The Cane Spirit Society is a group of rum enthusiasts that got together in order to purchase rare bottles, sample and discuss them. Our first session featured a couple of delicious rums from Belize (read about it here) and now, coming from the second session, I’ll be talking about a long-aged rum from the mysterious New Yarmouth Distillery. For those you haven’t hear about New Yarmouth, it’s a distillery located in the Clarendon Parish in Jamaica and it’s owned by the Campari Group alongside Appleton – this is where the legendary Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum is made. There aren’t a lot of ..read more

Another named Foursquare Exceptional Cask Selection release, another Google search to find out what it means. “Equipoise” means “balance of forces or interests” or simply “a state of equilibrium” – I just took the first two results, but it does make sense since most of the Foursquare limited edition releases are pretty well balanced in flavour profile. This marks (hehe) the 25th bottling from the well regarded Exceptional Cask Selection and the very first release from the distillery that uses maturation in Calvados barrels. This is a blend of two components, one that has been aged for 10 year ..read more

I have to say the Rum Show is easily one of my favourite rum events out there, hence why I’m doing my best to experience it every year. This year I was there both days, one of them enjoying the event to the fullest and the other just working the bar on site on behalf of Trailer Happiness. This was the 4th Rum Show, with the first one being an online session during the Covid period. Once again the event took place at the Glaziers Hall near London Bridge and it featured over 350 different rums. The schedule was as it follows: Friday 5th of July: 12:00pm to 4:00pm open for trade/industry and 5p ..read more

The Mamy Wata White Rum comes from a new company called Socially Spirited. Their aim is to provide easy to use ingredients for making drinks in the comfort of your home. They have visited multiple spirits producers for the past 18 months in order to create new and interesting bottlings – if you visit their website they have quite an array of products which are quite unique, but my plan is to have a look at their rum. Mamy Wata is inspired by the legend of the river mermaid, a temptress who guards the waterways from southern Africa to the Caribbean and protects the rivers from those with harmf ..read more

It’s been around 6 years since I tried the Foursquare 2005 for the very first time and I remember how it blew my mind. That’s why, if nothing else, I always try to keep an eye out for these yearly vintages coming out of Barbados. This expression is part of Foursquare Distillery’s Exceptional Cask Selection (ECS) and, while this is the 24th release of the range, the vintage itself is only number 8. All of the vintages are aged in ex-Bourbon barrels in the tropical climate of Barbados and, since the 2005 bottling, all of them have had a fixed maturation time of 12 years – yet you can almost alw ..read more

When someone asks me what my favourite rum is, I usually say “rum from Guyana”. I find Guyanese rum very interesting due to its heritage and distillation equipment, so I decided this would be a good time to have a look at the whole El Dorado range and compare them. El Dorado is the main export brand of Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) and is made at Diamond Distillery in Guyana. The “Demerara Rum” moniker refers to the distillery’s location on the East Bank of the Demerara River and is a registered Geographical Indication designation. While nowadays Guyana has only one rum producing distille ..read more

Now here’s a rum I wasn’t really aware of until I attended the Paris Rhum Fest 2024. This is a brand hailing from Disaronno which might already raise some eyebrows, but you shouldn’t dismiss it until you try it. Rump@ablic was launched in 2022 in both Italy and France and it will make its debut to the UK in July – I heard the launch party is at Trailer Happiness, just saying. They are acting as an independent bottler, sourcing rums from various producers for their Origin, Mixology and Sicilian Legacy ranges. The Sicilian Legacy Line, which is the equivalent of their premium range, is a collec ..read more

A while ago, the Rum Reverend himself, Roger Barnes, told me he wants to put together a group of people with excellent taste in rum in order to do together what individually would be almost impossible. I know it sounds quite Avenger-y, but his idea was for all of us to pool money together in order to purchase bottles that are usually out of one person’s budget. That’s how the Cane Spirit Society was born and we managed to have our first tasting on the 10th of April (2024) at Trailer Happiness. We went with comparing two rums from Belize, both from the same year, with the same age, but bottled ..read more

I had Jaz Anand from Skylark Spirits message me about having a look at his Rum Discovery Box. Skylark Spirits are importers and distributors of rum spirits and rum related products – and also some great people to hang around with and have a tot. This won’t be an actual scored review, it’s just me having a look at the contents and giving my opinion. The Rum Discovery Box contains a total of 10 different samples of rums and flavoured rums all with various profiles and styles. The box is available in 2 sizes, one in which the sample bottles measure 2cl each and one in which they measure 5cl each ..read more

Now this should be an interesting one as it comes from a small company that sells both rum and cigars. Number 11 was founded by 2 friends, Tony and Matt, who met on a holiday in Morocco in 2012. Given their shared passion for spirits and cigars they started traveling together in order to explore these categories more. As their experience accumulated they decided they should try and create a brand that deals with drinks and cigars themselves. I’ve been told it would be ideal to try the No. 11 Premium Blended Rum with one of their cigars, hence why they also sent me a No. 11 Artisan Cigar, Prem ..read more