Artic Wolf: Finally discovers additives...

[Capn Jimbo]

The Wolfboy is trainable...


Regular readers may be aware that when Wolfie was a pup, I went to great lengths to open his eyes to the fact that most rums contain unlabeled additives including sugar, glycerol, and all manner of artificial and "natural" flavorings including wine.

This was done in the form of a months long, ongoing private e-mail exchange.

He loudly disputed the use of unlabeled additives, and rejected all the proof I supplied him. "Not so!", he insisted and refused to even trust his twisted, bitter tastebuds. But like his littermate Lance, apparently he too has come to finally accept at least some of the truths I presented to them both.

Check this out:

Artic Wolf: "There are at least a few companies who admit to adding sugar and other sweeteners to their rums (Most companies just keep mum on the subject).

According to the Tanduay Website, all of their rums are produced from four main ingredients, distilled alcohol (from sugar cane molasses), demineralized water, sugar, and the rather nebulous 'other ingredients'. The website explains that the distilled sugar cane molasses is aged in oak barrels for a minimum of two years for all their brands, after which it is blended with the aforementioned water, sugar, and those 'other ingredients'.

Legendario goes at the sweetness angle another way. Their Anejo rum is mixed with a small amount of muscatel wine. The final blended product is then rested (or married) in American oak barrels for 15 more days before being filtered and bottled.

But yes I believe that if sweeteners are added it would have to be after distillation and usually after aging."

BTW, all of this was published long, long ago here at the forum, and also at Lance's Liquorature, in great detail. Wolfboy reads both. In the same thread the Wolfboy actually highlighted the settled sugar he noted in his bottles of Pyrat and Zaya!

This is a far cry from his earlier protestations. To be fair, if he were honest (and hadn't been neutered), he'd have credited El Capitan. Oh well.

Still, Wolfie is trainable! But he isn't quite there, to wit...

With all of his knowing bluster he continues to ignore the elephant in the bottle: that none of these additives appear on the labels. The only difference between a bottle labeled "flavored rum" and one labeled "rum" is the label, not the similar contents.

What a joke. But give him another seven dog years...

[Capn Jimbo]

For the anal retentive...


Here's a part of my post over at the Liquorature, published in May of 2011...

Moi: "To sharpen the discussion, we should really consider why I consider Tanduay the poster boy for what’s wrong in the wacky world of rum. First, let’s consider what Tanduay calls the “rum” they make, from their website…

Tanduay states that their products are actually a mixture of purchased ingredients: “alcohol” (brought in by tankers from Asian Alcohol), “demineralized water”, “sugar” (from Victorias Milling Corp) and “other ingredients” (flavorings from International Flavors).

Their “rums” are literally assembled from these ingredients. Not what I consider a real rum at all, but more resembling a highly distilled, high alcohol, tasteless mass produced alcohol (hopefully cane based) to which other ingredients are added to create a rumlike profile. The mass of flavored and spiced rums are produced in a similar way.

There is a world of difference between pot or carefully stilled tasty rums distilled to lower proofs (which can stand on their own) and those mass produced column products in which every drop of alcohol is squeezed out to a relatively tasteless high proof, and which depend on the additives for flavor. Tanduay I think goes beyond this.

They do not even refer to purchased “rum”, but to purchased “alcohol” in their assembled recipe. A big red flag to all of us. Can it get worse?

Sure it can, and that’s when we all fall prey to the label of “rum” on the bottle, with little concern with what is actually in the bottle.

Look, I love and respect real, pure quality rum. But the only way the manufacturers and distributors will provide it is if we all work together to out the alterers and promote the good stuff.

Otherwise we get – Tanduay."