This story was simply…magic. Thanks for picking it, Chris. This is the inherent beauty of what we do in Liquorature. Whether or not this one would have ever crossed my path is debatable, but having now read it, I can’t help but think it was exactly what I needed at this point.

I second Lance’s appreciation for the company of Lorenzo. Good t’ meetcha, mate. And again, to Chris…kudos. You coerced the poor fella into tolerating us for the eve.

And Yes, it is an Olympic year, and maybe it was because I was an immature 10 years old when I first read it, but Gluteus Maximius has always been my favourite Roman.

Thanks to Lorenzo (Il Magnifico) for attending and lending real depth to the coversation. Even if the poor dude did end up sleeping on the washing machine (don’t ask) he immeasurably enriched the evening with his perspective.

Is “Tintin in Africa” the same as “Tintin in the Congo”? I think so, but am intrigued to see if you actually have a cover that says Africa or not.

As for Asterix, you have pre-empted me, since that article is half written…but I used “Britain” which I thought was funnier (Lord knows they all are.) Given this is an Olympic year, perhaps I should rethink my strategy….

I have been a huge Tintin fan since my early childhood. When I was just kid (back in the 70′s) I went to Holland to stay with relatives. Unfortunately my cousins were in school and I was left to my own devices each day on the rural farm of my Uncle. Fortunately he had a collection of Tintin books. You are dead right about the detail in the drawings, as even though I could not read a word, I was able to follow each story easily just by studying the pictures.

One of the books I read back then was “Tintin in Africa” which I later searched and searched for and even began to doubt existed, until my wonderful wife found me a newly published copy several years ago. It was one of the early Tintin stories and the reason it wasn’t published for many years was because of the implied racism towards black Africans in the story and in the drawings. The reason I bring this up was that when I read the book 30 years after I had pieced the story together just by looking at the pictures. It was exactly as I remembered.

I was glad that when the story was finally republished, they didn’t try to mend political fences. It is necessary sometimes to look backwards just to see how far we have come. (This habit we have in our culture of hiding our mistakes in dark closets is, I think more damaging than allowing our mistakes to be visible and learning from them.)

PS: For the record, my favourite Tintin story was “Flight 714″, and since you have reviewed “Tinitin in Tibet” I would suggest that a review of “Asterix at the Olympic Games” is in order.

Here is the strange thing though; after the tasting I let everyone drink/sip/mix anything they wanted. When I checked the fill lines at the end of the evening, It was the London Dock 40 % that was half empty and the others were all just about at 3/4 to 7/8 fill. LD 40 (as I will call it) turns out to be a very decent mixer. The bitterness it carries when sipped straight disappears with just a splash of cola, and in a punch style drink it is just fine.

I’ll be getting to my reviews of the four rums in the coming weeks (or months) but, I just thought you might find my experiences to this point quite interesting.

Personally I fascinated by this rum, as a cane juice rum produced on a French island and with French influence, but not restricted by the voluminous and what some consider inhibiting production regulations of Martinique. That it is 12 years old is impressive.