review #4: Aniversario Ron Anejo ('riserva exclusiva') , 40% abv

it's just too hot today.

It's September, but it's just too hot, especially for anything peated or sherried. But all the flavors go out of whack -- sweetness and graininess (and suplhur) come forward, and everything else wisps away, so subtleties are gone and nothing is in balance. (though Irish whiskey, oddly, fares the worst of all.) Anyway, the one thing that gets better is rum. So here's one -- nothing special.

(This is from a Venezuelan distillery. I bought it a long time ago, right after Diageo or someone took it over. Of course, they released one brilliant, much heralded batch that sold out immediately, and followed it up with other, nearly indistinguishable batches that were so-so. So goes the way of later batches. Like subsequent children. Not really.)

nose: BROWN SUGAR. also, brown sugar. some pencil shavings and sawn wood, grape stems, and some cocoa and dried fruit. it's mostly just lots of brown sugar, but with some armagnac-like fruit (it's almost grapey) and tannin on top of that. some mustiness, too.

palate: brown sugar, brown sugar, brown sugar. things that remind you of brown sugar, confections you make with brown sugar, things you put brown sugar on top of (but you put too much). and then it turns bitter with too much wood. yet somehow, in summer, it seems like a pleasant tempering of the candied sweetness.

finish: the dried fruit (raisins, prunes) come back and stay a while, still against the background of a lot of bitterness. oh, and brown sugar. but the dried fruit really stick around.

not sure how to score this, but I do enjoy it (in summer, right now), so let's say:

score: 80