Last year there was a question on the Foursquare Rum Appreciation Society on Facebook as to when to celebrate World Foursquare Day and how. Plenty of people came with suggestions for the date like 4th of February (because four-square) or the 30th of November as it’s the Barbados Independence Day. The date everyone agreed one … More Review: Foursquare Nosing & Tasting Set (Zeewijck)
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
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
During lockdown I had the pleasure to join an online tasting with Miguel Smith of Mount Gay and that’s where, besides mixing a delicious Old Fashioned, learning about a Coffey Still broken since 1929 that has been restored a couple of years ago and ending up purchasing the Mount Gay Select Blend (more on that … More Review: Mount Gay XO Triple Cask Blend
This is probably the oldest (oak maturation wise) Foursquare (Barbados) I have ever tried. Comes from The Duchess, a Dutch independent bottler I’ve reviewed before on my website, and it’s part of the Hummingbirds series. Molasses based, a blend of pot and column still distillates from 2001, aged for 8 years in the tropics and … More The Barrel Sample: The Duchess – 18 Year Old Foursquare