Cocktail bartender and rum enthusiast.
Created in 1884 by Valdemar Hanschell, a Danish seaman who settled in Barbados to start a business – selling food and drinks (and rum of course) to other sea travelers stopping by. Nowadays Cockspur rum is made at the West Indies Rum Distillery (WIRD), Barbados. Saw this bottle on the shelf of a liquor store … More Review: Cockspur Original Fine Rum
Diamond Distillery, Guyana, has no less than 12 stills (although not all produce rum) under their roof from which three of them are made of greenheart wood – Enmore Coffey Still, Versailles Single Pot Still and the infamous Port Mourant Double Pot Still. Spoke a bit more about their stills and heritage in my That … More Review: El Dorado 12 Year Old
Wood’s has been around since 1887 and has been owned by William Grant & Sons since 2002. Its stubble bottle packaging has been around since 2016, I saw pictures around of the old one and I have to say I am happy I met it in its current form. The label states “Original navy recipe” … More Review: Wood’s Old Navy Rum
Appleton Estate, located in Jamaica’s Nassau Valley, is the oldest continuous sugar factory and rum distillery on the island, tracing its production back all the way to 1749 (although they are going to close the sugar factory soon). This year Appleton did some updates to their core range, from rebranding their Appleton White and Gold … More Review: Appleton Reserve Blend vs Appleton Estate 8 Year Old Reserve
During these uncertain times the online alcohol sales have gone through the roof, (I might’ve contributed to it myself) so, as a cocktail bartender and rum blogger, I decided to put together a list to guide anyone on a budget looking to put a/another bottle of rum in their spirits cabinet. Either for homemade drinks, … More Article: My Top 10 Value For Money Rums
Veritas (or Probitas in the US) is the first collaboration between two family owned Caribbean distilleries: Forsquare from Barbados and Hampden from Jamaica. They are both high regarded distilleries, known for their high quality distillates and no additives ethos. The “white” rums are slowly distancing themselves from the idea that they have to be made … More Review: Veritas White Blended Rum
Trinidad Distillers Limited (TDL) was established in 1949 in Trinidad (duh!) with a state of the art column still distillery in order to start making their own rum for their bitters and Angostura range – they were previously sourcing their rums from other distilleries on the island in the 19th century. Today their bitters are … More Review: Angostura 5 Year Old
The second in the Foursquare Distillery (Barbados) – Velier (Italy) collaboration. Molasses based, pot and column still distilled, a blend of 3 different vintage rums aged in 3 types of casks: Bottled at 56% ABV with no colouring, additives or chill filtering. While not on the market anymore, when it was released in 2017 there … More The Barrel Sample: Foursquare Triptych – Velier
I reviewed a sample of this a while ago and I decided to “reboot” the review today complete with a pretty picture. Santa Teresa Estate (Hacienda Santa Teresa) was founded, unsurprisingly, in 1796 in Aaragua Valley, in Venezuela, where they were growing cocoa, coffee and, of course, sugar cane. Santa Teresa 1796 was born in … More Review: Santa Teresa 1796
From Mount Gay, Barbados, (presumably) the oldest commercial rum distillery in the world, comes their very first exclusive bottling released in 2018 for The Whisky Exchange – Mount Gay Select Blend. I’ve been focusing a lot on the new blends and releases from Trudiann Branker, the most recent one reviewed just a few days ago … More Review: Mount Gay Select Blend – The Whisky Exchange