Mister Cocktail

Barbados is said to be the place where the history of rum started. A document found in 1651 stated: “The chief fuddling they make in the island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Divil, and this is mad of sugar canes distilled, a hot, hellish, and terrible liquor.”
Fortunately for us all this changed for the better and since then the category of rum has developed itself into the most diverse of all spirits. But above all: it became a way of life

The Grande Reserve Barbados 5 YO is one of the finest rums in the range of Rhum Plantation, a brand created by Pierre Ferrand, a French company also famous for making great Cognac. Their way of working is to blend rums that are specific to a region (for example Jamaica, Nicaragua, Guyana etc), age them together in oak barrels and ship this blend to France. There the blends are each put into old cognac-barrels for one more year.

The bottle: Most of the rums by Plantation are packed in a sleek, ling bottle, but the GRB5 is an exception to this. It’s a short bottle, for a bit more of that pirate-feeling. It’s packed in a straw netting and combined with the nice label, embossed logo and name of Plantation on the bottle, it’s sure to stand out in your liquor-cabinet. Also notice that the cork has a very tight fit, giving a nice pop when you pull it out, releasing some of the great flavours inside!
92/100

The nose: The nose of this rum is beautifully balanced: sweet notes like vanilla and butterscotch with a bit of coconut are accompanied by wood-tones coming from the oak-barrels that are used for the first 5 years. I also get sweet sherry-like tones from the fine cognacbarrel that is used for the last year.
94/100

The contents: The cognac-finish is very clear in the taste, with sweet notes like banana, toffee and coconut coming through. The taste is long, a bit sweet, yet wonderfully complex. Spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla make the complex part, alongside with fruits like banana and orange. The middle of the taste is a bit flat, but soon the aftertaste takes over. I love it how you can taste the minerals in the aftertaste: they stick in your mouth and keep adding flavour and depth. Try rubbing your tongue over your gums and notice how much flavour there is left from the rum (or that a strange suggestion?)
93/100

The mixability: This rum is great as a sipping rum, but it provides a great cocktail ingredient as well. There’s a whole range of grateful tropical cocktail, perfect to prepare with the Grande Reserve. I gave it a try in the Mai Tai, for which I found a great easy-to-make recipe by Max La Rocca (who’s cocktail the Irish Mermaid I reviewed yesterday), which is a simplified take on the David Wondrich Mai Tai. Perfect to try at home!

Overall: This is one rum that you’ll never regret to have bought. You’ll probably recommend it to friends and buy a second bottle when your first one is finished. I know I have! Because of the great versatility you can use it in so many different ways and on different moments
93/100

Method:

Combine 50 ml/1.6 oz Plantation Grande Reserve Barbados 5 YO, 15 ml/0.5 oz Dry Curacao, 15 ml/0.5 oz fresh limejuice and 15 ml/0.5 oz orgeat syrup in a shaker. Shake well and strain in a tumbler filled with icecubes. Crushed ice is even better, but don’t go out of your way to smash your precious icecubes if you’re low on those. Do you have some mint lying around, or growing on your balcony/garden? Grab a nice sprig to garnish the cocktail with! Enjoy!

The history of the brand Bacardi started exactly 150 years ago, when Facundo Bacardi launched his rums on Cuba. He became one of the pioneers in the production of modern rum, which earned him and the company several golden medals on World Expo’s in the 1800s and early 1900s. A few of those you can still find on the label of all Bacardi Rums. In 1888, Bacardi was appointed purveyor of the Royal Spanish Household, which explains the royal seal of Spain that you can also find on the label. From that time on, Bacardi has become the world’s best selling rum, making it an easy target for critics. So how good is this rum anyway?

The bottle: The 8 Anos bottle is differently shaped from the other expressions: short and wide, as opposed to the Bacardi Superiór, which is long and sleek. The name 8 Anos is more visual than the brandname, and together with the thick yellowed paper with goldfoil and embossed print it looks very much like an old rum. It also says Casa Fundada en Cuba (if you’re not living in the U.S. anyway), but it’s not produced there anymore, thanks to Mr Castro – Puerto Rico is now the main location where 8 Anos is produced.
89/100

The nose: I really love it when the base of the rum, the molasses, shines through: this contains not only sugar, but also minerals and you can really smell this in the Bacardi 8 anos. Besides the sweet wood & vanilla notes, from the white oak-barrels, I get licorice, dark chocolate and a bit of salt.
95/100

The contents: The rum opens beautifully in the mouth, with tropical fruit, like banana and apricot at first. The complex taste in it comes from the minerals in the molasses: little salty, bitter chocolate and some raisin and prune as well, all in great balance with the sweet wood notes from the white oak-casks.
93/100

The mixability: This rums equals fine cognac and whisky, making it perfect to sip, with or without ice. Because of the somewhat sweet taste, together with the more complex undertones, it’s also great to use in drinks that would call for Bourbon or Cognac. I want to share with you the Rum Old Fashioned (the easy recipe, not the 5-minute version, I’ll give you that some other time):
Take one sugarcube and soak it in Angostura Bitters. When fully soaked, discard the excess fluid en add just a drop (10 ml/0.3 oz) water. Then crush the sugarcube and add a few icecubes. Give a short stir and add 60 ml / 2 oz Bacardi 8 Anos. Also add 1 nice dash of Orange bitters if you have some at home and stir all well together. The final step is to make a zest of orange of 1 x 2 inch/2×5 cm and squeeze this over the glass. You can even use this as a decoration.

The name says it all: it is the selection of handpicked barrels by the Maestros de Ron – the masterblenders of the Havana Club distillery. Becoming a Maestro de Ron is quite an ordeal: it takes more than 15 years to learn from other maestros before you can call yourself one, and then there”s only just 6 of them. They are led by Don Jose Navarro and together they select the barrels for this rum, after which they are blended and aged for some more time in younger bourbon and whisky barrels to give more woodtaste to the rum. After that, the barrels are selected again and the contents blended until perfection. At 45 % ABV or 90 proof it is bottled straight from the barrel. This rum is not entirely new: it was named Barrel Select at first, but now stylishly redesigned and renamed.

The Bottle: The design of the bottle has been done very well. It starts quite wide, just below the neck and finishes almost 1 inch less wide in a thick glass bottom. The simple, yet stylish label carries a small logo of HC and a smaller label below with Selección de Maestros embossed. You can put this right next to your top-shelf Single Malt Whiskies and XO Cognacs.
93/100

The nose: A subtle sweetness first comes to mind with notes of raisins, tobacco and smokey wood. The strong abv (45 % vol or 90 proof) is very much in balance with the aromas. After adding some drops of water you will notice that the flavours are released a bit faster.
89/100

The contents: The texture of the liquid is silky smooth, with a rich sweetness of caramel and cacao.  Again, the tobacco notes come through, just like hints of dried fruit (mango, raisin). The taste is quite complex but very much balanced with a pleasantly sweet aftertaste that still carries the smokey wood flavours.
89/100

The mixability: just a drop of water or a solid cube of ice will do: treat it like you would treat a very good single malt whisky: enjoy the pure spirit with just very little dilution to release the flavours.

It just happens to be Founders Day for Bacardi, which means that on this day in 1862 the first rum of Facundo Bacardi was officially brought to market. Which happens to be exactly 150 years ago. Double party!
And what better way to celebrate in style, then with the Bacardi Cocktail.

Created in 1917 in Cuba, it quickly gained in popularity troughout the USA during the prohibition, as Cuba was a great safe haven for US citizens looking for a drink and a party. After the prohibition, the rum was sometimes replaced by a different one, leading to a lawsuit in 1937 against a New York-hotel. Bacardi succesfully claimed that in order to call a drink The Bacardi Cocktail, it needs to contain, well, Bacardi.

Method:

Simply shake 50 mls of Bacardi Superiór, 25 mls of fresh limejuice (about 1 lime), and 10 mls of Grenadine in a shaker with loads of ice. Shake it well and long and strain in a cocktailglass. No garnish needed here, unless you happen to have a jar of cherries in your fridge.
Easy.