A premium rum from Angostura (of Angostura Bitters fame) from the home Dwight Yorke. 1919 is the year this blend of rum was first casked. The rum is aged 8 years in (what else) ex Bourbon barrels. The bottle states that they believe it “will be the smoothest rum you have ever tasted with notes of oak, cocoa and vanilla”.
After noticing the “Ron De Jeremy” Panamanian rum whilst browsing on Amazon, I felt the need to try a Panamanian rum. There are only so many Bajan, Jamaican or Demerara rums you can try before you think they all taste fairly similar and you aren’t really getting anything different for your money.
I was originally going to get a bottle of Goslings Black Seal 151 rum (I’ve seen tried it in a miniature) but I noticed that one of the online stockists seemed to have made a mistake in pricing this (getting it mixed up with the Underpoof version I suspect) and thus I picked this up for £20 rather than around £33. I love a bargain me!
The infamous Wray and Nephew White Overproof rum has been available in the UK via Tesco for some years now. I imagine this is due to its huge popularity in Jamaica where it counts for 90% of all rum sales.
At 63% its not for the faint hearted, mind you neither is the packaging! It’s bold and slightly brassy. However the distinctive green and yellow bottle does stand out especially amongst the other white rums on the shelf. Rather than a metal screw cap it has a plastic screw cap and a diffuser in the neck of the bottle. This means the rum cannot be poured quite as quickly. At 63% ABV this is not necessarily a bad thing. A 70cl bottle costs around £25 in the UK. It is more expensive than other White Rums on the supermarket shelf but the extra ABV must be taken into account. You have in theory over a litre of a more standard 37.5-40% ABV white mixing rum in this bottle. View it as being concentrated.
This is the entry level rum in the Diplomatico range. If I’d been told a few years ago that one day I would be savouring one of Venezuela’s biggest exports I would have been gobsmacked (and worried about what exactly it might entail!).
As far as “entry level” rum is concerned this is a very good start on anyone’s rum journey. The rum is around the £22 mark, which is more expensive than other “entry level” rums such as Appleton Special, Mount Gay Eclipse, Cockspur 5 star and Brugal. However, I’m not sure what the cheapest Venezuelan rum is……
Read other blogs etc and you’ll see a war of words over what this rum actually is. Is it Cuban or is it Dominican? Should it be called a Cuban rum? Blah,blah,blah
In all honesty this is the pointless bickering which pisses me off and makes me quickly leave some rum blogs and forums. I worry for people who some things are really so important in their lives. I’ll still have my say on the subject but I certainly won’t be drawn into an argument with regard my opinion.