Category Archives: Bajan

Foursquare Shibboleth

Posted on by rumtastic

wp-1634633799546What is it? Single Blended Rum (molasses based, column and pot still, single distillery) from the Foursquare distillery in Barbados. This is from the Foursquare Exceptional Cask Selection and we’re up to issue number 16 now with the rum named Shibboleth; I’m not going to go into details on the name and what it means, you can find that elsewhere as I guess part of the fun these days with Foursquare ECS releases is trying to figure out what the Hell the name means, and I don’t want to take that away from you! The rum is 16 years old and fully matured in Barbados (as well as being fully fermented and distilled there too). That’s a long old time in the tropics for aging when you start to look at the fact it can be up to 3 times more interactive than European aged spirits, so you’re looking at somewhere between 32 and and 48 years old European equivalent! The rum was matured solely in ex-bourbon casks so there’s no double maturation or finishing going on here, just like with the Nobiliary.

I don’t know how many bottles were in the release of this, not a lot, usually with something like this it’s around 6000 per region (US and Europe) so around 12,000 in total. We’re probably in that ballpark again.

Bottled at 56% abv, not coloured and not chill filtered.

Sugar? No.

Nose: It immediately smells old; loads of varnished wood, old bookcases, beeswax and well worn leather. There’s some lighter cask notes with coconut, real vanilla, and some thinner caramels. Prickles of spice from nutmeg and clove but it’s fairly restrained, well tempered and actually quite “easy”. We’ve a few salty olive notes and a bit of grease thrown in for good measure if we go looking for it, but it’s hidden under the weight of the oak. The odd red apple and occasional raisin turns up every now and then towards the end.

Palate: Nice and fat in the mouth, really good weight. Very easy entry with little heat for the abv – ok, I’m used to drinking rum at this strength, I do admit. Oaks again, fresh cut wood at first and then on to the varnish, polish, beeswax. Roasted nuts here now, leather and a touch of golden syrup. Lighter vanillas and coconut mid way, cloves towards the end and a touch of that red apple from the nose.

Finish: Very long. We’re getting the same as the palate and nose here without much more so I’m not just going to rinse and repeat….

Thoughts? Sigh. Ok, let’s start with the good news; it’s excellent rum, really easy to drink and tastes really old. Now for the not so good news; not much more other than lots of oak. I was really hoping for more fruit and phenols to sit amongst the oaks, and there are certainly some hidden away but it’s really hard work to find them and when you do they’re just “there” without really integrating. I’ve naturally seen quite a few reviews of this rum and I’m sure many people will disagree with me but I’m not getting much more depth here and that’s a shame. Now I don’t want this to come across as a negative review as this is about as far away from bad rum as you can get, it’s awesome, but there’s something missing here for me. Maybe the problem is that we’ve got the Nobiliary in our memory and that was just so damn good that it’s overshadowing what is coming along next.

£85? Of course it’s worth it and of course I’d get another bottle if it were possible, but I just wanted more from this than it was able to give me.

Black Tot Master Blender’s Reserve 2021

Posted on by rumtastic

wp-1634633785380What is it? As with the Black Tot 50th Anniversary Rum from 2020, this is again a molasses based blend of rums from various countries, still type and ages. I’m not going to go over old ground with the Black Tot line-up, you can read about that in the link to the 50th Anniversary, but the Black Tot Master Blender’s Reserve is the next rum along and continues where the 50th left off. This rum was to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the ceasing of rum rations to the Australian Navy (the nod to the Aussies will become clear later) and uses the Black Tot 50th Anniversary Rum blend as the base, it was re-casked it into ex-sherry butts in 2020 and is blended with rums aged between 9 and 24 years, from Guyana, Barbados, Trinidad, Jamaica and Australia, as well as incorporating some of the original British Royal Navy rum blend itself – this is not just simply an further aged version of the 50th Anniversary rum but a different blend altogether, although there is going to be quite a lot of comparing to each other in this review as naturally many people will consider them as part of the same run and will want to know how they face off.

 

 

 

As with the 50th Anniversary there is a really good transparent back label on the bottle that lists the blend components, as you can see some Australian rum from Beenleigh has been added this time to provide the ode to Australia:

MBR-2021-Back-Label-2

 

Bottled at 54.5% abv, unchillfiltered and of an outrun of 6000 bottles.

Sugar? No.

Nose: Really quite fruity at first with lots of pineapple, mango, apricot and over ripe banana. Little touches of caramel or butterscotch here and there as well as some lovely sweet raisin…..and then things get dirty, really dirty; diesel, liquorice, black olives, brine, tar, treacle and some meaty note tucked away that’s not quite heavy enough to be Jerky, but something similar, maybe touching on very crispy/almost burnt smoked bacon. Really deep and heavy near the end, lovely.

Palate: Good weight and mouth feel. Fairly restrained at first but then it gets quite hot and peppery. We’re not as fruity here, pineapples, sure, but it’s mainly phenolic and herbal as if following straight on from the end of the nose. We’ve got loads of diesel, oil and tar. Lifts of aniseed, liquorice and then some solventy black boot polish (if you’ve ever accidentally inhaled the stuff you can taste it and you’ll know what I mean). There’s a really nice meaty mushroom note in here too, touches of raisin and some wet leaves or forest floor notes, all of which seem to be coming from the sherry casks.

Finish: Long. Less phenolic here, much more on the traditional sweeter sensed notes with banana, dark chocolate, black coffee, treacle toffee and some bitter nutty notes like raw walnut. It’s much richer at this point, coating and heavy but still carries some phenols with salty black olives sneaking in to keep it interesting and a zing of tropical fruit at the end which stops it getting bogged down.

Thoughts? Really good. The addition of the Aussie from Beenleigh definitely livens things up and gives it some real zip, it really does taste like a different rum to the 50th Anniversary but you can still pick out the lineage here. So is it as good as the 50th Anniversary? Well, yes, and that says a lot as I ranked the 50th Anniversary in my top 5 rums of 2020 (specifically my 4th best), so we’ve got no slouch here. I don’t score rums but if I were to do so I’d score both this Master Blender’s Reserve and the 50th Anniversary the same, however, my personal preference would be to the 50th Anniversary just because if I’m drinking a Naval style blend I like a rich a dirty rum and this is much more fruit driven.

So what’s the damage? £120. Ok, yes I guess so as it’s only increased a little year on year and we know what happens to the cost of things…..so I think that’s fine.

 

If you fancy this you can pick this up from The Whisky Exchange here:

Black Tot Master Blender’s Reserve

Foursquare Redoutable

Posted on by rumtastic

20210309_133923What is it? Single Blended Rum (molasses based, column and pot still, single distillery) from the Foursquare distillery in Barbados. This is an Exceptional Cask rum from the distillery, specifically Exceptional Cask Selection Mark 15 – Redoutable, and follows on from Détente (ECS14) and the 2008 Vintage (ECS13) – we’ve been a little late in getting this in the UK unfortunately. So what’s in the bottle this time? Well we’ve got a Madeira rum to play with here. As in usual Foursquare ECS fashion this is rum that was distilled in pot stills and column stills, blended together and then put into a variety of casks, after maturation the various rums are blended together again to get the end result. The casks used in this rum are both ex-bourbon casks and ex-Madeira casks but I don’t have details on the maturation makeup here; it may be that some of the rum was fully matured in ex-Madeira or may be that they were part matured in ex-Madeira and recasked to ex-bourbon. The total maturation time for the rums is at least 14 years, all done tropically in Barbardos – that’s a long time in the tropics, accounting for around 30-40 years worth of European aging in terms of interaction impact.

Released in limited numbers of 12,000 bottles worldwide; 6,000 in Europe and 6,000 in the US.

No coloured, not chill-filtered and bottled at cask strength of 61% abv.

Note: I’ve been drinking this rum at around 57% abv so that’s the strength I’m reviewing it at.

Sugar? Nope.

Nose: Black Forest cake soaked in cask strength Foursquare (something like a Vintage Release, 2007 or some such). Loads of dark cherries, blackberry, blackcurrant and a big dollop of dark chocolate. We’ve some black or red plums, meaty figgy notes, mushrooms and the smell of an Autumn forest floor – dropped leaves and damp soil. There are fainter smells of roasted pecans, almonds and cashews, some coconut and vanilla. Near the end there is old waxed leather, boot polish and a sharp lift with some zingy redcurrants or cranberry. Gorgeous stuff.

Palate: Full mouth, weighty stuff right here folks. Pretty easy on first contact, not really that hot at all. Big oaky notes initially with toasted oak, coconut, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Pretty drying and tannic. Then we’re on to the cherries and chocolate but with a kick, so we’re looking at some type of cherry, chocolate chunk and red chilli jam, pimentos, dark chocolate coated stem gingers, blackberry and black pepper compote. It’s a real mix of dark fruit, dry dark chocolate and just enough fragrant spice to prickle your mouth. Roasted nuts again but a bit more earthy here with walnuts this time and a little phenolic flurry at the end with grease, black olives and stamp glue.

Finish: Waaaaaaaay long. We’re right back to the nose with boozy rum soaked Black Forest cake and dirty muddy boots. Not much heat here either, save for a sweet red chilli or 2, then things sweeten to caramelised pineapple and plums. That tiny undertone of oil or grease lingers if you look for it which gives some nice savoury depth.

Thoughts? Another belter no doubt about that, as expected. This is the 4th Madeira matured rum so far, after Criterion, Sagacity and Diadem (although not an ECS releases but an exclusive to TheWhiskyExchange), it doesn’t live up to the Criterion for me but easily better than the other 2. It has the wallop over Sagacity and the balance over Diadem. It’s all the best bits of both added together and none of the flaws. For me this is a super winter warmer of a rum, a real heavy warmer and comforter of a tot. Is it my favourite ECS bottle from Foursquare? No it’s not. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cracking stuff but such is the quality of the rum coming along here all we can really compare Foursquare ECS releases to these days are other Foursquare ECS releases – I prefer this to some but not to others, that’s all I can say.

Retailed at £70ish, would I get another? Hell yeah! Can I? Shit no – this stuff sold out from the main shops within the hour it was released and various satellite shops sold their stock shortly after when everyone went hunting. Luckily I was able to get hold of one for my own personal consumption before all the “Investors” snapped them up.

Rumtastic rum of the year 2020

Posted on by rumtastic

Well 2020 is nearly over (thank God), although 2021 doesn’t look like it’s about to start the right way – thanks COVID –  so it’s time for any bloggers obligatory “top rums blah blah blah”. As I don’t score my rums this process is actually fairly easy for me as I don’t have to go through my scoring and try to pick out rums with a slither of a mark between them, all I have to do is engage my memory. Basically my selection is pretty straight forward here, I chose my favourite rums; do I remember the rum blowing my mind? Ultimately, if a rum sticks in my mind then it’s a contender and there have been quite a few of these this year. Now I must caveat that I’ve not tried every rum that has been released 2020, let’s face it I’ve got a limited budget and a limited amount of time, naturally I can only rank what I’ve actually tried – so in the scheme of things this list is pretty much meaningless, but it’s getting done anyway. The other thing to note is that I may well have drunk and reviewed rums in 2020 that were released earlier, again because I don’t have an unlimited amount of time and money, and due to the volume of releases it’s quite easy to get behind with stuff.

Right, bullshit out of the way, what are Rumtastic’s 5 most rumtastic rums of 2020?

Coming in at number 5:

Chairman’s Reserve Master’s Selection 13 year old (2006) – The Whisky Exchange Exclusive

This was a bottle of Chairman’s Reserve that was done for The Whisky Exchange and a 50/50 mix of Vendome and John Dore pot still rum. It was the first time I’d really ventured into rums from Saint Lucia Distillers and made me have to sit down. It was incredibly complex, hugely phenolic and carried a very divisive profile so not everyone will get on with this. The result of drinking this rum was that I went out and bought a load of other stuff from Saint Lucia Distillers without even thinking about it.

 

 

 

Next at number 4:

The Black Tot 50th Anniversary

This rum was released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Black Tot Day and is an incredible blend. A “Navy” blend rum that hits all the right notes but also tips it’s hat to a modern, fresher style of rum. No sugary sweet bollocks or cloying stickiness going on here, just really good rum blended together. Some of the original Naval rum in here too! Big props for full disclosure of the blend, right down to the percentages and the aging split of everything that went in to the bottle.

 

 

 

Rocking in at number 3:

Foursquare Detente

A list of top 5 rums of the year wouldn’t be complete without something from Foursquare and 2020 is no exception. Detente was probably the rum I was most looking forward to in 2020 because of the nostalgia attatched to the very first Port Cask in the Exceptional Cask line-up and it really didn’t disappoint. Beautiful rum, dangerously easy to drink and a showcase in the journey Foursquare have made with their rums and presentation over the last 5 years.

 

 

 

 

Runner up this year at number 2:

New Yarmouth 2005 (The River Mumma) – Vidya

This bottle was released right at the end of the year and has managed to sneak into second spot at the very last minute. This was my Christmas present to myself so it’s only just been opened and at the time of writing there I’ve not reviewed it. This is the inaugural bottling by the lads at Skylark Spirits and is a 15 year old single cask New Yarmouth rum, bottled at full strength and from the NYE/EM marque which comes in at a whopping 1300-1400 gr/hlaa on the ester level. I was kindly sent a sample of this ahead of release and immediately pre-ordered a bottle…..I don’t even think I asked them the price, it was that good. I recall spending literally an hour just nosing this.

 

 

Top spot and my number 1 rum of the year goes to:

Foursquare Nobiliary

What is there to say about this one? Not only my favourite rums of 2020 but one of my favourite rums so far since I’ve been blogging. When I first saw the label I did a little eye-roll thinking it was going to be yet another 100% ex-bourbon cask Foursquare rum, which we get every year under the vintage releases, then I opened it. Boy how wrong I was. Utterly fabulous rum and a no-brainer to make my top spot.

 

 

 

 

So there we have it. My favourite rums of 2020. The takeaways from there are 2 things; firstly there’s a good range that’s fallen into my top 5 – that’s not deliberate, if my favourite rums were all Jamaican then that’s what my list would be – but we’ve got a scatter across Jamaica, a blend, a couple of Barbadians and rum from a country I’d never tried before. This is a good thing and shows that incredible stuff is coming from many different taste profiles and not limited to 1 style, country or region. The second is that these are all limited releases. I’m sorry about that, and if you’ve not been able to get your hands on any of them then that is a shame. This isn’t as good as the first takeaway. The rum is there, clearly, but no continuous release has made it. I’d really like to see 2021 lifting up bottles from core ranges and continuous releases and at least one getting into my top 5 next year – this would help everyone from the distilleries right down to the consumers. Let’s drink the best rum we can.

 

 

 

Black Tot 50th Anniversary

Posted on by rumtastic

What is it? Well this is a molasses based blended rum from various stills, from various countries, aged both tropically and continentally, and various ages. Let me elaborate a bit; the Black Tot rum brand was created by The Whisky Exchange (specifically the co-founder, Sukhinder Singh) who blended together some of the final British naval rum to create Black Tot: The Last Consignment – this was old rum and bloody expensive stuff, and was put out in 2010 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Black Tot Day (the day that the British Navy ceased issuing the Rum Ration to it’s sailors). Since then a we’ve had Black Tot 40 Year Old which was distilled in 1975 and a continuous release called Black Tot Finest Caribbean. The line-up has now expended, with a limited release of the Black Tot 50th Anniversary rum to celebrate – you’ve guessed it – the 50th anniversary of Black Tot Day. So what’s in this one then? The full recipe has been published and is below, but to summarise it’s a got rum in it from Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados as well as a little splash of original Royal Navy Blend.

You can read more about the creation of the rum over at The Whisky Exchange blog, I’m not going to lift and drop all the blurb because I’m lazy and there’s loads of stuff on there.

It’s worth noting that they had about a third of the blend left over after bottling, so it’s gone back into some sherry casks where it’ll be topped up with other rums and released in 2021 for another limited bottling. I believe that some of that blend will be held back and re-casked too for 2022 where it will repeat so we get a continual release each year of a different blend based on the original. Cool idea.

Bottled at navy strength of 54.5% ABV, no chillfiltering and with a limited run of 5000 bottles.

Sugar? Nope.

Nose: Exactly what I was expecting and hoping for, which is good. Black bananas, big dollops of toffee, molasses, boot polish, camphor, pine sap, liquorice, a big handful of black olives, tar and engine oil. Further in we’ve got fruity raisins, candied pineapple and baked apples with cinnamon and nutmeg (apple crumble I guess). As you’d expect there’s an old musty smell here too with leather, aged coffee beans in hessian sacks and grilled mushrooms. It’s really rich, dark and deep but still carries some light fruitiness.

Palate: Full, rich mouth feel. Oh yes. Rum and raisin dark chocolate, caramel, molasses, treacle toffee, strong black coffee, figs and loads and loads of soft black liquorice. Fruity mid-palate with banana, pineapple and oranges but quickly turns phenolic with brine, tar, diesel, olives, menthol, hot rubber and a touch of stamp glue.

Finish: Long. Smoky. Rolling tobacco, smoked toffees, maple syrup, cinnamon, Demerara sugar, nutmeg and raisins. Seems sweeter here and less phenolic but throws in a little heat with cloves, ginger, chillies and salt & pepper nuts. There’s still plenty of liquorice going on and a little brine note but it mixes sweeter creamier notes and prickling spices on the whole. I’ve found myself nosing the rum as the palate is finishing and the combination adds a really nice burst of fruit into the idea of the finish too – it’s one of those rums that you want to smell and taste at the same time to get the whole image.

Thoughts? A really very good blend. The problem you have with a lot of “Navy” blends is that they often get bogged down or become flabby and fall apart with too much molasses’y liquorice. This one does not. It’s got those real deep, dark and dirty notes you expect but there’s a constant burst of fruit and phenols flickering throughout that pulls you up when it’s getting too heavy.

If you read the link the to The Whisky Exchange blog they were looking to create a balance between a modern rum and traditional old British style rum, and I think they’ve got it spot on with this. I’m not sure I’d change anything in the blend so it’s going to be interesting to see how it goes with the release in 2021, but one thing is for sure; I really look forward to trying it.

So the damage? £110. Yeah, not cheap I know, but really this is fabulous and it does have some very old and rare rum in it. I would, and I have been, recommending this to people. I’d happily buy it again and will be getting the 2021 release when that comes out for the 51th anniversary.

If you fancy this you can pick this up from The Whisky Exchange here:

Black Tot 50th Anniversary