Rhum Agricole Review: La Favorite Vieux

La Favorite is another of the small handful of distillers on the island of Martinique who are licensed to produce AOC rhum agricole. The distillery was built in 1842 and its ride through the rest of the 19th century was rather bumpy. In 1909 the distillery was bought by Henri Dormoy, whose family continues to own the distillery down to the present day. This makes La Favorite one of only two remaining family owned rhum agricole distilleries. The distillery now runs two copper single-column stills with an annual production of ~500,000 L. This makes it a bit bigger than the smallest rhum agricole distillery, Neisson, but still tiny on a global scale.

La Favorite Vieux 'Coeur de Rhum'

Nose: strong - but mildly sweet - oak, berries, vanilla, grassy notes, nutmeg, salty bacon. Dilution makes the oak a bit fresher, with the berries and vanilla holding strong, but overall much simpler.

Taste: mild creamy sweetness up front, with a large blast of pepper that continues through, grass, berries, brandy, and bitter oak going into the finish. After adding a few drops of water, the palate becomes rather flat, with only hints of its original features, mostly pared down to grassy bittersweet cane juice.

Finish: brandy, oak, pepper, almost peaty vegetal notes

As a rhum vieux, all of the spirit going into this expression has been aged for at least three years in either French limousin oak barrels or re-charred American oak ex-bourbon barrels. This rhum reminds me of Springbank/Hazelburn scotch whisky, with the mix of berries, vegetation, oak, and salted meat. After first pouring the spirit into the glass, the oak dominates in an unpleasant fashion, but after time it settles down, letting the berry notes take over. The one major flaw I can find is the low bottling proof, which doesn't help the rhum stand up to even minor amounts of dilution. The flavors could also stand to be a little bit bolder - even 43% could give it that extra nudge. That change alone would push this rhum way up the league table for me, as its unique flavor combination is very intriguing. On the upside, the lower proof does make it one of the easiest sippers neat that I've encountered in the world of aged rhums. Additionally, La Favorite Vieux is on the cheaper end of the spectrum at $50 for a liter bottle, which puts it well below comparable offerings from Clément, Saint James, Rhum J.M., or Neisson.

Whispers in the Cane
1.5 oz La Favorite Vieux
0.25 oz Yellow Chartreuse
0.25 oz Cherry Heering
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters

Combine all ingredients, stir with ice for 15 seconds, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The nose is herbaceous oak with bittersweet cherry and a hint of anise. The sip begins silky smooth, moving through off-dry cherry, to grassy herbs, then dark chocolate and bitter oak tinged with anise. With time as the drink warms up, the smells and flavors become a single chord rather than separate notes.

This is an interesting cocktail. While I set out to buttress the inherent flavors of rhum agricole, this the Chartreuse/Heering combo is almost indistinguishable from the rhum, despite having rather strong flavors of their own. So it's a very 'on point' drink, with the ingredients reinforcing each other, rather than playing counterpoint.

Classic Cocktails: Satan's Whiskers

This drink comes from the Savoy Cocktail Book circa 1930, by way of Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails. There are two versions of the drink - straight, when made with Grand Marnier, and curled, when made with curaçao. Either way, it will be delicious.

Satan's Whiskers
0.5 oz gin
0.5 oz sweet vermouth
0.5 oz dry vermouth
0.5 oz orange juice
2 tsp orange liqueur
1 tsp orange bitters

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

The nose is relatively muted, revealing flashes of orange bitters, grape from the wines, and a hint of baking spices. The sip opens with orange sweetness, which carries through almost to the back. It is joined by various bitter notes, from the vermouths, gin, and bitters, which form a harmonious whole. The finish is pleasant and not overwhelmingly bitter, rather making the drink more-ish.

Oh man, I am shocked by just how good this drink is. On paper, it looks like a huge bitter fest, but the orange juice and liqueur conspire to keep everything in balance. So much so that it feels almost tropical. I would actually be really happy sipping this drink of a warm, sandy beach. The fruit just meshes so well with the bitter components. The drink actually improves a bit as it warms up, with the nose becoming more expansive and the palate gaining a bit more definition. Overall, I'll call this one a winner.

Rum Review: Mount Gay Extra Old

Last up in my series reviewing Mount Gay rums - their nearly top-of-the-line Extra Old (XO) expression. While I've reviewed Mt. Gay XO before, I was interested in revisiting it to see if my perceptions had changed over the last few years.

Mount Gay ferments their molasses mash for a fairly long 72 hours, to give an ABV between 6-7%. As noted, they distill in both pot and column stills, the output of which is barreled and aged separately. Mount Gay refills their ex-Jim Beam bourbon barrels three times before discarding them. XO in the United States doesn't have an age statement, but as best I can figure out is put together from a blend of rums aged from 8-17 years with an average around 10 years old, which is then diluted and bottled at 43% ABV. A minus is that Mount Gay chill filters all of their rums. While this is somewhat understandable given the lower bottling proof, as a 'premium' product, I'd really like to see them follow the trend in scotch whisky for higher bottling proofs and no chill filtration. That would help them stand out from the pack more than the fancy new bottles.

Mt. Gay Extra Old

Nose: smooth, mild molasses and maple syrup, ripe tropical fruits, a hint of cherry/raspberry/blackberry, gently woody oak, a bit of vanilla. After dilution it becomes mellower and lighter, with the sweetness shifting towards brown sugar and the fruit retaining its heft.

Taste: opens with strong sugary sweetness and black pepper, becomes buttery molasses and oak, with the pepper diminishing into bitter oak and residual sugar. After dilution, syrupy sweetness dominates, with the other flavors becoming accents rather than coming in distinct phases, with emerging fruit and still strong pepper.

Finish: bitter oak, a bit of residual sugar and black pepper heat

While Mt. Gay XO bumps up the standard bottling proof from their lower-tier rum to 43%, you'd be hard pressed to notice the extra alcohol while drinking it. This is an incredibly smooth sipping rum, with the buttery diacetyl element helping to smooth everything out. I was pretty close the first time I reviewed this rum, catching most of the major features - molasses, butter and black pepper. Time and experience have revealed some nice fruit and vanilla notes and let me experience the structure of the experience more finely, but the overall structure is still there. Admittedly, the rum may have lost something in being open for two years, but there's definitely nothing off about it.

As I noted in my original post, MGXO also makes a wickedly good cocktail. This time I decided to go a different route, with a more savory drink instead of the standard daiquiri.

Dark Forest
1.5 oz Mt. Gay XO rum
0.5 oz amontillado sherry
0.25 oz Angostura bitters
0.35 oz orgeat (B.G. Reynolds)

The savory, almost salty, notes of sherry rise off of the drink, mingling with sweet oak from the rum and cherry spice notes from the bitters. The sip begins thinly, slowly building up oak from the rum, almond from the orgeat, and baking spices from the bitters, then a grape note from the sherry combining with molasses from the rum and cherry from the Angostura, and finishing with cleansing bittersweetness and a bit of pepper.

This cocktail is a modification of the classic Japanese cocktail. I'm actually pretty impressed with how well the rum held up. Sherry, orgeat, and Angostura bitters are all pretty potent ingredients, but the rum wove its way through the whole drink. The other elements modified rather than obliterated the rum's flavors.




Overall I think Mt. Gay has a really good set of rums. Eclipse is a rather good value and a solid starting point if you're just getting into rum. If you can find it, Sugar Cane rum is a quirky rum that won't set you back to much money. And XO is decadent, though flirting with being over-oaked. I do wish they had stuck with their old bottles, which were much more distinctive, rather than the squarish new ones that scream marketing department. However, as long as what's inside is good, I won't worry too much about the packaging.

Rum Review: Mount Gay Sugar Cane Rum

Next up in the series of Mount Gay rum reviews - their former mid-range Sugar Cane rum. Despite the name, this is a rum made from molasses, rather than cane juice like a rhum agricole. That it still manages to taste like a cane juice rum has to be chalked up to the skills of Mount Gay's Master Blender, Jerry Edwards. He is another chemist-turned master blender along with Joy Spence of Appleton and Billy Walker of BenRiach - maybe there'll be another career in my future yet. But to come back around, this is quite an accomplishment as Mount Gay exclusively uses ex-bourbon barrels from Jim Beam, which means that this variety in flavors is purely the result of distillation, aging, and blending.

Mount Gay Sugar Cane Rum

Nose: slightly grassy, strong vanilla, a hint of oak and raspberries, light molasses

Taste: sweet cane juice up front, grassy vanilla, a brief bit of black pepper and oak, then it glides off the tongue into the finish

Finish: grassy vanilla, buttery, residual pepper

It still amazes me that this rum manages to contain distinctly agricole-style flavors of grass and cane juice. With that said, it is manages to effectively straddle the two worlds, retaining the molasses and strong vanilla of the other side. The rum is bottled at a standard 40%, helping to make it a rather mellow sipper. Sadly, this fantastic mid-range rum has been discontinued, as Mt. Gay has consolidated their product line. Hopefully they will bring it back, as it fills in the space between the aged version of Eclipse and Extra Old. If I had my druthers, they would bring it back with a higher bottling proof to more directly compete with agricoles (which are regularly bottled between 45% and 50%), but that's just wishful thinking. For now I'll have to enjoy what's left of my bottle.

Enchanted Isle

1.5 oz Mt. Gay Sugar Cane rum

0.25 oz orange-kumquat liqueur

0.25 oz Bénédictine

1 dash grapefruit tincture

1 dash Angostura bitters

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

The nose is sweet molasses inflected with orange creamsicle, grapefruit, and subtle herbs. The sip begins with mounting orange sweetness, which is joined by herbal notes from the Bénédictine, rum, and spices from the Angostura. The finish leads with sharp grapefruit notes, which recede to vanilla sweetness.

This drink is a bit of a wild ride. It begins sweetly, swaps to herbal and spicy bitterness, jumps to a burst of bitter grapefruit, then goes out sweetly again. As a note, the flavors will become a bit more integrated if you let the drink warm up. I wanted to make something that would emphasize the grassy character of the rum while bringing in a bit of fruit. The Bénédictine worked well and didn't overwhelm the drink, letting the rum shine as well.

Tomorrow we'll finish off with the second oldest rum Mount Gay offers, their Extra Old expression.

Rum Review: Mt. Gay Eclipse Dark

Mount Gay is the oldest extant rum distillery in the world - documentation goes back to 1703, though it is likely that distillation on the site started even earlier. The distillery uses both copper pot stills and modern column stills. All of their rums are aged in ex-bourbon barrels, without any extra finishes. The distillery puts out a range of expressions from Eclipse Silver all the way up to the very old 1703 expression, but in this series of reviews I'll be looking at the core of their range.

Mt. Gay Eclipse

Nose: fruity - berries, banana, pineapple, thin molasses, a hint of vanilla and raw alcohol. After dilution, the sweetness shifts towards honey and the fruits retreat.

Taste: molasses throughout, fruity esters, ripe berries, mango, pineapple, banana, pepper, mild bitter oak into the finish. After dilution it becomes less fruity, with some added vanilla and a creamier feel.

Finish: bitter oak, molasses, pineapple

Mt. Gay Eclipse was created in 1910 to commemorate a solar eclipse that occurred that year. The rum is aged for a minimum of two years and a maximum of five years before being blended and bottled. It doesn't have nearly the same body or heft as Mt. Gay's older rums, but it makes up for that with freshness and an abundance of fruit flavors. This makes it, in my mind, a very good answer to the question "what is one rum I should buy for my home bar?". It works especially well in tropical drinks, where its inherent fruity flavors should compliment the other ingredients. Speaking of which...

Sleepy Floyd

2 oz Mt. Gay Eclipse rum

0.75 oz dry vermouth

0.75 oz lime juice

0.35 oz passion fruit syrup

0.35 oz falernum

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, then garnish with a large strip of orange peel.

The nose is dominated by the orange peel, but passion fruit, rum, and the vermouth's aromatics peek out as well. The sip begins with subdued sweetness and lots of fruit, segueing into falernum spices, which is the joined by the vermouth to give lightly bitter finish of ginger, rum, and vermouth.

This is my take on the Silky Johnson from Nights and Weekends in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I did a lot of subbing, but I'm pretty pleased with the result. While I'm not sure how Dolin Dry compares to Cocchi Americano, I feel like it did a good job of tweaking the usual rum/fruit/sweet formula. I renamed it after one of the characters in the Portland hip-hop group Lifesaveas' Gutterfly album, to keep the feel of the original.

Stay tuned for upcoming reviews of Mt. Gay Sugar Cane Rum and Extra Old.

New Cocktails: Ashtray Heart

This drink comes from Erik Ellestad, via Marleigh at Sloshed! What was intended to be a scotch cocktail became something else when Erik accidentally grabbed a bottle of Smith & Cross rum instead. To bring it back a bit, he added a mezcal rinse to include some smoke in the drink. Cocktail VirginSlut also has Fred's take on the drink. While rather bizarre at first sight, it all comes together surprisingly well.

Ashtray Heart
1 oz Smith & Cross rum
1 oz sweet vermouth
1 oz dry vermouth

Combine all ingredients, stir with ice for fifteen seconds, then strain into a mezcal-rinsed cocktail glass and garnish with a grapefruit twist.

The nose is surprisingly subdued, with just a bit of the rum's normally volcanic funk and the mezcal's smoke, and some dark fruit from the vermouth. The sip begins somewhat thinly with some white wine, but slowly builds into the rum's funky esters, then dark wine from the sweet vermouth and rubbery smoke from the mezcal, which then recedes with mild bitterness, rum esters and mezcal smoke.

This is a fantastic cocktail. While all of the ingredients are pretty burly, they do a great job of keeping each other in check. As a note, you really have to use Smith & Cross for this cocktail. No other rum is going to punch through in quite the same way. You can adjust the balance a bit depending on your choices of vermouths. I used Dolin Dry and Punt e Mes, which is a pretty hefty sweet vermouth. Something more subdued like Vya will let the rum shine. But no matter what you pick, this is going to be an enjoyable experience.

New Cocktails: The McCarthy Project

After my review of the whiskey, I decided that I wanted to try to make a cocktail with it. There aren't too many cocktails that use peated whisky, as it tends to dominate as an ingredient, but there are a few. I used the Laphroaig Project as a template, but tweaked it a bit to account for the fact that McCarthy's Single malt isn't as strong or smokey as Laphroaig Quarter Cask.

The McCarthy Project
0.75 oz Green Chartreuse
0.75 oz McCarthy's Oregon Single Malt
0.5 oz Luxardo Maraschino
0.25 oz Yellow Chartruese
0.75 oz lemon juice
2 dashes Fee's West Indian Orange Bitters

Combine all ingredient, shake with ice for six seconds, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The nose is balanced between sweet grassy notes from the Chartreuses and smoke from the whiskey. The sip opens a bit thin, but proceeds to expand with herbal notes from the Chartreuse, a burst of smoke, then funky cherry notes from the Maraschino. The finish is sweet and sour, with a bit of smoke.

I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out. Admittedly, as Camper English noted about the Laphroaig Project, "If you have all of these ingredients at home you are a huuuuge cocktail geek."

I resemble that comment.