Jamel Cachaça – Review

 No Responses »
Jul 252016
 

Jamel

Original enough to make it worth buying just to experience it. Nose is startling, taste a lot better.

(#289 / 81/100)

***

In trying the Jamel, Leblon and Sagatiba cachaças together this one stood out quite markedly, even more so when ranked against the German company Delicana’s three local-wood-aged variants that I’ve also tried. The L’Esprit Brazilian rum might have set the bar high and remains the one I prefer the most (so far) but if you stick with it, this one is pretty damned good too…and this is one of those times that if they did add something in, it was probably the right decision to make for anyone who has the courage to take cachaças neat. What it also does is showcase some of the divergences of these rums from the norm, which goes a far way explaining the lack of acceptance of cachaças worldwide.

The unaged white 40% rum is made by Indústria Missiato de Bebidas Ltda formed in 1958 in Santa Rita do Passa Quatro (in the state of Sao Paolo). Armando Missiato and his brothers started the ball rolling by being general spirits merchants in wholesale and retail, and in 1961 diversified to producing their own cachaça (the “61”). The success allowed the company to build a modernized plant in the 1970s and they have gone the route of major liquor local companies in other countries, producing a number of spirits (including vodkas, energy drinks and cachaças). Unsurprisingly, little of this ever emerged to trouble the minds of rummies anywhere outside the country and likely they are still best known in Brazil. The company continues to be held and run as a family business, and has expanded not only into other states of the country, but to the North and South American, and European, export market.

So, moving on, I said it was a pretty nifty drink and wasn’t joking…but one has to stick with it, and at the end, when jotting down all the notes, I realized it had become a lot more enjoyable out of sheer perseverance. Take the nose, for example – it had the heated, tart, spicy, almost-sweetness of apple cider with a few overripe apples still inside, plus brine, wax, and nuts. Unimpressed, I put it aside to work on the others, yet ten minutes later, perhaps in violation of the laws of the rum universe, it actually smelled worse – it moved to rotting vegetation in humid tropical rain, dead leaves, wet cardboard and (I shudder at the memory), yes, wet dog. There was some rubber and other phenolic stuff rounding things off, but let’s just say it did nothing to impress me and I wondered whether I had made a mistake jumping into this jungle of undiscovered rums…right up to the point where I actually tasted it.

Wow! Where did all the unpleasantness go? This was like an utterly different rum. Warm, a little spicy and a shade less than medium bodied, it was an altogether remarkable turnaround. Sugar water, light and sweet with citrus peel, crisp white-fruit notes, it was sparkling and clear and joyously young. There were some faint ashy textures to it which were in no way excessive (a hint was all), melding well into a sort of easy creaminess of a delicately flavoured yoghurt, with an emphatic exclamation point of wood and smoke closing it off. It was sprightly, it was a little off-kilter, but miles better than the initial entrance had suggested. Even on the finish this odd quality persisted, giving up individual points of swank, some weird tree-sap (reminiscent of dripping capadullah vines and the Rum Nation pot still white Jamaican), and a last flirt of sweet lemon pop.

Overall, nose aside, it was quite a pleasing drink to have on its own. Key to my emergent appreciation was the fact that taste-wise it didn’t go wildly off on a tangent, and some effort appeared to have been made to ensure its appeal to a broader, maybe more international, consumer base by tamping down the wilder olfactory excesses of cheerful Brazilian energy, while losing little of the character that makes it distinctive. So far, my sojourn into the Amazon has been too brief, and not provided the excellence I’m sure lurks under their green canopy. But this cachaça suggests the potential, and convinces me that bigger, better, bolder and badder is is out there, somewhere. I just have to keep trying, and the Jamel points the way.

Other notes

  • The label, miles away from the cool modernist detachment of the Leblon or Sagatiba, channeling some of the bright power of the artworks of Milhazes or Carybé (worth looking up), does raise a question – why is it termed a “sweet” cachaça? Under Brazilian law sugar can be added to cachaças, and I have no particular beef with it one way or the other (as long as it is disclosed), it’s just that there is no such notation either on this label, or the website. So I make mention of it for the curious, but will leave it there.

Stroh 80 Austrian Overproof Rum – Review

 7 Responses »
Dec 132012
 

A spiced Rumzilla. Interesting taste, lacking the cheer and laughter of the 151 proofers, and has nothing of the insane charm of the SMWS Longpond 81.2%

Few “rums” scare me like the Stroh 80 does. It’s like a Tuzemak on steroids, with much of the same obscurely vegetal and spiced choice of flavour profile, boosted by the resident blast bunny to a massive 160 proof that’s as comfortable on the nose and tongue as a prostate exam given by Captain Hook. Stroh’s drone-delivered plastique of an overproof has always has been, to me, as self-aggrandizing as the suicide wings served with waivers I have to sign at my local bar. It is an absurdly large proof driving a rum that is to sophisticated tippling as a sledgehammer is to stone-carving — a tool way too crude to do anything more than destroy everything in its path.

It fails as a sipping rum of course, entirely because of its strength (even though that’s is how I had to try it). In fact, some argue it fails as a rum period, because it’s not made directly from sugar cane juice or molasses. Mixing this rum is not only recommended, but encouraged, because if you have it by itself, it’s a bit like choosing a triple espresso instead of a single latte. It makes your drink just a shade … savage.

The Stroh 80 is a spiced, unaged spirit and not a spiced, aged rum – therein lies something of my disdain for it as a rum. One could reasonably ask what’s the difference, my response being that a rum is not made from sugar beets (as Stroh is reputed to be), is aged (even if only for a year), and Stroh’s lacks anything of the character all rums possess. I mean, observe the nose – after the initial blast of characteristic overproof plastique and plasticine and rubberized fumes dissipate and you recover some of your sanity (and find your nose again), what you’ll get is not caramel or burnt sugar or anything remotely resembling what you may be used to – but cinnamon, root beer, ginger and christmas cake spices, wrapped up in a hellacious burn.

And on the palate, it’s so strong it’s like getting a tattoo done on your tongue with a rusty set of needles by a guy who’s already high on this stuff. Your tongue will numb and turn into pterodactyl hide on the spot and your throat will feel it’s been savaged by a velociraptor. Sure you’ll get strong, amazingly intense sensations of black tea, ginger snaps, Tanti Merle’s christmas spices, some dried fruit (raisins and cherries for the most part), and a blast of cinnamon off the scale. It’s also oddly buttery, creamy, which is kind of interesting, and unusual. You may enjoy this. But at end, the titanic nature of the drink just overwhelms: as I also noted in the SMWS Longpond 9 year old, 160 proof is simply excessive and serves no sane purpose beyond bragging rights (though the Sunset Very Strong 84.5% seemed to have found a way to work around that). The finish is about all I find truly epic, because, like with all overproofs, it’s the gift that keeps on giving, and is surprisingly pain free (perhaps because I had already completed my writhing pain dance and had nothing left to scream about) – it’s heated and so long that one sip did me for ages. I kept thinking I’d been pilfering Santa’s cookies an hour later.

Stroh is an Austrian spirit, made by the Klagenfurt company since 1832, and available in variations ranging from 38% through to 80%. It was probably made from sugar beets deriving from an ethanol base to which spices were added because Austria-Hungary had no tropical colonies of its own to provide the raw stock. I’ve read that currently they use sugar-cane derived ethanol, yet when I was doing the Stroh 54 review some time back, I was advised by a reader that it’s still sugar beet based, so there may be some clarification required here. In any event, Stroh is sold as such and meant primarily as a cocktail ingredient to make Flaming B-52s, jagertee, traditional Austrian pastries, and other strong punches where some oomph is required. And of course, it’s great for chest puffing exercises by all Austrians.

The great thing about rums is that there is a real lack of agreed-upon international standards and classifications (and enforcement of those standard that do exist), and so just about anyone can make something from molasses or sugar cane or what have you, call it a rum, and who is to say different? The really bad thing about rums is that there is a real lack of agreed-upon international standards and classifications (and enforcement of those standard that do exist), and so just about anyone can make something from molasses, sugar cane and what have you, call it a rum, and who is to say different? That’s part of the problem with the 80, which is so far off the scale that all the unprepared can do is shudder, retch yesterday’s breakfast onto the dog, and reach for the Doorly’s. Stroh’s – probably feeling they wanted to take the crown of the overproofs – distilled a drink for the Junkers class as a test for their manhood, meant to render any besoffner comatose on the spot.

What do I think on balance? Well, I sure wouldn’t drink this sucker neat for anything except to write this review: it could be weaponized with too little additional effort. On the other hand, I do like that creamy, spiced up profile for its uniqueness, yes; and the finish is biblical. And to be fair, Stroh’s is quite clear that they don’t make this as a sipping, er, rum. But if you’re feeling like you need to impress the fraulein over in the ecke, and try drinking it that way, be warned: Stroh 80 really does dislike you, does not want to be taken solo, and it will hurt you. My recommendation is simply to leave it in the punch bowl for which it was made, and not risk damage to your liver by guzzling it on its own.

(#135. 75/100)

Other Notes

Kōloa Kaua’i Gold Hawaiian Rum – Review

 No Responses »
Jan 292012
 

Impressive sipping-quality light rum from a region you’d almost expect to have many more darker variations. If your tastes run into the stronger and more distinct profiles, this may be a bit too subtle, being more more shy in its release than most. But it is well worth it.

First posted 29 January 2012 on Liquorature

Most of us drink rum originating from the West Indies that are aged in oak barrels, and so we make certain assumptions about our taste profiles: this is why, when we come across a rum from India (Old Port deluxe), Australia (Bundaberg), the Phillipines (Tanduay) or elsewhere, we can immediately sense, without putting it in so many words, that there’s something different about it. There’s a subtlety of otherness in the mouthfeel, the aroma, the taste (especially the Bundie, but never mind) which immediately perks up our beaks. My own theory is that this relates to the different climates and soils in which the source sugar cane is grown or maybe even different barrels. Who knows?

The rums of a relative newcomer to the rum world stage, Kōloa, seem to possess some of this characteristic. Made on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i by the Kōloa Rum Company, they utilise crystallized sugar derived from cane grown in the west of the island in the shadow of Kauai’s Mt. Wai`ale`ale, in what may be the wettest place on earth (for the rumgeeks among us, the yeast strain used in fermentation supposedly hails from Guadeloupe). The distillation itself takes place in a 1210-gallon, 1947-made copper still (much better for imparting subtle tastes to the end product than a modern stainless steel variation) which was trained, trucked and shipped all the way from Pennsylvania – it is composed of a pot still combined with a seven-plate column still and condenser, and the company makes small batch, twice distilled rums using it.

All these elements come together in a very impressive product which, while not being quite as crazy as the Ozzy-inspired bat-shredding Bundaberg, is easily discernible from the regular Caribbean or Central American products I see more regularly.

Bought on a whim (I buy a lot on whims, largely because Calgary being what it is, if I don’t get it now, I may not get it tomorrow), I was more than pleased with the result. The rum itself was pale gold – nearly straw-coloured – with a light-medium body, and initially I almost confused it with an agricole (trust me – an agricole this was definitely not). The bottle was topped by a plastic screw-top, was fully transparent, and the label was plain white and relatively simple, though not minimalist.

The scent immediately hinted at a rum determinedly taking its own course in life: soft, a shade delicate, subtle. I swear that at the beginning I had zero clue what the thing actually was, there was so little normal nose on the liquid. Gradually, on opening up, certain elements began to make their prescence felt: white flowers, cherries, a vague herbal and grassy background mixed up with creamy caramel. But very little darkness from molasses, oddly enough.

It’s the palate that made this rum an excellent buy. There was some spice to it, and a bit of medicinal background; thankfully these were minor detours from an overall extraordinary arrival: a creamy soft butteriness on the tongue, merging into vanilla, nuts, honey and delicate caramel, chocolate and perhaps bananas. The thing seemed to have no real “rum taste” to it at all, by which I mean the usual burnt sugar / caramel / molasses combo – and it worked wonderfully. Smooth and easy and different. Wow. I liked this taste so much I didn’t even bother to try mixing it, just took one glass, another, then asked myself why the bottle was half empty. The fade was, admittedly, somewhat more anticlimatic – it was medium long, with an exit of faint citrus and fleshy pineapple notes, some honey and rained-on new-mown hay drying in the sun. Gentle and easy all round. Not excellent, but pretty damned good.

What makes Kōloa Hawaiian rum so intriguing is that the rum I describe above was not aged at all. This meant that the flavour profile had no elements deriving from oak barrels (maybe that was why I got no “rum taste”?), and relied wholly and solely on its own ingredients, its own strengths and the skills of Kōloa’s blenders. That skill must be quite something given what I tasted.

Kōloa is one of those distilleries about which I have more information than I know what to do with – the opposite is usually true. Let me wrap it up this way: given the Hawaiian islands’ long involvement with sugar and the sea, it’s no surprise that rum has been part of the maritime culture for a very long time. What is surprising is that this brand of rums is the first legally distilled popskull ever made on Kaua’i. The company was incorporated in 2001 and it took years for them to jump through all required bureaucratic hoops to get up and running in 2009. In their very first year of operations they won a Gold Medal at the 2010 Rum Renaissance in Miami for their Dark Rum (and again in 2011), and then another medal for this one in the 2010 Polished Palate Rum Festival awards. The word started filtering out that there was a new distillery to watch for, out of Hawaii. On the basis of this one, I’d say that word is entirely justified.

(#091. 82/100)

Other Notes

  • Although I did not ask it at the time, it seems reasonable to assume that if the rum is unaged, then the colour derives from a caramel E105 additive, as rum is colourless as it comes off the still.
 Newer Entries