Simple. If the Lone Caner had his way, any red-assed monkey could follow his 5000 words of rambling in his "Guide to Reviewing" and somehow, yup, present him or herself as yet another self-appointed, self-published rum reviewer. God help us. But we all know the truth. No one will ever really read or follow the Caner's massive missive; thus, we are safe!
But along came the Fat Rum Pirate. Just like most of the few wannabees like the Frozen One, the Caner, et al, he too started out at the Shillery. The goal is to somehow promote your own site while simultaneously managing to avoid being liberated by the Preacher. In the old days, this was quite a trick, but a fair number of them succeeded.
The Rum Project was an exception, as I quickly reached the point where I simply couldn't stomach the Shillery's drivel, erased all my posts and resigned. Of course the Preacher couldn't have that, so he worked around the clock to save a few posts, so that he could maintain his illusion that he'd "liberated me".
These days though, he must be desperate for posters, so he now allows the Fatrumpirate to blatantly link his site with no pretense whatsoever. The Chubster engaged me in a series of emails to register here, but it became clear his goal was not really to participate, not to mention the general misunderstanding he had of rum, and general avoidance of the main issue: unlabelled additives.
So why the review?
Simple. I checked recently and was shocked that he'd rapidly reviewed about 90 rums - certainly enough to demand a review if only to protect the public. The results...
. . . . . . .
Here goes. The Fat One is noted in "red". Compare to the same number of rums in a normal distribution (blue). Fatty's distribution is "squashed" and is absolutely not normal. Here are the reasons:
1. First of all, this reviewer makes perfectly clear in his site's headline that his site is "An Unsophisticated Review of the World of Rum". It is.
2. He also makes clear that his reviews are purely personal preference. There is no pretense or effort to review rums in accord with their actual and comparative qualities, or with real accuracy. If he likes it, good. If not, bad.
So how about his preferences? First, he's not much bothered by sugar, although he does take an isolated swipe at Diplomatico, an easy target. He takes no note of the now well known ALKO and other reliable government testing for sugar and other solids. Further, he tends to add an ice cube, and like a certain Canadian reviewer, he also has a tendency to prefer rum with cola.
Ouch! There's also a certain age and price bias at times, and he tends to like sweet and smooth. As a result, some very worthy pure rums suffer as do cane juice rums (and for the same reason).
Flat Ass Bottom LIne
At least the Fat Rum Pirate is honest. He doesn't pretend to review anything but his still limited experience and understanding, based solely on his very personal preference. This accounts for the squashed curve, as it is only a matter of random selection whether he personally likes a rum. Because he is choosing from a variety of styles, lumps sugared products in with pure ones, cane juice with molasses, flavored and overproof, it is impossible for the ratings to be normally distributed.
Had he stuck to say, just one unaltered style, the results might have been different. While he claims his ratings should be ignored, he goes to great length to post them, along with - a voting scheme - so that we also learn what a bunch of visiting monkeys think.
What we are missing is unbiased competence. In truth, the Fat One is a perfect example of what the Lone Caner's guide to being a reviewer may lead to. Heaven help us.
Sorry my friend: I hate to say it but you need to spend more time learning how to taste and evaluate before you waste much more time and effort. It's not that hard...
Score: two stars (five is best). Using his own system, the Pirate gets two for some decent writing and information and for effort. But what we don't need is yet another personal preference, self-admitted "unsophisticated" and thus misleading "reviews". The Lone Caner should take note.
*******
http://thefatrumpirate.com/
