Monday, July 28, 2014

Review #94: Millionario Sistema Solera 15 Reserva Especial Rum, (Peru), 40% abv

I deserve something extraordinary today ...

... really I do -- but I'm just too tired to appreciate something extraordinary so I'll stick with random rum. I'm optimistic about it, but not that optimistic.

I don't know anything about this. It comes in a silly bottle and has a fancy-bad website. It's made from molasses, I think. Here's a quotation from the web site: "four rows of the solera system are employed, and after fifteen years of ageing, the enrichment of the rum’s quality is assured." I assume this means that the solera has 15-yr old rum in it, not that the youngest component is 15yrs, and that's why there is an unattached number (15!) that is sort of an age statement, but isn't. I wonder how old the oak is.

Nice nose, actually. Bunches of armagnac fruits -- prunes and raisins and so on, along with smoky engine and seed oils, chalk, dusty library, and some winey notes. After a while there's milk chocolate, lilac, and popcorn. There's some brown sugar, there, too, but otherwise this could almost be some other spirit (not rum).

Palate is mostly demerara-sweet with a smoky-grassy sting. But there's a lot of Ovaltine there, too, and a Japanese dessert called yokan (it's a sweet red bean seaweed jelly paste, I think). A little soft, but nice body for 40%.

Finishes quite sweet (a little too much), but it's an interesting winey-chocolate sweetness, at least.

This is really good. I'm rewarded and revived. A bonus point, perhaps, for a pleasant surprise.


score: 87


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