Rum time again. Indonesian today. I don't have a huge amount of time so this might be a bit rushed. I have to do some Christmas shopping online and iron a shirt, but hopefully this review will be of an acceptable standard. Read on at your own risk.
Bit of an intro
My first ever Indonesian rum. Another first. This is a rum made by a jolly company called "By the Dutch" who produce a variety of spirits. The name of the rum is Batavia Arrack. Arrack probably comes from an old Arabic word for condensation and is clearly a reference to distilling. Batavia is a place, so this is the condensation (or distillate) from Batavia. The theory is that Arab traders introduced the Indonesians to distilling and gave the name to distilled drinks. They would make spirit from rice or palm leaves until Chinese sugar growers developed a recipe for fermenting and distilling sugar cane molasses. The Island of Java was a popular one for building distilleries, and was the center of trade for the Dutch in the area. Some French guy said the arrack from Indonesia area was better than Jamaican rum, but he directed that comment to the British so we can assume a certain amount of bias. Interestingly enough, the Dutch would import casks of new arrack spirit at a strength of 60-70% ABV, and mature it in the Netherlands.
This rum's bottles at 48% so we can expect a nice bit of complexity. Made from molasses as I mentioned. it's aged in oak barrels in Amsterdam for over 8 years. That makes it an XO, but they say 8 years because it sounds better than 6 years. I'm not sure if it's put in the oak casks in Amsterdam or if that happens in Indonesia. If it happens in Amsterdam then it's likely that the oak is European and would likely give a woody, spice flavour. If it's oak from Indonesia then I don't know what kind of flavours it would give. Wood obviously, but not sure beyond that. A small amount of local Indonesian red rice is used to help kick start the fermentation. It'll be interesting if there are ricey flavours in the rum, but I kind of doubt there will be if they just use a handful of it to get the fermentation going. It's distilled using pot stills and ancient Chinese methods, so a batch process with potentially a little more to it than a column still rum.
The website gives a lot of relevant information about the rum including these details about the production process:
1.Fermentation of the wash from molasses, water and added local red rice, in wooden vats up to 8% ABV
2. The ready wash is distilled in very old fashioned pot stills up to 30% ABV
3. The second distillation in another pot still up to 60-65% ABV.
4. The Batavia Arrack is been store and shipped to Amsterdam.
5. The Batavia Arrack is laid down in large oak casks in Amsterdam.
6. The Batavia Arrack is blended according to a unique and secret recipe by the master blender and brought to an alcohol content of 48% ABV.
Other than the ingredients and the shipping to Amsterdam it's about the same process as a whisky. I think I'm about done with this bit.
Packaging
It's a tiny bottle again. The label looks ok.
Double foreign
The old style, functional font is always nice. The ship on the label suggested a navy type rum, specifically a strong one, but having read about the history I think it's more likely to be a nod to the old days of transporting it halfway across the world on ships. The little Dutch windmill logo weirds me out a bit. makes me think of the smell of cheese where it shouldn't be.
Smell in the bottle
Surprisingly whisky-ish barley style creamy smell
Appearance
The lightest coloured rum so far. Kind of straw yellow.
Yellow
Doesn't look like there's any caramel added here. Have I mentioned that they haven't mentioned chill filtering in what I've read. I don't know if they've used it or not, but natural colouring and stronger bottling strength with whiskies usually go hand in hand with a lack of non chill-filtered presentation.
Neat
Nose
Fruity
Sake - fermented rice smell.
Complex, but It's more like a complex sake rather than a combination of recognizable things.
Grassy.
Lemongrass.
Touch earthy
Arrival
Not sweet.
Quite whisky-like, like a highland whisky.
Development
Touch minerally.
Maybe chocolate.
Alcohol sting.
Finish
Vegetal.
Maybe bamboo shoots
Chocolate caramel.
Quite long.
Dry.
Water - 1 full tsp
Nose
Very much sake.
Grass.
Touch earthy
Arrival
Slightly sweet, but very slightly.
Vegetal.
Herbal
Sake.
Faintest hint of lemon sweets.
Salty and oily a but like cheap green olives that don't have much olive flavour.
Development
Creamy barley quality
Subtle warm spices.
Sake style complexity.
Sweet-savoury, herbal.
More peppery spices developed after the water had been doing it's think for a while.
Olivey thing carrying through.
Finish
Grape juice.
Oak, but kind of a leafy, vegetal wood.
Dry.
Apple.
Just a shade of chocolatey kind of vanilla. Sweet vanilla.
Faint bitter-sweet molasses note.
A few extra comments
The smell of sake in the glass was noticeable immediately. I assume that fermented rice smell is from the local red rice use to get the fermentation going. Very exciting.
Almost no taste in there that I would associate with molasses or sugar cane. It's surprising how a dry a spirit made from sugar cane can be. I much prefer this to the sugary type rums and I kind of wish more rums were like this.
Conclusion
This was a very pleasant rum indeed, possibly because it wasn't much like a rum. This was much lighter and drier than every other rum I've tried and possibly the most interesting in terms of flavour and aroma. I still has a faint note of molasses in the finish, but that was the only thing that mas anything close to a typical rum. This was actually more like a whisky to me, a dry, highland type one. On a scale of one to ten I'd give this one another try. It's available in Norway too so I might actually pick up a full bottle one day. I'm struggling to decide if this is my favourite or second favourite rum in my advent calendar so far. I think second favourite after the Pusser's. This was very interesting though, and clearly a high quality spirit. Well done Indonesian Dutch rum chaps, you've made something quite special here.
More rum tomorrow. I command you to return.
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