Rum time! Another one where I don't have much time so it's going to be rushed. Expect typos sparse research, guessing, and vagueness. I'm not going to rush the tasting itself, that would be absurd. On we go...
Bit of an intro
My fist Fijian rum. That probably isn't a surprise since I haven't had many rums and all of these are my first rum from there. The distillery appears to be relatively new, or at least the company is. The Rum CO. of Fiji is the company and the distillery is the South Pacific Rum Distillery. I have no idea if the company opened in 1980 and started the distillery or someone started the company and bought the distillery. Or even commissioned a rum from a distillery owned by someone else. It doesn't really matter. They do a bunch of products, including the Bati line of rums and the Ratu line of rums, one of which I have here. The Bati line includes a couple of rum liqueurs, but the Ratu line is only rums: a spiced, this dark rum, a white rum and a special "signature blend".
This rum is aged 5 years in charred ex-bourbon barrels and then finished with mocha oak chips, which would be chips of oak that's been toasted rather than charred which does different things to the natural oils in the wood and brings out different flavours to charring. That sounds a little like cheating to me. It's filtered through burnt coconut husks, which they call "coconut carbon". I don't like the sound of that, it sounds vegan, like cauliflower wings or asparagus steak. Carrot wellington? Get it together, vegans. It'll be interesting to see if there's any coconut flavours in the finished rum. I don't know if burnt coconut husks taste any different to coconuts having never tasted a burnt coconut husk, so I don't know if I'd recognize it if it was there. It's made from sugar cane grown on Fiji. They mention the rich, volcanic soil so I guess that does something, or at least sounds good. Half the rum is made in column stills and half in pot stills. Bottled at just 40%, so I won't add much water. That's probably enough information and there's not much more on the website, just some tasting notes that we'll look at later. On we go.
Packaging
No doubt you'll be shocked to hear that this sample came in a tiny bottle. The label's ok. Peer at it. O not look, peer.
The essence of Fiji
It's plain enough. Not too busy, brown spirit kind of colour palate. A bit more information would have been nice, but the writing would have to so small an ant would struggle to read it. An ant would struggle to read it anyway because all ants are dyslexic and have no written language. There's a reason they use pheromones. It gives the name, the age, where it's from, tells you it' a dark rum, but not more. You can't see it in the pic, but the company logo is a crossed cutlass and what I assume to be some kind of traditional Fijian club. The cutlass could be the first pirate reference I've seen on any of these rums, although it could be more of a nautical warfare reference.
Smell in the bottle
Superglue.
Acetone (Nail polish remover).
Dates.
Prunes.
Dark dried fruits in general.
Appearance
Looks a lot like rum, whisky, bourbon, or any other brown spirit.
Nothing unusual
Maybe a little dark for a whisky, but a little light for a dark rum. I couldn't say if any colouring's been added. I suspect so, it's apparently fairly common in the rum industry and doesn't have t be declared. I haven't seen them say that it doesn't have colouring so I'm making a bit of an inference.
Neat
Nose
Acetone.
Fruity note.
Woody spice note.
Arrival
Acetone.
Odd chemical tastes.
Dry.
Development
Shade chocolatey.
Dark dried fruit.
Bit of bitterness.
Finish
Woody spice.
Dark chocolate orange.
Maybe coffee.
Water - just a few drops
Nose
Still that acetone note.
Maybe ginger.
Sweet-savoury briney, a little like shrimp.
Orangey, kind of marmaladey.
Chocolate orange.
Maybe burnt rubber? Not sure about that.
Vegetal.
A stick. (See extra comments.)
Arrival
Sweetish, but not too much.
Acetone again.
Development
Spice.
Bit of caramel.
Burnt rubber.
More caramel.
Finish
Herbal vegetal note.
Reminds me of some kind of that plant that smells a bit liquorice. Could be a liquorice plant for all I know. I know liquorice root is a thing.
Dry, and with a drying sensation. Astringent might be the word for that.
A little spice creeping in, bit of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Faint hint of demerara sugar.
A few extra comments
I made a note of the aroma of a stick. It was a woody note which isn't unusual in a barrel ages spirit, but as I detected it the image of a stick came to mind. Sometimes it'll be the image of a workshop where they use wood, maybe a construction site, a firewood pile etc. This time it was a stick. I think what happens (and I may be wrong) is that my snout recognized the smell of wood and I recognize it, but there are subtleties to it that aren't obvious. These few molecules of whatever are detected an trigger memories which often come to mind as thoughts. I find it helps to sit quietly, in a calm and quiet environment and not think too much. If I think too much about smelling I miss the subtleties, so it's better not to chase smells. I sit calmly and sniff and let my mind wander, and see what memories and images present themselves as I do. It's quite relaxing, because in order to thoroughly explore a spirit you have to relax. I have a couple more thoughts about that involving a pig farm which I'll share at some point if you're good.
There was a burnt rubber note in this rum that I would call phenolic in a whisky. It's not obvious where that would come from. In a whisky phenols would typically come from the smoke used to kiln the barley and stop it from germinating. I've had a brief read around and a burnt rubber note in home brewed beer can come from water with chlorophenols, or from wild yeast. I have no idea if the water used in this rum has any chlorophenols and I have no idea what kind of yeast thy use, but it's interesting to note that phenols don't have to come from smoke.
Time to compare my tasting notes with theirs. Bear in mind that tasting notes published by food and drink manufacturers is part of a marketing strategy and not an entirely honest description of the product. You won't see "an odd combination of acetone and burnt rubber" for example. Let's have a look see:
"Savoury, smoked oak aromas give way to rich sweetness of caramel, vanilla and tea leaves with a mouth-watering liquorice finish"
The positive spin is quite obvious to me here. Yes it's quite savoury. I'm not sure I'd call it smoky, but yes to oak. I got a bit of caramel, but not much. I'll give them vanilla. There's that woody note that's kind of oaky (an oak stick maybe) and oak can have a vanilla note. I don't think it was particularly recognizable as vanilla. I can see where they got the tea leaves from, but I didn't get anything more tea like than a drying, astringent, vegetal thing that wasn't particularly recognizable to me. Tea leaves tend to be drying and astringent and vegetal so they can have that one. Liquorice yes. They missed the acetone and burnt rubber notes and orangey notes out of their list, but as I said those things don't sound appetizing even though they're interesting an can be pleasant. They miss is out of their list because their list is part of the marketing. They called their own product mouth-watering for goodness sake, if you can't see that it's marketing after that then I can't help you.
Conclusion
This was an ok rum. Interesting, non-organic flavours which makes a change, but I'm not sure what I make of it. The acetone and burnt rubber notes came across as weird and chemically, where they would be awesome in a peated whisky. I'm not sure if it was because they were unexpected or if they weren't balanced well or what, but it came off as a bit odd. Interesting and not unpleasant, but odd. On a scale of one to ten I appreciate that this rum isn't too sweet and I quite like the astringency. I'm not sure if I'd buy a full bottle. I might do, but having already tasted it I'm more likely to choose something else. This is ok though, and maybe I would buy a bottle one day. I think the Indonesian rum from a day or two ago is higher on the list. Both bottles have string on, but the Indonesian one has more string.
This is proving to be a very interesting exercise. I might have to look for a discounted whisky advent calendar after Christmas. Lot's of different versions of the same kind of spirit in a short space of time is pretty fun. There seems to be a bit more variation between rums than scotch whiskies. I hope you're enjoying this little series. Come back tomorrow for more of whatever it is you get from my blog.
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