Nobody Cares Dept: is rum dying?

[Capn Jimbo]

Trend watching...


How 'bout these?

1. RnD Rum Reviews actually closed, and announced their own death, with a "RIP" page showing the two founders laid out...

. . . . . . .


2. The self-proclaimed minister's website claims over 4000 members, but it's the same five or six who post.

3. On the same site, there are often dry periods where the Preacher is forced to come forth and toss a few bananas to the monkeys.

4. The new boy north of the border has similar issues, and has resorted to multiple posts on the minister's site, little puff posts whose main objective seems to be providing a handy link to his own lair, and hopefully increasing traffic.

This last is a common tactic, particularly when you're trying to build a web presence. Any webmaster who denies this is a liar. I've done it. But this is usually a tactic of the new site. When an established site does this it's a sign of failing readership.

When five of the seven recent posts are by one poster - our Canadian friend - and all are of the check it/me out variety, then both websites are in trouble. One of the great joys of The Rum Project is that we are completely non-commercial, we have no commitments or dependence on the distillers and distributors, and frankly we just don't give a good crap over readership. We don't solicit membership, and approve only the most legitimate of them. Despite this idiocy - or maybe because of it - this website has become well established and has developed incredible traffic.

It stands on its own, evidence that unvarnished and independent truth has its advocates. That a website by a "Compleat Idiot" has achieved notable success with no industry support or strokes says a lot about the wacky world of rum. The Project no longer requires seeding at competitive sites.


Is "Rum" dying?

Is it? Perhaps. We've seen the cheapening of product with many, many more cheap shit spiced and flavored products, and only a very, very few mega-premiums that promote purity and freedom from unlabeled additives.

The true quality sipping rums have not changed much if at all, and are getting less and less shelf space, which are poorly or improperly promoted at the stores. Not good.

This does not bode well. Compared to the world of truly noble spirits like single malts, Irish whisky or bourbon, rum is not doing well. Check out your news stand - magazines on whisky? Several. Wine? Many. Beer? Sure. And rum?


And rum?

[Capn Jimbo]

More proof?


The new posts are far and few between on formerly busy websites. These include the Bilgemunky (perhaps the most active), Count Silvio's, the Rum Dood, Scotte's et al.

I'd say the max interest was a few years ago, but no more. Honestly, there's only so much to say about a spirit that lacks real purity, and in terms of sales, whose quality is falling.

Seriously, there are some magnificent rums, a minority to be sure, but this short list hasn't really changed much. A number of faux "premiums" (think Tommy Bahama) have failed, as have attempts to premiumize (think MGXO's horrid new bottle). A very, very few super-duper-mega premiums appeared which took the amazing step of justifying their stratospheric costs by promoting real "purity, free of any additive or coloring" and even unfiltered.

Unfortunately the industry at large failed to pick up the single banner under which rum could have really experienced a true renaissance, rather than Burr's faux commercial version. The reason is simple - like Canadian Whisky, Rum suffers the similar fate of containing notable and unlabeled additives and flavorings.

So sad. Rum has great potential, but the chances of that fruition become ever more remote...

[JaRiMi]

I hear what you are saying, the posts aren't there as much as they used to be..

"Ministry" can only blame itself for this phenomena, if you ban all debate, and even slightly critical discussions, then what you are left with is a bunch of "yeah I like this brown stuff with sugar" messages. How long can even the most dedicated colony of ants be bothered to post "its darn good, really is, quality is all the time going up" messages, when even some of them may have noticed that it actually isn't so?

Count Silvio's very good Refined Vices forum went totally belly up for a very long time due to technical problems. A site that was down for months and months looses quickly it's interest group - and it is really difficult to gain that group back.

Overall, rum industry may have started to make the choices that malt whisky industry has made too early - i.e. before the have gathered the fanbase of hundreds of millions around the planet. And with this I refer to cutting slowly quality of standard bottlings down a tad, selling younger rum distillates in same bottles, making the really good stuff way overpriced, etc.

What may have so far worked for whisky (and mind you - there the change is VERY slow, and careful, as the players carefully eye the market responses) may not work for rum at all! After the disaster of 80's, Whisky makers took decades to build the fanbase by having superb quality products available, where the actual age profile of the product was way higher than the label would suggest.

In the rum world, yesterday's great rums like English Harbour XO, Xacapa centenario, El Dorado 15yo to mention just a few - all took a nosedive in flavour profile in my personal opinion in a matter of just 10 last years. Certainly the taste of many a great rum has changed over last 10 years - and not for the better.

But these products had not even yet become "legendary", with the hundreds of millions of fans...Only rum aficionados knew about them. To start hiking the prices up, and downgrade quality simultaneously at THIS point and time - disasterous I think. Bad choice.

I cannot say that I would be as excited about standard rum bottlings as I was say 5 years ago any more. Why? Because the standard bottlings in many cases aren't as good as they were, and to get high quality rum, I need to pay the same (or more) than for a high quality whisky. I do this - choose rum over whisky often - but it used to be so darn easy to tell people to buy rum, because it had much more bang for your buck.

For me personally, I have written less about the topic, and done more - I dedicate significantly more time to actual promotion of Rum & Whisky these days. And yes, I maintain a critical view on the topic also, no need to go fanatically blind on the topic in order to promote it..

[NCyankee]

JaRiMi - you feel the ED 15 has gone downhill in the last 10 yrs? I love the 12 and 15 and find it hard to imagine how much better they could have been at one time.


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Capn's Log: If JaRiMi says so, you can count on it. He's been involved in whisky and rum for a long while, and has long been a force for quality and purity in spirits. When - other than The Project - the only guy actively reviewing rum is a rank amateur with a bitter, Hyper Taster palate, and the "home" of rum is run by a small time rum rep and is populated with a mere handful of "..it's all good", fearful posters - well, "rum" is in deep, deep trouble.

JaRiMi's comments about the mega-corporate degradation of quality, age and innovation actually affect most spirits, though it is fair to say that unlike single malts anything goes "rum" had not much of a firewall to protect itself.

[JaRiMi]

JaRiMi - you feel the ED 15 has gone downhill in the last 10 yrs? I love the 12 and 15 and find it hard to imagine how much better they could have been at one time.

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Indeed, when I first tasted El Dorado 15yo around the year 1999 - 2000 (which at that time was the company's flagship product, no 21yo was around), it was definitely more complex, probably containing older rums than lately. One may of course question how I can remember taste so well - but I would insist I do, and this has been proven to myself at least from time to time when tasting old products again after a long break.

There's nothing wrong with the current version, but it tastes sweeter and more simple than bottling of the past did.

Perhaps some of the older distillates nowadays find their way to the El Dorado 21yo, go figure. Perhaps the grown availability & consumption forces the company to release the product younger than before. The 21yo has had a slight increase in the level of sweetness in the latest bottlings as well, I believe.

These days my rum-money goes to independent bottlers like Cadenheads, Gargano, Samaroli, Berry Bros, Bristol Classic Rums, because I like what they are doing with rum. To borrow an old advertisement slogan, they are "the real thing".