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Guess I will have to look for that one when I pass through Schiphol in October! Was hoping the duty free had something interesting other than local spirits but I am not going to hold my breath. Most Duty Free shops are pretty lackluster.

A supplier providing less than accurate information??? Say it ain't so!

I would guess the Bols Zeer Oude Genever has a pretty high malt content as well. If you have the clay or "stone" bottle it is pretty old as those changed to brown painted glass about 10 years ago. As I understand it Corenwijn is supposed to have at least 51% malt wine as compared to the at least 15% requirement for oude genever. But since Bols has at least 51% in their genever anyway I was never quite sure what the distinction was. Maybe it has even more malt wine content than the Bols genever. I do rather like the aged Corenwijns. I have a Bols 10yo that is quite tasty neat. A lot of places suggest refrigerating or even freezing it like gin but that is just a waste to me.

If you mean the Bols Genever in the grey glass bottle and the Bols Barrel aged genever, they are both oude style and in fact use far more malt wine than required (>50%). The minimum is only 15% for oude genever. Jonge Genever uses less than 15% malt wine and the few I have tried are definitely vodka-ish. http://www.bols.com/products/bols-genever/ Today, Bols offer two genevers: Bols Genever and Bols Genever Barrel Aged. Both are still made according to the original 1820 Lucas Bols recipe. The smooth, subtle, malty flavour comes from using over 50% malt wine, which is made from long-fermented rye, corn and wheat, triple-distilled in copper pot stills.

Of course both cost more than Benchmark! But Yellow Label isn't that much more and I think it is a nice, and well worthwhile, step up in quality.

Sounds intriguing although I don't think Benchmark would really qualify as a "high rye" bourbon. It is one of the lowest rye mashbills, maybe the lowest, of any of the major distillers (Benchmark is currently a 3 year old Buffalo Trace #1 mashbill bourbon). If you are looking for a reasonably affordable but good quality bourbon with a good deal more rye content (and age as well) you probably are better served with the basic Four Roses Yellow Label. For truly high rye the Four Roses Single Barrel at 100 proof adds a 35% rye mashbill and more proof and is hard to beat in my book.

Sorry to hear you didn't like the Guadeloupe. It isn't a stunner, which given the price would have been nice, but I thought its unique and fairly vegetal profile despite 13 or so years of age was pretty interesting. Almost delicate and a bit sweet initially but then finishes with the prominent grassy vegetal notes on the back of the palate along with a unique burnt sugar, almost slightly rubbery, finish that I sometimes find in agricoles and takes a bit of getting used to! Certainly a complex spirit to me. The Plantation Guadeloupe remains my favorite by far from that island though.

I agree that genevers I have tried are not all that potent in terms of juniper and they were likely very malt-y spirits. Perhaps Genevieve is closer to what they might have been drinking than any routinely available oude genever in the US today? Jonge genever isn't likely close and is just this side of vodka!

A thoughtful friend/mule brought me back a bottle of the newish Teeling Single Grain whiskey from Ireland (along with a back up bottle of the delightful if spendy Teeling 21yo single malt sauternes cask finish). Cooley sourced whiskey, as is likely most if not all of the Teeling whiskey for the near term, that would have been Greenore were it not diverted to Teeling I suspect. I am a fan of the Greenore's, especially the older ones as the 8yo is a bit simple and one dimensional. No age statement on this one but the kicker with this one is a finish in California wine casks (Cabernet by report). http://www.whiskyintelligence.com/2013/11/the-teeling-whiskey-company-goes-with-the-grain-unique-bottling-of-irish-single-grain-whiskey-is-launched-irish-whiskey-news/ The slightly reddish tint especially in the second picture is not (just) the relatively poor lighting from my camera phone! Planned to give it a test run but the little trivialities of life got in the way this weekend. But it is at the top of the list for a road test!

A more direct link to the Finnish site noted above which provides sugar content information in rums and other spirits. It also makes no effort to distinguish where the sugar content comes from or even what types of sugar it refers to. However anything more than a few grams almost certainly has to included sugar added to the distillate directly and not from barrel aging, whether it be in charred barrels or barrels that previously held some other spirit like sherry or cognac. http://www.alko.fi/en/products/103867/ It remains unclear to me exactly what "extract" means. It was seen in Clement rhum agricole which has no added sugar. Could it be residual from using previously used French oak barrels (presumably cognac barrels) for aging? Note that bourbon, which can also have no additives and uses new charred oak, has no sugar but still has 1 gm of "extract". http://www.alko.fi/en/products/190907/ http://www.alko.fi/en/products/157667/ Oh, and Ed Hamilton noted in 2010 that Zacapa has always been a blended rum. http://www.ministryofrum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3853 The question seems to be how much older rum has been in the blend over the years. It is almost certainly less now than in the past. I thought I had that at least in its earliest days when it first was made in the 70's it was a true 23yo but I can find nothing to confirm it. Only the Botran's know for sure I suppose... So it appears as is typical for rum, information on the label is all but meaningless although the newer so called "solera" designation to describe their blending process is really more accurate than the old "23 anos" label.

Preaching to the choir here! I suppose when I said that "I do agree that if the consumer doesn't care about this information and likes to drink what is in the bottle more power to him" I suppose what really meant was that if they are dumb enough to buy the hype and not learn a bit about what they are drinking then I don't feel at all sorry for them if they pay way too much for whiskey they could get elsewhere for less. In fact I would just as soon they buy "spirit" whiskey/vodka and leave the real whiskey alone! But I absolutely agree that that the label should clearly indicate what is in the bottle. But I can't make John Q. Public read it or even care. I also wouldn't have a problem if there was some kind of practical way to take action against BS advertising. Of course that is needed for a lot more than whiskey and I don't see it happening anytime soon. After all, as everyone knows, us "guvmint" types can't find our ass with a both hands and a map pointing the way!

True enough. I have reached the point where I can (usually) successfully keep the two apart although it is something of an effort for me. But I think tasting spirits blind (and as another example trying components of a cocktail independently in an effort to appreciate what each one brings to a drink) will almost certainly help you be able to enjoy it more when you just sit down to enjoy a glass of something. At least it does that for me! But I have been called a wee bit obsessive about my hobbies and so I constantly have to make an effort to separate "tasting" and "enjoying" when it comes to spirits!

Not sure that is entirely true but I am also a long way from my organic chemistry background these days. Any spirit aged in wood, generally hardwood and usually oak but other woods as well, for even a moderate amount of time, especially new charred wood, is likely going to have identifiable sugars from the wood resulting from the hemicellulose Xylan which is basically just long chains of the wood sugar Xylose. The Xylan gets broken down into Xylose from the heating process. I am not entirely sure what the distinction between "extract" and sugar is on the Finnish Alko link above. Rhum Clement for example doesn't have any sugar added by all reports as a Rhum Agricole but has 3 gms of "extract". Don't know if that source registers xylose as a sugar for the purposes of their reporting. Seems like the link to a study report on sugar in liquor from either Finland or one of the Scandinavian countries has been posted here before but I can't find it now. Xylose is a "good" sugar in that it provides some sweetness but is not metabolized in the body for the most part with most of it being excreted by the kidneys into sweet, sweet urine...

Not so, if you can trust the labels on rum, which is a somewhat dicey proposition. Before Diageo made the deal to be the distributor for Zacapa in about 2008 (and later bought a 50% stake in the brand) there was indeed a true 23yo old rum by all reports. But there was no way the producer, Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala which is owned by the Botran family (which also makes the much drier Botran rum) could keep up with the volume Diageo wanted to build into an international brand. Hence was born the "solera" system for rum. I think this solera system may have been discussed here in the past. I don't believe it is a true solera system as one thinks of with sherry. I think it is really just a fancy way for them to say the blend in rums of various ages in my opinion. The bottle in the picture above with the full palm leaf cover is how the original Zacapa appeared and is something of a legend in the rum world. It too may have had some sugar in it but I doubt it was as sweetened to the degree that present day Zacapa is. I have a bottle of the 23 anos rum from an interim period in probably the mid 2000's when the palm leaf wrap was just the ring that it is today but was still labeled as 23 anos. I think it is a clearly superior to the present day rum (in a blind test!). But to think any rum is free of at least some sugar, coloring or other flavors (with the exception of the rhum agricoles) is only going to leave you disappointed. There may be some that aren't but I believe they are a significant minority. When it comes to rum there simply aren't any rules or oversight. You are far better off if you just think of rum as a "cocktail in a bottle" and enjoy it for what it is. From my comments on these rums last May on another website:

Tasting blind, whatever the spirit is, is always the best indicator to me. While I fancy myself as someone who is reasonably knowledgeable about spirits and who has at least started to develop an appreciation of spirits based on what is in the bottle that is not influenced by labels, cost and other markers of what is "good" and "bad" the truth is I am regularly wrong when it comes to identifying specific spirits (and sometimes even styles of spirits, such as a bourbon versus rye, a large distiller versus small distiller, even bottom shelf versus "top" shelf for example) when tasting blind. It can be a truly humbling experience!

Well known in the whiskey nerd circles I hang out in but largely unknown to the "average" consumer. Another take on it from David Driscoll at K&L Wines. I don't fully agree with him (Or maybe it is just that I am not a Stephen Colbert fan - then again I am an old fart!). I think that all producers, whether they distill themselves or are an NDP, should be required to disclose the state of origin of the spirit as the law requires in §5.36(d) for whiskey and straight whiskey and should be substantially fined if they don't. I also think they should be required to indicate the Distilled Spirits Plant or "DSP" number as well on all bottles (and not just Bottled in Bond whiskey as is the case now) although that will likely never happen. I do agree that if the consumer doesn't care about this information and likes to drink what is in the bottle more power to him. But all producers, distillers and non-distillers alike should be held to the same standard (and there should be a minimum standard!) and the current minimal requirements are in no way burdensome in my opinion. I certainly don't depend on the label to tell me what is in a bottle but it seems like a rather greasy hillside when we allow producers to ignore the requirements for a consumable beverage with impunity. It seems a short step to making something you claim to be whiskey that isn't in fact the real thing and then a shorter step still to putting something in a bottle that not only isn't what it purports to be but is also dangerous to consume (Well, more dangerous than the alcohol already is!) because it happens to be a way for someone to make a fast buck. Nobody can be so foolish as to think that someone won't try it. After all it is why the regulations came into being in the first place!

Brought ingredients for The Man Comes Around to a dinner party last night and it proved quite the hit, not that I doubted it. Just don't always know if the crowd is going to be type that feels vodka and cranberry juice is a sophisticated cocktail. Have been using Lepanto Gran Reserva as that is the only Spanish brandy I have on hand but otherwise sticking to the script. Nice cocktail for taking on the road and easy to make in a fairly large batch if needed.

One can only hope! So far no indication they are going beyond the two states they are in now. I still have a couple from last year that I put on the shelf to age a bit.

Nope, not yet... Although I am not sure that won't happen when the next Small Batch limited edition hits in the fall!

Ain't history a real hoot?

Stone truly sux! Primarily because the W00tstout apparently is being limited to release In Kentucky and Cali only. I think I might have to start a boycott...

Excellent. Should have thought of Springbank as well.

Not all that surprising I should think. Martinique and the other French Islands all made a lot more molasses based "industrial" rhums for decades (two plus centuries really) to use up the by product of sugar production which is of course molasses. It was only as sugar production from beets and other sources began to cut into sugar profitability that rhum agricole began to grow as an industry. But it was probably not until the 60's and 70's the rhum agricole began to equal and surpass molasses based rhum production, well past the origins of Donn and Vic in the 30's. And I suspect it was funky enough that it took some time to catch on in the rest of the world even when it did become more common. My guess is that most agricole was kept close to home for consumption as "the good stuff" in the mid and early part of the twentieth century and very little of it got out to the States or the rest of the world with the possible exception of France and the Francophone world. So the tiki boys would likely have been more familiar with "industrial" rhum from Martinique and the Caribbean in general than they would have been with agricole. Ernie "Donn Beach" Gantt, better known as Don the Beachcomber, at least had travelled the world, including the Caribbean in his youth (and also served in the European Theatre in WWII) so he might have had some knowledge of the differences. "Trader Vic" Bergeron was really little more than a copycat when it was all said and done in my mind.

The Four Roses limited editions, both Single Barrel and especially the Small Batch, are rapidly gaining cult status like the BTAC offerings and are likely to be a rare sight on a store shelf for the foreseeable future. It has increased in on premises allocation and will likely continue to get on premise focus over the amount allocated to stores I suspect. The sad reality of the current whiskey rage I suppose.

The single wooden pot still at DDL is named the Versailles still for its original home plantation of the same name. It was moved at some point in its life to Enmore plantation before finally ending up at the current DDL location. My guess would be that your rum was distilled while the still was residing at Enmore. From the DDL website: The Double Wooden Pot Still originated from the Port Mourant Estate, founded in 1732, and was later moved first to Uitvlught and then, in 2000, to Diamond. In the same way the original Single Wooden Pot Still was moved from its original home at Versailles on the west bank of the Demerara River, via Enmore and Uitvlught to its present home at Diamond. These two unique copper-necked Stills are valued by blenders and other experts as a source of very heavy bodied, very flavourful and deeply aromatic rums – the ancient Green Heartwood of the Still playing a major role in the development of these distinctive characteristics. While rum from this Still is used in the blending of other El Dorado rums, the El Dorado PM Marque Single Barrel Rum is a single distillate from the Double Wooden Pot Still from the old Port Mourant Estate.