RUM

NEW!
Renegade Rum Company Monymusk Distillery Jamaica 5 Year Old Rum
Lab sample; 46% alcohol; tasted 16 NOV 09; 94 points
At its fresh best, old-style Batrossadeutscher streusel yeast cake made with dried apricots smells like this little sweetheart from a distillery that’s no longer there, but WAS one of the oldest in Jamaica. There’s also a good mouthful of soft nougat and Colombine Caramels. It gives a slightly mournful autumnal expression, but there’s some wry wistful joy in there, a sort one keeps to oneself. The palate is very much reminiscent of soft dried pears; the finish warming without getting prickly. The rum spent five years in old bourbon casks before being finished in Islay, at Bruichladdich, in French casks which were used to make sweet fortified whites – read frontignac – at Banyuls in the Mediterranean. And I think it’s the fronti which has helped release that simply sweet hint of musk and rosewater which threads right through the rum, drawing all those confections and fruits into the one gentle, genteel cornucopia. It has the spirit of gewurztraminer about it. And yes, you could take it neat with apricot struesel and a cup of white tea any morning of the week. 3,960 decanters filled.

NEW!
Renegade Rum Company Foursquare Distillery Barbados 6 Year Old Rum
Lab sample; 46% alcohol; tasted 16 NOV 09; 94 points
First distilled in a copper pot, then concentrated in a column still, five years in bourbon barrels then finished in French oak from Ribero el Duero tempranillo, ooh aye. This is the one for the lumberjacks, which, lest you imagine a derisive tone, include the greatest of all winemakers, and our most famous, carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth. All in one. His very own little trinity. Dried apricots and Golden Syrup aromas ooze about the bottom of the glass, but the top is all lignin-derived: apples poached in cloves, cassia and nutmeg. Really get bold, and jam your hoooter right into the glass, and you’ll see intense toffee bubbling with Curaçao orange rind,ad, bugger me, strawberries! Let it sit for half an hour, and you’ll come over all runny in the middle, such is its burnished complexity, whether you like oak or not. After forty five minutes, it’s smelling like one of those orange-flavoured dark chocolate balls. This is exciting, highly-entertaining rum, like a roller-coaster. Like Coney Island, and Luna Park. Glorious! 3,870 decanters filled.

NEW!
Renegade Rum Company Diamond Distillery Guyana 6 Year Old Pot Still Rum
Lab sample; 46% alcohol; tasted 16 NOV 09; 93 points
The Port Morant Distillery was built in 1732 on the Demerera River. The last vat still from there was moved to the Amalgamated Diamond Distillery, where it hisses on. This rum lay five years in bourbon casks, and then, at Bruichladdich on Islay, was finished in tempranillo French oak casks from Ribero el Duero (!). It must have been a rather characterful and robust spirit from the start, but the woods have added a veneer of burnished walnut and the whisper of great aged whisky or Cognac. It smells a little of walnut shells, too, even pickled walnuts, and coconut iced cinnamon cake. After all that, it’s almost simple to drink, in that it’s completely harmonious, homegenised and smooth ... luxurious rum for the hyper suave Chivas sophisticate; or Louis XIII buffs. 6,650 decanters filled.