New Cocktails: the Chartreuse Daiquiri, Two Ways

Hey there, long time no see. As the lack of posting might suggest, I haven't been drinking a ton this year, but inspiration struck recently. The hot PNW weather made me hanker for a daiquiri, but I wanted something a bit more interesting than the standard formula. So why not punch it up a bit with some Chartreuse?

Chartreuse Daiquiri #1

1.5 oz rum
0.25 oz green Chartreuse
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz rich simple syrup

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, then double strain into a chilled couple.

The aromas are balanced between herbal notes from the Chartreuse and a rounded rummy-ness with a hint of lime. The sip begins sweetly with balanced lime acidity, then opens up into gentle herbal notes and leads into the finish with a touch of rum. The finish is pleasantly tart with fading Chartreuse.

While this is good, it feels like it's missing something. I think it would work better with a more assertive rum, while the Hamilton White Stache I used is a bit too soft in this application. A funkier rum like Probitas or a grassy blanc agricole might play better. With that said, I wouldn't turn this down if served.

Chartreuse Daiquiri #2

1.5 oz rum
0.5 oz green Chartreuse
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz rich simple syrup

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, then double strain into a chilled couple.

The aromas are dominated by the green Chartreuse's herbs, with a touch of lime. The sip opens with sweet rum, quickly joined by gentle lime, then seguing through a burst of slightly bitter herbs at the back. The finish continues the herbal theme with lime pith. The mouthfeel is pleasantly thick throughout between the syrup and liqueur.

Wow, what a drink. You have to really like Chartreuse for this to work since it dominates most of the experience, but it's still mellowed significantly by the rum. It obviously makes nods to the Last Word, albeit in a less complex fashion without juniper or maraschino. Dangerously drinkable, especially on a hot day.

New Cocktails: Don's Daiquiri

Looking over Don the Beachcomber's ouvre, one of his most common touches was the combination of a dash of Angostura bitters with half a dozen drops of absinthe or pastis. While rarely assertive, they always make for a pleasant accent. Last summer I wondered if it had ever been applied to the basic daiquiri formula. While I've searched long and hard for another name for this drink, I've never been able to find anything with the same specs. The closest is the Rum Club Daiquiri, though that takes it in a different direction.

Don's Daiquiri

1.5 oz white rum (I used Hamilton White Stache)

0.5 oz blanc rhum agricole

0.5 oz lime juice

0.5 oz simple syrup

1 dash Angostura bitters

6 drops of absinthe/pastis

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, then double strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The aromas have a good fruity/grassy balance between the rums, plus a touch of Angostura bitters. The sip is very fruity up front, moving into grassy notes in the middle, then faint licorice with a sweet lime fade out. The finish has sweet lime, a touch of bitters and grass, and lingering anise.

This is just lovely. As hoped, it's a nice twist on the basic formula. The rums played well with each other, providing a solid foundation for the gentle accents. While it doesn't have the flourishes of a full-on tiki drink, I appreciate the way it nods at the broader realm while staying firmly in the realm of the classics.

Classic Cocktails: Reverse Perfect El Presidente

I've enjoyed the classic El Presidente before and was inspired to give it the reverse perfect treatment when I saw it come up on a list of blanc vermouth cocktails from Imbibe. While my original version was all dry vermouth and called for a larger slug of orange liqueur, this version was able to reduce it by adding in some sweeter blanc vermouth instead of just dry.

 

Reverse Perfect El Presidente

 

1 oz blanc vermouth

1 oz dry vermouth

0.5 rum (I split it between blanc agricole and a rounder molasses based rum)

1 tsp orange liqueur

1 tstp raspberry syrup

 

Combine all ingredients, stir with ice for fifteen seconds, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

 

The aromas are heady with vermouth inflected with raspberry, orange, and rum. The flavors open with vermouth and rum sweetness, shifts to big berry notes in the middle, then slides into pleasant orange bitterness at the back. The finish is bittersweet, fruity, and has a touch of grassy cane.

Dang, this is really, really good. There's a lot of complexity and no one ingredient overwhelms any other. Using flavorful rums (in this case Rhum J.M. 110 and Hamilton White Stache) does help to keep them from getting lost, so it's still clearly a rum-based drink. If you're not a fan of dry vermouth (looking at you, RumDood) I think you could use all blanc and keep it in balance by adding a dash of orange bitters. But whatever direction you choose to take it in, this continues to solidify my faith in the reverse perfect formula. This just keeps producing great drinks.

Can the Compass Box Model Work With Other Spirits? Pt. II - the Economics of Blending

On top of the limitations of consumer knowledge, basic economics and the structure of liquor distribution also make it difficult for the Compass Box model to be applied to other spirits. On a very basic level, the bigger the blend the more risk a producer is taking. As noted by David Driscoll in the K&L Spirits Journal, moving a single cask of 100-500 bottles entails a fairly small amount of risk because there is a small amount of capital invested and the bottles can probably be moved sooner or later. In comparison a multi-cask blend of thousands of bottles involves both a larger capital investment and a greater risk that the product won't sell.

This goes double if you are targeting the enthusiast market, where novelty is often prized above everything else. A single cask generates excitement and FOMO to help move it out the door. A blend, especially in higher price brackets, stands primarily on its quality and repeat buyers. In the other direction, a product aimed at bartenders faces different constraints. First, it needs to be priced competitively so that their pour costs are acceptable. Second, supply needs to be sufficiently stable that they aren't taking a risk of having to reformulate their menu if it runs out. This creates a relatively difficult balance between more flavorful, rare, and expensive components to give the final product a unique profile and the more pedestrian components needed to keep the price point down. Some producers still succeed, such as Denizen or Cutty Sark (specifically their Prohibition release), but it takes skill and good relationships.

As I've noted before, Compass Box was created in no small part because John Glaser came from the brand side of Johnnie Walker, which gave him the relationships to source whiskies and lock in long term contracts. More recently the stake Bacardi has taken in the business creates another set of relationships allowing them to access whiskies that might otherwise be difficult to obtain. Without those long-term filling contracts, it is difficult to maintain the kind of stable core lineup that has become another hallmark of Compass Box in comparison to other outfits.

A new entrant today would be unlikely to have the same ability to get those kinds of filling contracts, even if supply is beginning to loosen up in comparison to a decade ago. Approaching the majors would more likely than not get someone laughed out of the room. Independent bottlers might be willing to let go of casks, especially those from second and third tier distilleries, but supply would likely be inconsistent.

This task is frequently even more challenging for other spirits. While bourbon distillers have traditionally sold bulk spirits and casks, supply has dried up for those without contracts locked in before the boom picked up. MGP potentially remains a source, but even their supplies are thinner than they once were. The world of cognac and armagnac is extremely complex, with an array of small producers, negociants in the middle, and the big houses pulling in the bulk of what is made. Some, such as PM Spirits have managed to accomplish this by building up relationships with those smaller producers, allowing them to release armagnacs aimed at the cocktail market.

On the flip side, rum is in the almost unique position of possessing international bulk buyers who are willing to sell smaller parcels. E&A Scheer (and their subsidiary the Main Rum Co) is the most prominent example, albeit one that is still largely unknown outside of rum geek circles. They have some features in common with larger Scottish independent bottlers or American non-distiller producers, though they are notably different in that they don't produce any products for themselves, preferring to supply other brands. This is the source for the aforementioned Denizen rums, which have been pretty open about how they're put together. This opens a real avenue for the kind of provenance-oriented blending done by Compass Box, but the limitations laid out in the first post are still going to be an impediment.

This brings in the last factor, distribution and sales. With hundreds of spirits currently competing for shelf space in liquor stores, you need to convince multiple layers of distributors and retailers that your product will sell. Some of this is short-circuited for in-house blends such as those produced by Total Wine or K&L, but that means that all of the risk is on a single sales outlet. When a producer wants to get their product onto the shelves of a wider range of retailers, scale creates a number of double binds. A small-scale or one-off release needs to justify its occupation of space that could otherwise be occupied by products that might have more consistent sales, while a larger scale product needs fairly rapid, concentrated sales in a small number of outlets or a large number of outlets with a smaller number of sales to be successful. This is especially tricky in the United States, where interstate shipping is becoming increasingly difficult, constraining the reach of each retailer.

To conclude, while we're starting to see some glimmers in other spirits such as rum and armagnac, there remain series problems both on the consumer and the producer side of the equation that make it difficult for new producers to make spirits in the mold of Compass Box. My hope is that changes on the consumer side will eventually drive changes on the producer side, but we will have to wait and see how that goes.

Can the Compass Box Model Work With Other Spirits? Pt. I - Distillery Profiles

As most of the revival of scotch whisky focused on the abundant single malts available in the 1990s and early-2000s, blends continued to be seen by many as bland and uninspired. John Glaser made it his mission to change that perception. Founded in 2000, Compass Box emerged from the roles he had played in the wine trade and at Diageo as the marketing director for Johnnie Walker. This gave him exposure the process of blending, a background in wood management, and the relationships needed to access casks. The company's first release, Hedonism, was an unheard of before luxury blended grain whisky. Subsequent blends and blended malts (whatever term they were known by) continued to expand the approach by creating new flavor profiles from distilleries that, if not named directly, were strongly hinted at.

I asked myself why this model hasn't been replicated in many other spirits, especially rum, from a question posed by Josh Miller on Twitter. While many other spirits have long traditions of producing multi-distillery blends - think of British navy rum or the large cognac houses - few have managed to make the process and results of blending exciting in the way Compass Box has done for scotch whisky blends.

Much of this comes out of the particular history of malt whisky production in Scotland - while it was blend-centric for much of its existence, independent bottlers and eventually the distilleries themselves made the profiles of individual distilleries popular in their own right. These created known quantities that John Glaser was able to riff on, twisting expectations in ways that made the results thrilling. Clynelish is at the core of many of their blends, ranging from the standard GKS Artist's Blend, Oak Cross, and Spice Tree releases, to one-offs like Eleuthera and the Lost Blend. Similarly Laphroaig and Caol Ila have been at the heart of many of their peated blends such as Peat Monster, Flaming Heart, and GKS Glasgow. These more well-known profiles are inflected with less well-known malts and grain whiskies from the likes of Teaninich, Dailuaine, Invergordon, Cameronbridge, Ledaig, or Ardmore.

For most of the spirits world these individual distillery profiles simply haven't penetrated the consumer consciousness in the same way. There are exceptions, such as the profiles of American bourbon and rye distillers, though their origins are often obscured. There is also growing awareness of Jamaican, Guyanese (well, really the sub-marques of DDL), and Martiniquaise r(h)um distilleries or, in a far more limited fashion, Armagnac farm distilleries.

The bottler who has most closely approached the Compass Box model is High West. Founded in 2006, it has taken a similar approach to blending, primarily bourbon or rye, to create new profiles. While this began in no small part as a way to produce cash flow while starting up a distillery from scratch, they have become famous for their blending skills as much as for their own production. A major difference is that High West, at least at the beginning, was significantly constrained in how much information they could divulge. The American whiskey market had no history of independent bottlers revealing their sources, preferring instead to cloak them in veils of fake history. This led to customers attempting to suss out sources from the reported mash bills and other clues. In a sense, High West performed almost the opposite function by making profiles such as those of LDI/MGP or Barton rye famous that had otherwise been completely unknown.

In the rum world what we have seen more of so far are blends from multiple named countries, rather than multiple named distilleries, such as Banks or Plantation. These approach the spirit of Compass Box, but also serve to flatten the diversity within individual countries. While the distilleries of Jamaica or Barbados may share similarities, much as the classic Scottish regions may once have, this doesn't have the same kind of granularity. As Linkwood is not Craigellachie or Glenfarclas, Hampden is not Longpond or Worthy Park. Clément is not Depaz or Neisson.

One release closer to the mark comes from the armagnac bottler L'Encantada. They have done a significant amount of work bringing attention to armagnac farm distilleries, creating excitement about their individual profiles, albeit through single casks. Their XO bottling was a blend of a handful of different single casks from distillers that they had previously bottled casks from. This closely approaches the Compass Box model of riffing on known quantities to create new and exciting profiles.

In many ways this is a chicken and egg problem - without widespread knowledge and appreciation of individual distillery profiles there is less drive for blenders to highlight them, but without engaged customers seeking to discover those individual profiles there is little incentive to put them front and center. We can see glimmers within other spirits categories that this may come about with time and increasingly curious customers, but it may be that relative ignorance will prevent blenders from operating in quite the same mold as Compass Box.

Rum Review: Denizen Merchant's Reserve

One of the great debates over the past decade or so has been which rums make the best Mai Tai. This comes out of research by Jeff "Beachbum" Berry that when the supply of Jamaican 17 year old Dagger rum that had been the original choice for Trader Vic's Mai Tai, first turned to a 15 year old Jamaican, then when that ran out he reformulate the drink with a blend of aged Jamaican and Martinique rums to create a profile that was more sustainable. For many years it was supposed that the Martinique rum meant a rhum agricole, the grassy cane juice based rums of that island.

There is a competing theory from Martin Cate of Smuggler's Cove that the Martinique component was a Grand Arôme rather than an agricole. Rhum grand arôme is a high-ester molasses-based rum - much like Jamaican rums that use dunder, grand arôme rums are made from 'vinasse', the leftovers in the pot after a distillation, and molasses that is allowed to ferment for a very long time before it is distilled. This creates a very high ester rum that has primarily been used for baking or as a flavoring agent in other rums.

By sourcing Jamaican and grand arôme rums through E.A. Scheer in the Netherlands, Denizen Merchant's Reserve sought to create an all-in-one blend built specifically for Mai Tais.

60% of the rums in this blend are aged for at least 8 years, 20% are aged for four years in first-fill ex-bourbon barrels, and 20% is unaged rum. After blending it is bottled at 43% ABV, probably with chill filtration and possibly with coloring.

Denizen Merchant's Reserve

Nose: strong but not overwhelming dry esters, black pepper, overripe fruit (pineapple), plastic, matchsticks, slightly sharp oak and softer cedar in the background. After adding a few drops of water it becomes a bit more mellow with a less dry/assertive character and the earthy notes become stronger, but the overall structure remains the same.

Taste: sugar cane/molasses sweetness throughout, a little hollow/thin up front, vague/ethereal fruitiness in the background, sliding into dry esters with an oak backbone. After dilution the body becomes a bit thicker and the sweetness dominates throughout, with the esters and oak pushed a bit into the background.

Finish: layered sweetness, dry esters, and oak

While not a world-beater, this is an extremely competent rum. It doesn't have the brash intensity of something like Smith & Cross, but it has far more hogo than Appleton V/X. For me its major deficiency is that the spirit doesn't have the body I want, though there's only so much one can hope for at this price point. So while it gets the job done, I'm not sure it's what I would reach for again.

As this is a rum designed for Mai Tais, I feel obligated to give it a go in that form.

Mai Tai (1944)

2 oz rum
0.5 oz orange liqueur
0.75 oz lime juice
0.25 oz orgeat
0.25 oz simple syrup

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, then pour unstrained into a chilled rocks glass. Garnish with mint.

There's a decent amount of hogo on the nose, even going so far as something I would liken to smoked salmon. The sip opens with a perfect balance between the rum's hogo with just a touch of bitterness, the lime, orange, and almond. However it all seems to quickly fade, leaving an almost clean palate after the swallow.

While this is a perfectly competent Mai Tai, I feel like it's lacking a solid core. Admittedly, my ideal Mai Tai is made with a mix of Smith & Cross and St. James Ambre, which are both very deeply flavored, funky rums, so something at 43% isn't likely to hold my attention. At the same time, I feel like even an Appleton V/X and Clément split would give me a drink with more body than this. I think it would make for a solid choice at a bar that doesn't traditionally do tiki drinks and wants to ease their customers into the field as this is a very approachable version that ticks all the boxes. But at more established spots, I'm just not sure it has everything that the dedicated tiki drinker expects.

The Physics of Double Retort Pot Stills and Thumpers

Pot stills are the oldest form of distillation and continue to be used across the world, but one of their main limitations is that the maximum ABV that can be attained in a single distillation is ~45% from standard 8-10% ABV wash. The small amount of high proof spirit from the first distillation will also be highly contaminated with low boiling compounds that range from unpleasant to unsafe, so it has traditionally required at least two pot still distillations to produce flavorful, drinkable spirit.

But double distillation is slow and expensive. Each run requires charging the still, consuming lots of fuel to heat it up, and cleaning out the remains in the pot after a run is complete. It also requires complex logistics to balance the flow of raw material through mashing, fermentation, and distillation so that equipment is being efficiently utilized. Distilling has always been a volume-driven business, so the more time it took to produce marketable spirit the less money a distiller was making on the vast amount of capital they had sunk into their plant, inputs, and labor. Somewhere in the 17th or 18th century distillers had the clever idea of hooking multiple pot stills together to perform multiple distillations simultaneously in series.

These types of stills are now uncommon, but can still be found in a number of rum distilleries across the Caribbean such as the double retort systems at DDL in Guyana (both the Port Mourant wooden 'double' pot still and John Dore high ester still), Appleton, Hampden, and Worthy Park in Jamaica, and Foursquare and Mount Gay on Barbados. They can also be found in many bourbon distilleries coupled to column stills under the title of 'doubler' or 'thumper'. All perform a secondary or tertiary distillation to boost the ABV of the output without having to manually perform a second or third distillation.

I've written before about the physics of pot stills and that background will be important for understanding what happens when they are connected to a retort. In essence all of this comes down to a bit of plumbing - while the lyne arm of a traditional pot still is connected directly with a condenser, a retort pot still passes the lyne arm into a additional pot still. This can either direct the hot vapor into liquid where it bubbles through and heats the contents through residual heat or the vapor can first be condensed then passed into the next pot where it is heated again and undergoes another distillation. In either case some portion of the liquid has to be passed back to the previous pot to maintain the liquid level as water and feints are left behind from the increasingly enriched vapor. Importantly, when this is a batch process being fed by a pot still all that is being changed is how many times the vapor is being redistilled. The distiller still makes heads, hearts, and tails cuts just like with a simple pot still.

Double retort pot still with rectifying column at the Worthy Park distillery from The Floating Rum Shack

One of the most important parts of this process is what goes into the retort. If you put pure water in the retort the ABV of the output will not be significantly boosted, but some of the more water-soluble compounds may be scrubbed out, kind of like a hookah or bong. At many distilleries that use these systems, the retorts are loaded with what are called 'low wines' and 'high wines' (see labels on retorts in photo of Hampden Estate below), which are respectively the tails and heads from previous distillations diluted to differing degrees depending on the desired output. Others, such as DDL, combine the heads and tails together before loading them into the retort. This replicates the practice in many distilleries with simple pot stills of recycling feints back into the wash still for redistillation. A visual description of that process can be found here. For more flavorful spirits, stillage or dunder (what remains in the pot after a previous run) can also be charged into the retorts to boost the ester content in the Cousin's process (this is a sufficiently complex topic that it will get its own post at a later date).

To cite one example of how a retort pot still operates, this report claims that Appleton's double retort pot still starts with 8% ABV wash that is converted into roughly 30% ABV output, which goes through the first retort charged with 30% ABV low wines and is converted into roughly 60% ABV output, which goes through the second retort charged with 75% ABV high wines to give a final product at 80-90% ABV.

Double retort pot still at Hampden Estate from Leonardo Pinto

While the dynamics of retorts fed with the condensed output from the previous still (doublers in bourbon parlance) are basically the same as any other pot still, a vapor feed creates far more complex dynamics. What happens to the vapor bubbling through the liquid in the retort is dependent on a large number of influences that will shape the output. Thanks go out to user The Black Tot from the Rum Project forums, who did a pretty thorough job of thinking through what's happening in a retort.

Vapor from the pot still emerges into the liquid in the retort, initially at a much higher temperature than the liquid. The height of the liquid in the retort creates pressure that compresses the bubble. These forces will make the bubble partially or completely collapse as the temperature drops and the pressure rises, driving the vapor within the bubble below its condensation point. The heat from the vapor, both from its initial temperature and the gas to liquid phase change, will be added to the liquid. That process will be more or less complete depending on the temperature of the liquid, the pressure in the liquid where the bubbles emerge, and the size of those bubbles. Low temperature liquid with a lot of depth and small bubbles will encourage complete collapse, while higher temperature liquid without much depth and larger bubbles will be more likely to reach the surface of the liquid and burst. The first case will give better separation as the liquid is gently heated, while the second case will give less separation as the liquid is quickly heated and boils turbulently, mixing up heavier and lower boiling components.

The interplay between the size of the retort and the volume of the charge in it play an important role in determining how much heat will be lost from the system through radiant cooling and influence how much reflux is generated in the retort. A larger retort with a smaller charge will result in more cooling and more reflux, while a smaller retort with a larger charge will result in less cooling and less reflux. The charge will be influenced by how the stills are set up to handle the mass balance of the system - vapor enters the retort, gives up its heat, and the alcohol is preferentially vaporized again. The enriched vapor stream leaves water behind, which will tend to increase the amount of liquid in the retort. This is usually dealt with by passing some of the liquid back to the previous pot, but that can be plumbed in different ways. An outlet with a vapor lock part way up the wall of the retort can help to maintain a constant liquid level, while one leaving at the bottom will have a flow dependent on relative pressures in each vessel, though this can also be controlled with a valve if the distiller wants to vary the conditions over the course of a run. In some ways this is also analogous to a purifier pipe in the lyne arm of a pot still, passing material back to be redistilled and giving a greater amount of total reflux through the system.

All of these parameters give a distiller multiple ways to control the process and output, resulting in full-bodied 'pot still' spirits in a single run that would take a standard pot still two to three distillations to match. In my next article in this series I will describe how this concept was transformed into the batch column stills that have become so common in the craft distilling industry.

New Tiki Cocktails: the Mai Tai Vallet

While the Mai Tai has always been one of the classic tiki drinks for highlighting what rum can do, more recent years have seen the development of cocktails that take its basic mold and twist it in a bitter direction. Most well-known include the Campari-based Bitter Mai Tai and the Angostura bitters-based Stormy Mai Tai.

I based this on the structure of the Bitter Mai Tai and was inspired by the Angostura bitters of the Stormy Mai Tai to remake it with Amargo Vallet, a Mexican bitter liqueur that, unlike Angostura bitters, actually includes angostura bark in its ingredients. It has a very strong and somewhat peculiar flavor that is unlike any other amaro I've tried before, so I wasn't sure how well it would play with the more tropical flavors of the Mai Tai, but I'm pleased with how this turned out.

The Mai Tai Vallet
1.25 oz Amargo Vallet
0.75 oz Jamaican rum
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz orange liqueur
0.5 oz orgeat

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, then pour unstrained into a chilled rocks glass. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

The nose is dominated by the rum's esters, with the amaro peeking around the edges. The sip begins with sweet rum esters, turns bittersweet with a balance between the rum, orange liqueur, and orgeat, there's a bump of cherry cough syrup in the middle, with the more bitter/herbal notes of the Amargo building towards the back, and a cola/orange note going into the long, bittersweet finish. All through the lime keeps it from getting too sweet and adds a little extra bitterness from the oils in the peel.

Despite the strong old time-y cough syrup vibe, this actually works. While less approachable than the Bitter or Stormy Mai Tais, Amargo Vallet isn't totally out of place amidst the tropical ingredients. The critical part is that the segues happen in an appropriate sequence, shifting the balance of the cocktail from front to back in a relatively smooth fashion as opposed to the jarring transitions that happen when ingredients don't mesh with each other. Speaking of ingredients, Denizen 8 was a good pick here because it gives a solid layer of ester funk without overwhelming the flavors like Smith & Cross would.

While I can't see this ever catching on, it is something that I would happily make again.

Rum Review: Berry Bros. & Rudd Guadeloupe 12 Year/1998

Rhum agricole made from fresh cane juice rather than molasses is usually associated with Martinique, but other French islands also produce rhums in that style. This one comes from the islands of Guadeloupe, an overseas French department. While not specified on the label, I've read that this is from Distillerie Bellevue on the small island of Marie-Galante, which is a short hop from the larger islands of Basse-Terre and Grand-Terre.

Bellevue was originally built in 1769, with a new distillery on the site opening in 2003. As with all distilleries that produce rum from cane juice, the cane is grown nearby so that it can be harvested and transported to the distillery as quickly as possible to keep it from spoiling. As with most agricoles, the cane juice mash is distilled in a column still, though I can't find any information about the specs.

This single cask was purchased by Berry Bros. & Rudd, then bottled at 46% without coloring or chill filtration.

Berry Bros. & Rudd Guadeloupe 12 Year/1998

Nose: classic aged agricole - grassy, wine/raisins, edging into brown sugar, mild (European?) oak, nutmeg, vanilla, beeswax, baked apples, lime peel. After adding a few drops of water, it becomes buttery, with melted brown sugar, bright berries over toasted oak, and cinnamon rolls.

Taste: a little thin up front, a nice melange of grassiness, mild oak, and sugarcane/brown sugar sweetness at the beginning, berries/brandy near the back, nutmeg and a slight waxiness throughout. After dilution, it becomes a little watery, there are more berries, less grass/sugarcane, the oak becomes buttery, and there's a strong orange peel note throughout.

Finish: berries, sugarcane, mild oak, creamy, nutmeg

This is nearly everything you could want from an aged sugarcane rum - the distinctive grassiness hasn't been wiped out by the cask, but it is tempered by time. There's sweetness, but not nearly as much as you get from most molasses-based rums. Overall it's really well balanced, only falling short in terms of density of flavor, which I think could have been rectified by bumping up the bottling proof  a bit. The other reservation is price, which is a somewhat eye-watering $100+. While this is a very good rhum and I would love to drink more of it, I don't think it quite manages to justify its retail price. But I'll be keeping my eyes out for other sugarcane rums from Guadeloupe that are a little easier on the pocketbook. They're clearly making quality spirits on those islands.

Rum Review: Renegade Monymusk 5 Year Tempranillo Cask Finish

Renegade was the rum arm of Murray McDavid, Mark Reynier's independent bottling company that was run out of Bruichladdich distillery for many years. As with many of MMD's bottlings, most of the rums were finished in various sorts of wine casks.

This rum comes from the Monymusk distillery of Jamaica, which is one of the oldest distilleries on the island, having been built in the 18th century. The name appears to come from the Monymusk estate in Aberdeenshire (where there used to be a Monymusk malt distillery in the mid-19th century), which is somewhat unsurprising as many of the distilleries on Jamaica are named after Scottish sites, having been settled by Scots and English after driving away the Spanish in the 17th century.

The distillery is now known primarily as the main source of Myers's rum. However, a few casks do make their way into the hands of independent bottlers. This particular one was bottled at 46% without chill filtration or coloring. I was able to get a sample through Master of Malt's Drinks by the Dram, as bottles of this rum sold out long ago.

Renegade Monymusk 5 Year Tempranillo Finish

Nose: huge wave of Jamaican dusty/earthy/smoky esters with a burnt sugar edge - almost industrial, seashore, wine cask/berries hang in the background, vanilla and fresh wood underneath, creamy honey, green apples, floral perfume. After adding a few drops of water, the wood becomes more prominent, shoving the esters aside and integrating with them, plum/raspberry notes become more clear, and it gets sweeter overall

Taste: mild sugarcane and berry sweetness up front, quickly subsumed by a bump of oak tannins and esters, which do a slow fade out to reveal the sugarcane and toffee sweetness, with the wine cask notes finally making an appearance at the back - over time the esters settle down to reveal more wine cask influence throughout. After dilution, it becomes much sweeter throughout, with the sugarcane notes gaining a lot of ground, the wine cask influence really comes out to play, with the rum's esters being relegated to the back, while wood and wine dominate the rest of the palate, with somewhat sour vinous notes become much more prominent and there is an earthy quality throughout.

Finish: sugarcane, mingled oak tannins and dunder esters, wine cask overtones, burnt sugar

In many ways, I find this rum analogous to the peated Bunnahabhain from Murray McDavid that I had last year. Both are red wine finishes of very flavorful spirits where the wine cask plays a supporting rather than a leading role in the undiluted spirit, then becomes more dominant after adding some water. Given that MMD finishes were often derided for overwhelming the spirit, it is probably for the best that this rum was bottled when it was. I also think that this would appeal to fans of peated single malts, because the Jamaican esters give it an earthy quality similar to that of peat.

Experimental Spirits: Willet Rye/Lemon Hart 151/Del Maguay Vida Blend

After trying some blends made with Russell's Reserve rye and Lemon Hart 151, I decided to see if I could improve them by using a more robust rye whiskey. And just for kicks, I decided to throw in a bit of mezcal to give it some smoke.

Willet Rye/Lemon Hart 151/Del Maguay Vida Blend

Nose: lots of dry pine-y rye notes, grain, slightly acrid smoke and burn sugar, green/vegetal notes, flambé bananas. After adding a few drops of water, the rye grain becomes more prominent, with the rum becoming an undercurrent,

Taste: rye grain, pine, and pickle juice (accented by the mezcal) throughout, slightly smoothed by the rum's molasses and banana notes in the middle, burnt sugar and toasted grain at the back. After dilution, the rum edges out the rye to make a much sweeter and smoother palate, with rye grain/pine and burnt sugar at the back.

Finish: burnt sugar, toasted rye grain, pine, a touch of vegetal agave

The switch that the nose and palate pull after adding water was quite interesting though. Sometimes it doesn't take a lot of water to push a spirit in one direction or another.

If I was going to do this again, I would up the amount of mezcal in the mix. It's such a strongly flavored spirit that I was worried about it overwhelming the other components, but with beefy stuff like Willet rye and Lemon Hart 151, I shouldn't have been. More smoke and vegetal agave notes would make for a great counterpoint to the other spirits.

Experimental Rumsky: Russell's Reserve Rye/Lemon Hart 151 Blends

These blends came out of an experiment I did several years ago with Russell's Reserve rye and El Dorado 12 Year rum. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but don't have any of the rum on hand anymore. So I decided to see how well my other Guyanese staple, Lemon Hart 151, would mix with the rye.

7:1 Russell's Reserve Rye/Lemon Hart 151

Nose: tons of sawdust and brown sugar, rye grain, corn, and vanilla underneath, rum detectable as a molasses undercurrent (gaining prominence with time) and more assertive alcohol (settling down with time), unripe fruit (bananas?),

Taste: the rum's molasses is a strong presence throughout, slowly giving ground to rye grain and pine, sawdust, and moderate oak tannins, unripe pineapple, cumin and other spices underneath

Finish: dusty rye grain with a touch of molasses sweetness, combining with a bitter/sour tang

I think this is the slightly better version, as it lets the rye do its thing while the rum smoothes over some of the whiskey's weak points.

3:1 Russell's Reserve Rye/Lemon Hart 151

Nose: more rum tops notes (molasses and overripe fruit), grain and sawdust are less readily apparent,

Taste: almost completely dominated by the heavily molasses and burnt sugar flavors of the rum until somewhere near the back, where rye grain and corn finally peek out, with the whiskey's oak combining with the burnt sugar notes to make a new sort of bitter finish

Finish: barrel char and burnt sugar, rye grain bitterness

Despite the preponderance of whiskey in this blend, it is almost completely dominated by the rum. In many respects, it resembles a heavy rum accented by rye rather than the other way around. While some of this is attributable to the rum's higher proof (151 vs. 90), it still demonstrates the depth of flavor contained in Lemon Hart 151. The 7:1 blend is definitely more balanced.

Beginner's Guide to Rum

The origins of rum are shrouded in mystery, but are clearly tied up in the history of sugar.

Cutting cane in the 19th century via University of Virginia

During the 17th century, sugar was big business. The colonial powers who had claimed land in the Caribbean realized that many of the islands presented a perfect environment for growing sugarcane. Refined sucrose was made from the sweet juice crushed from cane stalks that was repeated boiled to concentrate it and drive off water. However, each step produced less and less pure sugar, eventually leaving a gooey mass of caramelized sugars, minerals, and other insoluble substances known as molasses. At the beginning, this represented a major problem, as the molasses was effectively industrial waste with little to no value.

17th century sugar refinery via Sugar at LSU

However, whether through accident or intention, someone on one of the sugar-producing islands, probably Barbados, realized that the molasses could be fermented into a foul but alcoholic liquid. From that point it was a small step to distill the molasses mash to produce a crude but potent liquor.

Early rum was little more palatable than the mash it came from - fermentation likely would have been via wild yeasts and bacteria, producing all sorts of peculiar and sometimes toxic compounds that would not necessarily have been removed from the final spirit due to unsophisticated distillation technology and techniques, plus consumption occurring more or less immediately after the spirit came off the still.

An Antigua rum distillery in 1823 via University of Virginia

To begin with, rum was primarily drunk by the same slaves who worked the plantation cane fields, using it to take the edge off of their miserable existence. But as time went on, more effort was put into the production process - more care was taken during fermentation, better stills were built, more attention was paid to proper cuts, and it was discovered that rum that had made its way across the Atlantic was significantly better after a sojourn in wooden barrels.

As time went on, different styles of rum emerged in the various colonies. Spanish rum, especially in Cuba, developed into a lighter, crisper style, especially after the introduction of the column still in the 19th century. English colonies produced somewhat heavier, richer styles, especially in Barbados, Jamaica, and Guyana. The French colonies largely went in another direction, distilling rum directly from cane juice, rather than from molasses (this is also true of Portuguese Brazil, but their cachaça is another thing again). But even within these styles, there is a wild diversity due to the fact that, unlike many other spirits, there are almost no regulations governing what can be labeled as 'rum'. If it's produced from sugarcane and distilled, then it can be called rum.

So where to start?

It's a bit of a toss-up between Spanish-style rums and Barbados. Both tend towards the lighter end of the spectrum, though Spanish-style rums will tend to be a bit lighter and crisper. One good place to start is Mount Gay Eclipse Dark from Barbados. It's not a particularly complex rum, but it establishes the fundamentals and works very well in cocktails. If you want something a bit richer, Mount Gay Extra Old or Cockspur 12 are both good picks.

For the Spanish (also sometimes called Puerto Rican) style, a good start is Flor de Caña's Extra Dry from Nicaragua, which has the lightness and crispness that is the hallmark of younger rums in this style, making it my first choice for cocktails that call for white rum. Moving up the scale, Ron Abuelo 7 Year from from Panama adds more richness and depth while retaining some of the crispness, making it my go-to rum for drinks that call for an amber Puerto Rican rum. Further along, it's hard to beat Ron Matusalem 15 Gran Reserva. While on the sweeter side due to many years in oak, it also has the heavy dose of pepper that holds the sweetness in check.

Next up is Guyana, which is known for sweeter rums with a noticeably heavy body. All rum from the country is made by one company, Demerara Distillers Limited, but the wild array of stills within their possession allow them to produce an incredible variety of different rums. The best are released under their own El Dorado label. Start with either the white 3 Year or amber 5 Year, which are relatively light but still richly flavored. From there you can move up the scale from the medium-range 8 Year to the still heavier 12 and 15 Year expressions. For tiki drinks, you'll also want the inestimable Lemon Hart 151 on hand, which is an overproof dark rum that is absolutely packed with flavor.

When it comes to Jamaican rums, the first place to start is Appleton's V/X expression. It's quite affordable and provides a ready introduction to the island's high-ester style. You can also move up the range to Appleton's Reserve (not my favorite) and Estate Extra (much better) for increasing levels of molasses sweetness, barrel flavor, and complexity/subtlety. If you want to kick it up a notch, spend the extra money for Smith & Cross, which is an in-your-face rum with an intensity comparable to heavily peated Islay whiskies. For drinks calling for dark Jamaican rum, my first choice would be Coruba, which is a very heavy style with lots of burnt sugar flavor on top of the Jamaican funk.

One of my favorite styles of rum are cane juice rums, often called rhum agricole. These are primarily produced on the French (and formerly French) islands of Martinique, Haiti, and Guadeloupe. In contrast to molasses-based rums, rhum agricole is produced from fresh squeezed cane juice. It has to be processed very promptly, as wild yeasts living in the cane will begin to ferment it not long as the cane is cut. As the name suggests, these rhums tend to have very agricultural flavors, with a distinctive grassiness and funk that can be off-putting at first. One way to ease into this category is Westerhall Plantation Rum from Grenada, which is a mix of cane juice rum and molasses-based rum. Once you're ready to really dive in, either a blanc rhum from Rhum J.M. or La Favorite or an élevé sous bois (aged in wood) from Rhum J.M. are good places to start. Once you get a handle on those, move on to the older VSOP and Vieux expressions from the likes of Barbancourt, Clément, Neisson, or La Favorite. You'll notice a certain repetition of brands, because there unfortunately aren't a lot too choose from in the United States right now. Saint James is also a good pick, but distribution was pulled within the last few years, so it's getting rather thin on the ground.

Pretty much every country in the Caribbean basin has produced sugar at one time or another and thus has its own rum industry as well. The Dominican Republic has its own twist on the Spanish style, represented by Brugal - try their Extra Viejo. Cuba, spiritual home of the Spanish style, is well-known for its Havana Club rums, but I have yet to sample them, as they're illegal to important into the United States. If you're elsewhere, try the 7 Year, which seems to be the sweet spot. Puerto Rico is obviously known for the dominant Bacardi brand, but I would skip their rums other than possible the 8 Años, though the previously mentioned Ron Abuelo 7 Year is similar but better. I've also heard good things about Don Q's Añejo as a tiki drink ingredient, especially for the tricky Nui Nui. The US Virgin Islands host another powerhouse, Cruzan, which has unfortunately slipped in quality since its takeover by Jim Beam, though the Single Barrel has a certain appeal. Antigua produces Pyrat rum, though the one time I tried it, it tasted more like Mountain Dew than rum to me. Trinidad has some great rums, especially from the now-defunct Caroni distillery. Scarlet Ibis, put together by Haus Alpenz, is a fantastic mashup of styles that simultaneously reminds me of Guyanese and Jamaican rums at the same time. Angostura, maker of the eponymous bitters, is the lone remaining distiller in Trinidad. Their older 1919 expression sounds like a great dessert rum.

Brazil, which should probably get its own post, produces cachaça, which is made from cane juice like rhum agricole, but uses different production techniques that give it a distinct flavor profile while retaining a similar vegetal grassiness. Check out Cachaçagora if you'd like to learn more, but Boca Loca makes a perfectly decent product if you want to try cachaça-based cocktails like the caipirinha. There was also an attempt to move cachaça upmarket by mixing it with a bit of aged Venezualan rum and putting it in a fancy package - a strange product called Oronoco. It gets rave reviews from some, but I'd try it before investing in a whole bottle.

Moving clockwise around the Caribbean, Venezuala produces quite a bit of rum, primarily under the Ron Diplomatico label. It doesn't tickle my fancy, but if you enjoy sweeter rums, their Reserva Exclusiva expression gets a lot of love in some quarters. I prefer Santa Teresa's 1796 more, which isn't as overwhelmingly sweet.

Central America also produces quite a bit of rum. I've mentioned Panama and Nicaragua, but Guatemala gets a lot of love for its Ron Zacapa, especially the 23 year Centenario.

America also produces rum, especially the new craft distillery movement. One of the more established is Louisiana's Celebration Distillers, who make New Orleans Rum. Close to home, House Spirits and other small distillers in Portland have been making a wide variety of rum, albeit with mixed results.

Rum Review: Appleton Estate Vertical Tasting

Appleton is one of about half a dozen distilleries on the island of Jamaica. The Appleton estate was established in the Nassau Valley, roughly a century after the English capture of Jamaica in 1655, with rum production beginning in 1749. This makes it the second oldest continuously operating rum distillery in the world, between Mt. Gay (1703) and St. James (1765). The estate was independent for most of its history, but was absorbed into the J. Wray & Nephew company in the early 20th century. The company grows all of its own sugarcane on their 11,000 acre property, producing both refined sugar and molasses.

Arial view of Appleton Estate from the Jamaica-Gleaner

As with all Jamaican rums, the key to the distinctive quality comes from the use of dunder in fermenting the molasses mash. Dunder made from the residue left in the still at the end of a run, which contains dead microorganisms, minerals, and other residual material that was not digested during fermentation. This provides a rich source of food for wild yeasts and bacteria that colonize it when the dunder is left in outdoor pits. The vile mess is then added to the next batch of molasses mash to begin the fermentation. Because of the numerous varieties of microorganisms present in the dunder, fermentation often produces a much higher quantity and variety of esters and other 'funky' aromatic compounds than are found in mashes fermented with carefully cultured yeast strains. This is why the one of the distinctive characteristics of Jamaican rums is often described as 'dunder funk'.

A closer view of Appleton's production plant from O Canada

Appleton uses both copper pot stills and continuous column stills to produce their rums, providing them with a wide array of spirits for aging and blending to generate their final products. From these raw materials, Joy Spence, the first female master blender in the rum industry, pulls together casks to make the various expressions produced by Appleton. The best of these are bottled under the Appleton Estate label. The two bottom rungs have no age statement (though they do outside of the US), while the higher level bottlings include 12, 21, 30, and, most recently, 50 year old rums.

Appelton Estate V/X


Nose: prominent esters, but still relatively light, definite hogo, underlying fruitiness, dusty oak, nutmeg, sugarcane and molasses, with growing sweetness over time. After adding a bit of water, the nutmeg aromas become stronger, while the esters become less sharp.

Taste: light sweetness with some sharp acidity up front, some black/chili pepper in the middle along with swirling esters of citrus, berries, and funk, oak, chocolate, and molasses near the back, growing sweeter into the finish. After adding water, the beginning of the sip becomes smoother, losing the acidity, while the black pepper remains fairly strong.

Finish: balanced oak and esters with a touch of molasses

In bottlings outside of the United States, V/X is listed as a five year old rum and that sounds about right to me. It's a good choice if you like your rums on the drier side - V/X isn't nearly as sweet as older rums tend to be. The oak is present, but hasn't had time to clobber the inherent characteristics of the rum aside. While ofter derided as 'not a sipper', I actually find it to be rather pleasant (though you should not that I think Smith & Cross is a good sipper, so your mileage may vary). However, I will admit that it shines even more in cocktails. It's one of my go-to rums for mai tais and fits in well with other drinks calling for Jamaican rum. There's just enough hogo to make itself present in cocktails, but it doesn't have the aggressiveness of Smith & Cross. The greatest testament I can give to the importance of Appleton V/X is that after finishing off my first bottle, I purchased an entire handle (which can be bought from Hi-Time Wine for all of $34), proceeded to finish that off, and then bought another bottle. While I have a strong tendency to buy a bottle, use it, then move onto something new, this is a rum that I will always have on my shelf. If you only get one Jamaican rum, make it Appleton V/X.

Appleton Estate Reserve

Nose: gentle sweet molasses balanced with savory esters, lightly fruity, almost malt/corn graininess, dry oak, grassy, nothing particularly assertive. After adding a few drops of water, the grain notes and oak become more prominent while the molasses fades a bit, with the hogo taking a supporting role, while some baking spices (cloves and nutmeg) emerging with time.

Taste: mildly sweet molasses with light berries up front, which changes place with bitter to bittersweet esters and oak mid-palate, at which point light pepper also comes in. After dilution, it becomes sweeter (and more sucrose-like) with more robust bittersweet molasses notes near the back, while the oak retreats a bit and the esters fade towards the background, and a bit of vanilla pops up near the back.

Finish: oak comes in very late, rather bitter and less pleasant esters

Estate Reserve is bottled as an 8 year old outside the U.S., as well at a slightly higher strength of 43% compared to the US 40%. It's something of a peculiar rum - smoother than V/X, but not quite rich enough or interesting enough to make it an engaging sipping rum to me. I guess they were aiming for it being relatively inoffensive to draw people into the brand, but it just feels awkward and not really great at anything. There is more sweetness than V/X, but is so stripped of complexity as to seem almost unidimensional. To cap it off, V/X is cheaper and the 12 year old isn't much more expensive, so it doesn't even represent a particularly good value. I would give this one a pass, opting for either of the other rums here. The 43% version might make the flavors more robust, but I'm still not sure it would be a strong proposition then.

Appleton Estate Extra 12 Year

Nose: still very ester-y - which joins up with the fairly prominent oak, sweet molasses and brown sugar, lots of baking spices - cinnamon and nutmeg, dry/savory quality. After adding a few drops of water, the molasses and oak merge into one bittersweet aroma,

Taste: sweet pepper up front, brown sugar, tropical fruit, and berries mid-palate, then lightly syrupy esters, more pepper and oak at the back, slightly vegetal. After dilution, it becomes much sweeter throughout, though still balanced by bitter notes of oak, hogo, and molasses, with lots of nutmeg going into the finish.

Finish: esters, wood spices, bittersweet molasses, pepper, and oak, fading into sugary sweetness

Estate Extra is the oldest and strongest of the bunch I'm tasting in this series, at 12 year old and 43%. It is also the only one that gets an age statement in the United States. Containing rums aged up to 18 years old, the extra time in barrels really shows, though it isn't nearly as tannic as I would have expected. It has a richness that isn't found in its younger siblings, making it a more pleasant sipping rum. With that said, you still have to enjoy the esters that are so characteristic of Jamaican rums to find this one agreeable. Age may have mellowed it, but the dunder funk still shines through. The richness that makes it a pleasant sipper also makes it killer in cocktails calling for dark Jamaican rum. It's obviously smoother than something like Myers or Coruba, making for incredibly elegant drinks. For instance, put it in a Navy Grog for an out of this world experience.

Classic Cocktails: the Rum Curacao Cooler

Can't find many references about this drink other than in the Cocktail Database. Still, a simple but tasty drink.

Rum Curacao Cooler (Adapted)

1 oz aged rum

1 oz curaçao

0.5 oz lime juice

1 oz grapefruit juice

0.25 oz simple syrup

Build over ice in a chilled glass, top with soda water and stir briefly to combine.

The sip begins with a hit of grapefruit, segues into orange, rhum agricole, and lime, then finishes bittersweet-ly.

While not complicated, this was a very pleasant drink. I adjusted the recipe because, while I had grapefruit juice and soda water, I didn't have any grapefruit soda. I think the improvisation worked just fine. But if you do have grapefruit soda around, drop the grapefruit juice and simple syrup. Also, while I used rhum agricole to give this one a bit of a kick, any kind of aged rum should do. Jamaican would be my next choice, but something from Barbados, St. Croix, or Puerto Rico will be even more mellow.

Mixology Monday LXXI - From Crass to Craft

It's that time of the month again - Mixology Monday has rolled around. This month's event, hosted by Scott Diaz of Shake, Strain & Sip, is Crass to Craft. To summarize -

"The evolution of the cocktail has been a wondrous, and sometimes, frightful journey… But with all this focus on “craft” ingredients and classic tools & form, it seems we have become somewhat pretentious. The focus on bitter Italian amari, revived and lost ingredients such as Batavia Arrack or Crème de Violette, the snickering at a guest ordering a Cosmopolitan or a Midori Sour has propelled us into the dark realm of snobbery… Remember, the bar was created with pleasing one particular group in mind: the guest. As such, this month’s MxMo theme… will focus on concocting a craft cocktail worthy of not only MxMo but any trendy bar, using dubious and otherwise shunned ingredients to sprout forth a craft cocktail that no one could deny is anything less. There are a plethora of spirits, liqueurs, and non-alcoholic libations that are just waiting for someone to showcase that they too are worthy of being featured on our home and bar shelves. So grab that bottle of flavored vodka, Jägermeister, cranberry juice, soda, neon-colored liqueur, sour mix, or anything else deemed unworthy of a craft cocktail, and get mixin’!"

Thinking about what's been languishing in my booze collection, I pawed some spirits out of the way to find two bottles of amaretto hiding at the back of one shelf. While little used now, amaretto was my unglamorous introduction to mixology. Near the end of college I loved Amaretto Stone Sours - 1:2:2 amaretto, orange juice, and neon yellow sour mix. Even with bottom shelf amaretto (seriously, I think the bottle cost $5), the sheer artificiality of the combination somehow just came together perfectly. 

But those days passed and the amaretto wasted away, rarely to see the light of day. Trying to think about what to do with it, I remembered Jeffrey Morgenthaler's post extolling the virtues of his Amaretto Sours. While I'm a bit low on cask-strength bourbon, I do have a lot of high proof rum. So I decided to take it in a slightly tiki direction.

Amaretto Spiced Sour

1.5 oz amaretto

0.75 oz high-proof Jamaican rum

1 oz lemon juice

1 tsp falernum

0.5 oz egg white

Combine all ingredients, dry shake, then shake with ice and strain into a chilled rocks glass. Garnish with a long strip of lemon peel and a few drops of Angostura bitters

The nose holds just a bit of funk from the rum and some woody/spicy notes from the bitters on top of the foam. The sip begins in a balanced fashion, perched between sweet and sour, slowly segueing through almond notes from the amaretto, Jamaican rum funk, eggy creaminess, and finishing with very mild bitterness.

While retaining the basic structure and character of the Amaretto Sour, I think this version manages to make things just a bit more interesting. The rum, bitters, and falernum are present without overwhelming the amaretto and lemon juice. The egg white acts as a good integrator, smoothing over the cracks between the other flavors. If you're sensitive to egg flavors or just feel weird about raw egg whites, you could back off a bit an use a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon, or even just omit that entirely. Either way, it's a hell of a drink.

Thanks again to Shake, Strain & Sip for hosting this month's MxMo. I look forward to seeing what other drinks people have hauled up from the depth of the bottom shelf.

New Tiki Cocktails: The Clermeil

This is another cocktail from Imbibe's rum feature in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue. The drink was invented by Maksym Pazuniak of Cure in New Orleans, who named it after the Haitain Vodou loa who makes rivers overflow their banks.

For a slightly different take on this drink, you should check out Cocktail Virgin.

The Clermeil
1.5 oz aged rum
0.75 oz green Chartreuse
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz maple syrup
0.75 tsp allspice dram

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The nose is dominated by the Chartreuse, which gives is a rather savory aspect, with an undercurrent of rum and maple syrup. The sip begins lightly, with sweetness, lime, and herbal notes growing stronger mid-palate, then slowly fading out with a bit of spice from the allspice dram. The rum plays more of a supporting role, giving the flavors a certain roundness.

I made the drink with the last of my bottle of Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva. While an excellent choice in many applications, it felt overwhelmed by the green Chartreuse. As Fred noted, even El Dorado 12 Year can get beat out by the herbal liqueur, so maybe only something like a Jamaican rum would really be able to hold its own. Another alternative would be switching to the lighter and sweeter yellow Chartreuse and easing back a bit on the maple syrup. That could let the rum shine a bit more. Either way, this is a very nice tiki-ish take on the Last Word format.

New Tiki Classic: the Bitter Mai-Tai

This is, as Tiare puts it, potentially a gross abomination: a mai-tai whose main constituent is Italian amaro rather than rum.

This drink comes from the wild mind of Jeremy Oertel of Dram in Brooklyn. It was featured in Imbibe's article about tiki drinks from a few years back, which is how I found out about it while flipping through back issues yesterday looking for Tiki Month fodder.

Bitter Mai-Tai
1.5 oz Campari
0.75 oz Jamaican rum
1 oz lime juice
0.5 oz orange liqueur
0.75 oz orgeat

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, then either pour unstrained into a chilled rocks glass or strain into a rocks glass full of crushed ice.

The nose is light, with hints of the Jamaican rum's dunder funk and the bright bitter notes of Campari, with just a bit of nuttiness from the orgeat and sourness from the lime. The sip begins smoothly and sweetly, with a mixture of orange liqueur and orgeat. As it moves back, Jamaican rum and Campari hit with a one-two punch, fading out with bitter/sweet/sour notes of lime and Campari.

Kind of like the Stormy Mai-Tai, it, just doesn't look like it's going to work. While wacky on its face, this drink comes together beautifully. It's possible that it would have been too sweet if I hadn't gone for a big Jamaican rum like Smith & Cross. But the rum needs to be bold to punch through all of the other strong flavors in the drink. If you want to take it in a darker direction, Coruba and a dash of Angostura bitters might not be a bad tack to take. However, I think it's going to be delicious no matter how you choose to make it.

Rum Review: House Spirits Rum 2011 Release

House Spirits is a Portland distillery that was established in 2005. Best known for their Aviation gin, they also put out what used to be known as their Apothecary line - small runs of experimental spirits. This has included everything from ouzo, gammel aquavit, malt whiskey, and rum.

This rum was released during the Great American Distiller's Festival in 2011. Made with molasses, the white rum was aged for nine months in ex-Chardonnay wine barrels, then diluted down to 40% ABV for bottling.

House Spirits Rum Batch 29

Nose: toasted oak, peanut butter cookies, graham crackers, molasses, light wine cask influence. After adding a few drops of water the nose becomes drier and a little musty with some buttered toast.

Taste: very smooth, creamed brown sugar up front, mild oak, light esters, and pepper mid-palate and back. After dilution it becomes sweeter, but the molasses notes are lighter, with the wine cask finally becoming present.

Finish: short, creamy spices, bittersweet molasses, light esters, drying.

This rum is a huge improvement on their first versions, which were made with turbinado sugar rather than molasses. There is much more body and depth of flavor. With that said, while this is a significantly better effort, there is still room for improvement. While precise distillation and the wine barrels did a good job of rounding off any rough edges, it doesn't have the kind of complexity I would hope for. If I had my druthers, future efforts would focus on increasing the ester content, either through different yeasts or dunder, in the Jamaican style. That would provide a richer base that could be combined with more active wine casks for something really unique and interesting.

Rhum Agricole Review: Saint James Hors d'Âge

This is the second in my set of reviews looking at rhums from the Saint James distillery on Martinique.

Saint James is the oldest distillery on the island in continuous operation. While rhum production goes back even further, the brand came out of a decision by Louis XV in 1763 to allow rhum from the island to be exported. The Saint James brand was established in 1765 near the town of Saint Pierre, with the name designed to appeal to English-speaking colonists in New England. Saint James is also distinguished by having put out the first vintage rhum on the island in 1885, which has continued ever since. Disaster struck in 1902 when Mount Pelée erupted, destroying Saint Pierre and most of the distillery's building. However, the main house largely survived. The distillery was consolidated on the other side of the island in the town of Saint Marie in 1974, where production has been located ever since.

 The sugar cane harvest for Saint James begins in February and extends into summer. The cut cane is transported to the distillery as quickly as possible, where it is pressed in mills to extract the juice. The juice, or 'vessou', ferments naturally due to the yeast present in the cane. Fermentation is kept between 25-30º C and is fairly quick, taking only a day or two. The mash is at 4-5% alcohol when it is added to the column stills, which give a raw spirit of 65-74% alcohol. The fresh rhum is then either rested in steel vats for a few months to produce blanc rhum or aged in oak barrels to produce everything from their paille rhum to rhum vieux. Saint James has a fairly high angels share of 8% a year, which goes a long way towards explaining their prices.

Saint James Hors d'Âge

Nose: bittersweet oak, subdued berries and wine, balsamic vinegar or raspberries, mesquite honey, a hint of woodsmoke, creamy beeswax, salted caramels, dry cane, becoming more floral/berry-oriented with time. After adding a few drops of water, the oak and wine flavors become more integrated, the berry notes seem fresher, and some brown sugar bacon notes emerge.

Taste: oak throughout, cane and wood sugar up front with wine and berries, caramel/burned sugar mid-palate along with light orange peel and vanilla, a big blast of pepper, which becomes creamier with brandy near the back. After dilution, the flavors are thinner but creamier, with the pepper becoming more assertive and the addition of some mocha near the back.

Finish: brandy, cane, bitter oak, floral, wood smoke

The Hors d'Âge expression is one of the older rhums that Saint James puts out. The rhum is aged for six to ten years in 180-liter casks, then bottled at 43% alcohol. Unsurprisingly, this means that the wood influence is much more obvious in this rhum compared to the Royal Ambré. While this does round off some of the rougher edges found in Royal Ambré, the wood can seem rather heavy on the nose at first, taking some time in the glass to find a proper balance. I feel like this rhum occupies a middle ground between the berry emphasis of Neisson Réserve Spéciale and the woodier bacon notes of La Favorite Vieux. I was slightly disappointed by how much it lost on the nose with even a few drops of water, but the palate was more robust.

Sadly this rhum is getting harder to find. I've heard rumors that Saint James was pulling out of U.S. distribution, but it can still be found with a bit of work (Hi-Time Wine has the full spread available in the U.S.). MSRP is around $50, which is a rather reasonable price for the quality of this spirit. This offers just as much complexity and depth as similarly priced single malts, so I would recommend Hors d'Âge without reservation.