The Legendary Alnwick Rum. The Spirit of Northumberland. I reviewed this just over three years ago. At the time it seems I wasn’t all that impressed. I re-visited The Legendary Alnwick Rum because its very easy to get ahold of up here in the North East. I was also a little concerned that I had underestimated it.

The reason I feared I had underestimated it was that I had done the same with Woods Navy Rum (that is another rum which I will be “re-reviewing” soon).

The Legendary Alnwick Rum is a blend of Demerara and Jamaican rum. In 2016 it was re-branded and the bottle shape was changed (again similar to Woods). However, unlike Woods they did state that the blend had also changed.

The Alnwick Rum Company stated that they had re-blended the rum to make it taste more like it had in times gone by. Harking back to a more traditional style. I’ll be upfront – it is so long since I last had Alnwick Rum I cannot make any direct comparisons between the new blend and the old blend. You may have already worked out that I found my latest bottle of Alnwick Rum much better than the previous one.

Whether this is down to the new blend, a better appreciation of rum or just being a bit grumpy at the time of the review – I don’t know!

The Legendary Alnwick Rum will set you back around £30 for a 70cl stubby style bottle. I didn’t mind the old labelling but the new synthetic cork stopped stubby bottle is an improvement on the old screw cap bar bottle. Alnwick Rum is bottled at a more than reasonable 43% ABV which for a rum available in the Supermarket is pretty rare.

The exact blend of Alnwick Rum is a secret so I don’t have a great deal of information on the blends components other than they are from Guyana (Demerara) and Jamaica. I would hazard a guess that the Demerara component is from the DDL Metal Coffey Still and the Jamaican element will have come from Clarendon/Monymusk. These are just wild guesses though. Pictured to the left is the old style bottle (it may not be to the left on mobile devices).

In the glass we have a very dark rum – not doubt it has been coloured as the Jamaican rum would never get this dark and the Guyanese element is too young. Thought its likely that if any rum was coloured at source it will be the effort from DDL.

This is Myers’s or Captain Morgan Original dark. Almost black. Very, very dark brown with a deep dark blood rum flash.

The nose is equally as dark – deep and rich with a lot of bitter sweet almost licorice like notes.  A nice waft of oak and a touch of tobacco. The sweetness is helped along by a healthy burst of Dark Brown sugar. A sweetened coffee note and some raisins and currants.

Further nosing reveals more of the Jamaican influence with some stewed bananas and hints of pineapple. It’s quite molasses heavy with a lot of that Dark gloopy syrup shining through. Reminiscent of Myers’s but with perhaps a bit more complexity overall. There is a refreshing amount of oak spice, which suggests at least some ageing of the rum.

Sipped the rum shows a little more of its relative youth. At 43% ABV it shows a bit extra heft than your standard 37.5 or 40% offerings. It’s quite bitter to take neat as a sipper. A lot of the notes on the nose are perhaps lost a little. Water helps a bit but also makes it that bit weaker. It’s a little tarry. There are some fruity notes – nice molasses caramel and toffee along with rum/raisin ice cream.

Mixed with cola the molasses and raisins really come to the forefront. The spicy oak adds a really nice warming complexity to the rum. This is a great winter rum and very much of its place. The Jamaican elements are nice. It’s pretty much what Captain Morgan Dark really should be. It’s a surprise how good this is. Along with Jeffersons’ its a relatively unheralded (outside of its own locality) or unheard of rum.

Similar to Jeffersons a really great blend for a fancy Jamaica/Demerara like rum and coke. The two islands rums in the blend really work well together to make some great mixed drinks. Rum and Cola and a Dark and Stormy are both great like this.

I really got this rum all wrong the first time I reviewed it.