RumDood.com

Imbiber's 100

Matt Robold — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:13:57 GMT

Darcy O'Neil over at Art Of Drink took a neat idea that had been floating around in the foodblogger-sphere for a while and has adapted it to those of us who worship tippling over nibbling. I'm not sure everyone will agree with this list, but I think it's a pretty good one (maybe that's because I've tried 81 of them). Yes, I know...there's actually a rum on here that I haven't tried. I'm working on it...I just don't make it up to Canada all that often. From Darcy's site, here are the instructions.

Instructions:

1) Copy this list into your blog, with instructions.
2) Bold all the drinks you’ve imbibed.
3) Cross out any items that you won’t touch
4) Post a comment here (or I'm sure he'd prefer here) and link to your results.

If you don’t have a blog, just count the ones you’ve tried and post the number in the comments section.

List of Drinks You Must Try Before You Expire

   1. Manhattan Cocktail
   2. Kopi Luwak (Weasle Coffee)
   3. French / Swiss Absinthe
   4. Rootbeer
   5. Gin Martini
   6. Sauternes
   7. Whole Milk
   8. Tequila (100% Agave)
   9. XO Cognac
10. Espresso
11. Spring Water (directly from the spring)
12. Gin & Tonic
13. Mead
14. Westvleteren 12 (Yellow Cap) Trappist Ale
15. Chateau d’Yquem
16. Budwieser
17. Maraschino Liqueur
18. Mojito
19. Orgeat
20. Grand Marnier
21. Mai Tai (original)
22. Ice Wine (Canadian)
23. Red Bull
24. Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice
25. Bubble Tea
26. Tokaj
27. Chicory
28. Islay Scotch
29. Pusser’s Navy Rum
30. Fernet Branca
31. Fresh Pressed Apple Cider
32. Bourbon
33. Australian Shiraz
34. Buckley’s Cough Syrup
35. Orange Bitters
36. Margarita (classic recipe)
37. Molasses & Milk
38. Chimay Blue
39. Wine of Pines
40. Green Tea
41. Daiginjo Sake
42. Chai Tea
43. Vodka (chilled, straight)
44. Coca-Cola
45. Zombie (Beachcomber recipe)
46. Barley Wine
47. Brewed Choclate (Xocolatl)
48. Pisco Sour
49. Lemonade
50. Speyside Single Malt
51. Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
52. Champagne (Vintage)
53. Rosé (French)
54. Bellini
55. Caipirinha
56. White Zinfandel (Blush)
57. Coconut Water
58. Cerveza
59. Cafe au Lait
60. Ice Tea
61. Pedro Ximenez Sherry
62. Vintage Port
63. Hot Chocolate
64. German Riesling
65. Pina Colada
66. El Dorado 15 Year Rum
67. Chartreuse
68. Greek Wine
69. Negroni
70. Jägermeister
71. Chicha
72. Guiness
73. Rhum Agricole
74. Palm Wine
75. Soju
76. Ceylon Tea (High Grown)
77. Belgian Lambic
78. Mongolian Airag
79. Doogh, Lassi or Ayran
80. Sugarcane Juice
81. Ramos Gin Fizz
82. Singapore Sling
83. Mint Julep
84. Old Fashioned
85. Perique
86. Jenever (Holland Gin)
87. Chocolate Milkshake
88. Traditional Italian Barolo
89. Pulque
90. Natural Sparkling Water
91. Cuban Rum
92. Asti Spumante
93. Irish Whiskey
94. Château Margaux
95. Two Buck Chuck
96. Screech
97. Akvavit
98. Rye Whisky
99. German Weissbier
100. Daiquiri (classic)

tags: imbibe list, art of drink, 100 drinks

Rum Review: Old Mill Gold Rum

Matt Robold — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:00:00 GMT

"Oregon" is not usually the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of rum. Usually the climes that pop into a person's head are a tad warmer. Old Mill Gold Rum is a rum that has been "developed for the Pacific Northwest" by H. Malarkey Wall and his father before him.

Technically this rum is not produced in the Pacific Northwest. The spirit is actually imported from the more often rum-associated Caribbean island of St. Croix and then aged in charred American oak casks in slightly less tropical Oregon for two to four years. The rum is then blended and bottled and shipped out to liquor stores (hopefully) near you.

This process of importing Cruzan (as in "from St. Croix", not the distiller) rum and then aging it in America's foggier Pacific Northwest has been going on for over 60 years. Howard M. Wall (H. Malarkey's father) originally conceived of the idea of bringing rum to the loggers and fishermen that comprised such a large part of the culture in states like Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The Old Mill website likes to boast that their rum is the "finest, smoothest, sugar cane rum in the Americas."

Appearances

Old Mill Rum is a pale straw color. Swirling the rum in my glass, the legs form and cling fast to the sides before oozing down the sides in a slow, sticky manner.

Nose

The most striking note on the nose is that of caramel. There is a strong, sugary quality to the scent. Just behind the caramel is a floral sweetness of honey. The scent is warm, but not deep - very pleasant.

Palate

Entry is very light and sugary. Flavors of honey and vanilla are the first to hit your tongue, followed by a hint of apple. The mid-palate is sugary-sweet, but very light. The entire experience is actually very light. There's an oily quality to the body, giving it a pleasant viscosity and mouthfeel. At the finish is an abrupt, peppery spiciness that seems to come from nowhere, and then dissipate cleanly and almost immediately.

The spirit is smooth and clean. Burn in the throat is almost non-existent with the exception of the effects of the pepper spice at the finish. This is a very light and very simple rum. Because of this lightness of body and simplicity on the palate I worried that it's delicate flavor could be very easily overwhelmed by mixers. Nonetheless, I had to try it in a cocktail. I originally considered a recipe- the Kentucky Rum Runner - that Stevi Deter created for a Mixoloseum Thursday Drink Night, but ended up settling on a simpler drink: a daiquiri.

Old Mill Daiquiri

3 oz Old Mill Rum
.5 oz fresh lime juice
.5 oz sugar/simple syrup
1 dash bitters

Shake over with ice, strain into glass with ice.

In a daiquiri, the Old Mill was able to still stand out, with the lime juice and sugar just taking a slight bit of the spiciness off of the finish. I made 2 daiquiris, one with the recipe above and one with a full ounce of lime juice. With a full ounce of lime the drink was still quite good, but it seemed to have completely hidden the kick of pepper that was so pronounced in sipping and still detectable with only half an ounce of lime.

The Long & The Short Of It

This rum is billed as a sippable rum, and it is very easily that. What Old Mill lacks in complexity it seemingly makes up for in smoothness. Its light body and simple characteristics make it a very approachable rum for the sipping neophyte - although the spicy notes on the finish may make things a tad bumpy. In a drink like a daiquiri, the lighter qualities of the ingredients seem to play well with the rum, although a little mixer goes a long way so be careful if you don't want to wipe out any traces of the Old Mill flavor. I think this is a good rum that - at around $20 per bottle - is one that everyone should consider keeping on their shelves.

Dood's Rating: 3 Bottles of Rum Out Of 5

Dood's Other Rum Reviews

Be sure to also check out Scott's review of Old Mill at Scotte's Rum Pages.

tags: rum, rum reviews, old mill

Mixology Monday: Made From Scratch

Matt Robold — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:43:14 GMT

Mixology Monday bears down upon us once again. For this month's musings on mixological mania, Doug from the Pegu Blog has selected a theme of "made from scratch." A month requiring that the drink submitted use homemade ingredients of some sort? This month seemed like it would prove challenging.

I don't make a lot of my own ingredients. Call it sloth, a lack of talent, the result of living in a place where I can buy just about any ingredient I want without too much hassle...I just don't often find the drive to make my own cocktail ingredients. This being for MxMo, however, I figured I'd give it a shot.

I had originally intended to make up a batch of ginger beer, however a bit of a time crunch combined with the aforementioned sloth cost me any chance of doing so. I thought about my options and realized that I had numerous rum infusions scattered about my shelf. I greatly enjoy making infusions. I tend to do two at a time at least once a quarter. Oddly enough I don't actually ever drink them though. I tend to take them with me to parties as a gift for the host and people seem to really like them. I figured this would be a good time to break out of that and finally use something I had made.

I had to choose a flavor first. My current infusions include "Mulled Apple Cider", blackberry, plum, oak-chip, strawberry, pineapple, and Asian pear. I figured that I ought to be able to come up with one semi-interesting cocktail out of those. In the end, I decided to work with the strawberry.

L'amour de Fraise

3 oz Strawberry Rum
1 oz Rum Cream (used El Dorado Rum Cream)
1 tsp Allspice Dram
2 dashes Orange Bitters
1 egg white

Shake with ice until good and frothy. Strain into rocks glass over ice. Dust with fresh nutmeg. Garnish with a strawberry.

This drink is light and frothy with a subdued strawberry flavor to it. It's not overtly sweet at all. I really enjoyed it...to the tune of having 2 of them after settling on the recipe. The egg white adds a good healthy body to the drink, helping to mellow the sweetness of the cream and strawberry flavors. If one was desirous of a stronger fruit flavor, strawberries could easily be muddled into the drink, or you could try using a touch of strawberry syrup.

I took the strawberry garnish used in the drink in the picture and smashed it up with a bar spoon and stirred it into the drink and was fairly pleased with the result. The drink took on a bit more of a pink hue and the flavor stood out a touch more without being overpowering. If anyone takes the time to make this drink with either muddled strawberries or strawberry syrup, I'd love to hear how it turned out.

Be sure to check out Dood's other Mixology Monday entries

Tags: mxmo, rum, infusions, cocktails

UK RumFest 2008

Matt Robold — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:21:40 GMT

UK RumFest, a festival of all things rum, was hosted in the UK by the Rum Experience at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London last week. For its second year, the event billed as the world's premier rum festival brought rum producers, enthusiasts, and fanatics together in London to sample, discuss, and then sample some more rum. Ian Burrell, the driving force behind RumFest, probably explains it best:

This was my first year in attendance - and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I spent the night before out with many of the VIP's that would be giving presentations, manning booths, and demonstrating bartending techniques over the following two days. Somehow the "How does this show work?" never came up.

Like any trade show, RumFest has a show floor for exhibitor booths. In this case, the exhibitors are the rum producers, their importers, and their distributors (for the most part). Walking the floor is like walking through a cubicle-ized representation of the Caribbean. One passes by booths for Appleton Estate (Jamaica), El Dorado (Guyana), Havana Club (Cuba), St. Lucia Distillers (St. Lucia), and many others.

Walk up to any booth and be prepared to have all of your questions on that rum answered - including the "how does it taste?" question. Samples are handed out, both with the rum by itself or (at some booths) with mini-cocktails. Some booths even boast entire bars manned by some of the most respected bartenders in London. For the full cocktails, drink tickets are issued to attendees.

If you're interested in learning more about rum in general, there are seminars held upstairs to help to educate the attendees on everything from the vast history of rum, to the process of making it, to how communities like the Ministry of Rum operate and promote the spirit. I spent most of my time upstairs, either attending seminars hosted by the likes of Ian Williams, Richard Seale, and Paul McFadyen. I even spent a little time participating in the forums on the Ministry of Rum and Paul Artrip's presentation on American artisinal rums (never a bad session when you're getting more free samples).

There is a center stage as well, where one can catch presentations at various times through-out the day. These presentations cover brand-specific mixology, as well as general rum information and mixology. The presentations are great, and you hardly get distracted at all by the Brazillian dancers just to the right of the stage. Ehem.

One of the main events at RumFest, however, is the Tiki competition between the staff at Trailer Happiness and the folks at Mahiki. This is a two-day event that really steals the show at RumFest in terms of entertainment as the two bars square off in drink-mixing, creativity, and showmanship. Regrettably I missed most of the competition attending seminars, but I was there for the grand finale - during which Trailer Happiness ripped out a man's heart (not really) and Mahiki set the stage on fire (really). In the end, Trailer Happiness emerged victorious for the second straight year. No bartenders were harmed in the conducting of this contest.

All in all, RumFest was an incredible time. My time there was informative and the very definition of a good time. If you're someone that enjoys rum, or is a complete, frothing fanatic such as myself, this show is a "must attend" every year. I look forward to seeing some of you in London next year...cause I will definitely be there.

Tags: rum, rumfest, events, london

UK RumFest - Day 0

Matt Robold — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT

UK RumFest is billed as Europe's only festival to celebrate my favorite spirit. It's a collection of rum producers, marketers, sellers, distributors, and consumers, all coming together in London to sample products and cocktails, listen to seminars on everything from the history of the spirit to matching it with chocolate, watch cocktail competitions, and just simply enjoy the world's most varied spirit.

RumFest is the brainchild of Ian Burrell, a restaurateur, mixologist, recording artist, basketball player, and fierce rum advocate (you can understand why I like him). Ian is known by many as the Rum Ambassador, and along with the folks at IPBartenders, has traveled the globe to promote and educate about rum. In 2007, Ian put together the first ever RumFest for the United Kingdom and Europe. The event features many of the biggest names in rum - both in terms of companies and personalities.

On October 24, after an evening with no sleep and a 10 hour flight across the continental US and the Atlantic Ocean, I finally arrived in London for The Rum Experience's second RumFest. The festivities had not officially started yet, but I met with Tatu (aka Count Silvio) from Refined Vices, and we headed down to IPBartenders to meet with Paul McFadyen and a number of other rum luminaries, including Ed Hamilton, Paul Artrip, Ben Reed, Ian Williams, and others. The group spent the first part of the evening sampling the incredibly wide selection of rums and other liquors and liqueurs. Rum was poured, cocktails were mixed, pizza was ordered (although not until we had discovered that Ben Reed had forgotten to order the pizza the first time around).

Following the time spent at IPB, our large group meandered down the street to Trailer Happiness, one of the premier tiki bars in the UK. Our merry band was treated to a number of excellent tiki drinks and continued conversation, and was even joined by Chesterfield Brown from Mount Gay Rum. The highlight of the visit to Trailer Happiness had to be the volcano bowl. The darkly lit room combined with a unique approach to lighting the bowl on fire made for quite the spectacle. I'll apologize up front for the fact that the video starts off upside-down, as I was racing to pull my camera out and just hit the button as quickly as possible.

From tiki drinks to classic cocktails, we rounded the corner and headed to the Portobello Star. The drinks continued to flow, and the group continued to talk loudly and enjoy the evening. As time wore on, the group's size continuously dwindled until at last-call I looked around and realized that Tatu and I were the only ones left as the room lights were switched on. I had almost decided against going out at all because of the level of exhaustion I had felt earlier in the evening. I seriously considered staying in my hotel room, sleeping through the night. Somehow, however, I ended up turning the key to return to my hotel room at 2:30 in the morning.

As I changed from "Dood: Party-Goer Extraordinaire" back to "Matt: Exhausted Traveler", I couldn't help but consider the glut of hospitality and generosity that we had been shown by our British hosts, and wonder what could possibly lay ahead. My weekend was off to a dizzying start...and the conference didn't start for another 9 hours.