It's day 5 of my delightful rum advent calendar and today it's Santos Dumont XO from Brazil. I've never heard of it, like almost all of the rums in the box, so with any luck we can all enjoy a pleasant learning experience.
Bit of an intro
This is the first Brazillian rum I've ever tried. because Brizil is a former Portuguese colony and Portugal is next to Spain I'm expecting this to b a Spanish style rum. Not sure if it is, but that's what I'm expecting. Spanish style rums can be anything from light to oily so I don't expecting this to be Spanish style really means that I have no idea what to expect.
This rum is named after Alberto Santos Dumont who was the son of a rich coffee and sugar cane grower in Brazil. The plantation he grew up on was apparently big enough to have it's own railway system, and the sugar cane grown there was used to produce rum and cachaca, a spirit made from sugar cane juice and the most popular spirit in Brazil. His father who ran the plantation had an accident in 1891 which sadly left him a paraplegic and they decided to sell the plantation and move to France, where Alberto made a dirigible and flew it around the Eiffel tower and became one of the mot famous people in the world at the time. He then made the world's first heavier than air aircraft, and commissioned the world's first wrist watch from his good friend Louis Cartier so he could tell when it was time for a croissant while flying his aircraft without having to get out his pocket watch which would mean taking his hands of the controls and crashing into a French Alp. Fascinating bloke and worthy of having a rum names after him.
The website has handy pdfs with information about the Santos Dumont rums in a variety of languages, fortunately including English. It doesn't have a great deal on information about how the rum is made or matured, but as an XO it's upwards of six years old. They do include tasting notes so I'll compare mine to theirs in the extra comments section. luckily for me other people have done some investigation and information is available on other websites. It turns out this rum is made from sugar cane honey which is sugar cane juice that has been filtered and evaporated. Unlike molasses the sugar is not removed, and it I gather it has a bit more flavour than molasses. It has the consistency of honey and I'm told it has a caramelly taste. According to whoever wrote the thing I read about it it produces rums more similar to molasses rums than to those made from sugar cane juice.
Santos Dumont XO rum is apparently aged in ex Pedro Ximenez sherry casks, ex-bourbon casks, and ex port casks, so I'm expecting dried fruits, vanilla notes and maybe some Christmas spices. This information sisn't come from the manufacturer though, so should probably be taken with a pinch of salt. It's bottled at 40% so I'm not expecting water to make an enormous difference and probably not s much complexity as stronger rums. A full size bottle is 800 Norwegian kroners which is just under the price for the Mount Gay XO. If the price reflects quality (which is kind of does and kind of doesn't) then this rum should be pretty good. Weirdly it's about twice the price of the Pusser's Gunpowder Proof which has been my favourite so far, and more than twice the price of the Millonario rum that was my least favourite. Not much more to say here so I'll move on.
Packaging
I quite like the label on this one. Use your eyes to peruse it's classy vibe:
That bloke's name is Alberto
It's nice and simple, dark coloured, not too fancy. The guy in the picture is of course Alberto Santos Dumont wearing a nice old school hat. He's been described as a style icon which is probably more about the wrist watch than the hat, but it's still a pretty nice hat. He reminds me of Nikola Tesla a bit and they lived around the same time. The label gives the name of the rum, age category, and calls it "super premium" rum which you probably can't see in the picture. It's not a very good picture, but I'm not a photographer so don't punish me. I was focusing more on the picture of Alberto. Calling it super premium seems a bit pretentious. I'm a little skeptical of things that are labeled premium and super premium is like premium but more. Sounds a bit like petrol too, just change it to super premium unleaded an there you are.
A full size bottle of this has a completely different label. The proper bottle is square with a gold top and looks much more fancy. It also gives a cask and bottle number, which they usually only do with good spirits so my expectations of an enjoyable evening have just increased.
Smell in the bottle
On opening
Apple juice.
Cinnamon?
No superglue.
Appearance
It looks like all the other rums. A brown-ish, ambery, goldy looking liquid.
No surprises
Although it's very similar to the other rums in my advent calendar it is at the lighter end of the spectrum colour wise. I couldn't find any information about whether it has colouring added, but if it does it's probably only a little.
Neat
Nose
Fruity, estery. More like fruit flavoured boiled sweets than actual fruit.
Bit of coconut juice I think.
Maybe nectarine.
Hint of banana
Arrival
Sweet
Heady aromatic floral note.
Oily
A lot of sweetness, almost too much.
Rich mouthfeel
Development
Honey, kind of.
Kind of sucrose syrup, like the simple syrup we use in the bar at work.
Fruity. Complex sweet, ripe fruitiness.
Finish
Kind of sweet spice.
Kind of woody.
Water - just a few drops
Minimal water because it's only 40% ABV
Nose
Banana
Sweet coconut, a bit like a Bounty.
Suggestion of sherry and port barrel I think. Bit of rich raisiny and woody spice.
Arrival
Oily, syrupy feel. Kind of want to say unctuous, but it feels silly.
Not a great deal of flavour immediately, but plenty of sensation.
Caramel.
Development
Coconut.
Sweet, soft, ripe fruits.
Over ripe fruits maybe.
Touch of warm spice, kind of Christmassy so I'm thinking maybe it's from the sherry casks.
Bit of banana.
Kind of dry-ish tannin woodiness balancing the sweetness out a bit.
Kind of sweet tropical juice. maybe orange, mango, passionfruit.
Almost want to say mint, but not sure. Faintest suggestion.
Finish
Woody.
Touch of woody vanilla, thinking it's ex bourbon cask.
Tropical fruit kind of hanging around a bit, but not very prominent.
Faintest suggestion of dark chocolate.
A few extra comments
I usually look at the legs when I'm sampling a spirit, but don't often comment on it. To be honest I don't usually notice a great deal of difference from one spirit to another, or at least not much difference between rums or much difference between whiskies. I do see a difference between rums and whiskies, with the rum legs being thicker due to the higher amount of sugar and therefore greater viscosity. With this rum the legs caught my attention. The way the liquid coated and ran down the glass looked particularly viscous and very oily, which was confirmed by the feel of it in the mouth.
I'm fairly sure this was a Spanish style rum. It was very sweet, and very nearly too sweet for my liking but not quite. The other Peruvian rum form a couple of days ago was a bit too sweet and also a Spanish style. A while ago I tried Diplomatico Reserva rum, which is also a Spanish style and was also very nearly too sweet. It's starting to look like I'm not over keen on Spanish style rums. It's nice to be able to build up a better picture of the rum world and find what I prefer.
Time to compare my notes to the manufacturer's. They say banana, coconut, ripe fruit, and apricot seeds on the nose. I definitely got the coconut and banana. I got fruit too, but didn't notice apricot seeds. I don't really know what they smell like though. I think I've had them though. They taste really bitter and a little almondy, but I didn't notice those sensations in the rum. For taste they say soft tannins, high esters, honey and fermented fruits. I got the tannins, the dry woody sensation. High esters would be a lot of fruity type tastes, esters being the chemical family that give those kinds of flavours, which are definitely there. I didn't get a lot of honey. It was there for a moment but I would say it was barely worth mentioning. If someone asked what this rum tasted like I probably wouldn't mention it unless I was giving them my complete tasting notes, I'd probably just say it's sweet, kind of fruity and a bit coconutty. The fermented fruit is definitely there. I described over ripe fruit, but it's pretty much the same thing.
Conclusion
That was quite nice. More complexity that I expected given it's strength of 40% ABV. I wasn't overly taken by the coconut and tropical fruits type favour profile and it was on the edge of being a bit too sweet, but it was still an interesting experience. It's nice to be able to enjoy a drink that doesn't quite fit my personal preferences for flavour by getting all analytical. On a scale of one to ten I think this was an interesting rum and a good quality one, but not fitting my personal taste too well. I don't think I'd buy a bottle of it. I'd go for something less sweet although I can recognize he quality of this.
No idea what's tomorrow. I hope it's another British style rum, I want to confirm that they fit my tastes better than other rums. Bye for now,
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