What Rum/Rhum did you buy today?

[sailor22]

Gift from a friend. We had a few pours from he bottle he had open -- butter flavored cotton candy with a good sharp alcohol pop. Good finish with sweet notes and just a hint of wood.  A solid Coffy Still rum at barrel proof. 

Rumor is the next release will be a 12yr.

[kevinbrink]

1 hour ago, Kpiz said:

How does the Anejo Reserva compare to the 7yo?

 

Also, didn't it used to be Anejo Especial, or was that a completely different product?

They are not really night and day, more in common than different but the Anejo Reserva is definitely more spirit forward and a bit spicier, the 7 is a bit richer with a bit more caramel, neither is life affirming but both are pretty enjoyable pours. The Reserva would probably be better in a cocktail but I haven't made one with either... yet.

[lcpfratn]

Gift from a friend. We had a few pours from he bottle he had open -- butter flavored cotton candy with a good sharp alcohol pop. Good finish with sweet notes and just a hint of wood.  A solid Coffy Still rum at barrel proof. 
Rumor is the next release will be a 12yr.

I picked up a PS bottle of this at a store in Franklin, TN. I got to sample it in the store before buying and I was very impressed with it.


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[kevinbrink]

Just looked into that one no coloring no sweetening, nice to see another brand going in that direction, hope this makes it to my market I will be a buyer. What was the price on these single barrels? 

[lcpfratn]

Just looked into that one no coloring no sweetening, nice to see another brand going in that direction, hope this makes it to my market I will be a buyer. What was the price on these single barrels? 

I think I paid somewhere in the mid to high $30 range if I remember correctly.


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[kevinbrink]

2 minutes ago, lcpfratn said:

I think I paid somewhere in the mid to high $30 range if I remember correctly.


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Wow fantastic!

[Dravin]

Appleton Estate 12 Year Old Rare Blend. A bit of an impulse purchase but it is my first step into sipping rum and online research suggest it as a decent first choice. I'll probably sip on some later tonight.

[jshleffar]

Just now, Dravin said:

Appleton Estate 12 Year Old Rare Blend. A bit of an impulse purchase but it is my first step into sipping rum and online research suggest it as a decent first choice. I'll probably sip on some later tonight.

It is a great way in and a bottle I always keep on hand, just be aware to not write off rum as a whole if you don't like the particular 'funk' of Jamaican rums. I personally love the unique flavor characteristics in Jamaicans.

[Dravin]

1 hour ago, jshleffar said:

It is a great way in and a bottle I always keep on hand, just be aware to not write off rum as a whole if you don't like the particular 'funk' of Jamaican rums. I personally love the unique flavor characteristics in Jamaicans.

Is the funk, in this particular case, ripe banana notes (the almighty Google suggests so)? Funk is always a frustrating term for someone new to a spirit as it usually denotes something unusual but when you're new the lack of experience leaves you without a baseline to judge something as abnormal/unique. At any rate I certainly won't be writing off rum on account of this experience. I'm sitting here hardly having tasted any because I can't seem to stop nosing it (I probably look amusing sniffing at a glass with a befuddled look on my face). I would pay outrageous sums for a candle that accurately replicated the nose.

[jshleffar]

yeah, to me it tends to taste like some plastic, overripe banana and pineapple with a tiny taste of how dry aged beef smells as you trim it. I love it, though I've got one bottle that goes beyond what I can drink more than a few sips of, partially due to, though not entirely due to funk. But there are plenty here more experienced than I that could probably give it a more proper description.

[Kane]

Well I've been drinking Jamaican rum for years but still don't exactly know what people refer to when they say funk. I have my suspicions, though, i.e. the "thing" you smell in Appleton 12, but not Mount Gay XO is my definition.

 

^that plastic, banana & pineapple description makes a lot of sense, though! Always helps to consult a more experienced palate

[arbeck]

Funk is really hard to explain in rum. I've had basically three kinds of funk

 

1) Jamaican rums tend to have an overripe banana, hot garbage kind of funk. I also get this (combined with smoke) from pot still heavy Guyanese rums, 100% pot still rums from Foursquare in Barbados, and 100% pot still from St. Lucia (Hamilton)

2) Vegetal funk is prevalent in unaged agricole. This can range from grass at the low end to smelling like a can of black olives (Paranubes from Mexico). I've also had it go to a plastic sort of smell. Isautier Agricole in fact went so far in a plastic direction that it smells exactly like an electronic component (resistor, capacitor) that is blown up through too much current.

3) Tar funk I've only experienced from the old Caroni rums. It has a little of the overripe banana as well, but really smells like tar or even petrol.

[arbeck]

I got the Golden Devil Guadalupe and the Overproof Dark. $99 is usually more than I pay for a bottle of anything, but one of the two best rums I've ever had (the other was a Duncan Taylor Caroni) was a Samaroli 1997 Guadalupe, so I really wanted to see how this compares. The Overproof Dark was kind of a no brainer at that price, I'm really hoping it can take the place of both by Hamilton Guyana and Coruba dark in cocktails. Both of those are hard to find for me locally.

Edited December 20, 2017 by arbeck
typo

[Kpiz]

15 hours ago, sailor22 said:

Gift from a friend. We had a few pours from he bottle he had open -- butter flavored cotton candy with a good sharp alcohol pop. Good finish with sweet notes and just a hint of wood.  A solid Coffy Still rum at barrel proof. 

Rumor is the next release will be a 12yr.

 

I'm surprised K&L doesn't bring in casks like this. They tend to bring in funky casks, which certainly has its fans (including me), but something more straightforward like this would be much more likely to appeal to whiskey drinkers who are just dipping their toe into the rum pool.

[Kpiz]

1 hour ago, arbeck said:

I got the Golden Devil Guadalupe and the Overproof Dark. $99 is usually more than I pay for a bottle of anything, but one of the two best rums I've ever had (the other was a Duncan Taylor Caroni) was a Samaroli 1997 Guadalupe, so I really wanted to see how this compares. The Overproof Dark was kind of a no brainer at that price, I'm really hoping it can take the place of both by Hamilton Guyana and Coruba dark in cocktails. Both of those are hard to find for me locally.

Do you recall any prominent qualities of that Samaroli 1997 Guadeloupe you liked so much? I purchased the Golden Devil Guadeloupe as well and opened it up the other day. I want to revisit it before posting notes, but my first impression was that it tasted more like a molasses-based rum than an agricole. 

[arbeck]

3 minutes ago, Kpiz said:

I'm surprised K&L doesn't bring in casks like this. They tend to bring in funky casks, which certainly has its fans (including me), but something more straightforward like this would be much more likely to appeal to whiskey drinkers who are just dipping their toe into the rum pool.

If the Real McCoy bottling they did sells well, and their overproof dark sells well, they might start doing more things like this. Personally I'd love to see them bring over some 100% pot still from Foursquare, but just bringing over single casks from Panama, Barbados, Trinidad, St. Lucia, etc without adulterating them would be nice. Mostly these are only sold by European companies and are hard to get in the US.

[Dravin]

11 hours ago, jshleffar said:

yeah, to me it tends to taste like some plastic, overripe banana and pineapple with a tiny taste of how dry aged beef smells as you trim it. I love it, though I've got one bottle that goes beyond what I can drink more than a few sips of, partially due to, though not entirely due to funk. But there are plenty here more experienced than I that could probably give it a more proper description.

I don't get pineapple or dry aged beef but I can certainly see the ripe banana and a chemically plasticy smell. Thanks, it helps me put things into a frame of reference.

11 hours ago, Kane said:

Well I've been drinking Jamaican rum for years but still don't exactly know what people refer to when they say funk. I have my suspicions, though, i.e. the "thing" you smell in Appleton 12, but not Mount Gay XO is my definition.

Clearly I need to pick up a non-funky rum for a point of comparison.

 

1 hour ago, arbeck said:

Funk is really hard to explain in rum. I've had basically three kinds of funk

 

1) Jamaican rums tend to have an overripe banana, hot garbage kind of funk. I also get this (combined with smoke) from pot still heavy Guyanese rums, 100% pot still rums from Foursquare in Barbados, and 100% pot still from St. Lucia (Hamilton)

2) Vegetal funk is prevalent in unaged agricole. This can range from grass at the low end to smelling like a can of black olives (Paranubes from Mexico). I've also had it go to a plastic sort of smell. Isautier Agricole in fact went so far in a plastic direction that it smells exactly like an electronic component (resistor, capacitor) that is blown up through too much current.

3) Tar funk I've only experienced from the old Caroni rums. It has a little of the overripe banana as well, but really smells like tar or even petrol.

Thanks. I realize the difficulty is why so many reach for "funk", it isn't that they're trying to be coy it is just aside from some good solid baselines it can be rather tricky to communicate smells. I mean if it were easy I'd just list off everything I smell and ask you guys to point out the ones that qualify as funk. So appreciate the effort to expound on things.

[arbeck]

1 minute ago, Kpiz said:

Do you recall any prominent qualities of that Samaroli 1997 Guadeloupe you liked so much? I purchased the Golden Devil Guadeloupe as well and opened it up the other day. I want to revisit it before posting notes, but my first impression was that it tasted more like a molasses-based rum than an agricole. 

I find that all agricoles once they get past 6 or 7 years old start tasting much more like a molasses based rum. I do find (especially from Guadeloupe) that they seem to gain a lot of baking spices. The Damoiseau XO tastes like someone dropped a redhot in it there is so much cinnamon flavor. I found the Samaroli to be super smooth, tons of warm baking spice (but with no one spice note dominating), some chocolate flavor, but still tasting light. Many very old rums that I've had start to taste "heavy" in the same way a well aged Bourbon can. The Samaroli was very light, and you could have probably convinced me I was tasting a very old brandy if I had been tasting blind.

[Lucid]

On 12/20/2017 at 9:08 AM, arbeck said:

If the Real McCoy bottling they did sells well, and their overproof dark sells well, they might start doing more things like this. Personally I'd love to see them bring over some 100% pot still from Foursquare, but just bringing over single casks from Panama, Barbados, Trinidad, St. Lucia, etc without adulterating them would be nice. Mostly these are only sold by European companies and are hard to get in the US.

All the Golden Devil rums so far appear to be from Hunter Laing, so if you’ve seen it as a Kill Devil release, it’s possible K&L will be able to source it. Here’s hoping this latest round sells well and there’s steady demand for the overproof.

[tanstaafl2]

1 hour ago, Lucid said:

All the Golden Devil rums so far appear to be from Hunter Laing, so if you’ve seen it as a Kill Devil release, it’s possible K&L will be able to source it. Here’s hoping this latest round sells well and there’s steady demand for the overproof.

 

I have no idea what they started with or how much they have sold so far so perhaps it is going pretty well. But all three of the new Golden Devils, including the fairly inexpensive overproof, are still showing a fair amount of stock available. The inability to ship certainly can't be helping but the stores all have a fair amount on the shelf and the warehouse still shows >36 for all three.

 

I remember that the 800 or so bottles of their store pick Compass Box lasted about 2 days.

[jshleffar]

2 bottles of Smooth Ambler revelation showed up at my door today, still waiting on 2 bottles of Barrell rum 2 to get dropped off. Im debating whether to open any today or wait till im down a few open bottles. I've got an CEHT bourbon and Appleton 12 both pretty close to gone.

[tanstaafl2]

25 minutes ago, jshleffar said:

2 bottles of Smooth Ambler revelation showed up at my door today, still waiting on 2 bottles of Barrell rum 2 to get dropped off. Im debating whether to open any today or wait till im down a few open bottles. I've got an CEHT bourbon and Appleton 12 both pretty close to gone.

No time like the present. Crack those suckers open!

[jshleffar]

A spare Golden Devil dark overproof and a rhum JM VSOP

[arbeck]

My Christmas haul.

 

[Dravin]

Gosling Black Seal, I got it primarily for mixing but I'm gonna give it a shot neat to get a feel for it before I go and mix it into something.