Let's start with Barbancourt's 150th anniversary, which they are reputed to be celebrating with a lovely and expensive looking glass decanter, apparently available only in Haiti. Unfortunately, there's no description of the contents.
Next is a long rumoured new operation in Aussieland, headed by a former Bunbdaberg employee named Rick Prosser, an item I'm sure of interest to our good friend da'Rum. An interesting quote:
The system of bond guarantees real age while the spirit is held for later release and payment of taxes. Although legal and available in the U.S. it is notable that not a single rum chooses to use it here, particularly since the basis of this old law was lobbied by honest distillers to eliminate fraud. Today bond is avoided by the very same distillers for uh, the same reason." But Mr Prosser says the first task will be finding the land on which to build the new venture.
"The first goal is to build a bondstore," he said.
"Once we've got a bondstore we can start building vats to warehouse the spirits."
A bondstore, he explained, is where the alcohol is kept under bond because the excise and taxes on it have not yet been paid to the government.
Then he plans to start looking for a still.
Mr Prosser said the search for a still would probably take him to Tasmania, which had a really good and active distilling community."
And a bonus... from Tanduay.
And last is the appearance of Tanduay in the United States and available at Total Wine & Spirits (and I assume elsewhere). Tanduay is the largest distiller of rum in the world and has spent big bucks for a whole new look, website and pitch, but how 'bout that product? A fair question for a company whose old site and products were highly, highly disconcerting as then Tanduay actually admitted and bragged of their highly industrial product in a process which they bragged of "alcohol imported in tankers" from a conglomerate called "Asian Alcohol", and lliterally assembled with sugar and flavorings to make what they called rum.
They even bragged that their cheap recycled bottles were 33% of the cost of rum. But that was then and now is now and they have taken sight at the American market by selling not "rum" but what they call "Asian Rum" (remember "Brazilian Rum").
Their new American marketing department obviously deep-sixed the old site and hunted down and destroyed every single electron having to do with it for obvious reasons. Compare to the new copy and look, but bring your barf bag. Tanduay Silver and Gold sell at Total Wine for $22 each and make misleading claims of age of "up to five years" for the silver, and "up to seven" for the gold.
This from a company whose rums have been simply horrible and designed for a very poor marketplace, and whose age statements seemed made from whole cloth. But one fact IS indisputable: they are the largest, and today money can buy anything - politicians, laws, and the disappearing of an embarassing past. Interestingly though both Josh at Inu a Kena and the BTI both gave these rums respectable scores in the very high 80's.
Is it possible Tanduay has established a completely different product for the US, or is the only change the marketing and packaging? You decide...
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Links:
New Tanduay: www.tanduay.com
Old but recent Tanduay: disappeared!
Brilliant discussion with JaRiMi: http://rumproject.com/rumforum//viewtop ... ht=tanduay
BTI: http://www.tastings.com/search_spirits. ... oreForSort
Josh: http://inuakena.com/spirit-reviews/rum- ... mment-6107
