Liquorature

Traveller’s 5 Barrel Premium Gold Aged Rum – Review

Belize, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes No Responses »

Jun 182013

D3S_5953

Ambivalence personified

(#168. 64/100)

***

Ever since I sampled Traveller’s Liquors 1-barrel expression, I’ve wanted to move up the chain – that rum, for its youth and antecedents, was a pleasure to drink, and I really appreciated its ten year old cousin, the excellent Don Omarios Vintage Rum. As with the latter, it was a bottle which “Rum Balls” Tony brought back when he was on holiday over in that part of the world: he obliged his parched amigo by schlepping a bottle of this Belize-made rum back for me to try (with him in attendance, of course). So once again, big hat-tip to Da Man.

Full review can be found on The Lone Caner website, here.

Plantation Grand Reserve Barbados 5 Year Old – Review

Barbados, European Rums, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes No Responses »

Jun 042013

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

(#166. 69/100)

***

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.

The full review can be found on The Lone Caner website, here.

Velier DDL 1985 UF30E 27 Year Old Rum – Review

European Rums, Guyana, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes No Responses »

May 302013

Concentrated black cake. Uitvlught East Field #30 takes its place as the source of one of the best rums I’ve had this year.

(#165. 82/100)

***

In my rather tiny world, sourcing a rum like the Uitvlugt 1985 27 year old 60.7% is quite an experience. A rum limited enough, rare enough and old enough that to use a single appellation like “aged” to describe it is akin to saying Tolstoy wrote rather long books. The series of rums made by Velier (these are not DDL products) answers every beef I ever had about rums not being strong enough, addresses every complaint about a lack of imagination. Thus far, each of the full proof series has been spectacular, powerful, brilliant, exceptional, original and charges out of the bottle like a bat out of hell to give me all it has. This is what rums were made to be. This is what more rums should be. Want to go up against the Scots, boys? Want to give whisky some hard card? You’d better start making more of these.

The full review can be found on The Lone Caner website, here

A.D. Rattray Panama (Don Jose) 12 Year old Rum – Review

European Rums, Panama, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes, UK No Responses »

May 252013

Offbeat Panamanian rum which makes a virtue out being different. People will like it or hate it for the same reasons. I come down on the side of the former.

(#164. 70/100)

***

There’s something about Panamanian rums I really like. They are not as heavy and dark and growly as Demerara rums, nor as occasionally oaky and citrus-laden as the Jamaicans, or for that matter as soft and plummy and banana-like as I’ve often noted in the Bajans. You would never imagine a Panama rum being vulgar, overbearing or obnoxious, like a cinema-goer behind you who chucks your seat, won’t shut up and then ostentatiously uses his cellphone the whole friggin’ time — just well put-together, complex and riding the fine line between too much and not enough. I think of them as the little bear in Goldilocks…whatever they come out as, it’s pretty much always just right.

Full review can be found on The Lone Caner website, here.

Ron Centenario 20 Años “Fundacion” Solera – Review

Costa Rica, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes No Responses »

May 212013

If rums were animals, this would be a faithful, doe-eyed spaniel with slippers in his mouth, who only wants to express his adoration of Master.

(#163. 74/100)

***

The Costa Rican Ron Centenario “Fundacion” solera rum is a poster child for rums which could easily be a bit more torqued up, and become better. Right now, this quietly excellent solera is cuddly, a bit pudgy, and is like soft velvet on the tongue – I think it could just as effortlessly go on a Charles Atlas program and beef itself up to something a lot more interesting, good as it is in its current iteration. I make this comment, of course, after having sampled the darkly dour Bristol Spirits Port Morant 1980 51%, which addressed all such issues and pleased me more…but should that be enough to make me smack down the Centenario? Not at all. For a solera, for a 40% rum, there’s little to complain about here. It’s just a different kind of rum than the aforementioned beefcake, and takes its place comfortably in the ranks of the perhaps better-known soleras, like the Rum Nation Solera 15, the Cartavio XO, or maybe the Dictador 20.

The full review can be found on The Lone Caner website, here

Bristol Spirits Port Morant 1980 30 Year Old Demerara Rum – Review

European Rums, Guyana, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes, UK No Responses »

May 162013

The PM 30 year old by Bristol Spirits is to El Dorados as fish wasabi is to a green salad. Both are nutritious, both are tasty, both are good to have…but only one is a work of art. This one.

(#162. 80/100)

***

This is what happens when a rum maker throws caution to the winds, takes a standard table tipple, ages it to within a whisker of falling down dead of old age, and then torques it up to a grin-inducing, tonsil-tickling 51%. You get a rum that’s redolent of bat-bleep-hydrophobia. If this was a photo of a sports car, you’d better believe it would be on every rum drinker’s wall in a framed place of honour. About the only other rum like it I’ve tried in recent memory is the Berry Bros & Rudd Reserve Demerara 1975, which may also be thirty years old, and is also from the same still.

Bristol Spirits, producers of craft spirits from single barrels aged beyond all reason, have done something quite wonderful here. Somehow, they have muted the seemingly inevitable bite and bitterness of oaken tannins usually imparted by such a long slumber in the barrels, and produced a thirty year old ambrosia that takes its place among the very best of full-proofed rums ever made. And given that even the Maltmonster gave it his grudging seal of approval (he may have been making nice to me because he drank it at my house, though I prefer to think otherwise), you can understand something of the rum’s quality.

The full review can be found on The Lone Caner website, here.

Renegade 2003 Barbados 6 Year Old Rum – Review

Barbados, European Rums, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes, UK No Responses »

May 122013

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

(#161. 64/100)

***

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.

Full review can be found on The Lone Caner website, here.

Plantation 1999 Guyana Old Reserve Rum – Review

European Rums, Guyana, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes No Responses »

May 072013

Crackers and butter

(#160. 69/100)

***

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 plantations, I must confess to being quite surprised at the sharp left turn this 45% ABV Plantation rum made.

The full review can be found on The Lone Caner website, here.

La Occidental Guayabita del Pinar (“Seca”) – Review

Cuba, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes No Responses »

May 042013

Not quite a rum, but close to a spiced or flavoured agricole, and a delicious drink for all that. Big hat-tip to Tony for this one and all the others.

(#159. 58/100)

***

For those who believe Cuba makes only rums, here’s a flavoured spirit close to being one without actually stating it is. It defies easy categorization, which is perhaps why it doesn’t, even on the label, say anything about what it supposedly is (a rum with additives for taste). The issue may be its source, which is variously noted as being either a cane spirit or a guava-based distillate (it’s actually a bit of both). Like the Thai Mekhong, Czech Tuzemak or Austrian Stroh, it’s close to meeting all the requirements, but isn’t, quite. Which doesn’t make it a bad drink, just an intriguing one, and for the purposes of this review, I’ll call it a rum, ‘cause, you know, what the hell. It’s kissing close, and I’m not a total purist in these matters.

Full review found on the Lone Caner website, here

Ron Vigía Gran Añejo – Review

Cuba, Rum Reviews & Tasting Notes No Responses »

May 022013

Parts of this rum succeed swimmingly, others less so.

(#158. 66/100)

***

This was the second of two rums brought over some days ago, by my squaddie Tony – he of the famous 151 proof rumballs guaranteed to lay you out flat under the table in labba time. I remember having about four of these alcoholic grenades a few years back, and then having a serious and lengthy conversation with a doorpost for the next ten minutes, thinking it was the Hippie. Tony had the good fortune to visit Cuba recently, and being one of the few Caners in the whole province (he claims to have seen a few others of our near-mythical breed in occasional flyspeck watering holes, though this may be mere rumour), he brought back both this rum and the 12 year old Santiago de Cuba I looked at before.

The full review can be found on The Lone Caner website, here.

Older Entries