Mount Gay problems

[Capn Jimbo]

Hmmm....


Dai, what has happened is that what was a single entity has been broken up, with Remy owning the the name, and buying the rum from others, all sourced on Barbados - for now, and we think, so I believe you are correct.

The concern, of course, is there is a loss of continuity and care when various aspects of a business are jobbed out to independent entities. Ultimately the big driver for all these mega-corporations is profit, so any way that stocks can be stretched, blends tweaked and "new", more profitable products produced, well...

Mount Gay's big attraction was the history, beginning in 1703, the "oldest continuous producer of rum", et al. Mount Gay had a special cache in that regard, now lost forever. It's no more than a name of an owner who does not actually produce or age the product.

Mount Gay's Extra Old was a wonderful and respected product of history and tradition. That is no more. If there is a replacement for that loss, it has to be Richard Seale - perhaps 200 years from now it will still be around...

[sleepy]

Rum is always about the master - the blender - not the distillers and/or agers. Big corp will never get that, hence quality will continue to decline.

Richard Seale: train your children and apprentices well - craft rum may be as rare as original Williamsburg (VA) houses. (OK - for our Euro friends, Williamsburg is a reconstructed 16th century village, based on "archaeological carpentry" - taking the few remaining, decaying homes to design rebuild by original methods - no original remain!)

If the few, the pure, don't pass on the tradition, what we love as "rum" will disappear from the face of the earth.

Support tradition more than purity, quality far more than price. Oddly, doing so, you meet both criteria.

Cheapskate Jimbo had it right when he established this site. I can do nothing but bow before the great kahuna!

{sorry about the crazed rant, but a fucking evil loss today:(}

[JaRiMi]

Rum is always about the master - the blender - not the distillers and/or agers. Big corp will never get that, hence quality will continue to decline.

Well...This depends very much on your view.

A RUM may be from a single distillery, with a single distillation equipment. Not from a selection of various equipment used for distillation (meaning some pot stills, some continuous stills, etc). In this case, the product is unique, and I agree 100% with the Captain - no other distillation equipment can produce precisely the same (unless we are talking about rectification to a point of pure alcohol, with no flavour in it - and still it can actually be traced to its origin by laboratory tests).

Many speak of terroir, specific sugar cane types etc also, creating a "unique style & flavour". Well...surely a difference is there, to a degree, just as particular yeast cultivation, timing of cuts saved, timing of overall process, etc causes a difference - depending (and offering a varying degree of level of difference) on what kind of distillation is done - rectification by column stills to highest grade alcohol, or pot stills, or what.

It is easy for marketers to say "we did this rum in country X in distillery Y, and now in country Z with distillery W, using ingredients that are different/same we can produce exactly the same spirit". NO. Not true, unless the original was tasteless, pure alcohol. Modern, industrial column still products may come close - but otherwise, NO.

You cannot make Lagavulin at Benromach - even if you use the same process, materials, casks etc. It WILL taste different. Why? First of all, copying the process with different equipment exactly is very difficult, and secondly, the stills produce different kind of spirit.

Now a BLENDED RUM - and here I mean a rum, which is a blend of A) spirit from many distilleries, as most commercial rums are today (whether they tell this or not), and B) a spirit of many different types of stills (column, pot, whatsitnot) - may be possibly created SIMILAR, even if the original "recipe" and used rums are changed. It will not be the exact same, but very similar - possibly, depending on what is available for the blend.

Quite similarly blended whisky over the years has indeed changed drastically in taste, even if we are made to believe it is always to same. No, it is not. Nor is actually single malt - even if all the whisky used comes from the same distillery. (Same from rum). Changes in the process, raw materials, yeast, cut, casks - and you have a change that goes on and on. Ardbeg 10yo from 2001 tastes very, very different from Ardbeg 10yo 2014.

Blending is funny in rum, because in order to get a particular tasting rum, one needs different kind of rums. How does one get them, if one is, say, blending Bacardi, supposedly all made in their distillery at country X? One buys bulk rum from elsewhere, and blends. Origin or commercial big brand rums? Always the same island, country? I think not...

Personally, I like single cask/distillery rums. I know what I am drinking - and no, it is not blended.

[Dai]

Like jarimi states it's about the variables. One often over looked variable is the sugar crop it self. Depending on the year and type of harvest that year, was it a good crop or a bad crop will have an impact on quality of rum, add in a few changes to the other variables and voila a totaly different tasting rum. Even the best soils in the best areas can produce a crap crop, it's called wheather conditions. We only need to look at the wine industry to notice this phenomena.

I think the future of quality rum lies with the small producers and the craft industries, All the large rum producers are bent on cheapening rum and using marketing to talk it up, while at the same time fleecing us of our hard earned cash by trying to premiumise rum (what ever the hell that means, just another way of saying, SUCKER, gotcha). At least the small producer tries to stay true to his product or improve it where they can, in contrast the large producer just tries to sell you an image or a name that lost it's reputation years ago but, to the unsuspecting customer who does know any better thinks he's buying quality product but in reality it's only just above average compred to past production that the reutation was built upon. I'm not saying that all rum is going to be bad rum just that it is going to be of a lesser quality compared to past rum.

Just to qualify my statements I'm told by this forum that the quality of Mount Gay XO is not that of 10/15 years ago it's average compared to it's past incarnations. It's not just Mount Gay doing this it's a whole industry doing it with a few notable exeptions. The difference between small and large producers is:

The little guy it's all about the product, the big guy it's all about the profit!

[sleepy]

Like jarimi states it's about the variables

Yep, different stills, different barrels, different seasons, different years - blending those into a well-balanced whole is the blender's job.

Doing that master task and creating a consistent product is a fine art. To do so with product from multiple distillers would seem impossible - but obviously not - viz Pussers!

There ain't no single barrel production in rum, or malt, for that matter, unless so labelled. Single malt is the product of a single distillery, not a single barrel. So it is with rum, but without the strict regulation of malt production.

[JaRiMi]

There ain't no single barrel production in rum, or malt, for that matter, unless so labelled. Single malt is the product of a single distillery, not a single barrel. So it is with rum, but without the strict regulation of malt production.

Cough - There are rums which are truly from a single distillery - I can give you names if you like? I don't think Mr. Seale for example buys & blends bulk rums from other distilleries into his rums...St. Nicholas Abbey does not either. Nor do most (or all?) of the Martinique rums, nor does Barbancourt (would not make economic sense for them I believe), nor do the producers at Reunion, or Mauritius...etc. ??

Of course they are labelled so - but then so are a lot of others. Bacardi - does not exactly state that "origin of rum = various Caribbean sources", does it? Borgoe rum, rum of Surinam - AND various other nations...? Thing is, in rum one cannot believe the label too often.

Single cask rums are plentiful in Europe - but these come from independent bottlers. Single vintages from a single distillery also exist. Yes, they are also labeled as that.

I think the word "Blend" says something - meaning that the product is blended from many sources. These can be A) from the same distillery/nation - which is what most rum producers want us to believe about their rum, i.e. it is "proud product of country X/distillery Y". But it can also be B) a blend of rums from various distilleries/countries - which in fact is far more common than many would want us to believe.

My point is - you mentioned previously, that a rum can be "copied" identically, regardless of its origin, original distillery equipment, etc etc. I am saying this is not true.

In case of a single distillery rum, this is impossible - due to different equipment producing different rum. (And exception to this is if the original spirit has been column-distilled to max alcohol, and is virtually tasteless 94% alcohol). Like I said, you cannot make Lagavulin whisky using Tullibardine distillery's equipment - because the pot stills are different.

In a case of a blend of unidentified origins, well - it is very difficult to select completely different rums (from different origins to what was previously used), and make the exact same rum.

Like I said - even in a case of a bottling like Ardbeg 10yo - over the years its taste has changed drastically. Same with Bowmore 12yo, Laphroaig 10yo etc. There is no constant. Look at how much Mout Gay XO, or Zacapa 23-something has changed. Or El Dorado 15yo, or how English Harbour XO changed in its last years. What about Zaya - or was it Zaphra - when the production was changed to Trinidad? I believe it was seen by many as very different tasting.

There is no constant, and blenders know it. They accept this, even if the "official story" is that they try to always use their art to keep the taste the same. Heck, its not possible, if your starting point is completely different, come another year.

I think the art of the blender is just as much in leading us to believe that regardless of the origin of the rums used, they can keep the consistency of the taste - year after year

Oh, someone mentioned crop - can be good or bad. Also sugar cane varieties produce slightly different flavour in the juice. Depending on a good/bad harvest, the quality and quantity of sugar is different also, however these days the sugar is purified to a level where we hardly ever see a difference in taste (of sugar) from year to year.

When we go to molassis, I think since much of the sugars has been extracted already, this difference and the meaning of concepts like terroir, sugar cane variety etc is less meaningful than the impact of the actual production process, its timing, yeast, etc.

[Capn Jimbo]

"I think the art of the blender is just as much in leading us to believe that regardless of the origin of the rums used, they can keep the consistency of the taste - year after year..."


Bingo! Says it all.

[JaRiMi]

There ain't no single barrel production in rum, or malt, for that matter, unless so labelled. Single malt is the product of a single distillery, not a single barrel. So it is with rum, but without the strict regulation of malt production.

Just to emphasize still once more - So it IS NOT in rum, in surprisingly many cases. And yes, I was aware of (as should all be) that a single malt means simply that all the whisky used came from the same, one distillery. This rule is enforced - whereas in rum it is not, where it might even exist - and the result is, that a lot of rum are simply "brands" - not a product of any single distillery, or even a country - even if the manufacturer would like us to believe it is so. A whole lot of rum that went into Bacardi came from Trinidad for example - and it was not mentioned anywhere among the origin of used rum - only the place where they had their own distillery was.

[Capn Jimbo]

It should be obvious...


...that continuity can only come from a single entity of long experience and repute that closely controls every single aspect of producing their spirit, well covered above.

It is a given that the single malts of Scotland are the best example, or perhaps even some of the bourbon makers. There are others, but last on my list is what is loosely called "rum".

Rum in general is truly a "mixed-drink-in-a-bottle" for the reasons we all know. First, it was never, ever regulated as were the above whiskys. Second was the takeover by the mega-corporations to whom provenance has never been in their vocabularies. They have gone so far as to state that provenance no longer matters; rather that "brand" (ie a made-up name and story is). Thus for them, the product is more "assembled" than actually produced.

Molasses is imported, the distillation may occur anywhere, blending, bottling - all jobbed out here and there. The only consistent element is the branding, which frankly is just plain moose shit. Perhaps worst of all are the usual suspects - the self-appointed semi and commercial rum websites that refuse to tell the obvious truth of it all (which they clearly have known but fear to tell).

Tell the truth and the conveyor belt of freebies, trips, and new releases will stop.

[sleepy]

JaRiMi, please put on your old guy glasses and fracking read what I wrote - your response simply echoed what I posted. Is what Jimbo quoted from you any different from my more expansive:

Yep, different stills, different barrels, different seasons, different years - blending those into a well-balanced whole is the blender's job.

Doing that master task and creating a consistent product is a fine art. To do so with product from multiple distillers would seem impossible - but obviously not - viz Pussers!

? How?

Whether one person is responsible for everything from raw material selection to fermenting to distillation to barrel selection and use or it's an army, the "blender" (there may well be a different designation) is the person whose nose and tongue define the quality and consistency of the bottled product, given that there have been no failures in the earlier stages.

I would love to know the management structure of a fairly large quantity, high quality operation like Foursquare. I think we all agree that it is a class operation. Is it compartmentalized or does one person (or team) track the product from ferment to bottle? How is the blending strategy developed for each year's bottling? Is there enough year-to-year variation in conditions (temp, humidity, etc.) to require blending different annual batches? And so on...

Of course, the early stages have to be on - you can make patties of crap, but paté de merde still tastes like crap. Reminds me of a few very nasty bottles of Barbancourt that I got a couple of years after the loss of many barrels in the quake. Now it's back to the rum I loved before.

In our current fast-and-cheap age, I not only marvel, but revel in the fact that there are numerous honest quality rums still produced for me to enjoy - and as Jimbo noted in founding this site - on the cheap!

[JaRiMi]

All I am saying is that "consistency" in taste - i.e. keeping the product ALWAYS the same in taste for X amount of years - is an illusion.

It is that in Johnny Walker, it is that in Ardbeg, it is that in Rum. Over the years, the product's taste WILL inevitably vary, no matter who is the miracle-blender responsible. This is because the blendables vary and change - even when we speak of single malts (where 100s of casks from the same distillery are vatted each time a bottling of a product is done).

In my humble opinion, there is no consistency achieved by skillfull blending (or any other miracle) - just varying rates of change over a time period. And a myth of everlasting consistency

[With whisky, one really fun thing is that we have auctions from where we can buy older bottlings of the same product like whisky x, 10yo, to compare with current / other versions. It is enormously sad that rum auctions do not seem to exist, difficult to get older versions of same rum bottles for comparisons. Who would start a rum bottlings auction house??]

[JaRiMi]

Actually I gave up writing out tasting notes in my "little black book" as many do due to the lack of consistency in taste of so-called standard bottlings of whisky. It was frustrating to note that for example Bowmore 12yo varied so much in taste from year to year, as did Laphroaig 10yo, just to give examples.

In some cases many of the batches mixed, vatted and bottled seemed to be different - so much so that the tasting notes would only apply to a particular bottle with a particular bottling code! For example I came across an Ardbeg 10yo once with a unique taste - this tasted much, much older than any previous I had tasted. All of that batch, with that bottling code, were the same - and the others with a different bottling code were totally different to this batch. I said to myself that whats the use of writing tasting notes down for an "Ardbeg 10yo" when the damn thing changed all the time, and my notes were valid only for a particular batch?

Could not bother writing down every bottlings batch codes as well, so I stopped collecting tasting notes, with the exception of single cask bottlings. Those always taste the same to each other, so they are truly consistent (but not blended) .

[Capn Jimbo]

The only reviewer that even attempts to keep up - and I'm amazed he has a liver left - is of course Serge of Whiskyfun. He recently exceeded 10,000 review notes, not to mention literally scads of other articles, music and the like.

This is why whisky is a rich man's sport in a good race, yes, but one that can't be won. As J has so well noted, this would require an absolutely massive inventory and still the blend must evolve. Seems to me a blender is left with two options:

1. To allow or even cause very gradual change, drawing from the inventory (and working closely with the master distiller to recreate it to the highest degree).

2. To simply shoot around the established profile bullseye in hopes of achieving a very narrow bell curve.

I suspect the first. An excellent thread, thanks to all for some great and educational posts..