the line is uneven at best (remember my snarky comments on the Guadeloupe?), Bruichladdich does take a “cask expression” whisky approach to the product that I wish we could see more of in the rum world by the major brands. They’re not the best rums of their kind that are made (I trend towards Rum Nation for that accolade in spite of their refusal to go over 40% ABV in their products)…but surely among the most innovative and interesting.

As the label notes, this is a Guyanese rum sourced from the Enmore distillery’s Versailles pot still in 1990, aged there and then finished in Madeira casks; as with Cadenhead, there is no chill filtration or additives of any kind, and the rum is brought down to Bruichladdich’s standard drinking strength of 46% by the addition of distilled water. Renegade’s awesomely cool minimalist frosted glass bottle remains the standard one I like so much…you see this in a shop, you pretty much have your eye dragged to it as if RuPaul just passed by.

At 46% strength, you expect (and get) a spicy animal – I followed my standard practice of allowing it to open a bit (I rarely add a drop of water to open a rum up unless it’s a raging overproof), and when I sniffed it, got vanilla and brown sugar notes that morphed into a darker, heated aroma like Anakin turning to the dark side. “Cough syrup! Plasticine!” bugled the Last Hippie as he tried a dram the other night, yet I disagree: the rum deepened and became richer as it settled, evincing hints of fleshy fruits, peaches, cherries…I thought it pretty damned good.

On the palate, to my surprise, it tasted something like a heated, cherry-infused chocolate, and was not as smooth as I would have expected for a rum aged for sixteen years. Yes I tasted licorice, vanilla and sweet raisins, and initially these were a shade raw, untamed…they were like Westeros’s Iron Throne, always ready to cut and slice you in an unguarded moment: still, my advice would be to stick around, because for the most part that’s just the initial jolt: it gradually faded into a sort of creamy brininess, dying out into an arid profile of chocolate and musky old leather, with a long and lasting finish redolent of caramel and a less-than-preferable lingering creaminess. Quite unusual, and not at all what el Dorado 15 (for example) would have prepared you for.

This is what I mean about both the inconsistency and the originality of the line. Partly it’s the finishing in different casks, partly it’s where it’s being aged (I may be wrong, but I do believe that this rum was aged in Scotland, the profile is so much like a younger product) – commercial establishments simply don’t get to have tastes like these, and love it or hate it, you can’t deny that it’s unusual. Are you prepared to dump about sixty Euros or seventy bucks on this? Hard to tell – my take is that I liked the Guyana 16 even for those rougher edges. I can get enough smooth-as-silk offerings at 40% and love them for precisely that reason – this baby might require some taming and in that resides my enjoyment (you may feel the opposite).

So then. Summing up. It’s got a crazy coffin, an out of left field taste, good-yet-rough fade, and presentation unique enough that when you place a bottle on the table of the bash your wife forced you out of your LazyBoy to attend, you can be assured of drawing all of her guests. They ooh and ahh. They point and snap pictures with their iphones. They offer some variation of “Nice rum” before invariably asking two questions, always the same two questions: “How much?” (enough) and “How good?” (quite).

No one ever asks, “Why?” That’s just as well, because the answer is, essentially, “Why not?” Bruichladdich made this rum because they were creative Big Bang Theory addicts, and because they could, and maybe because they were trying their secondary-finish-whisky philosophy on rums to gain market share and a wider audience. But for me, the rum has no need to be anything other than what it is and needs no real marketing or other extravagances. Perhaps the only reason it has that look to it is because it’s so damn cool. And if that and the taste aren’t reasons enough for you, then buy a Bacardi or Lemon Hart and be done with it because, let’s face it, you’re just not that into rums.

(#121. 83.5/100)

Other notes:

  • To be clear: this is not an “Enmore” rum.  Such rums when correctly named refer to Demerara rums made on the Enmore wooden coffey still, but here it just refers to the estate of the same name. The “VSG” moniker points there, the “pot still” on the label elaborates, and if that isn’t enough it clearly says it’s from the Versailles pot still further down in the fine print.
  • First published September 2012 on the Liquorature website

Renegade Guadeloupe 11 Year Old 1998 Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Aug 312012
 

Never had a rum that tasted so much like a peated whisky. And yet….and yet….

If ever there was a rum that exemplified the inconsistency of the Renegade line, this is it. I’m not saying it was a bad rum, just one that didn’t conform to any profile of rum that people could say they recognize as a rum. And in that fact lay (in my opinion) its failure.

Of course, like all Renegades, it was lovely to look at, with the now-familiar frosted glass enclosure and a label that gave as much information as one would wish. Column-distilled in 1998 at the Gardal distillery in Guadeloupe, bottled in 2009 with a limited run of 1300 bottles. All things are good, right?

And yet the beginning gave no hint of the surprising volte face to come, like Dick Francis’s horse skidding to an ignominious belly flop just shy of the finishing line in the 1950s. Consider the initial scents of this hay blonde product: it was soft and light and delicate, very much like a decent cognac, and this was not surprising, since it was aged for eleven years in Limousin oak casks and then enhanced (for three months, I think) in Chateau Latour casks…so some of that cognac finish came out in the aromas. Pineapple, red grapes just starting to ripen, a good rough red wine, mellowing into a leathery dry hint. Pretty damned good. And no hint of bite or snarl or bitchiness, in spite of the 46% bottling strength.

Yet the palate was where things (in my estimation) started to come unglued: the smoky and dry aromas came out full force, attended by the over-aggressive bridegroom of iodine and seaweed, of peat and brine that suggested not so much cognacs and Gallic savoire-faire, but the elemental hacking of a Gaelic invasion, complete with longboats and battle axes. WTF? Even after opening up, the rum could barely emerge from those heated flavours, and none of the first scents I discerned could make it past the claymores of the single malts. Why do I get the feeling Bruichladdich mischievously mixed up a cask from its whisky stocks, and is sniggering into a sporran somewhere?

So the arrival was great, the palate not to my taste, and the finish, in my opinion, vacillated hesitantly between the two. At 46% I’d expect a long, leisurely exit, and this was indeed the case, long, heated, dry and smoky, not displeasing in any way, with a faint nutty note batting my senses on the way out, as if to apologize for the palate.

So where do I stand on this whisky in sheep’s clothing? Not very positive, to be honest. The mouthfeel and texture on the tongue of this Renegade were, I thought quite good, and of course the opening scents were lovely. I’m just confused by that damned palate. The cognac profile I was expecting was utterly absent, while none of the lightness and floral scents of a true agricole were really in evidence. I acknowledge originality (even celebrate it), and I’m not a despiser of whiskies by any means – one can’t be a member of Liquorature for going on four years and not have gotten a real education in the subject from those who are incessantly beckoning me to the Dark Side – yet of all the ones I’ve tried, peats are my least favourite (sorry, friends of Islay). And so on that scale, the Renegade Guadeloupe fails for me.

I can’t deny its excellence on a technical level, which is why it scores so relatively well. But I’ll tell you this – if I wanted an Islay profile rum, I would not have spent €53 in the best rum shop I’ve ever seen (the Rum Depot in Berlin), but bought myself something else instead. Points to Renegade for pushing the envelope of what the definition of a rum is and can be, and congrats to people who love whisky who will marvel at the amalgam and congruence of their favourite libations (and probably tell me I’m out to lunch)…but for this rum lover, all it gets is a shake of the head, and a rum that’s left behind.

(#118.81/100)

Other Notes

  • First published August 2012 on the Liquorature website
  • The distillery of origin of this 1998 Guadeloupe rhum is something of a mystery, since the label (correctly) notes the Gardel distillery’s column still as having breathed its last in 1992, so what is the name doing on a label from six years later? Barrel Aged Thoughts noted that Damoiseau / Bellevue was said to have used the name for some limited 1998 releases. But it remains unclear and unproven, and so for the moment we have to leave that as an unresolved issue.

 

 

Renegade Grenada 1996 11 year old Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Mar 122011
 

First posted 12 March 2011 on Liquorature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(#068. 84.5/100)

Other Notes

Legendario Ron Añejo – Review

 No Responses »
Jan 032011
 

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

First posted 3 January 2011 on Liquorature.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(#060. 76/100) ⭐⭐⭐

 

Cadenhead’s Green Label Demerara 12 year old – Review

 No Responses »
Nov 272010
 

First posted November 27th, 2010 on Liquorature

A dry, slightly overproof schizophrenic rum that is just on his side of being a whisky, and not recommended for purist rum mixologists who like their libation darker and sweeter.

Rum is traditionally matured in used bourbon or other whiskey barrels, but this is the first one I’ve ever seen and tasted which was finished in a Laphhroaig cask.  Was that an accident?  Did it just sort of  slip and fall over and said “Oops!” as it boinked into a cask of whisky?  I dunno, but Cadenhead Green Label 12 yr old Demerara rum is a rum with an identity crisis, a crazy overproof schizo that doesn’t know what the hell it is, and, like the Green Label Classic we tried  way back in February 2009, it does not rank high on our list in spite of the $83 price tag.

The source of this pale yellow rum is rum from Guyana (I wonder if DDL has been sneaking into Scotland again), and part of its claim to fame – aside from the aforesaid Laphroaig casks and some water brought in to bring it down (up?) to drinking strength – is an absolute lack of additives or subsequent processing of any kind to make it a different colour, or adulterate the taste in any fashion. This was also a characteristic of the Green Label Classic we had last year, except in that case it had no age statement. Both are made by the Cadenhead Distilleries now owned by the Campbelltown distiller J.&A. Mitchell and Co., which runs the  Springbanks distillery in Argyll, and is primarily a single malt brewer. One is left to wonder whether they are copying Bruichladdich’s Renegade line, or indulging in some experimentation of their own.

Appearance wise, the Classic was actually better, with a rounded cardboard box; this one was a fairly straightforward design and label of rough paper.  A lot of the pale liquid inside was visible, and I imagine that alone would catch many an eye more used to darker hues.  The nose is sharpish, not quite medicinal, but not gentle either (the rum is 46% so that’s certainly part of it), and asserts its woody character without apology.  I’m not a whisky drinker by habit (I’ve tasted enough to get the rudiments down and one can’t be a member of Liquorature without picking up something about Scotches) and I have no real sense of Laphroaig aside from its peatiness – I imagine that the woody bite I got on the nose hearkens to this.  It opens up after a while, revealing a fruity note, leavened by – I swear! – sea salt. Like I said…not a normal rum.

The taste to me is flat out whisky.  There is no way I could do a blind test on this and know it was a rum except, perhaps, for the slightly sweet hint to it which is uncharacteristic of whiskies as a whole.  It’s dry as hell, as arid as the Sahara, and yet there again was that salty-brine undernote. It burns and stings of oak, finishes in the same fashion – dry and burning – and this is where I question the decision not to do any further processing on it. Aside from some kind of purist’s bragging rights, what exactly has this decision led to? Not a rum, to me, but some kind of bastardized in-the-middle product that isn’t fish or fowl.

The peat-heads in the group were vocally disapproving and dismissive – even contemptuous – in their assessment. “Motor oil.” “Rubber.” “Noses like a Barbie doll fresh out of the plastic,” sniffed the Hippie (how does he even know that smell? I wonder).  I don’t know if they actually disliked it, smelled and tasted what they said, or were afraid that rums were starting to approach whiskies in taste and nose and were terrified of the thought, but to my mind the comments were just a shade harsh.

Myself, I must admit to sort of liking it. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s not quite my thing, and I wouldn’t blow another eighty bucks to add it to my “special” shelf where I keep the stuff I really like (as opposed to those bottles I buy to review and share) – but there’s an odd underlying harmony to the balance of driness and sweetness in the Green Label 12; and the depth imparted by the slight overpoof nature of the rum added to a profile that I found just intriguing enough not to dislike it outright. Not quite recommended, unless you’re in the mood to buy something really different, but you won’t be entirely disappointed with it if you do.

(#051. 76/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Havana Club Cuban Barrel Proof Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Jun 092010
 

First posted 9th June 2010 on Liquorature.

Let’s be clear from the outset, that this is a true Cuban rum, not a product of the Bacardi line which produces a rum under the same name and which it is being litigated against.  The marque was first created in 1878 by Jose Arechabala in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba.  Some might argue that Fidel had no business nationalizing the company after he took over the country in 1959, but the current crop of rums, produced in a 50:50 partnership with Pernod-Ricard since 1994 suggests that quality has not suffered in the interim (although I so find it amusing to see bourgeois capitalism raising its head in the workers paradise). Unfortunately, the embargo by the US against Cuba has limited the rums’ importation into the States…but we, as Canadians, suffer no such problems or shortages.

As I taste rums from more and more countries – thus far I’ve sampled from the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Australia, Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, Canada, Scotland, Venezuela, St. Croix, Antigua, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and Anguilla – certain characteristics seem to be national in character: Antiguans make a lighter, smoother, sweeter rum, the Jamaicans favour some citrus and funkiness, the Venezuelans a drier, medium variety, and of course Guyanese make their famed Demerara rums with deep rich bodies.  So I was intrigued what I would find from the Cuban stocks…this was my first sample of one, and in a midlevel price range (~$45 Canadian).

The first thing that struck me was the colour.  One of the reasons I picked this picture to use on the post was because it almost perfectly shows  the gold-bronze colour of the rum when sunlight hits it.  Maybe that has something to do with how it’s made: distilled in used whiskey and bourbon barrels of white oak from the usual molasses, then blended together and aged some more in special casks (whatever that might mean) – this process is not the same as the solera method, since the blend is simply put into a second set of barrels in order to get an additional flavour profile.  The box notes this as the “double barrel” method of maturation.

The nose is more complex than I expected.  Hints of the usual suspects abound, but are well balanced with a certain fruitiness and woodsy flavour I could not precisely pinpoint.  On the tongue I really liked it – I made sniffy noises at the Kraken the other day, for which I’m sure The Last Hippie has not forgiven me, but it had that same smooth oily texture that makes it slide down the throat as smooth as a tomcat pissing on a sheet of velvet (well: that’s me being metaphorical, but you get the drift). Vanilla, cinnamon, toffee, caramel, brown Demerara sugar….I keep seeing cane fields on fire at harvest season when I taste this, so strongly does it evoke memories of my boyhood. And the woodsy taste I noted before fades gently into the background, lending an overall piquancy to the taste. Just sweet enough without being overwhelming – reminds me of those cigarillos I used to smoke, which were flavoured with port wine for additional taste; the rum was something like that.

In summary, I’d suggest this is a solid top-tier mid-price rum, perhaps even a bit better. It has real complexity and flavour, is sweet enough for me without annoying the peat-heads and can be had neat or over ice, as well as in a cocktail – a coke solidifies the flavour and texture on the palate markedly, and I highly recommend it this way. I’d say that it’s on a level with the Cruzan Single Barrel rum or above, which was a very good piece of work, and so I’ll simply close by noting that for my weekend libations on the deck in the summer, I would never say no to this excellent product of Cuba.

Viva la revolucion!

(#023)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • This “Barrel Proof” rum was replaced around 2012 by the new “Seleccion de Maestros”, but it’s the same thing by another name.
  • The age has never been disclosed, nor the components of the blend. Ageing was done in white oak barrels and a finish in some other casks that were also never mentioned.

Renegade Trinidad 1991 16 Year Old Rum – Review

 2 Responses »
Jan 252010
 

 

First posted 25 January 2010 on Liquorature.

(#009)(Unscored)

***

I’m not always and entirely a fan of Renegade Rum, but will unhesitatingly concede that they are among the most interesting ones currently available, and deserve to be sampled. Un-chill filtered at the Bruichladdich Distillery on the Isle of Islay in Scotland, these limited editions have the potential to popularize single-vintage rum if one can get past the whiskey-like finish that jars somewhat with what I expect a rum to be.

My research notes that Renegade Rums trawls the Caribbean estates for traditional single distilleries that are no longer in operation or have some stock to sell, and purchases supplies from places like Guyana, Panama, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, and Trinidad — then completes the maturation in oak bourbon barrels, or those which have held madeira, port or wine. This impacts the taste quite significantly, I’ve found, but more than that, it makes the release extraordinarily limited: this one from 1991 was only 1380 bottles.

I’m unclear how old the 1991 Trinidad rum actually is, since it is advertised as 17, but 16 is printed on the bottle. Whatever the true age, the palate on this 46% (92 proof rum) is uniformly excellent, with notes of port and oak and a very subtle taste of caramel. The finish is not as sweet as I would expect, and does not last as long or as smoothly as a 16 year old rum perhaps should, though hints of burnt sugar and apples can be discerned (this is probably from the French port barrels used for the final ageing). What stops this from being a stellar review is simply the way the somewhat harsh and short finish takes some getting used to – when I first tasted this, I grumblingly compared it to a whisky. See, I’ve been getting sotted on the grog for more than half my life, and us West Indian hicks don’t particularly care to have our national drink turned into a Scottish home brew.

Ok, so that is snooty. Don’t get me wrong, however: I liked it precisely because it’s different, had character, texture, body and a good strong flavour. I wouldn’t drink it neat, though, or with ice (though I did both to write this review). This one, for all its rich provenance and comparative rarity, will be drunk rarely.*

* My good friend Keenan, horrified at my cautiously tempering the good stuff with coke (I was just checking, honest), snatched it away, proceeded to drink it with bowed head and misty eyes on the rocks, complimented it most fulsomely on its character, and disdained the cheap Lambs spiced rum (3rd tier, really) I was happily getting smacked on. I may not compliment Renegade’s creation as much as he did — he had to be dragged off, screaming “Leh we tek wan moh shot, bai” when the evening was over — but at least one person really really appreciated it, and the bottle I have will be kept for his use when next he is let out to play.

 Newer Entries