Tag Archives: Rum

Chairman’s Reserve (40%, St. Lucia)

Sydney Fireworks2015 is upon us! Happy new year! This side of the planet that means that the new year starts off rather cold. Therefore this month I will pay some more attention to one of the warmest of distillates; Rum. In my opinion definitely worth checking out outside of your cocktail. Yes sipping rum to get through the cold as opposed to avoiding scurvy. Rum to be enjoyed to the max I say! Got Rum?

The story is that the chairman of St. Lucia Distillers Laurie Bernard wanted a quality rum made with aged rums from continuous and pot stills. In 1999 this rum was born. At first only for the local market but soon internationally. The blend is circa 5 years old has been matured in barrels that previously held American Bourbons and Whiskey from Jim Beam, Jack Daniels and Buffalo Trace. The aforementioned rums are blended and married together then put back into the barrels for six months.

Chairman's ReserveColor: Full gold

Nose: Nice and thick, but quickly more green and leafy. Syrupy smelling and very nice, aromatic. Thick and funky. Pickles from a jar and hard candy powder. I like this very much. If nosed blind I would sometimes call this Jamaican (but not often). The initial fatness and funkiness wears off and changes into something more dry and dusty, yet preserving its initial impression. Small hint of smoke and some mild tangerine skins ánd curiously, the smell of someone preparing a steak. Nice woody touch with dirty smoky honey.

Taste: Nice light and refined taste, with only a sweetish start and then into a more aged and dry rum. Thin yet very appetizing. Cold black tea and lots of honey. When swallowed and when it leaves my mouth it dissipates quickly, leafy a slight oaky bitterness behind. Although very light and thin, I do like it. Very tasty.

Definitely a rum worth sipping. It has a certain character though, that makes is very suitable for cocktails. St. Lucia Distillers themselves recommend it with coconut water.

Points: 81

Flor de Caña 18yo Centenario Gold (40%, Nicaragua)

A long time ago in Master Quills Rum Week, I already reviewed the Flor de Caña 12yo Centenario, and as far as Rums go I wasn’t too impressed by it then. Funny enough, another rum from that week, The Diplomático 12yo Reserva Exclusiva, really grew on me over time, and is one I like a lot better these days. Flor de Caña actually is said to be a Rum for Whisky drinkers, since it isn’t too sweet. So almost two years later, and a lot more experience with Rum, lets give another, even older, example of Flor de Caña a chance. By the way, the looks of this particular bottle have been revamped lately, so this is a review of an older bottling (Code: AE-020U10CG/X), so take it away Master…

Flor de Caña 18yoColor: Orange Copper

Nose: Sweet sugared oranges mixed with nice wooden notes. Caramel and toffee. Vanilla, like you have finished your ice-cream dessert and the rest of it dried out in the bowl. Not very complex. It’s about wood, toffee and a little bit of vanilla (and some citrus skin). Good balance though.

Taste: Much drier than expected, well maybe not from Flor de Caña. Wood. Oak and cedar. Vanilla again, and actually pretty light. Tree sap and the slightest of bitters. Very easily drinkable and in no way would I have thought this was 18yo. Most rums at this age have more wood.

No over the top sweetness, nice woody notes and good balance. Pretty light yet well-balanced. That’s Flor de Caña 18yo in a nutshell. Good sipping rum. I think I should have another go at the 12yo, to see how I would like it now.

Points: 81

Port Morant 15yo 1992/2007 (46%, Berry Brothers & Rudd, Islay Cask, Guyana)

This Demerara Rum from Port Morant was bottled by Berry Brothers & Rudd and somewhere in its life came in contact with a cask that once held Islay Whisky. The label doesn’t state from which Islay distillery the cask came…

BBR Port Morant 1992 Demerara RumColor: White Wine with lots of viscosity.

Nose: Very aromatic with lots of petrol and tar, paper and cardboard and you know we like this in a rum. Vanilla, caramel, Demerara sugar. Industrial at first and not very fruity, Solvents, but not the usual stuff. Small hint of mint and a good body of wood, but nowhere near the amounts of wood that can be found in aged Rums. Fantastic balance, but wait. A lot more is happening here after a while. The wood opens up and the whole becomes more floral and adds notes of dry leaves. That’s a first for me with Demerara’s. Next are some spices, cardamom, white pepper and it finishes of in great funkiness. Actually it never ends, put it away and pick it up again and you smell new things. Wonderful stuff. Although this comes from an Islay cask, meaning peat I guess, I can not detect any peat at all but there is a tiny, tiny hint of smoke. Can’t imagine they would use an unpeated Malt Whisky cask for this.

Taste: Yes there is the peat! Very up front and comes sailing in on a wave of restrained sweetness. Nice. Fits the toasted wood note that comes next. Mocha, toffee and chocolate (not the darkest kinds though), hints of cucumber, can it get any crazier than this? The wood and the peat give off a slightly disturbing kind of bitterness to this not-so-sweet Demerara. The jury is still out if it actually fits the Rum. Sometimes this note resembles an electrical fire. Still, it oozes character and proves again that Demerara’s are a force to recon with. Alas, most distilleries are closed by now, luckily most stills have survived…

It reminds me a bit of a Cadenhead Enmore, also a Demerara Rum from Guyana which will be reviewed in the future. Talking about Cadenheads, also a Scottish independent bottler, that also used some Islay casks, but from them we know they were Laphroaigs, one of the most heavily peated Islay Whiskies.

Points: 87

 

Caroni 1999/2013 (56%, Kintra, Barrel RR619, Trinidad & Tobago)

Erik Molenaar (again)Kintra is no stranger to these pages but up untill now, all Kintra products were Single Malt Whiskies, but this time Erik Molenaar surprises us with a Rum, and not just any Rum, but one form Caroni, a Rum distillery sadly closed for over a decade. Caroni is a rum from Trinidad (& Tobago). Founded in 1923 and in its final form, worked from 1975 to 2003. Caroni is known for its heavy style that was perfect for British Navy Rum.

Color: Orange-brown

Nose: Very vegetal and smells from under the bonnet. Oil, petrol and fumes. Industrial and automotive, but in a good way. Lots of dry oak and tree sap. Unlike Whisky, a heavy style Rum like this Caroni, can cope with lots of oak, especially this Caroni’s dirty style! Furniture polish, burnt sugar and some tangerine skins. Black tea and when snorted up vigorously, a little hint of mint. Perfumy like the best kind of Rye Whiskey or high rye content Bourbon. Leaps out off the class with lots of complexity and very good balance. It’s a Rum that you want to smell over and over again, it never ceases to give. Wonderful. Amazing how something can smell dirty and industrial, ánd elegant at the same time.

Kintra CaroniTaste: Again a lot of oak, but as with the nose, this Rum can cope with the wood. The whole is quite dry and very aromatic, but very balanced. yet less complex on the palate. It does resemble Rye Whiskey a lot on the palate. Just cancel out the burnt sugar note and some other slight markers that are typical of Rum… The oakiness is well masked, but it really shows itself on the slightly bitter, waxy and drying finish.

Truth be told, this actually stayed too long in the cask, but since the Rum itself is so overwhelmingly rich, it can deal with the oak that’s there in abundance. Is that a problem? No it certainly is not. It’s the only small issue, but Rum, like Whisky, is what it is because of ageing in oak, and we all want nice woody tastes to begin with but quickly complain when we taste too much wood. Finally here is a Rum that deals with a lot of wood and keeps it in check. I really, really hope this is not a one-off deal for Kintra. An excellent find from a beloved closed distillery and a very nice price to boot. Thanks Erik, keep up the good work. More Rum please!

Points: 87

Ron Millonario XO Reserva Especial (40%, Peru)

Rum, Rhum, Ron all words for the same beverage. The fact that there are so many ways to describe this drink shows us that Rum is made all over the world. But then again, which drink isn’t? Whisky is made all over the world now and so is Wine. This particular Rum, or Ron in this case wasn’t made on a small Caribbean island, but in the northern part of Peru, South America. Ron Millonario have a website, but somehow it only shows their 15yo Solera Reserva Especial. This Super Premium XO Reserva Especial is nowhere to be found. The  Millonario Rums are made by slow distillation of sugar cane molasses, using three old Scottish column stills. The distillery has its own coopers that make casks from American and Slavonian! oak. The 15yo Rum is made with four stage Solera system. Chip Dykstra mentiones that for the XO a fifth stage may be introduced, lifting the age by 3 to 6 extra years over the 15yo mentioned above. Mind you, in Rum, 15yo means that the oldest Rum is 15yo, whereas in Whisky 15yo means that the youngest Whisky is 15 years old.

The XO is limited to 6000 bottles per annum.

Ron Millonario XO Reserva EspecialColor: Copper Brown

Nose: Sweet, floral and quite light. The rum also brings a small hint of acetone and dry wood. Dry powdered raspberry sweets, which also resemble not quite ripe cherries. Toffee, old vanilla and wood again. It doesn’t promise heavy sweetness. Tiny hints of young Cuban tobacco and cookie dough and wet brown sugar, which still doesn’t make this Rum smell “sweet”. Very interesting smell, but not a powerhouse.

Taste: Well balanced stuff, this is (Yoda). Seems a bit light at 40% ABV though, but still has a lot going for it. Very sweet (honey) and well made. Small hints of licorice that goes extremely well with the honey I mentioned earlier. It has quite some staying power and the finish sometimes resembles a cognac. Very smooth stuff. Elegant.

The profile seems to be a bit middle of the road for me, but the view from the middle is quite spectacular. The sweetness is perfect as is the balance. The only thing wrong with it is that it’s quite expensive, but hey, most Whiskies cost (a lot) more than this, so I guess buying this it would be money well spent. Recommended!

Points: 85

Rum Week – Day 7: Appleton Estate 12yo Extra (40%, Jamaica)

Appleton Estate, of course, is a sugar estate that started to distill their waste, to earn some extra money. It is located on the Island of  Jamaica and makes Rum since 1749. The estate exists since 1655. It is the oldest sugar estate and distillery on the island. Appleton is owned by J. Wray and Nephew Ltd. another name we know from the rum business. The Appleton Estate covers more than 4,500 ha of land. Nice to know is that they still, in part, cut cane by machete! The Appleton Estate makes traditional pot still Rums that are aged in American Bourbon Barrels. Just like their counterparts of El Dorado.

Color: Orange brown.

Nose: yeah! That’s more like it! Sweet, Cane Sugar and molasses. Very fruity. Lots of banana. And some clean wood with tar in the far distance. Thick. Clay and full of esters. I like this very much.

Taste: Syrupy, half-sweet, and has a bit of a bite from the wood. It tastes just a tad too much toward the new-wood spectrum to call it great, but it does seem to be a great rum. Altogether I expected this to be a bit heavier and more complex, than it actually is.

So there you have it. Seven Rums in seven days. Three were pretty good and very close in points. If I would pick a winner I would choose the Barbancourt. It’s the most perfect of the bunch. The El Dorado is as good and who knows maybe even better in complexity, but I have a dislike for the sweetness that is on the edge. Almost too sweet or maybe it is already too sweet. This Appleton is almost as good as the ones I just mentioned, yet the taste is a bit too simple for the nose and maybe a tad too woody. Still I consider this a very good rum. Of the rest the Malecon is too weak to stand out, but the quality is there. The Angostura 1919 is pretty good too. The Diplomatico and the Flor de Caña were, for me at least, disappointing. Not bad, but disappointing. I expected more of both. These were all readily available rums that, compared to Single Malt Whiskies these days, cost next to nothing. To explore this further it will be interesting to look into some single cask Rums. I enjoyed this week thoroughly, but I do feel there is a lot of Sugar in these Rums, I’m not quite accustomed to. LOL.

Points: 83

Rum Week – Day 6: Flor de Caña 12yo Centenario (40%, Nicaragua)

Flor de Caña is made by Compañía Licorera de Nicaragua that is based in Managua. Their first distillery was built in 1890 in Chichigalpa that lies some 120km from Managua. Flor de Cana was only introduced in 1937. The Chichigalpa distillery was modernized three times in 1963, 1965 and 1996, and in 1973 a second distillery was built in Honduras. I’m not sure if distillate from this Honduran distillery finds its way into Flor de Caña.

Color: Orange copper.

Nose: Vegetal, leafy and spicy. Lemons combined with fresh air. Unripe strawberries. Dry and cardboardy. Old books, musty. Hot water with hints of wood. Average balance.

Taste: First cardboard, and decent sweetness, Dissolved sugar cubes in lukewarm water and brown sugar. Quite a lot of wood. Half-firm body. The taste is even less balanced than the nose was. The finish is rather light after the woody body.

This one is not for me, not my style of rum. It doesn’t bring a lot into the fold. Lots of wood and cardboard and a short finish. Do I want to say some more about this? Nope.

Well yes, actually. I come from Single Malt Scotches, so I will most definitively look at these rums with a specific baggage of knowledge that is very different from a rum-buff’s. This Flor de Cana Centenario and The Diplomatico I reviewed first are both multiple award-winning rums. They just don’t seem to match up with my palate. So keep this in mind, when reading these reviews.

Points: 74

Rum Week – Day 5: Malecon 12yo Reserva Superior (40%, Panama)

Well this will almost be a short story, since there is not a lot of information around about Malecon. The label states that it is made the Cuban way.

One from the grape-vine is that it made by an Italian importer, who uses predominantly Panamanian Rums, but not exclusively. So I’m not sure what this is and where it’s from. Sorry…

Color: Orange copper.

Nose: Spirity and woody. Smells a bit like a Single Malt Whisky, with added sweetness. But the wood also gives this a sense of a dryness. Vanilla cola. After some air, more powdery and less balanced as at first nosing. The spicy wood plays a very important role in keeping this together.

Taste: Fruity sweet and very reserved. Nothing pops out. Only in the finish, the wood shows a little spice, and oak. That’s remarkable, since it played such a big role in the nose. Actually this has a slight bitterness towards the end, and the fruits are lovely. An elegant rum. Light.

Some time ago Erik and I did a rum tasting. When this was put in a row of eight whiskies we tasted, this was probably too light to be truly noticed. When I try it on its own it’s a very nice elegant and restrained rum. It is much better now, than I remember from the tasting. It’s light and easily overshadowed by other heavy hitting rums. When you would try this after a Demarara, this would get lost. But on its own it shows it’s lovely quality. So very light, that even the Barbancourt tried earlier blows this out of the water! Elegant, and definitely worth a try!

Points: 80

Rum Week – Day 4: El Dorado 12yo (40%, Guyana)

Next up a true Demarara Rum from Guyana. Guyana is a south-american country next to Surinam. Guyana had a lot of great Demerara distilleries. One by one they got closed, but most of the equipment was saved and moved to the next distillery that was kept open for a while, and when that one was closed this all happened again. Today, all the stills that survived are in one place. Diamond. So rums distilled in a few of these stills find their way into El Dorado Rum. In this 12yo, I’m happy to report, are Rums made in the original wooden Enmore Coffey still and predominantly, the original Diamond two column metal Coffey still. All the El Dorado Demerara Rum is aged in American Bourbon barrels.

Color: Copper.

Nose: Very perfumy and very mature. Hints of caramel and burned sugar. Leafy and tarry. Heavy organics and crude oil. Wow, such a lot of character and so thick. A stunner this! Licorice all sorts. Lots of it! It takes a while to let the wood take a little spot in the whole. Utter balance in the nose which keeps on developing. If the taste will be anything like the nose, we’ll have a winner!

Taste: Well this is pretty sweet, but not as sweet as I seem to remember. At first opening this was extremely sweet and I didn’t like it for it. It’s more or less the nose in a toned down version, with added sweetness. Cough Syrup and syrupy altogether, with a very nice acidity that comes through the sweetness. For me this is a bit too sweet.

Again we have a rum that has a fantastic nose, but doesn’t seem to put that quality into the taste as well. Still this is a very good rum, and compared to a lot of Single Malts, this is dirt cheap. Having said that is this a replacement for overpriced Single Malts? No, not really, this is a completely different kind of sport. It should be added to your palate not to replace something else.

Points: 85

Rum Week – Day 3: Barbancourt 8yo (40%, Haiti)

Barbancourt was founded in 1862 by Dupré Barbancourt on the Island of Haiti. Haiti was struck by a massive earthquake that all but demolished the Island in 2010. If you want to help by donating funds please have a look here.

Dupré started to make Rums as one would make a Cognac. Barbancourt is made from cane juice that is distilled twice. First distillation happens in a column still and the second distillation is done in a Pot Still. Ageing happens in cask made of French Limousin oak.

Color: Full Gold

Nose: Yeah, that’s more like it. This has body and a very interesting nose to boot. It already shows incredible depth. Not the usual sweetness, but a more ‘dry’ nose. It’s leafy and acidic, also toast that goes beyond toasted wood. It also has a petrochemical edge to it. And that’s great! But wait, there is some fruit in this too. Apricots. And what’s that, woody gravy? I’ll stop now, because this doesn’t seem to end here. This is a very nice and complex nose.

Old and new packaging

Taste: Wow, isn’t this a nice restrained sweetness. It’s sweet, but not in a way if you have a spoon full of syrup in your mouth, Here too shines the wood, but not in a toasted manner. Not very cloying and the whole is nicely balanced. Again an Industrial note of steam, coal and maybe a little tar or licorice.

Very nice rum, with an Industrial edge to it. In my mind it takes me back a 100 years plus. Also for the Single Malt Whisky drinker this is a fine rum. Very much recommended!

On the right you can see the old (left) and the new (right) looks for this rum.

Points: 84