Saigon Rum - the Tattoo Fixers guest of rums

There's some decisions you know you'll regret in the moment but you figure "bugger it, how bad can it be?". It's this self same instinct that led to the Ginsters pasty empire and keeps Tattoo Fixers supplied with idiots.

In a fit of wild optimism I picked up a bottle of this for 100,000 Dong in Ho Chi Minh City and that's about £3, I knew it was going to be bad but there's something about international travel that suppresses your rational, logical brain (see the number of Magaluf genital tattoos in the aforementioned Tattoo Fixers).

Premium quality...errr

But, in the long tradition of weird bottles of spirit that you buy on holiday I decided to give it a go. So, what does £3 get you?

On the nose there's a weird, not entirely unpleasant medicinal note, like a drowsy cough medicine with some over-ripe banana.

Flavour-wise is where things get strange, it's a thin, TCP like flavour, the bananas keep floating around the edge of the palate.

Its undeniably harsh on the way down, with a definite burn and odd tingle.  A lingering aftertaste of something unpleasant, a morning after mouth of many mixed drinks. The burn is quite something given this is only 33% ABV.

It's certainly not as bad as, say, Stroh, but it's pretty bloody awful.

ISC rum from@joblogsrum

Apparently this is "Blended and bottled under he strict control of Slaur Sardet, France." Slaur Sardet are a French company who make a large range of rums.  Funnily this one doesn't show up on their product page.  Interestingly there is also an "ISC Rum" floating around Vietnam with a very similar design of bottle and of French origin as spotted by the excellent @joblogsrum.

Bottom line is, it's cheap, not very good and not especially interesting but sometimes you have to take a punt.

SeaWolf Scottish Rum

Boilermaker Drinks is a Scottish company, founded by the Edinburgh cocktail impresarios behind Bramble, Lucky Liquor Company & The Last Word along with one of the co-founders of Vino Wines.  Seeing the gin market saturated and with only one other Scottish rum on the market they took the bold choice of producing a Scottish white rum.

This is a tricky proposition, unlike a spiced rum a white rum has to be drinkable on its own terms, work in a range of cocktails and be relatively affordable.

Working with Ogilvy Spirits in Angus, the producers of a very drinkable potato vodka they've come up with SeaWolf. Taking its name from the Native American term for killer whales, pods of which are seen along Britain's coast they've produced a beautiful bottle which avoids the usual cliches of palm trees, white beaches and pirates (the beaches of Angus being a bit more likely to induce hypothermia).

Given the North of Scotland lacks the tropical climate that makes the ageing process so fast for Caribbean rums Boilermaker have produced an unaged 100% pot still rum.

Counteracting the lack of ageing a mixture of rum and champagne yeasts have been used in a 4 week, low temperature fermentation to produce a  flavoursome wash. Coupling that with a pot still makes a spirit that's rich and deep in flavour.

On the nose the rum has a funky, banana-y note with some light toffee.  The lack of ageing gives it a certain agricole/cachaca note that's subtle but interesting.

There's a creamy mouthfeel with a general fruitiness and a peppery spice, on the finish there's some burn coupled with a dry spiciness.  For an unaged rum this slips down very easily, the 41% ABV gives it a more substantial body than other white rums.

The test of a white rum is the daiquiri  , a simple cocktail that highlights the rum base.  For me my favoured recipe is a classic Difford's 10:3:2  on the rocks.  The SeaWolf has enough funk to stand up to the lime, leaving a spiciness that balances out with the sweetness to make a very, very drinkable cocktail.

At £29.99 for a 50cl bottle that's part of a limited run of 300 bottles it represents good value and an interesting first step in a planned portfolio of spirits that I look forward to sampling.

Rum Olympics - Round two round up

A quick post to round up the second leg of the Rum Olympics, a lot of interesting ones here  although sadly missed out on one selection as they'd proved too popular! Bet they were awful ones anyway..

So here's the final 16 and my candidates for what I think they are, some of those are more guesswork than others...the winners will be revealed at Kilderkin on Sunday 25th September from 3pm, so come along and find out.

Rum Twenty One

Aroma - Light and woody with some caramel, really inviting (6)

Taste - Quite light and subtle, sweet but not overly so, dangerously sippable (6)

Finish - Smooth, long and a little dry (6)

Captain Bligh (St Vincent) (18)

Rum Twenty Two

Aroma - Quite powerful with a bit of a sea air thing going on (7)

Taste - Very dry and tingly before a sweetness comes though like hitting the middle of a sherbet lemon (6)

Finish - Long and dry (6)

Quite stuck on this one, so I'll guess Ryoma (Japan) (19)

Rum Twenty Three

Aroma - Strong but not much else there (5)

Taste - Woody and warm with a nice pepperiness (8)

Finish - Smooth and warm, quite long (8)

The pepperiness makes me think this is an Angostura (Trinidad & Tobago) (21)

Rum Twenty Four

Aroma - Very rich toffee notes with some coffee (7)

Taste - A bit harsh but covered by the sweetness (5)

Finish - Long and burnt tasting (4)

Struggling to identify this, I'll go with Old Monk (India) (16)

Rum Twenty Five

Aroma - Quite dry but not much else to say about it (4)

Taste - A tingly vegetal thing, like licking a nettle (4)

Finish - Long and quite savoury (4)

Really unsure what to make of this, it's weirdly savoury. At a guess Barbancourt (Haiti) (12)

Rum Twenty Six

Aroma - Oranges, lots of oranges (5)

Taste - Yes, it's oranges (4)

Finish - Long and orangey (4)

We've already had Pyrat so I'm stuck on what the hell this is. Strange Holiday Rum (Spain)(13)

Rum Twenty Seven

Aroma - Cloves ginger and cinnamon, very Christmasey (6)

Taste -  Christmas spices and sweetness (6) 

Finish - Little bitey and hot (4)

This is definitely Dark Matter (Scotland) (16) - as an aside it made a nice mix with rum twenty six

Rum Twenty Eight

Aroma -  Really nothing here, barely able to tell it's actually rum (3)

Taste -  Wood notes and that's about it (3)

Finish - A little peppery (3)

Another hard to place, perhaps Cruzan (St Croix) (9)

Rum Twenty Nine

Aroma - Quite sharp and harsh (4)

Taste -  Thin, watery no real body to it(4)

Finish -  Rough and hot (2)

This was accurately summed up to me as "Just a wee bit shit" so it's likely Bundaberg (Australia) (10)

Rum Thirty

Aroma -  Quite rich but subtle, smooth(6) 

Taste - Warm, with stewed bananas and a bit smokey (8)

Finish - Long, warm and smokey (7)

Really liked this one, I think it's Goslings Old Rum (Bermuda) (21)

Rum Thirty One

Aroma - Not a lot to it, alcohol and balsa wood (4)

Taste - Starts quite well but soon it's all TCP (5)

Finish -  Short, hot and stingy (4)

Blergh, not very good at all, my candidate is Ron Prohibidio (Mexico) (13)

Rum Thirty Two

Aroma - Grassy notes and a strange chemical overtone, like sniffing paint on a lawnmower (3)

Taste - Chemical and dry aspirin (3)

Finish - Lingering and weird (3)

Really not enjoyable, I think it's Berry Bros Fiji (Fiji) (9)

Rum Thirty Three

Aroma - Quite punchy with toffee and leathery tobacco (8)

Taste - Sweet, woody and toffee (8)

Finish - A little short but pleasant (8)

As we've not had it yet Ron Zacapa (Guatelmala) (24)

Rum Thirty Four

Aroma - Quite light, almost perfumed and rather delicate (8)

Taste - Light and subtle sweetness, a little let down after the nose (6)

Finish - Perfectly pleasant but unmemorable (6)

Possibly something like La Hechicera (Colombia) (20)

Rum Thirty Five

Aroma - Bland, inoffensive (5)

Taste - Very very dry with some sweetness underneath that (5)

Finish - Lingering and a bit plasticy (5)

Not great, not terrible, not easy to guess what the hell it is. My somewhat arbitrary guess is Fair (Belize) (15)

Rum Thirty Six

Aroma - Like someone had liquidized a Highland Toffee bar 4

Taste - As above, it's just toffee and nothing else 4

Finish - Sweet and lingering with a real harshness coming through 3

Sickly sweet and not very enjoyable, i think it's Don Papa (Phillipines) (12)

Rum Olympics - rounds 4 & 5

The closing stages of the first round of the Rum Olympics brought together some disparate spirits, some were Usain Bolt, others were more Paula Radcliffe in Athens.

Read about other rounds:
Round 1
Rounds 2 & 3

Kilderkin

Rum thirteen

Aroma - Ooft, this one is a bit harsh on the nose, a weird mixture of windolene and petrol (2)

Taste - A burnt edge with rubbery, ashy notes like eating a burnt rubber band (2)

Finish - Oddly chemical tasting and lingering (1)

Bad, just bad. I'm 50/50 on what this is and I'm going with Mehkong (Thailand) (5)

Rum fourteen

Aroma - Lots and lots of toffee with some coffee coming through and a sort of toffee popcorn feel to it. (6)

Taste - As expected from the nose this is sweet, but not overbearing with some alcohol burn that helps offset the sweetness (6)

Finish - Surprisingly clean for everything that's gone before, slips down fairly easily (6)

Enjoyed this one, sweet but not too sweet and very easy drinking.  I think this is Ron Millonario (Peru) (18)

Rum fifteen

Aroma - Bland, there really isn't anything coming off this at all, I could tell you it's alcohol and that's about it (1)

Taste - The problem with such a bland nose is that there's no warning of the taste.  This is bitter, harsh, like walking into a school changing room and being enveloped in a cloud of Lynx Africa (1)

Finish - Lingering and bitter (1)

This glass didn't need washed afterwards, it needed exorcised, this is competing with Stroh for the bottom spot so far, stuck for what this might be No idea (the depths of hell) (3)

Rum sixteen

Aroma - Some light butterscotch, not too much going on but pleasant enough (4)

Taste -  A bit of funk and some punchiness with sweetness coming in later (4)

Finish - Quite dry, not too long, not too short (4)

Inoffensive, but equally not that exciting, this would be a good bottle to have on the table and drink away while doing something else.  I think it's Chairman's Reserve (St Lucia) (12)

Rum Olympics - Rounds two and three

A double session on Sunday saw a marathon between La Petite Mort and Bennets Bar taking in rounds 2 & 3 of the Rum Olympics.  A group of us, fulled by an excellent brunch started with the selection at La Petite Mort.

Read about other rounds:
Round 1
Rounds 4 & 5

La Petite Mort 

Rum five

La Petite Mort selection

Aroma - Some alcohol burn, with woody notes but overall quite subtle (7)

Taste - Some light toffee notes and a bit of bite and a definitely drying (6)

Finish - Quite smooth, long and dry (5)

Quite enjoyable and complex, I think it's a Ron Abuelo (Panama) (18)

Rum six

Aroma - Really very little here, some grassy notes but mainly just alcohol (2)

Taste - Lot of burn with some citrus (2)

Finish - Harsh and quite a lot of burn (1)

Not great, I think it's a cachaca so I'll go with Abelha Cachaca (Brazil) (5)

Rum seven

Aroma - This is what despair smells like (1)

Taste - Weird, industrial, burnt rubber(1)

Finish - Long, genuinely unpleasant (1)

This has to be Stroh, which is by a distance the worst rum I've ever tasted. Stroh (Austria) (3).

Rum eight

Aroma - Quite light but sweet, plenty of butterscotch (7)

Taste - Quite sweet but not overpowering, pretty well balanced (8)

Finish - Long, sweet but with a little burnt edge to it (7)

Enjoyable and very sippable, my candidate is Plantation Barbados 5yo (Barbados) (22)

Bennets Bar

Bennets rums

 Rum nine 

Aroma - Really not much here, some alcohol notes and maybe some coconut (4)

Taste - A bit of aniseed and coconut (4)

Finish - Nothing really, it's just gone (2)

An underwhelming low ABV white rum, I say Bacardi (Puerto Rico) (10)

Rum ten

Aroma - Dark toffee notes and some alcohol warmth (8)

Taste - Sweet toffee with a hot edge to it, a kind of hot buttered toast flavour to it (8)

Finish - Long, warm and very smooth, no burn worth mentioning (7)

Really stuck for what this is so I'll say it's a Flor de Cana (Nicaragua) (23)

Rum eleven

Aroma - the burnt sugar on top of a creme brulee (8)

Taste - Punchy, aggressive in a good way and praline notes (8)

Finish - Long, very long with nutty warmth (8)

I'm fairly sure this is Pussers (Navy) (24)

Rum twelve

Aroma - A little funky and sweet, a bit confusing (4)

Taste - Toffee, sweetness, almost cloying but not quite (4)

Finish - A lingering sweetness (4)

A bit one note this, it's sweet, very sweet but that's about it. Crying out for some citrus to cut through it. I'm saying Diplomatico Blanco Reserva (Venezuela) (12)

Some very, very sippable rums in these two selections. Yes rum 7 is awful, but that serves the purpose of showing that every other rum you will ever taste is better than this.  Watch this space for rounds 4 and 5 in the weeks to come

Rum Olympics - Round one

Mystery bottles

As the Fringe gets into gear here in Edinburgh and the city is invaded by one man shows, Mongolian throat singers and people are slowly drowned under piles of flyers what better excuse to sample 40 rums across the city and decide which is best? 

The Rum Olympics at the various outposts of the Kilderkin Group is a blind tasting of 40 rums between now and 25th September with each bar serving 4 mystery rums in blind bottles as you can see to the right. I assume the second batch of 20 would go on at the start of September.

Now, at £10 for a 4 drink flight that's a pretty good value for 4 rums, but equally I think we can reasonably assume there's not going to be any Diplomatico Single Vintage in one of these bottles.

Mystery measures

With each rum being scored from 1-10 for aroma, taste and finish it's certainly going to be interesting what comes out on top come the end of September.


On to the first 4 rums themselves that I had at the Blue Blazer last night, as I've no idea what any of them are and the bar staff were giving nothing away I'm trying to guess what these are but may well be horribly wrong on a lot of them.

Rum one

Aroma - Grassy, hamster cages and hot melted butter with a bit of harsh alcohol. Definitely an agricole. (2)

Taste - A bit underwhelming, some burn and rawness but not much else. (2)

Finish -   Grassy and scratchy. (1)

It's definitely agricole, I'm going with La Mauny Blanc (Martinique) (5/30)

Rum two

Aroma - Toffee, toffee and more toffee, it warms up and smells like a caramac bar (3)

Taste - Immensely sweet with bitter burnt edges and a really weird mouthfeel (1)

Finish - Burnt, little harsh. This might go well over ice cream. (1)

Really not sure what the hell this is, I'll guess at Don Papa (Phillipines) (5/30) 

Rum three

Aroma - Really getting nothing here, there's some strawy/grassy notes but not much else (2)

Taste - Not much here at all, it's fine, inoffensive but nothing to really grab a hold of your taste buds (2)

Finish - There really isn't a finish, it's just gone (2)

It's light, inoffensive so probably Spanish so I'll go with Ron Cubay Anejo (Cuba) (6/30). If Coldplay could be embodied as a rum it'd  be this.

Rum four

Aroma - Coffee notes along with the usual caramel, a little aggressive (6)

Taste - Bitter edges to an overall sweet profile, little dry (6)

Finish - A little burn on the way down and a bit dry (6)

Definitely more oomph to this one, so I think it's an El Dorado 5 year old (Guyana) (18/30)

Overall it's entirely possible I'm being harsh in my scoring of the rums that disappointed me so I'll keep an eye on this throughout the events, these were interesting rums that I'm looking forward to finding out what they actually are.

If you're in Edinburgh for the festival I'd recommend giving this a go, it's a lot of fun.

I'll post updates as I go through the rest of the rums

Read about other rounds:
Rounds 2 & 3
Rounds 4 & 5

Flying Dutchman white rum - an unexpected winner

Dutch rum? It sounds like something you’d nick out of your parent’s booze cabinet when you were 16 to sneak down the park because you knew no-one would ever drink it. But step back from that and consider this is a triple copper pot distilled white rum, aged 12 months in heavily charred virgin American oak? That definitely sounds more like something in my wheel house.

Dutch rum, actually really good

The Netherlands haven’t much of a rum culture, their former colonial empire being based in the Asia as they could actually navigate unlike that Columbus guy meant that they weren’t as involved in the repugnant triangular trade that brought rum to the heart of the Anglo-Saxon world. In modern times however the Dutch have expanded their spirits offering from the standard Genever to premium vodkas and now a selection of rums.

An often overlooked, but yet key, part of any spirit is the yeast and the fermentation from that. Yes, soaring burnished copper stills and coopers charring casks before they’re rolled into a dark, secretive warehouse are all very sexy, but where’s the love for this humble microorganism?

There is huge variation in yeasts, with distillers (mostly) jealously guarding which strain they use. Yeast doesn't just produce ethanol, there's other alcoholic compounds produced as well as other reactions going on during fermentation, producing acids, congeners and esters (the compounds that give Jamaican rum its glorious funky flavour). Generally fermentation is like good barbecue, low and slow produces the most flavour. Now from what I've been able to glean online Zuidam have a two week fermentation of the wine that goes to make Flying Dutchman, this is a very long process and should produce something packed with flavour.

Unusually for a white rum this is pot distilled, and is distilled three times in small hand-made copper pot stills. Pot stills are inefficient compared to column stills but they do, again, produce a more full-bodied, flavoursome spirit. Once distilled this is aged in heavily charred virgin American oak barrels for at least twelve months at 60% ABV, then comes the filtration to bring this back to a white rum, which inevitably strips out some of the flavour that those poor wee yeast cells have spent so long creating.

As you might expect from all this carry on the liquid itself is quite special, it's fruity and floral on the nose with much more depth than a white rum has any right to have. Flavour wise there's a lot of subtle citrus-y notes going on along with summer fruits, praline and a deliciously creamy mouthfeel from that magnificently inefficient pot still. There's a little bit of a bite on the way down to remind you this is a very young rum but it's remarkably subtle for something this age.

While it's very pleasant on its own the test of any white rum is how it mixes, and using this in a Daiquiri (I favour Difford's 10:3:2 recipe makes for a very pleasant drink, the rum has enough body to stand up to the lime and enough flavour to not be wiped out by the combination of sugar and citrus. At £26 a bottle this is definitely one worth adding to your white rum line up.