Day 11 of my advent calendar and this time it's French Guyana. We've already had one from Guyana, but that was British Guyana. This is French Guyana which is similar, but Frencher. More croissants and such. Here we go.
Bit of an intro
Toucan! What a lovely name for a rum. This interesting little offering is distilled in Saint-Laurant-du-Maroni in French Guyana. It used to be a penal colony, but as far as I know that has no relevance to the rum. It didn't develop from toilet wine or anything. Another rum it was hard to find anything out about, but I did discover that it's an agricultural rum meaning that its made from sugar cane juice. It has no colouring added, and no extra sugar added after distilling, so it shouldn't be too sweet. It's bottles at 40% ABV, so I won't be adding much.
I've just found out a bit more information. The sugar cane juice if from hand cut, monovarietal cane. The juice if fermented over 48 hours and then distilled, shipped to Toulouse in France, rested in steel tanks for six months, reduced to standard strength slowly over six hours, aged in armagnac barrels for fifteen days, given a woo infusion (which I assume to be dangling in a bit of wood or something like that) of three different woods for another fifteen days. Seems like a weird thing to do to me. A total of thirty days interaction with wood. To a whisky drinker that just doesn't sound like enough to mellow it out and flavour it up, but rum's not whisky so maybe it's alright. We'll have to have a sniff and a sip to see.
Packaging
It's got a toucan picture on it on it!
How many toucan can you see?
Can you see both the toucans? One's in the little painting of the tropical scene and the other's in the logo. Very exciting. Toucan's don't make their way into conversation very often so I'm going to point out a few toucan facts:
- The largest toucan is the toco toucan which measures 63.5 cm in length
- A toucan's beak makes up a third of it's body length.
- Toucans often move into holes in trees made by woodpeckers.
- Toucans regulate their body temperature by adjusting the blood flow to their beak which radiates the excess heat out into the rainforest or wherever they live.
- A bat once did a wee on my sister. There was probably a toucan in the same zoo.
Smell in the bottle
On opening
Acidic
Floral
Superglue
Acetone
Appearance
Very light coloured.
Are you surprised it looks like this?
It's paler than most rums. It has no caramel courlour added to it, or indeed any colouring. Always a good thing when manufacturers are honest about what their spirit really is, although not essential for enjoyment.
Neat
Nose
Touch of Vanilla.
Maybe a little green grape.
Bit leafy.
Vanilla was kind of chocolatey.
Arrival
Not too sweet.
Alcohol sting.
Development
Earthy.
Mould, like mouldy bread appeared suddenly.
Finish
Green vegetal, kind of grassy.
Faint caramel comes in after a while.
Water - just a bit
Nose
Sort of smells of salt if that's possible. Minerally.
Something savoury. Reminds me of shrimps with Asian chili and ginger from the supermarket.
Bit of mustiness, kind of like a cellar.
Arrival
Light.
Bit of pear.
Dry.
Touch of savoury herds, maybe bay.
Development
Mouldy bread note. Very noticeable and recognizable. Appears quickly but disappears quickly too.
There's an earthiness that appears before the mould taste, but then the mould kind of jumps on it.
Hint of a kind of dusty chocolate.
A hint of spiciness that reminds me of Cuban cigars.
Finish
Dry.
Kind of old chocolate.
Kind of short.
A few extra comments
I'm pretty sure something went wrong with this sample. I've read a couple of other reviews and no one else mentioned a distinctive mould taste. I'm not really sure what would have gone wrong, other than it went mouldy. Mould shouldn't be able to grow in such a strong drink and in fact I found a list of hard alcoholic drinks that don't go bad and rum was on it. I guess it could be something from the barrel or the wood chips that got through into the mix. Maybe other people are tasting it, but calling it something else, although no one described anything similar. I think I was just unlucky enough to have got a bad sample.
Conclusion
I'm not really sure what to say about this. It's a very light rum, with subtle flavours, and my little sample was ruined by a mould flavour. On a standard one to ten scale this would have been a bit better if it was stronger, possibly aged longer, and if it didn't taste of mould. The arrival was subtle and light, then the mould appeared suddenly interrupting the whole experience. It fades away again quite quickly, but it ally messed things up for me. I don't think I'd buy a bottle. It wasn't too sweet, but although I would be interested to taste an untainted sample I wouldn't risk buying a whole bottle in case my sample isn't tainted after all and it just tastes of mould. It's a sad day.
Come back tomorrow for a hopefully not mould tasting rum. Who knows where it's from? It's a mystery. Perhaps we should call Sherlock Holmes and see if he can solve it. "Get out of the way, Watson," he'll say, "I'm trying to light my pipe." Watson will sigh in exasperation because Sherlock Holmes is a massive junkie. The end.
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