Captain Morgan Private Stock – Review

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May 252010
 

First posted May 25th, 2010 on Liquorature.

Surprisingly mellow sipper from a purveyor not noted for such drinks; not overly complex, but warm, buxom, heavy and with a rich nose and body. This is the Mother Hubbard of rums, to keep in the cupboard.

Right from the get go I must mention that I’ve given Captain Morgan a wide berth thus far, simply because it always had a reputation as a low- to mid-level mixer.  The fact that it was a spiced rum – whether or not it says it is – also added somewhat to its plebian cachet.  Not that I have a real issue with that, but there’s so much other good stuff out there that I don’t need to go to Puerto Rico for my rums. Without trying to be insulting, the fact is that Puerto Rico, which enjoys a favourable import tax regime with the US, makes the Budweiser and Coors of rums, with all the negative connotations this implies.  In making common hooch to appeal to the widest possible audience and lowest common denominator (the US consumer), some of the quality is lost in the quest for sales.

The Captain Morgan brand actually originated in Jamaica, where Seagrams bought the Long Pond distillery in the 1944. Tax incentives favouring Puerto Rico caused them to transfer manufacturing to a factory outside San Juan (close to where the Bacardi family was setting up a factory at the same time); in 2001 they sold the rights and brand to Diageo, a British concern which by 2010 was the largest spirits company in the world.  Diageo noted that they will transfer the production facilities from Puerto Rico to St Croix in 2011 or thereabouts.

Having bored you to tears with all of this tedious history and trivia, the question remains, is it any good?

Going in, I wasn’t sure: my experience with Puerto Rico was previously with Bacardi – the bestselling rum in the world and the choice of expatriates in far flung and remote corners of the world such as where I used to be – and Bacardi is a well-meaning, reasonably tasty but generally boring mixer — I tarred Captain Morgan with the same broad brush. Surprisingly enough, however, it really is quite a decent rum.  In fact, it’s a really nice sipper for the newbie who wants to get away from mixers without losing the body and taste. But I should add this was largely because of the inclusions and additions (primarily sugar and vanillas), not because of brilliant ageing and blending skills.

The nose is candied and overwhelms right out of the gate with vanilla and caramel. The dark undertones of molasses are clearly in evidence. The dark body has some strong legs, yet they don’t kick you in face with harsh spirit notes either.  This is why as an intro to a sipper, Captain Morgan is a pretty good way to start. The sweetness usually imparted by coke or other mixers that cut the spirit burn is essentially taken over by the spices added to the rum itself. And clearly effort has been taken to mute and smoothen out the palate.  The downside of this is that beyond the candy of these spices, it takes a real expert to taste anything else: try as I might, I could not discern more than butterscotch, vanilla and caramel and some very faint traces of what may have been orange.

The finish is also surprisingly smooth and even, and lasts quite a bit.  This may be attributable to the spices, but even so, for a three-year-old rum, I’m quite impressed. It ranks right up there, though its lack of complexity and deeper rum notes render it unsuitable for more discerning (and choosier) palates.

Speaking for myself, I’d buy this again, sure.  It may not be top tier (I paid just under $30 for it), but I have a sweet tooth and enjoy a decently crafted rum that is at home either by itself or in company with a cola. As a man who has spent triple digits searching for the best of the best (and been disappointed more than once with expensive losers that fail on the finish), I cannot fault the Captain Morgan for not aspiring to great pretentiousness.

So, unlike a Coruba, which I’d feed to favoured enemies in quantity, this one I’d gladly share on a warm sunset or cold winter night with my friends – for a low end rum, from me, that’s high praise indeed.

(#021)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • In the mid-2010s the bottle label was changed to replace the Captain Morgan portrait  (head only) with the full picture of “The Captain” standing with one leg resting a barrel.  Bottle shape and contents remain the same, though.
  • 2021 Update: The rum has now been reclassified (by me) as a spiced rum due to the overwhelming vanilla profile…and the fact that it’s now acknowledged as being added-to. It’s therefore unsurprising that I don’t much care for it these days.

Santa Teresa Antiguo de Solera 1796 – Review

 6 Responses »
May 102010
 

 

First posted 10th May 2010 on Liquorature.

I remember being somewhat unenthused with this rum from Venezuela when Scott trotted it out last year.  Venezuelan rums seem to be a bit drier, with less body and not quite as sweet as those made in the Caribbean proper (I note that several online reviews have precisely the opposite opinion), and to my mind, that makes them best for mixers, not sippers.  Still, I had never made good notes on this baby since I tried it for the first time, so, when both Keenan and Scott coincidentally came up with the same bottle two weeks in a row, I had the opportunity to dip my schnozz and see if my deteriorating memories of the first sip were on target.

Some history first: the Santa Teresa distillery is located in Venezuela (north part of South America for the geographically challenged) about an hour east of the capital, Caracas, on land given by the King of Spain to a favoured count in – you guessed it – 1796. Political vagaries being the way they are in South American banana republics, the estate ended up in the hands of a Gustavo Vollmer Rivas, who began making rum from sugar produced on nearby estates – owned by other Vollmerses –  in the late 1800s.  The Santa Teresa 1796 was produced in 1996 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the estate land grant, and, like the Ron Matusalem reviewed elsewhere on this site, is produced by the solera method.

In the solera process, a succession of barrels is filled with rum over a series of equal aging intervals (usually a year). One container is filled for each interval. At the end of the interval after the last container is filled, the oldest container in the solera is tapped for part of its content (say, half), which is bottled. Then that container is refilled from the next oldest container, and that one in succession from the second-oldest, down to the youngest container, which is refilled with new product. This procedure is repeated at the end of each aging interval. The transferred product mixes with the older product in the next barrel.

No container is ever drained, so some of the earlier product always remains in each container. This remnant diminishes to a tiny level, but there can be significant traces of product much older than the average, depending on the transfer fraction. In theory traces of the very first product placed in the solera may be present even after 50 or 100 cycles. In the Santa Teresa, there are four levels of ageing. And the final solera is topped up with “Madre” spirit, which is a young blend deriving from both columnar and pot stills.  Seems a bit complicated to me, but sherry makers have been doing it for centuries in Spain, so why not for rum? The downside is, of course, that there’s no way of saying how old it is since it is such a blend of older and younger rums (Appleton does this as well with some of their stock, and I can’t say I was impressed with their offering).

The resultant is a dark brown, medium-bodied honey-gold rum with a backbone of an older, dry blend.  It’s difficult to describe the exact feeling I had when I tasted it, but it’s like a very pure, medium strong unsweetened hot tea carving its way down your throat. Assertive, yet not unpleasant. And not very sweet, as I’ve said – it’s almost like a good sherry.  The nose is lovely: honey, vanilla, some faint hints of fruit (banana and cherries?), caramel and toffee. The taste and texture on the palate is not as smooth as I would like, and the finish is medium long, redolent of light oak and caramel. A pleasant nose, a good sip, a nice finish, a decent taste. A solid rum, medium tier.

I didn’t care for it neat, but on ice it’s a very competent sipper – without going so far as to make me really want to go nuts over it. In other words, not an English Harbour by any stretch of the imagination.  I would use it as a mixer without hesitation, but I’m not sure if that isn’t just a bit of sacrilege there: after all, the whole point of making something this special is to savour the richness, isn’t it? I guess it flew over my head.

It may be too early to say, but thus far, based on this and the Ron Matusalem, I have to say I’m less than impressed with the solera method of blending. I’m perfectly willing to accept that there must be superior examples of the solera blender’s art out there, and will search the remaining 1450+ varieties of rum until I find one, but I fear that either such and example will be found after I curl up my toes, or be out of the range of my rather slender purse.

(#018)(Unscored)

Update

Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva 15 year old rum – Review

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Mar 092010
 

 

First posted 9th March 2010 on Liquorature.

For some reason, the Last Hippie was absolutely enthralled by the label design* of this Venezuelan import when Pat trotted it out for the February 2010 get-together, rhapsodically comparing it to a postage stamp, nearly swooning over the originality of it all. It was the first time I ever saw a label nearly bring a Peathead over to the Light and have a shot of the good stuff, but it fell just short of the mark, alas and perhaps embarrassed by his untoward display of emotion, he retreated to the other Scottish brews for the rest of the night.

Diplomatica Exclusiva Reserva is a premium aged rum – indeed, the top of the line – made by the Venezuelan firm of Destilerias Unidas…which is now privately held, and a major supplier of raw spirit stock to Seagram.  The research is unclear: either one of the original owners, or Seagram, built a factory in the small town of la Miel, close to the Columbian border, in the 1950s, was for many years the only factor in northern SA and the Caribbean to make both cane and grain based spirits: even now,  this one factory makes whiskeys, vodkas, liqueurs, gin…and Smirnoff Ice.  (Looking at the location on the map, one wonders why it had to be so remote…I mean, this town is really far away from  anything).

Interestingly, the blend is made from a combination of heavy pot-still rum (80%) and column still rum (20%).  The rums are separately aged in white-oak barrels and then blended together to produce the final product which is a rich and textured dark rum of admirable complexity and taste for the modest price. The website also makes tangential mention of flavouring additives (“Only … rich aromas and flavours are used to manufacture rums…”) which statement I include for completeness, and to contrast it against the majority of rum producers who couldn’t be bothered (to their detriment, I think).

The nearly opaque bottle effectively disguises a copper-brown coloured rum that is medium-heavy bodied and of middle density, and with a distinctive taste.  The caramel and vanilla notes on the nose mellow gently into a very nice taste of burnt sugar, sweet molasses (not much), perhaps cream soda and…butterscotch.  And yet, it’s not overly sweet either. Very slightly ‘oily’, leading to a long, semi-sweet finish that everyone who tried liked.  Definitely top tier stuff, and fully deserving to be had without embellishment of any kind.  Which is not to say it can’t be used as a mixer but it doesn’t need to be.

And quite frankly, I don’t think it should be

(#017)(Unscored)

Other Notes

  • The label is a portrait of Mr. Don Juancho Nieto Melendez de Hacienda Botucal, a famous Venezuelan historical personage (and of impeccably ancient Iberian lineage) who acted as an ambassador for Venezuelan spirits in the 19th century, and noted as a collector of top-shelf liquors of all kinds. If my translation of the spanish web page is right, it was he who encouraged the making of spirits from the area around la Miel, because of the naturally filtered water, and the high quality of sugar cane grown there.
  • In 2018, after a re-tasting and re-evaluation, I called the Diplo Res Ex one of the Key Rums of the World. That review probably has better tasting notes than the brief ones here.

Bundaberg Rum – Review

 23 Responses »
Feb 272010
 

 

First posted February 27, 2010 on Liquorature.

(#014)(Unscored)

Holy antipodean molasses, Batman: what the hell is this? Years from now, old farts will be discussing their first great love or hate of rum, and this one will surely make the short list. You either embrace this vile sipper or despise it for its difference,  but you’ll never be indifferent, that’s for sure.

***

Full of hope and expectations, Keenan and I traded rums over the table yesterday – in his direction went the El Dorado 21 year old (I had really wanted him to sample it since his snoot is more highly attuned to quality than my more pedestrian schnoz), and in mine went the Bundie (plus a few others, in case you’re thinking that the exchange was not an equal one).  Ever since we had had this at Bauer’s place some months ago when dodging his dog and scarfing pizza, I had wanted to write a review of this antipodal hooch, and to refresh my memory as to whether it was truly as bad a sipper as I recall.  Or had I been too tipsy and despoiled by the whisky that night to have a clean palate?

The answer? Yes, no and no.

Bundaberg Rum is made in Bundaberg, Southern Queensland, Australia, and is something of a cult favourite down under – it’s said this is what coke and weekends were invented for. “Bundie’ as it’s called there, is practically a cultural institution and supposedly the most popular rum in Australia.  I first heard of this 37% underproof when I read Wilbur Smith’s Hungry as the Sea (“Listen to me, you Bundaberg swilling galah” says the hero at one point to an Aussie engineer) and have kept it in the back of my mind ever since. It has been made since 1888 when local sugar plantations were trying to figure out what to do with their leftover molasses. With some interruptions, the rum has been in production ever since.  In 1961 the polar bear was added to the labelling as a mascot to imply how well the rum could ward off the coldest chill. The Bundie that makes it over here is not the more expensive Reserve, Red or Overproof, but just the standard low-end stuff, coming off a wash and then a pot still. Even so, I think it costs in the $40-$50 range (which may be transport costs factored in).

One has to be clear that this is not meant to be a sipping rum.  It’s absolutely meant to be mixed (preferably with ginger beer to create a highball known as the “Dark and Stormy”), and every review I’ve read says so, though one Aussie who commented here disputed the point and suggested it was more commonly mixed with coke.  I agree. This is a cocktail base and not something to tempt the nose and the palate to indulgent, leisurely sips.

The problem was, I approached like I had all the others. Sniff, a sip neat and another one over ice.  And I shuddered and just about knocked Keenan out of his chair in my haste to reach the coke. Keenan himself was blanching. “Turpentine,” he managed to squeak as he reached for the smelling salts.

Christ.  This is not a rum.  This is a tequila masquerading as a rum. It smells different from any rum I’ve ever tasted, harsher and cloyingly musky-salt-sweet (the very thing I hate about tequila) and the taste is sharp, violent on the tongue and is redolent of methylated spirits, match sulphur and new paint (I exaggerate for effect…but not by much).  There’s no oak, no caramel sweetness, just hurt.  As a sipper this may be the single vilest drink I’ve had since I made the mistake of trying my Uncle Ronald’s DDL five year old neat and lost my voice and sight for a fortnight (admittedly, some suggested it was an improvement and rushed to buy a few extra bottles). It certainly will warm the cockles of your tum, but my advice is to use it for what it was meant for: comforting exiled Aussies, mixing it with coke at least 3:1 in favour of the coke and appreciating that here is something that really is different. Keenan’s attitude was distinctly unflattering: “I’d rather eat a curried dingo sh*t than try that straight again.”

It may appeal to some who like drinking a rum that is off the reservation (and is as distant from the Caribbean caramel and fruit taste as it’s possible to get), and maybe with ginger beer (or coke) it really does lift your socks off.  All I can say is that it doesn’t work for me, and after I helped The Bear back to his feet, we “ketch sum sense” and moved back to the safer ground of the West Indian nectars, rather than indulging further armchair sojourns to the south.

Cadenhead’s Classic Green Label Rum – Review

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Jan 192010
 

 

Picture (c) WineSearcher.com, Stock Photo

First posted January 19th, 2010 on Liquorature.

It looks like a rum and occasionally smells like one, but it sure doesn’t always feel like one; Cadenhead’s policy of making the Classic without any additives or subsequent filtering gives it a less voluptuous body than the average and an overall whisky character that only a psychologist could unravel. Decent drink for those who like a little danger and seeing how rums can go to the edge, though.

***

This is as strange a rum as I’ve ever had, and was a selection of the November 2009 gathering, where nothing but rums were served, and it went head to head with two other rums: the Zaya 12 year old (and the winner by a nose, ha ha), and the Appleton Estate Master Blender’s Legacy (which was the most expensive and opined as the least value for the money).  The Cadenhead Green, for all its ~$75 price tag, was considered middle of the road.

It’s a strange one, this. For one thing, I have no idea how old it is. Nor am I entirely certain where it comes from, although I believe it is a Demerara rum that was then further refined in Scotland and watered down a tad to bring it down from cask strength. The website states it remains untreated and no additives brought in for either colour or taste, and its bold taste makes that likely to be true.

Cadenhead Distilleries is a scotch maker, not a rum maker (actually it’s now owned by the Campbeltown distiller J.&A. Mitchell and Co., which runs the  Springbanks distillery in Argyll), but perhaps they took a gander at what good products came out of Bruichladdich’s Renegade line and followed suit. For whatever obscure reason, Cadenhead has chosen not to reveal the provenance of this rum (the “Demerara” appellation refers to the dark colour and body, not the source), but a few people on the internet have speculated it’s Jamaican, or possibly even Cuban – that would be illegal to market in America, so if anyone bought one of these in the US, I’d be interested to hear about it. It’s listed at 50% ABV, making it an fullproof Rum (I use the word “overproof” to denote rums that are insane for all practical applications…you know, like 70% and up).

The nose is candied, with hints of cinnamon, charcoal, and marshmallow. Dark gold in color, clear. It settles out with chocolate notes, caramel, and burnt pineapple, lightly tingling at the back of the tongue. Strong finish and some bite on the way down. I’d recommend this one with a drop or ten of water plus some ice, unless you’re a peasant like me and just say to hell with it and destroy it with a coke (just kidding). Not really a good sipping rum — it’s not subtle or smooth enough for that – but I’ll say this: the thing had character, and kicked back like a spavined mule after the first few glasses. I’m hoping to get another bottle to see if the first was just me. You’d think that our whiskey drinkers would have been in transports of ecstasy with the Green, given its resemblance to a decent scotch, but in fact the opposite was true, and it came in, as I mention above, in the middle. Given our evolution since then, it’s possible that this opinion might change on a second go-around. (2014 Update: it did, and for the better)

Did I like it?  Tough question. I’ve made no secret of my dislike for distillers who refuse to put provenance or age on their labels – it’s too much like a cheat, giving the buyer no chance to make a first-pass determination of quality, or rate it against other, similarly-aged products –  and that goes double for the higher priced babies, where a buyer needs to know what he’d forking out his dough for. Whisky – Scotch whisky – has its rules about what kind of hooch can bear the highland name, but the plebian and slightly disreputable origins of rum seem to mitigate against rum distillers doing the same.  I admired the strength and character that the Green had, and its body was excellent. The strength stiffened the starch in its spine quite well and the complexity was admirable.

So I’ll split it down the middle: I’d recommend it unhesitatingly for true rum aficionados who dislike adulterations, and dedicated whiskey drinkers (these are the guys who have their snoot glasses in one coat pocket, who sniff and sip and gargle and then rinse with distilled water).  For more middle of the road folks I’d say “Give it a shot, for here is something remarkably different you won’t soon forget.”  And for those who just want a decent mixer, I’d suggest getting something cheaper and sweeter to put into your cocktail.

Fairer than that I just can’t be.

(#003)(Unscored)

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