Seychellois is what you call things from the Seychelles, like this jolly little rum sample from my advent calendar. Oo, jolly! That's a piratical word, as in Roger. I'd forgotten about pirates. Maybe I can fit them into this review, me harties. Or something.
Bit of an Intro
This is a Seychellois rum. I just learned that word and wanted to use it again. It's from the Seychelles which are somewhere in the sea to the right hand side of Africa. Pretty sure that's where they are. If you don't find them immediately just keep going right from Africa until you get there. Right is called East in Geography. Write that down. Takamaka is the southern most region of the largest Island in the Seychelles, Mahe, where according to the distiller's website there were no pirates. I can't tell you how disappointing that it. Fifteen men nowhere near a dead man's chest. Yo ho no, but a bottle of rum anyway. They started distilling rum in 2001. I know people I consider youngsters older than this distillery. They have a website with more flowery marketing fluff than any other I've seen so far. It almost makes me laugh except that I'm still disappointed by the lack of pirates. There's a page on the site where they essentially say the Seychelles are nice, a general from the 1800s thought it as nice, the Seychellois people are nice, the rum is nice.
The website does have some useful information if you're able to get through all the wooly nonsense. For example "Ove secret to our rum is the water collected from the Vallee de Mai. Here grows the endemic coco de mer palm, that the Victorians named the Tree of Knowledge. Well, the locals seem to know good rum when they taste it, so perhaps there's something in it." tells you where the water is from and nothing else useful. What else can I find in there... The place they make is also grows spices that they use to flavour their spiced rum I think. The sugar cane is grown at four different places by an independent cooperative of farmer and crushed at the distillery to get to the sweet, sweet juice. It's fermented in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks and then distilled in a pot still, then another pot still and then a column still. Triple distillation and a bottling strength of 40% ABV makes me think this is going to be another rum with a pretty simple flavour profile. Probably a pretty light mouthfeel too. They use both American and European oak to age their rums, but I think this expression is aged entirely in American oak for 8 years, so I'm expecting a vanilla note or two. They say that after aging their rum is blended with aged rums. Doesn't say where those rums are from. Do they mix young rum with old? Do they mix their rum with someone else's? Who knows? It's also mixed with water from the special wherever (which apparently has a high mineral content) and with local essences, which I assume means spice flavourings rather than actual spices. I'm feeling skeptical about this sum. No mention of chill-filtering or colouring so I assume they're both used. I'm feeling even more skeptical. I'm going to move on tot he next section before I make someone walk the plank.
Packaging
It's ok. Dark colour which is nice. It says Takamaka on the label. I'm feeling harsh because of the website being so optimistically uninformative, so I'm going to point out that Takamaka sounds like a character from In the Night Garden.
If you look at the pattern in the middle under the St. Andre bit it looks like fly wings. The full size bottle looks like a tall perfume bottle. think it's square too. I'm expecting even less from this rum now even though I know the packaging makes no difference at all. Maybe just resent the lack of pirates. Why say that? It's a marketing own goal.
Smell in the bottle
On opening
Superglue.
Spices.
Cinnamon.
Clove.
Molasses.
Appearance
It looks like wee and I'm not ashamed to say it.
Yellow
Not much to say about the appearance. If it has caramel it only has a little.
Neat
Nose
Superglue.
Fermented fruit.
Ginger? Candied type ginger.
Touch of clove.
Brown sugar.
Arrival
Like Crabbie's ginger beer.
Development
More spices. Reminds me of that Crabbie's fruity spicey ginger beer.
Oak.
Touch of mint.
Finish
Raspberry.
Kind of like red wine, but of fruit an tannins.
Dry woody tannins.
Water - just a bit
Nose
Raspberry
Gooseberry maybe.
Ginger root.
Bit of vanilla caramel.
Brown sugar.
Cigar tobacco. Not cuban.
Arrival
Sweet
Like Crabbie's ginger beer.
Brown sugar.
Development
Crabbie's ginger beer.
Warm spice.
Bit oaky.
Maybe bay leaf? Not sure about that.
Finish
Dry, oaky tannins.
Faint cigar smoke. Not Cuban.
Conclusion
It's ok. A bit more complexity than I was expecting. Not too sweet. Could obviously have done with a bit more strength. Actually it tasted and smelled a lot more interesting than I thought it would, but I can't forgive them for saying there were no pirates. Plus it tastes so much like Crabbies ginger beer that I couldn't get past that to sniff around the tastes and smells a bit more. On the standard one to ten scale the tobacco smell and the tobacco smoke note in the finish were interesting. A feints kind of smell an flavour if this was a whisky. I reckon their second cut is relatively late. Would I buy a bottle? I doubt it. It's not available here in Norway for a start. It's also not my favourite rum and I'd buy a cheap whisky before this. I'm not that keen on Crabbie's.
Come back tomorrow to read what I think of some more rum.
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