Oh no Mr. Bill! Not another Twiggie rum! Tell me it ain't so, Atlantico...
It's so.
Quite some time ago I found the Gruesome Twosome - the Rum Queen and the main Burr Brother - both pushing Atlantico as the next best thing. A Burr blurb "Delicious. Unlike anything else on the market..." is actually featured on a bottle hanger. These alone shoulda tipped me off, but like The Compleat Idiot I am, I completely ignored this waving red flag. Over the next months I began to run across this "unlike anything else on the market" rum at various booze outlets, but at $35 it just wasn't in the cards.
After many moons I wandered into my favorite gay market purveyor, a store that has the best selection and prices in town (try Flor de Cana 18 at $33!) and noted that Atlantico had been reduced to $29.
I bit. I had hopes.
The packaging was like marketing shiny beads to the natives - a cardboard, faux leatherbound box - and promoted not only Christopher Columbus and his discovery of "...a beautiful island paradise", but also presented the history of the Dominican Republic from the perspective of rum "being at the heart of our culture...". As if the entire history of the region had led, inexorably and inevitably to Atlantico Rum.
What's that little flag waving?
The other side of the faux leather box talked about their 3rd generation master blender, and their completely unique process for the "creation" of Atlantico. This must have happened on the eighth day, I guess. They select aged rums, blend em, take the "additional step" of "aging the blend yet again (this is the "Private Cask" part).
Wait, wait - there's more!
From the "private casks" they claim that the rum goes into an undefined "solera method" set of barrels - apparently public casks this time, lol - for, are you sitting down - "15 to 25 years". As they put it "...this third aging guarantees a consistently balanced rum".
Do you honestly believe all this? Really? Just on its face this would mean that this rum was conceived, planned and executed over 25 (or maybe 15) years ago to finally appear - dramatically and professionally packaged. But as always, I digress. The reviews:
Sue Sea:
Me:It's no secret that I simply love a great presentation. The box aside, Atlantico Rum comes in a tall square bottle with short rounded shoulders, a classy wooden handled cork and a nifty little bottle hanger. The impression is old world and masculine, yet artsy. The bottle features a tall rectangular antiqued label, and their molded in double anchor. The top features an expensive looking (and unnecessary) paper seal.
A presentation like this really does whet my interest.
Atlantico Rum has a lovely and inviting aroma. It presented first as leather over a background of brown sugar, caramel and vanilla. The latter came forward - way forward - with airing. The early palate presented with great smoothness and honeylike sweetness, followed by a growing clove heat. The end palate was slightly astringent, with transitory molasses and leather. The finish too is clove hot and medium long. Atlantico leaves a not entirely pleasant sherry aftertaste and has a bit of what I call an exhale (a secondary experience that is actually pretty rare).
All in all, Atlantico is not particularly complex, surprising for an allegedly solera method rum of 15 plus years. It is consistent, but this rum is really a bit hollow (good entry and exit only). It struck me as heavy, thick bodied and liqueur-like and left a sweet residue on my lips.
What does this mean? Jim feels very strongly that Atlantico is anything but a pure rum and I am inclined to agree. With airing the vanilla becomes so dominant that it is almost offensive, at least from the viewpoint of the pure rum it purports to be. I feel this rum is really more a dessert liqueur than a sipper. As such I feel that $35 is way too much to pay.
To be fair I want to give Atlantico the benefit of the doubt, and taste it another time, another day, and will report my experience here.
Sue Sea and I had exactly the first impression - a smooth leather over the aforestated background. I picked up vanilla early - an impression that grew and grew and, uh grew. Whew! Rum Atlantico is crystal clear, gemstone brilliant. Yet it lacks the green edge that any rum that claims to be 15-20 years of age ought to demonstrate. It has those slooooow, scary legs that always cause me to pause.
The longer this rum spent in the glass, and the more pours we tried the more it became obvious to me that Atlantico Rum is a secretly altered and flavored rum. Vanilla - actually vanillan - from the oak is hard to come by and is never, never overpowering. Example: Mount Gay Extra Old - it's there, it's vanilla, but it's subtle and sophisticated. If someone told me he'd poured an entire bottle of artificial vanilla extract into my Atlantico for a joke, I'd believe it.
The scary slow legs, and the lick-your-lips sweet residue imply some added sugar. The lack of a green edge is more than curious. And I know enough about solera that the claim of 15-20 years is, well, impossible. Soleras of more than three or four levels are financially impractical - and these quickly top out at an average age of about 8 years. Not 15 or 20, which is simply ridiculous.
Now to be as fair as Sue Sea, I will relent to say this is not a bad flavored dessert rum liqueur - indeed it is rather pleasant - but to present this as a blended, aged rum of exceptional age offends me.
Even at $29.95 I'd not be inclined to buy another bottle. At $19.95 this would be a winner, assuming of course that Atlantico would come clean and label it honestly.
Rating (10 is best): 6.
*******
Note: I discussed the mystery of Atlantico's "unique" aging system in this article on "solera aging". If you are serious about rum you've gotta read it. I'm dead serious... Link to Atlantico and Solera Aging