Running out of Room Dept aka How to Review Flavored Rums

[Capn Jimbo]

So...how to review flavored rum?


Answer: you don't, or shouldn't really. Todays subject came up when I did my weekly pass through the usual simian sites and discovered a couple things:

1. First, that Capn Morgan is shooting to squeeze Bacardi and Fortune by quickly assembling a bunch of new "spiced" and "flavored rums - these designed for a marketing push for summer drinking.

2. Second, that apparently the Frozen Furry One has simply run out of rums to taste, and seems to have turned his focus to these super-fauxed up "rums".

Thus the Furball has now moved his focus to the only rums that (a) are left and (b) that are "new". These new rums are of course flavored/spiced and likewise, are all cheap, column-stilled near vodka made "tasty" with flavor by Dupont. Its just like Wall Street - when there are no real businesses to grow, you create artificial investment vehicles and slice, dice and leverage them. Betting on betting, not reality.

Same for what will be a new blast of phony, made up, artificially flavored rums. Which begs the question?


How the fack can anyone actually review them?

Here's the deal. The Fat Frozen One (no, not the Fat One) gives each one his usual "reviewing" faux-protocol. First he regurgitates their marketing copy for a free ad. Then he dutifully states his usual opposition to metal screw caps (for a cheap flavored?), and then makes his laundry list of his usual impressions, often reflecting the bitterness that the minority of supertasters (bittermouth) often find. I wonder, why?

"Reviewing Flavored Rums" is completely a matter of personal preference, which as most of us understand has no business in a review. What real reviewers are after is a notion of basic quality in producing these, so the real issues that need to be addressed for flavored/spiced are:

1. First and foremost are the spices and flavorings real, not artificial or the abused "natural" flavors? The primary question.

2. Second and just as important is the rum base. Reviewers need to address the rum used, how it was made and aged. Pot or column and distilled to what percentage? Can the rum stand on its own, or is it simply a near vodka carrier?

3. Last is our old arch enemy, sugar. Now, now, of course there will be sugar in almost any manufactured product. Such products are not made like your mother cooks, or your granddad distilled out back. They use FAR more sugar, fat and salt and the new coming deluge of "new" summer rums are just as guilty. Thus, reviewers should make every attempt to determine sugar content by checking ALKO, etc., and/or writing their ass-kissing rep or distributor. They should have vision and palate enough to detect copious sugar anyway.



Now that's the kind of review I'd like to see. The question I have for you: what to you makes or would make a fine flavored or spiced rum? And kindly give some examples if you will...

[The Black Tot]

When it comes to the reviewing of flavored rums, my favorite Bukowkski quote comes immediately to mind:

"Let them have the stage, so long as I need not be in the audience"