Some of you may be familiar with the extremely high regard Wray & Nephews is held by the Jamaican people. American marketing monkeys would like you believe that only premium prices can obtain premium products. While this may be true for a Miami Beach GFE (girlfriend experience), it has no bearing whatever on rogue rum.
W&N OP truly lives up to all that "spirits" conjures up historically. This iconic product has come to us from the Jamaican people where it occupies a place of real reverence, and where it appears to celebrate or mark all the important moments in life: birth, death, a new home and the like. A dab on the forehead of a fevered infant. You get the idea.
Not surprisingly is that this special rum is not only a good one, but has been designated the best overproof in the world. That it sells for a pittance makes it an automatic best buy.
But how bout Barbancourt?
Most knowing rum afficianados rightfully have praised all of Barbancourt's cane juice rums (rhum agricole for passing snobs), which in general outscore the MUCH more expensive Martiniquean rums by regulation. Barbancourt - pronounced "ba-bun-coo" by my Haitian friends - seems to also have a history similar to W&N:
http://egregores.blogspot.com/2010/07/s ... u-buy.html"This is the technical side of Barbancourt, but it has insinuated itself into the culture of Haiti in remarkable ways, particularly as something of a sacrament in the rites of Vodou, the Haitian hybrid of Roman Catholicism and African animist religions known more widely as "voodoo."
Bottles of Barbancourt are routinely incorporated into the Mange loa, or "feeding the gods," the most frequently performed ritual in vodou. Food and drink offerings are placed on an altar, to nourish and fortify these divine spirits, the vodouin equivalent of saints. The Mange loa is performed to allow a devotee to make contact with a particular loa. Each of these beings has favorite foods and totems, but all are partial to Barbancourt, which is poured three times on the ground for the loa's delectation."
The one difference: is that Barbancourt offers a full range of cane juice rums from white, 4 years, 8 years and 15 years. All are simply magnificent, and again available at prices so reasonable that "best buy" easily attaches to them.
