In 1884 Danish sailor Valdemar Hanschell created Cockspur rum in Barbados. The rum has been an integral part of island life ever since. Cockspur is distilled using, what at the time was considered a revolutionary continuous still, along with more traditional pot stills. Cockspur Fine Rum is the companies flagship brand. In most territories outside of Barabos it is to be found alongside their 12 year old rum (Cockspur 12/VSOR) and the companies more recent spiced variant (Cockspur Spiced). More information and background on the Cockspur brand is available at http://cockspurrum.com/home.
Tag Archives: Barbados
Rum Sixty Six is a 12 year old Bajan Rum from Richard Seale’s Foursquare Distillery who also produce Doorlys amongst others. The Foursquare distilleries rum are at the forefront of Bajan rum production and are respected and reviewed accordingly the world over.
Once again a discount led me to try this rum. Not online or in a Supermarket but in a local wine merchant I have recently discovered. If you are interested (and live in the North East of England) then here is the website http://www.thewinechambers.co.uk/. Please note the website shows only 4 rums but he does stock around 20. As good a selection as I’ve found in a physical shop. The rum was reduced to £30.99 (I’m such a sucker for a sale sticker I can’t even tell you what it was reduced from!).
Ahh Mount Gay that “hilariously” named rum that often leads to a myriad of puerile double entendres and unfunny jokes. Staple of Airport Duty Free’s and increasingly more and more present on the supermarket shelves in the UK. More often than not discounted by a few pounds from its £18 price tag.
A Spiced Rum from the Foursquare distillery in Barbados. This isn’t a rum that was introduced by the distillery to compete with Sailor Jerry or Kraken, its been around a while.
Highly regarded as a spiced rum, the rum comes in a slightly unusual tall bottle with a dripped wax sealing which covers a metallic screw top. The label is simple and understated. Unusual packaging is quite the distillery’s trademark (you would struggle to tell at a glance that any bottle is from the distillery, they do not have a formulaic appearance like Appleton for example).
The first rum I tried which wasn’t from a supermarket was a bottle of Chairman’s Reserve. Chairman’s Reserve is from St Lucia Distillers, as is this rum. The rum is “ACR” (Authentic Caribbean Rum) which is a accreditation system drawn up to identify a]Authentic Caribbean Rum. There is also a petition ongoing to save Authentic Caribbean Rum. Historically, Admiral Rodney is much the same as Captain Morgan (no not the actual rum). Admiral Rodney was the military governor of St Lucia after the British seized the island back from France in 1762.
Cockspur 12 (also Cockspur VSOR in some markets) is the premium rum of the Cockspur range (admittedly they only have 6 lines in total and at least one of those isn’t available outside of Barbados!).
It’s funny but despite Cockspur being my favourite sub £15 rum I didn’t actually have high hopes for this. I’m not sure why but I just thought that I would be left a disappointed by an “expensive” version of something I enjoyed so much in its cheapest form.
I had seen this rum on sale in M&S and came close to buying a bottle for £19. In the end I was persuaded that I didn’t need it by my wife (who had bought me it for Christmas). The rum usually retails at £22 for a 70cl bottle. As Marks and Spencer have recently begun stocking “brand name” goods I was slightly surprised to see the additions to their rum range were own brand offerings. Supermarket rum is not something which excites me, its cheaper than entry level branded rum and this is usually reflected in both taste and appearance. However, M&S is no ordinary supermarket and indeed this may well be no ordinary rum. Apologies to anyone with Albatross now running through their head…………