Rum tasting

[ctgm]

Just been to a tasting of bits and bobs and had some fantastic rums from an independant bottler here in the UK. All are single cask bottlings and labelled by distillery.

Gardel 10yo (Guadeloupe) French oak finish

Rockley Still 16yo (Barbados) Fino sherry finish

Versailles 16yo (Demerara) Port finish

Port Morant 20yo (Demerara) French oak finish

Monymusk 25yo (Jamaica) Bourbon wood finish

The best to my mind was the Rockley Still (full of really powerful iodine flavours - quite like an Islay whisky in certain respects) and the Monymusk (which was ooh so smooooth).

[Ed Hamilton]

Glad you liked the Rockley rum, that one is also called the West Indies Rum Refinery and distills many of the Barbados rum such as Cockspur, Old Brigand, etc.

Did you think these rums were reasonably priced?

[ctgm]

The UK agent for these rums was listing it at the tasting (although it might be possible to get it from them cheaper) at GBP29.25 (including all taxes) or say about US$45. Whether it was reasonably priced I would have to say yes. The rums are truly fantastic and no more expensive than the equivalent aged whiskies.

When I say equivalent in age I mean the number of years old it is although I believe that a 16yo rum must be the equivalent of a 25yo scotch whisky. If you take it along these lines then it is a much better valued product and also one that is by comparisson quite rare

[Markus Lewalski]

Hi,

I just investigated a bit and I assume these are all rums from the 'Classic Rum' collection. But I am a bit surprised about the age you mentioned. I only found Rockley 12 yo, Versailles 12 yo, Port Morand 12 yo and Moneymusk 21 yo (the Gardel seems not to be available in Germany).

Besides the Port Morand the age you indicated is always 4 yrs more than that I found. As all the rums I mentioned were bottled in 1998 I ask myself if maybe someone just added the 4 yrs from 1998 to 2002 to the age of the rum (ok, we are now in 2003 but anyway...)

Or I am completely wrong and there are severeal different bottelings from different years available.

The prices I found are +/- 35 EUR for the three 12 yo rums and +/- 60 EUR for the Moneymusk 21 yo.

Markus

[ctgm]

Yes these are from the Classic Rum collection.

As for the ages, these are currently the latest bottlings and because they are single cask ones they change quite frequently

As for the price, these are the UK agents ones which I am sure will differ from the European ones especially when you add the UK's high Duty rate and VAT (duty on a 46% bottle is GBP6.30). I do know the price from the producer but as he is a friend of mine I think that it would be indiscreet to mention them.

Edited February 26, 2003 by ctgm (log)