Elements Eight Republica sees the UK based rum company move away from the island of St Lucia for the first time. Since launching in 2006 Elements Eight have focused on a range of rums solely from St Lucia Distillers. Following a re-launch and re-design of the rums range in 2016 Carl Stephenson, the founder of Elements Eight began thinking about releasing rums from other countries/regions.
Tag Archives: Rum
Some but maybe not all of you, will be familiar with Serge Valentin. Serge runs the extremely popular whisky website Whisky Fun. In recent years Serge has begun seeking out “Malternatives” often in the shape of rum.
Serge’s pocket sized reviews and commitment to the website mean that he publishes hundreds of notes every month. New reviews are published pretty much on a daily basis. Accurate, interesting tasting notes and an almost immediate assessment has ensured the sites popularity.
Diplomatico (or Botucal in Germany) Mantuano – meaning nobleman and also a cocoa producing town in Venezeula. Which is where Diplomatico rums are produced.
Diplomatico Mantuano was showcased at the London Rumfest in October 2016. It is a direct replacement for the companies Reserva rum. It has retained the orange parts of that rums colour scheme and the ornate rounded stubby bottle. I always feel these bottles look smaller than most 70cl bottles. Clearly this is an optical illusion as they hold the same amount of liquor.
Duncan Taylor are an Independent bottler of whisky and rum from Scotland. This is a Uitvlugt Demerara rum. Uitvlugt is the name of a now defunct distillery. Some of the stills from this distillery are now housed at Demerara Distillers Limited or the Diamond Distillery if you prefer.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine the exact origin of all the Independently bottled Demerara/Guyana rums. Not only are bottlers using non-standard terms. Some are using the old Distillery names, some the stills and others are just stating Diamond Distillery. There is also an issue with where the stills on which these rums were at the time of bottling. This is particularly confusing the older the rums are.
Botran are a rum brand from Guatemala. The rums are distilled at the same distilleries as Ron Zacapa – Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala.
Botran have had a few makeovers/changes in their line up over the past few years. Which has made researching this rum quite confusing to be honest!
As common with many Central American rums Botran adopt a Solera system. So whilst this rum is noted as Ron Anejo 12 in big letters on the bottle – the small print reveals Sistema Solera.
Destilleras Arehucas have been producing rum in the Canary Islands since 1884. So they have over 130 years of rum making experience.
Honey Rum (or Ron Miel) from the Canary Islands is quite famous. It is basically a golden rum blended with honey. The ABV of which is usually around the 20% mark. Making it more of a liqueur than a rum.