Several weeks ago I found myself staring at all the spiced rums on my rumshelf in my tasting room. I had a little over 20, and most of them were barely touched. I had done my review for each, made a cocktail or two, and then sealed the bottles and moved on. I even had several full bottles that had were still sealed as often when samples are sent to me, the producer sends two bottles rather than one. While staring at the spirits the thought occurred to me that perhaps I ought to do something constructive with my spiced rum selection. So, I decided that I should re-taste all of these rums, create new tasting notes, and update my reviews especially as I was curious how the older reviews would stand up.
Those who are regular readers know that I like to present the results from these types of exercises in a ‘Countdown’ format, and so during the next two months I shall be present the results, one spiced rum at a time, beginning with the rum which ranked 20th on my newly created list, then work my way down to the spiced rum which I feel is the best in my tasting room. As I publish the new reviews, I will be replacing my older review with the newer ones such that by the time I am done, all of the reviews will be updated with the new tasting notes and scores. (In a few cases when the older review stands up well with my current thoughts (especially of the published review is current) I have left the older review as it is.)
Today I shall begin with the Rum which ranked Number 20, on my Rum Howler 2016 Spiced Rum Countdown, the Kraken Black Spiced Rum, here is the new review:
#20 The Kraken Black Spiced Rum
I hope you all find this countdown enjoyable and you can follow the rankings here:
Tequila 
For my sweetener, I chose to add a touch of Pierre Ferrand Dry Orange Curacao to an equal amount of simple sugar syrup. I felt too much orange liqueur would take more than it would give to the spirit, and too little would not provide the enhancement I was looking for. Fees Cocktail Bitters were chosen for their overt cinnamon flavour which I felt worked well with the main flavours within the tequila as well as with the orange accent of sweetener and garnish.
Hacienda Corralejo was established in 1775 by Don Pedro Sanchez de Tagle in the Mexican State of Guanajuato. The distillery (Nom 1368 CRT) uses traditional methods of fermentation and distillation with clay ovens used to cook the agave and copper pot stills used for the distillation.
The Deep Blue Good-bye is the first of 21 novels in the Travis McGee series written by American author 
The Rum Howler Blog 