During the last several years, Christmas Advent Calendars have become all the rage. In fact for each of the last four years, my wife Maureen has gone all in and provided an individual advent calendar for everyone in the family. I am not sure where she finds the time to shop for everything, but on the morning of the first day of December, she unveils a mid-sized gift bag for each of my children (as well as one for yours truly) full of individually gift wrapped presents with a theme chosen for each of us. Of course, it has become my responsibility to reciprocate and in my house at least, Christmas has been extended to a month-long celebration.

This year, I am going to be blessed with two Advent Calendars. One of course will be given to me by Maureen despite my protestations that perhaps I do not need the double blessing, and the other was provided by 1423 World Class Spirits who recently sent me 2 versions of their 24 Days of Rum – The Original Rum Tasting Box. Actually with two versions of the 24 Days of Rum, I guess technically I will have three Advent Calendars in all. I really will have to convince Maureen that I do not need to spoiled any further (fat chance).

It was Glenn Rosenkjær who contacted me on behalf of 1423 World Class Spirits several weeks ago. His request was pretty simple, could he send me a free sample of his Original Rum Tasting Box for the purpose of a review on my website. There were a few logistical hurdles since 1423 World Class is located in Denmark, and it is notoriously hard for companies from abroad to send samples into Canada. Making a long story short, we overcame the hurdles and since 1423 makes a slightly different Rum Tasting Box for the USA (50 ml sample bottles) than it does for Europe (20ml sample bottles) Glenn decided to send me one of each version.

Included in the information Glenn sent to me was a press release which explained the 24 Days of Rum concept. According to that presser:

1423 World Class Spirits, one of Denmark’s leading rum companies, has announced its 2019 tasting box, 24 Days of Rum. Designed to share, it comes with two stylish tasting glasses two tasting notes booklets, and its own dedicated website (www.24daysofrum.com) where you can learn more about each chosen rum throughout the month of December. The Tasting Box is available in 20 Countries throughout Europe, Canada and now for the first time ever in the United States where it can be purchased in LA and Nevada.

24 Days of Rum – The Original Rum Tasting Box is of course a Christmas Advent Calendar which features 24 different premium rums from 24 different countries throughout the world. Simply put, it is the perfect advent gift for a rum geek like myself.

I don’t want to give too much away, or spoil any of the surprises, but when I began to examine my first gift box (for the purpose of this review you understand) I was blown away. You see, I have sampled a lot of rums during the past 10 years. I think a conservative guess would be that I have tasted well over 400 different rums from many parts of the world. So I was expecting to see many familiar faces. That’s not the case here at all. Of the 24 rums in the gift box, there were only 8 which were from rum producers I was familiar with, and of those there were only 4 that I had tasted before. Wow! 20 rums I have never before sampled, and 16 from spirits companies unfamiliar to me.

There is a 7 Year Old Rum from Ecuador, a 12 Year Old Rum from Suriname, a well aged Dark Rum from the Philippines, and even a sample of Premium Rum from Nepal. I did not even know they made rum in Nepal!

According to Glenn Rosenkjær, the rums were chosen not only to represent spirits from all over the world, they were also specifically chosen to represent a variety of premium, aged, high quality rum. As such, there are no white rums or spiced rums included this year. Selections were made to ensure that some of the industries top brands such as Mount Gay, Chairman’s Reserve, Clément, Pusser’s and Abuelo were represented. As well, attention was paid to balance the selections such that 50% of the Rum Advent would represent dry rums and 50 % could be considered sweet. Most importantly, this year’s 24 Days of Rum – The Original Rum Tasting Box contains no spirits previously chosen in earlier selections. If you received the Rum Box last year, this year’s Rum Box will be entirely new.

I don’t really have a scoring system for this type of product; but I think you can tell from my enthusiasm, that on a 5 star rating system 24 Days of Rum – The Original Rum Tasting Box earns all five stars.

Frankly, I cannot wait to begin tasting each rum; and in fact, I am going to invite all of you to join along with me this December as I try to provide brief tasting notes and review scores for as many of these selections as I can throughout the month of December. These tasting notes will be available for each rum on a daily basis on my blog from December 1st to the 24th.  I might not get to every spirit, but I am going to try. Hopefully I find a few gems during my investigations.

Note: The differences between the North American and European versions of 24 Days of Rum – The Original Rum Tasting Box seem to be a result of differing bottling and labeling requirements in the two jurisdictions. As a result, the American version contains larger sample bottles (50ml) than the European version (20ml). The North American box also reveals the contents of the Advent Calendar while the European Version does not. Neither box reveals the order of the samples. Of course this means the American Version is more expensive. It is in my opinion, it is well worth the extra expense.