Saint James

[Stefan Cyrus]

I few weeks ago I bought a bottle of:

Saint James vieux rhum milesime 1976

for about $40. I like it, but was this a good deal ?

[Jason Perlow]

The regular Rhum Saint James Hors de Age (their oldest non-vintage aged rum) can be found for a little over 20 bucks on most of the islands, maybe a little less on Saint Maarten. The thing about the vintages, is that you cant be sure how long it was cask aged unless it tells you the date of disgorgement on the bottle. If it really is 20 years old or more then 40 bucks is a good buy.

[Ed Hamilton]

Jason is right millesime just means vintage and doesn't necessarily mean that the rhum was aged since that date. I tend to avoid special vintages since most aren't aged as long as you might think.

[mickblueeyes]

I will add one small disagreement. I agree that they aren't necessarily aged as long as one would think. However they are distilled on the date on the bottle, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. The majority of my expertise lies with Single Malt scotch, so. . .

But, for instance, I would prefer a 10 yr old bottle of Glenlivet distilled in 1965 versus a 18 yr old in 1984 simply because the distillery's quality has gone down greatly in the last 20 years due to exceedingly high demand. Or Ardbeg, for instance. I would prefer a 10 yr old bottle of Ardbeg distilled in 1970 than the same 10 yr distilled in 1990, because the distillery closed and was reopened after purchase by Glenmorangie. The brand lost some of its flavor when the new ownership revamped the blend.

So it is possible that the 1976, if only a 15 year, is far better than the current production Hors D'age, depending on the distillerys constitution at the time. Ed would know more about than than I.

[JOHN REEKIE]

CTGM...... I thought I would bring it forward from the archives, for your interest. I was looking for something totaly different when I came across it again and I knew I had heard of RHUM SAINT JAMES 1967 some where. Here is some more insight in to this rum and some experience of others . What suprises me is that none of these gentlemen mentioned this rum in reply to your original question.

By the way- A Sealed bottle of RHUM DES PLANTATIONS SAINT JAMES VINTAGE 1935. with an Illinois tax stamp 1935. Imported into the USA by Brown Vinners Co, New York City, NY. This was sold on EBAY at the begining of November 2002. I did not see what it final sold for but I Do know the bidding was quite high,

[Ed Hamilton]

You're right that the quality at distilleries changes with time, new distillation columns for example will produce a different profile spirit. And in the last ten years distillers have been working to upgrade their production. But fortunately, many of the rhum distillers have learned a thing or two from the scotch industry and are working hard to not only increase production but to also maintain or improve the quality of their products.

All this brings up another important point that as distilleries maintain their distillation equipment, there are inevitably changes in the product. I know of at least one distillery that installed a new stainless steel distillation column and then a year later rebuilt it with copper plates because their rhum suffered.

Distillers also change the blend of their products, sometimes because of market research from paid consultants and other times because they have to due to dwindling supplie of aged stocks. Different barrels age differently depending on where they are placed in the warehouse due to temperature, humidity and the wood itself. To make the same product year after year is next to impossible especially at the smaller distilleries.

[ctgm]

On the whisky front, Macallan is an interesting example. They bottle their 18yo with the distillation year on as well, because they are well aware of the differences in the different vintages. The whisky is chosen barrel by barrel for the final blend, and those that do not come up to scratch are not used thus ensuring the best quality. Macallan are fortunate enough to have enough barrels to be able to do this.

Can the batch of barrels make a big difference to the quality of rum? I do not know how much (might as well use St. James as an example) rum they made in 1976 under this particular label, but I would suspect that it would be harder to blend out the bad points due to a smaller production run. Therefore the differences that might be experienced from year to year might be larger than one would imagine, especially if they took the view that they had to use all the barrels available for their final blend, whether good or bad.

I might be writing complete rubbish but I have experienced many "bad" casks when dealing with (bulk) malt and grain whisky. Perhaps someone could enlighten me about rum casks.

Edited March 4, 2003 by ctgm (log)

[scheer]

Let me enlighten you!

There can be a hudge difference in each barrel of rum. I had the opportunity to examine the whole stock of a rumdistillerie and check the quality of most of the barrels. I tell you, some really bad barrels could be found. And they better not used these. And also the spectrum of different tones was enormous.

Not only rum put on wood will differ in quality but also the fresh distilled single marks of the individual distilleries will differ per batch. Just think of natural yeast and spontanious fermentation, this will have different influences each and every time.

This is one of the reasons why blending of rum of different distilleries and also of different origine is done to equal out differencies. A lot of rumbottelers just want to have a standard quality each and every time for thir heavily promoted brands, so blending is a just a must, if this is what they want.

[tcbolt]

Just joined the list -- and can't resist jumping right in.

On the subject of St. James, my impression from having lived some years in Martinique was that you could ascribe a little more honesty to their labels than some of the other distilleries. On the other hand, they weren't big on the millesimes. Most of what you could get was labelled as 'over xxx years old' etc. Again, just recollection, but I think they gave up the millesimes because they were earlier than the others in becoming market-driven and becoming an 'export' distillery on the high end. Just can't deliver the millesimes in enough volume, and keep the quality stable. Impressions could be wrong, and I'd be interested in hearing a confirmation (or not).

On barrels. In the early 90's most of St. James aging barrels came from Jack Daniels. The story I heard on the tour was that JD bought fresh oak barrels and kept them only about 3-4 years. St. James would then keep them around another 5-10 years. They admitted that as the barrels aged, the quality dropped, and at the end they were used for Rhum paille, and then discarded. I am sure Mr Scheer would have found a good number of bad barrels there. As long as you burned out the barrels every year, they said, the barrels would still serve to take the bite out of the white rum and give it color. As long as the rum mellowed, that was key. It must have made good business sense, but an old bourbon barrel and an old wine barrel are bound to impart different qualities to a well-aged rum, and a refined nose should tell the difference. What says the list?

[ctgm]

Thinking back on things I could have answered my own question.

I bottled a 1972 Port Morant (in 2000, so was a 28yo). We had 2 casks and one was a lot better than the other. I tried to persuade my bosses to bottle only the good one, but they didn't want to be left with an inferior cask, so they decided to blend the 2 casks and bottle everything even though the quality of the good cask would be compromised (while at the same time the inferior cask would be "improved").

Mickblueeyes said that the quality of the distilate is poorer these days than days gone by, but don't you think that it is the commercial pressure to maximise output (and therefore be less selective over which casks are used) is the real problem and that the modern distilate is in fact of similar quality as that from the past?

Edited March 6, 2003 by ctgm (log)