Tag Archives: Cuban Rum

Trinity Hall Rum Tasting 

by

0

Tonight, Trinity Hall presented a selection of rums from various Caribbean locales and representing different styles based on the influence of the European settlers there.  It’s always fun to experience the uniqueness of these cultural interactions and tonight was no exception.  Here’s what Marius, the proprietor, picked for us tonight.

English Harbor 5 Year Old Rum – hailing from Antigua, this rum has molasses and dark fruit on the nose with a taste of light brown sugar, cane, white pepper then turns negative with some rubbing alcohol that pretty well ruins it. There’s a bit of leather on the finish but it’s dominated by a tannic, industrial taste and the overall experience is thin. Definitely not recommended.

Ron Abuelo 12 Year Old – This Panamanian Rum opens with an aroma of molasses, tobacco, raisin, pecan praline and butter and continues with an engaging taste of molasses, toffee, vanilla, cane syrup and tobacco. The finish is cane syrup, leather and a continuing note of tobacco, making this a rich and flavorful rum that you have to try!

Plantation XO 20th Anniversary Rum – This edition is a blend of 12-20 year old rums from Barbados that is finished in Pierre Ferrand Cognac casks.  It’s full of vanilla, but of the artificial variety,  along with toffee and sweet honeysuckle, butterscotch candy and nutmeg.  The artificial flavors and sweetness carry through to the finish making this somewhat disappointing.

Ron Zacapa 23 Centennario – This is a very popular Guatemalan Rum that I haven’t had in a while. From start to finish the dominant impression is sweet and syrupy. There’s a smell of sugary cherry syrup and a taste of sugary vanilla and toffee, cherries, prunes with some black pepper and tobacco adding the only interesting balance. The finish is sweet and flavorful, but too syrupy and simple. If you like sweet and simple, this is an overpriced version that you could probably do without. Look for something cheaper.

Appleton Estate 21 Year Old Jamaican Rum – While this does have the typical Jamaican funk (caused by the esters from fermented additions to distillate), this is a terrible representative of the style.  In short, it’s pretty awful!  Once you get past the vanilla, dark fruit, rotten banana peel, molasses and black pepper, you’re met with rubber and other industrial flavors that ruin the experience.

Ron Zacapa XO –  Another Guatemalan rum from Zacapa aged in ex-cognac casks, but this time the range is 6-25 years old (presumably the ages represented in the solera system that they use, which means diminishing amounts as the age increases).  This is a definite improvement over Zacapa 23, with an aroma of red grape, cherry and straw and a perfectly expected follow-through of the same with molasses, prune, vanilla, tobacco and black pepper  on the palate. To be honest, this tastes more like a Spanish brandy than a rum and you might be better off going that route for more flavor and complexity at a better price.

Balcones Texas Rum (batch 16-1) – This is one of the latest rum batches from Balcones and still a fairly limited offering.  It’s a huge 63% ABV and takes a lot of water to bring the burn under control.  Once you get there, it might even start to resemble rum ;-).  By far the boldest offering of the evening (after all it’s from Texas!), the nose offers toffee, corn, honey and dark cherry, while the taste is the typical tannic Balcones profile (there is a distinct taste to all of their offerings) with toffee, corn, vanilla, ginger, black pepper and white pepper followed by a long, leathery, spicy and peppery finish.  It’s not your typical rum, but well worth the unique experience. See my review of Batch 13-1 to see how this rum has improved since the first batch.

These tastings are about weeding out the riffraff as much as they are about discovering great spirits to enjoy and I accomplished both tonight.  The clear winner is Ron Abuelo 12 Year, which I highly recommend for under $40.  It’s sweet for sure, but it retains a really nice, complex flavor even so (I’d love to taste an unadulterated version of this one).  Aside from the Balcones offering (and only because of it’s uniqueness), I would stay away from all of the others.  As a side note, I would recommend Cardenal Mendoza Spanish Brandy Solera Gran Reserva for about $50 as a much better experience of what Ron Zacapa XO is trying to offer.  Trust me, you’ll be glad you did!

Balcones Texas Rum (Batch 13-1)

by

1

rum-2015To my knowledge, this is the original release of Balcones Texas Rum, although there were several variants entered into competitions prior to this release.  It was bottled on September 27, 2013 at 58.5% ABV; however, my bottle also bears a gold label declaring this a Commemorative Bottling available at the distillery on December 7, 2013.  In any case, I purchased this almost a year later at True Spirits in Plano, TX and it bears the signature of the former Head Distiller, Chip Tate.  As you can see from the picture, later batches were bottled at a significantly higher ABV.

The nose is fairly hot, but not overly so, with molasses, caramel, straw, tobacco, rotten banana peel and vanilla.  After a while, a light dusting of cocoa develops and a distinctly reedy aroma (yes, like cane juice rum).  A bit of water tends to bring the straw forward, subduing the fruits and vanilla, while  leaving the molasses and tobacco in place.  I think it’s a nice improvement in balance, but it was good before as well.

The taste is different and much bolder than the aroma with an opening of cocoa, prune, straw and overripe orchard fruit before giving way to a spicy transition of tannic white pepper layered over the previous fading flavors.  The finish is leathery and spicy with lingering cocoa-laced molasses and it lasts a long time.  Water tames the initial flavors as well as the spiciness so that the transition is less pronounced and the experience is more of a slow morphing of flavors with the same descriptions as before.  The finish becomes less leathery with a bit more extension than before and the cocoa-laced molasses becomes nice and spicy.  All of this takes nothing away from the excellent mouthfeel, which remains plenty oily.

When I first opened this bottle, I judged it to be the worst offering I’d tasted from Balcones (and I’ve tasted just about everything and several different batches of each), but I’ve completely changed my mind as the rum has oxidized in the bottle over more than 2 years.  It’s improved over time to the point that I’m sorry to see it go.  This is a unique rum that seems to defy the traditional Caribbean styles, but I would venture to say that it most closely resembles a Cuban-style rum.  It lacks the esters of a Jamaican, the rich sweetness of Demerara and is much bolder than any Bajan that I’ve had, but it has a nice melding of overripe orchard fruit and spice that I would attribute to a good Cuban rum.  I guess I’ve convinced myself that it may not defy these styles after all. 😉

I’m told that subsequent batches have seen more barrel time and have improved significantly, so I may have to explore a more recent batch and I’m genuinely surprised that I’m thinking this way.  It looks like Texas does produce some good rum after all, but I’ll warn you that this is not for the typical Bacardi drinker.  If you like Matusalem Gran Reserva 15 or 18 with a bit more boldness and less sweetness or if you like Westerhall Plantation with more boldness and less reediness, then you should give Balcones Texas Rum a try.  I warn you not to judge it on the first pour, but rather to be patient (possibly for months) while the flavors improve to offer you the full experience.

Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva 18 Year Old

by

2

Cuban Rum, 18 Years, 40% ABV, $32

I originally learned about this rum a few years ago from Cap’n Jimbo’s Rum Project, where it was put forward as a reference standard for Cuban style rum.  Last year, it was discovered from court documents related to a dispute between members of the Matusalem family that the original recipe included macerated prunes and vanilla.  Since then, the current producers apparently started using artificial flavors resulting in the aforementioned dispute.  In any case, this is a relatively inexpensive rum with quite a heritage that has gone through some unfortunate changes recently.  Let’s give it a go….

Nose is sweet with a rich charred character and laced with overripe banana, vanilla bean, sweet tobacco and a feint reediness.  There’s also a bit of black pepper that comes through with more intense inhaling and overripe stone fruits with a softer approach.  It’s not very complex, but very enjoyable, especially if you enjoy sweet fruity aromas.

The taste is immediately sweet and that sweetness carries through to the finish.  Like the nose, there are lots of overripe fruits, but that’s tempered with a mild bitterness like the caramel at the bottom of a good flan.  The reedy character is more noticeable here while the banana and vanilla are joined with soft cocoa before fading into the mildly bitter finish.  It’s an interplay of spices, overripe fruit and sugar cane that takes you from a sweet entrance through a flavorful cascade ending in a fairly long finish of caramelized banana peel and charred wood.  After a while, the black pepper becomes more evident and seems to linger with the reedy quality… like there’s an affinity between the two.  It’s never strong or pronounced, but it’s more noticeable.  With each sip, the sweetness intensifies as it counters the woody caramel finish and reveals overripe pear, overripe dark cherry, orange marmalade (thanks Cap’n Jimbo) and banana peel.  While these other fruits and flavors are noticeable, the initial ones continue to dominate, namely the overripe banana and vanilla.

This is a moderately complex rum that is very enjoyable.  The sweetness played against the bitterness provides some contrast and keeps things interesting, while the overripe fruit character with mild spice develops over time and then lingers with each sip.  We know that this rum is sweetened and I imagine that this is too counter some of the bitterness that is present.  Unfortunately, the added sugar probably mutes some of the flavors that would be expected with a complex rum.  I don’t mind the added fruit and vanilla, as long as it’s natural (not artificially flavored) and clearly labeled, but the added sugar can’t be helping the quality.

For me, this lies between the demeraran and agricole style rums with characteristics consistent with both while never fitting into either category.  The 15 year old is almost as good as this 18 year old and the price is only marginally different.  I’ll be looking for a new reference for Cuban style rum.  In the meantime, give this one or the 15 year old a try.  Both are pretty good.

Ron Matusalem Platino

by

0

Cuban Rum, 3 Years, 40% ABV, $10

Besides Bacardi (I’m not counting that one), this is the first white rum I purchased. It was a great price and I didn’t know much about it, but I grabbed it anyway.

On the nose, its sweet and spicy with smells of toffee, straw, ginger, overripe plum and cherry, pear, honey and mild tobacco. The taste is vanilla, caramel, apple, pear, plum, banana, ginger, grass and black pepper. The finish is mild wood, subdued fruit for a while and dissipating spice. There’s a lingering taste of overripe banana and leathery tobacco in the background as well.

This is a really nice rum with a nice collection of fruit and spice without much sweetness and just a bit of bitterness. Overall, a pretty good balance.  The price I paid was really good, but even at the current $15 that I see, this is a good buy.