Rating:
www.neworleansrum.com

Back in 2006 I reviewed New Orleans Cane Amber Rum. Since that time, Cane Rum has been discontinued over apparent confusion between itself and 10 Cane Rum. In its place we now have Old New Orleans Rum, which I think is actually a much better label anyways as it not only highlights itself as being one of the few continental US rum distilleries, but in a pirate town ta boot

Now I would generally expect that in such cases, while the bottling has changed, the rum might not. My bottle of Cane Amber is long gone (I have a second, but refuse to break the seal for this review – sorry!), so I can’t really do a side-by-side comparison. I do recall Cane Amber as being rather more scotch-like than rummy, but this is really all that I have to go on.

In the bottle, Old New Orleans 3 Year Aged Rum is a nice, basic brownish amber. The bottle is clean and classy, and corked in the manner of all self-respecting rums (with a few exceptions.) To the nose, Old New Orleans smells of sweet sugar cane, vanilla, and just a hint of over-ripe fruit. It comes across as being light-bodied, and perhaps a little alcoholly. [read more »]

OK, the promotional team of 10 Cane Rum has proven they are certifiably demented… and I respect that.

Exhibit A:

[read more »]

Raising a glass to rum — baltimoresun.com.

A couple of brief tasting notes on four American produced rums – two from Rogue, and two from Dogfish Head. I’ve only tasted one from each thus far, and neither were what I’d call stellar. But the article is still very interesting.

Rating:
Pirate’s Choice Molasses Reef
www.pirateschoicerum.com

Pirate’s Choice is an unusual rum. It bears special consideration in several respects. First, it was first distilled in a makeshift (and very illegal) contraption built on the second story of a scuba shop in Key Largo. This is highly braggable. Now created in a more professional (and legal) distillery, the rum is sold in classy squat bottles, complete with labels featuring a silhouette of a pirate ship at rest as a storm approaches. This is beautiful. And, most noteworthy of all, no rum since the golden age of piracy has gone through such effort to introduce, insert, and endear itself to the pirate community. And this, my friends, is remarkable and admirable. In fact, I first met the president of Pirate’s Choice at PyrateCon 2008 in New Orleans, where he was giving away t-shirts, stickers, temporary tattoos, and countless samples of his product to every rogue, wench, and scalliwagg he could find (and being PyrateCon, he found lots of them.) However, this wasn’t the first I’d tasted Pirate’s Choice – I’d had a sample some months prior – at Pirates in Paradise in Key West. As I write this review, Pirate’s Choice is currently promoting itself at the Hampton Blackbeard Festival, with plans to attend the Port Washington Pirate Festival in turn just one week later. In short – Pirate’s Choice Rum is busting its hump to be noticed by the pirate community, making it the first and only rum to look at modern day pirates and see a viable market worth persuing. I suppose this could be seen as a cold business strategy, but I actually view it as heartening. I mean, when’s the last time Captain Morgan gave a squat about us? And HE’s supposed to be a pirate! [read more »]