It's the second of December and that means rum sample number two from my thus far delicious advent calendar. This one' from Peru of all places. Who knew they made rum in Peru? Not me. I'll try to keep this brief. There are still 23 to go after this and I don't want to burn out. Here we go...
The name of the distillery, Millonario, means millionaire. Immediately I'm thinking they're selling a luxury image and not necessarily a luxury product, but more on that later. I found their website though, and the emphasis seems to be more on taste and smell. The website has a section for each of their products. I only bothered to look at the one for the 10 anniversario reserva rum because that's the only one I'm tasting. Its page described the tastes and smells in the rum, and it includes a pdf about the rum. The pdf describes the tastes and smells a bit, but also describes the intention behind the product and overtly describes the image they want the product to have and where they're pitching it in the market. Retail, bars and clubs to be precise, so a kind of standard rum intended for mixing and getting drunk on. Apparently they wanted to release a product for their 10th anniversary and wanted it to reflect that they were celebrating success. They cite "an image of youth", "vibrant night life", and "joyous modernity" as things they want to be associated with this rum. You can kind of tell by the name of the distillery that they're into that kind of image. I want to say that they're aiming to sell the image of luxury and success to a young crowd who don't really know what success and luxury products really are and that so far it's feeling a bit 80s, but that seems harsh. It makes me think of Tom from Parks and Recreation. At least they're honest about the image they're trying to project and that they're trying to project an image.
It's tricky to say how old this rum is. I've looked at other reviews and some reckon it's 10 years, but it has 10 0n the bottle because it was made to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the distillery, which would have been in the 60s I think. I'm not sure what's going on there because this rum was released fairly recently. There's something about some guy buying the distillery though, I'm not sure. What do I know about it? I'm just a guy with an advent calendar. I think the rum is actually between 6 and 10 years old, so could have been market XO but isn't. You can work that out for yourselves. I have a thought about the age statement that I'll get to later.
Bottles at 40%, so not as strong as yesterday's sample. I'm expecting this rum to have a bit less complexity and a narrower range of flavours as a result, but we can't know for sure until tasting time. They don't sell this in Norway, so can't comment very clearly on the price, but other people's reviews suggest a full size bottle would be about half the price of the Mount Gay XO I had yesterday. No comment on caramel or chill filtration on the packaging and couldn't find it on the website, although I didn't look very hard. Another reviewer did some kind of test and found 35g of additives per liter. I assume most of that is sugar, but don't hold me to that.
Packaging
It came in a tiny little bottle again, as should be expected of a tiny little sample. I now present it for your perusal.
Botella pequeña
(I hope that's Spanish for tiny bottle. Don't let me down, Google Translate)
I fee like they're trying a bit too hard to make it seem fancy. I've already talked about it in the intro, but "Millionaire" distillery is already trying a little too hard to seem fancy and is possibly pushing into the realm of tackiness. I feel like I'm being harsh on it again, so I'll disclaim my comments by saying that I'm not familiar with the rum market, what kind of people drink it, who they're aiming at etc. They've said that they're aiming for bars and night clubs, which have never really been my thing, especially night clubs. I'm more of an introverted, quiet country pub out of the way kind of chap so I have no idea what the Peruvian night life is like and what appeals to the ocular faculties of a typical Peruvian night club patron. Maybe this kind of labeling goes down a storm and they all shout "Hurra por una nueva botella de ron!" when the barman opens a new bottle. The packaging's not important anyway, it' the taste and smell of the contents that we're interested in. Well, I am anyway. You're free to be interested in Strictly Come Dancing, or Barbie dolls or whatever rubbish you want.
Rumour has it that the full sized bottle has a glass cork. I'd like to see that, but I kind of feel like it's another little bit of marketing where they're trying a little too hard to make it seem fancy, rather relying on the quality of the product. Again, it's not really marketed towards middle aged blokes sitting alone sipping rum in front of their computer though, it's for Peruvian revelers.
Smell in the bottle
On opening
Superglue. (What's with new rum smelling of superglue?)
Light fruitiness.
Brown sugar. Not any specific brown sugar like demerara or muscovado, just general brown sugar.
Appearance
Again, the rum looks a shade darker in the glass than it does in the bottle, given that the bottle is thin and tiny and couldn't life a fly.
Golden brown, not to be confused with the former British prime minister
Compared to the lovely rum I had yesterday this one seems a tiny bit lighter. Possibly with a bit of the oranginess you get from caramel colouring, but I don't know if that's present. Since this is aimed mainly and bars and clubs I think it's a safe assumption that they' be going for a consistent colour in every bottle, so it's fairly likely that they use at least a little colouring to ensure a uniform colour from batch to batch. That's just my opinion and may very well be wrong.
Neat
Nose
Light.
Fruity.
Sweet, cooked banana.
Hint of a lemony herby smell. Tarragon maybe?
Citrusy.
Arrival
Citrus.
Mild liquorice.
Sweet.
Development
sugary feel.
Touch of bitterness.
Cola. Not quite Coca-Cola, bit more vegetal.
Finish
Kind of a sweeties, candy type.
Bit of sherbet.
Makes me think of a Bassett's sherbet fountain. Even has a hint of cardboard.
Cola coming back in.
A warming, peppery spice . Almost black pepper, but not.
Maybe a hint of candies peel like you get in Christmas cake.
Water (Just a few drops)
Nose
Oragey.
Candied peel.
Cooked banana.
Vanilla.
Arrival
Bit too sweet.
Sugar.
Orange.
Development
Cola, very like Coca-Cola.
Finish
Like licking the sherbet off the inside of a sherbet fountain tube.
Lingering cola.
A few extra comments
The thought I had about the age statement was that it wouldn't be very helpful to include it. Peru is mountainous so the climate varies from lush tropical jungle to bone dry and freezing cold mountain tops. To say it's aged any amount of time just wouldn't be very helpful information. Even the typical VS, VSOP, and XO classifications don't mean much because the maturation would vary so much depending on where in the country it's matured. With a rum aged somewhere like Barbados like the one I ha yesterday an age statement even as vague as XO makes more sense, since Barbados has a relatively consistent climate across the island, at least compared to Peru. Having said all that, Millonario do produce a rum with the XO classification.
I thought it might be interesting to compare my notes to the ones given on the Millionario distillery website. For smell they say vanilla, bergamot, candied, and honey. I did pick up vanilla and candied peel, which could be a combination of the candied fruits they put in the picture and bergamot I suppose. Sugary, citrusy, bitter kind of thing. They mention bergamot, and I did pick up citrusy notes but I wouldn't have said bergamot. The closest I've been to bergamot is earl grey tea though, never the bergamot oil used to flavour it and certainly not a fresh bergamot. I bergamot is a kind of citrus fruit by the way. only just found that out myself so though it was worth saying. I didn't get honey either, but there's a lot of sweetness to this rum so maybe the honey flavour was kind of covered over by that. Maybe I just don't recognize honey.
For taste they list apricots and dessicated prunes, cola nuts, candies orange, and raisins. I didn't get apricot, prune or raisin, but did get some general fruity notes. I got orange and candied peel, so I guess candies orange is pretty much the same. The cola note was quite distinct to me. Very interesting that rum would taste of cola when rum and coke is such a common drink. They say cola nut, which is the the flavour ingredient that gives it's name to the eponymous drink. Eponymous is a word I'm quite pleased to have used.
Conclusion
I'm not too convinced by this one. All the flavours and smells are pleasant, but it's just a little too sugary for my palate. Adding water changed things around a bit, but didn't release an array of interesting sensations. On a scale of one to ten I'd say that Peruvian nightclubs are probably not somewhere I'd hang out for any length of time if I had a choice. Checking my blog statistics it doesn't look like anyone from Peru has read it, so clearly we have different tastes. I wouldn't buy a bottle of this myself. I think it's ok quality I think, better than some dirt cheap rums I've had anyway. But not really to my taste, and certainly not as good as the Mount Gay from the first of December.
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