Last night I hosted a New Years Eve Celebration for my friends and family. Nothing too outrageous, just a nice get together with about 20 attendees, some new friends, and some old friends. Most of the night was just sitting around the table swapping stories and reminiscing and the only scheduled activities were the two separate tastings I hosted in my brand new Tasting room that I had built last year in my basement.
Participating in the tastings was completely optional, some of my guest were acting as designated drivers, and some just wanted to hang out and relax enjoying each others company rather than sitting down for a formal tasting. This meant that when we sat down for the Rum Tasting at 9:00, there were 9 of my friends who wanted to participate. (This actually worked out pretty well as I only had room around my tasting table for 10 people.)
New Year’s Eve Rum Tasting in the Rum Howler Tasting Room
I chose three of my favourite rums for the event, Appleton Estate Rare Blend 12 Year Old, Flor de Caña 12 Centenario, and El Dorado 12 Year Old. All three rums are pretty much the same age, and all three are in the same price range in my market (about 45 dollars per bottle). However, they are three very different rums.
Appleton Estate 12 Year Old is crafted in small batches. The rum produced from two different styles of rum, flavourful Jamaican Pot Still Rum, and a light column distilled rum. The rum is dry and full of flavour. This is also a true 12 Year Old spirit as the Appleton Estate website informs us that it all of the rums which make up this blend are each aged at least 12 years.
Sunset in the Nassau Valley home of Appleton Estate Rum
Flor de Caña 12 Centenario is a column distilled rum. This means it has a lighter body and flavour than a rum featuring pot distilled spirit in its blend. The number 12 on the label is representative of the average age of the rums in the blend with some variation in the actual age based upon blending to a consistent flavour profile. It is also somewhat sweeter than the Appleton Rum. It is not a sweet rum mind you, but there is some sweetness apparent in the flavour profile.
Flor de Caña 12 is part of the company’s Ultra Premium aged rum collection
El Dorado 12 Year Old Special Reserve Rum is similar to the Appleton rum in that it has both Pot distilled rum and column distilled rum in its blend.Aged stocks (the youngest being no less than 12 years old) from the original Wooden Enmore Coffey still, the original metal Diamond Coffey still, as well as from the ancient Port Mourant double wooden pot still which was used to produce ‘navy’ rum for the English Admiralty are each used in the blending recipe. However, the El Dorado Rum is quite a bit sweeter than either the Flor de Cana or the Appleton Rum.
That’s me in Guyana where I visited the El Dorado Rum facilities and learned about their wonderful rums.
Thus the line-up I chose gave each of my guests a different flavour profile and a different level of sweetness with each selection. My goal was to show everyone that rum in not a uniform spirit, and by tasting all three, and comparing the profiles each of them might find a style that suits them.
The results were (as I expected) quite varied, 5 of my guests selected the Flor de Caña 12 Centenario as their favourite, 3 chose the El Dorado 12 Year Old Special Reserve and 2 chose the Appleton Estate Rare Blend 12 Year Old.
Interestingly enough, the 2 who chose the Appleton Rum were the 2 seasoned rum enthusiasts, or perhaps I should say, the two in the room who had the most experience with rum. Of the 3 who chose the El Dorado Rum, 2 of them were completely new to the spirit. The 5 who chose the Flor de Cana Rum represented a blend of both rum enthusiasts and persons who were not unfamiliar with the spirit but who might normally choose whisky instead.
With only 10 persons in the room it is hard to draw conclusions, but the trend I saw was that persons new to rum preferred the sweeter South American style, persons who might be whisky enthusiasts or part time rum enthusiasts preferred the lighter Central American style, and self avowed rum enthusiasts seemed to prefer the full flavoured dry Jamaican style.
These results are interesting although with such a small sample size they are hardly conclusive. Still I thought that sharing them was worthwhile.
Flor de Caña
Flor de Caña has a history of rum production which is dated to 1890 at the San Antonio Sugar Mill, in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua. The company was founded by Francisco Alfredo Pellas and today, over 120 years later, the company is led headed by the fifth generation of the Pellas family. It has grown to be not only one of Central America’s leading brands of rum, it is also one of the most recognized rum brands in the world. According to the company website, all of the Flor de Caña rum is produced from molasses which is made from sugar cane harvested in fields adjacent to the distillery in Chichigalpa. This molasses is fermented and then distilled five times in a continuous column still. The resulting distillate is laid down to age in small American white oak barrels in traditional aging warehouses built without air conditioning in an undisturbed environment.
Flor de Caña
I am continuing my weekly step through the 
The Rum Howler Blog 