Review #102: Vizcaya VXOP "Cuban Formula" Cask #21 Rum, Dominican Republic, 40% abv

last gasp of summer

There's a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to try, but right now it's hot. Still. So one last rum, until next summer.

I like the website on this one, mostly because it just asks if you were born >21yrs ago, not what day you were born on. It also suggests that this is an agricole and aged in oak (ex-bourbon). I saw somewhere else that it's at least 8yrs old, but that's not on the label or the website. Nice bottle. I don't know who makes it or who owns the brand.

nose: like the Zaya, curiously enough -- a lot of cream soda and sasparilla flavors. not quite as intense or sweet as the Zaya, and a little more interesting, too: there's some fruit (apricot), and a little sharp, almost smoky grassiness. but then buckets of vanilla overwhelm everything. I thought there was a (nice) violet in there for a second, but it's all molasses now.

palate: nice woody body for 40%. like a grassier, but just as sweet, version of the Zaya.

finish: vanilla, molasses, vanilla, vanilla, vanilla.


this is a pleasant, enjoyable dessert that I like slightly better than the Zaya.


score: 73

Review #99: Caroni Rum 15 yrs, 1997/2012, Sansibar, 46% abv, 179 bottles

gonna party like it's review #99

Caroni is no longer since 2002. It was in Trinidad. They used molasses. I'm not sure where it was aged or in what, but I should.

Nose: almost jammy fruit (peaches and strawberries) and tarry black soot. Burnt sugar and lawn mower exhaust. Sugar cane and rubber boots. A little bit of hay and camphor mixed with bananas and sweet wood. This is heady stuff.

Palate: Rather medicinal -- the rubber boots/camphor/fruit combination turns into something like ricola. Feels a little thin at 46%, perhaps.

Finish: sweet and very minty, with a little spice. Smoke and rubber boots again.


Not the easiest, but the best rum I've ever had. I only wish it showed a little more depth on the palate. A shame it isn't made any more.

score: 89

Review #97: Botran Solera 1893 Rum (Guatemala), 40% abv

more rum

This is Botran, which is like Diageo-free Ron Zacapa. (Same distillery, different brand.) This is made from cane juice (excuse me, "virgin sugar cane honey") and aged at altitude in lots of different barrels for lots of different lengths of time.

nose: some naked ethanol and curious esters, but then resolves into bananas foster and candied nuts with lots of miscellaneous winey notes. it's mostly typical rum aromas (various versions of brown sugar), but a little grassiness and dusty oak makes it interesting. I'd guess there's some older stuff in the solera, too: there are hints of honey and flowers and even some red fruit.

palate: I find it a little sour, oddly. Thin, too, but maybe that's for the best. Bunches of sour fruits and a little vanilla to go along with the brown sugar.

finish: didn't really get started.

The nose was above average, and the palate was sort of interesting, I guess. It's cheap, too.

score: 82

Review #95: Plantation Rum Trinidad 2000 for the Nectar Belgium, 42% abv, Marsala and Cognac cask finish, 450 bottles

back at home to work again

I've been away, drinking beer and bourbon, and now back home, satisfying an unreasonable craving for peat. I can't really score any of those objectively, so I'll continue with summer rum for a little while.

This is from Trinidad (via France via Belgium, at the least). I guess that means it's made from molasses. I don't know anything else about it.

nose: interesting! first a praline sweetness, then a sharp, almost smoky grassiness, and finally jammy fruit -- peaches in syrup above all, but also lychee and some melon. some marshmallow candy along with faint whiffs of motor oil, sesame seeds, and walnuts. sweet and dirty at the same time.

palate: very zesty/winey with candied fruit and brown sugar. The strength seems just right -- I don't know if it's the alcohol or the acid, but everything balances out and the range of sour/dry fruit flavors remains intense.

finish: nothing special. everything fades away, leaving behind some sour orange and maybe a little camphor.

I really enjoyed this. I'll have to try more of these silly Plantation multi-cask-finishes, to see if they turn out not to be silly. Same score as last one.

score: 87
 

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

Review #93: Barbancourt 15yr Estate Reserve Rhum, 43% abv, OB

post-beach blogging

I'm not ready to be back yet, so more rum (or rhum). It's really for the best.

The 8yr old has five starts on the label, but this one has none, so it must be really bad. (Guy Fieri bad.) This is a "rhum,"so I think that means it's made from sugar cane. It's from Haiti and comes in a loud box but with a fancy label. It's aged in oak, which is possibly Limousin.

Nose: sweet but suprisingly phenolic, with some black olives and grease. Basically it goes like this: there's some typical raisins and brown sugar gently in the background, some campfire ashes and medicinal notes in front, and then nutmeg and vanilla and vegetal notes on the side.

Palate: I like this. Nothing's terribly powerful or compelling, but the flavors seems to be fighting with each other in an interesting way, as if demerara and campfire ashes and spices were on a reality show together. Starts softly but the phenols power through.

Finish: It lasts in a sweet and mentholy way.


It's just interesting enough not to be boring, but has neither easy appeal nor complexity. It's good, though.


score: 75

Review #92: Zaya Gran Reserva 12yr old blended rum, Trinidad, 40% abv

back from the beach

The nice thing about having a blog with no readers is that you can go away for a few weeks and there's no one to notice or complain.

Here's something that I bought while I was away. It comes in a remarkably heavy bottle. The label says that it's the "world's finest luxury rum," so it must be good. There's a chip in the plastic of the T-top, though -- did I do that?

Nose is all sweetness: raisins and figs, coconut, bananas foster, and loads of sasparilla, oddly enough.
Palate maintains the sweet profile, although I'm not sure there's really a lot of sugar in there. If there were more sugar, this would be candy. There's just a tiny bit of grassiness -- maybe even green tobacco -- against the sweetness.

Overall, the profile reminds me of a combination of cream soda and suntan oil from the 70's. It's appealing, though. Makes a nice daquiri, too, if you like the sasparilla flavors.


score: 70

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