Introducing new people to rum

General
21

Great! My friend really enjoyed every bit of it.

We obviously started with the Plantation Barbados Grand Reserva RX65 with 40% abv. He never had a Rum or spirit with high proof before, so we needed something to warm up. The rum isnt spectacular and was the only Rum my friend wouldnt purchase after our evening. But at the beginning he had no clue, where the travel would lead.

We continued with the Savanna RX300, which was nice due to the Cognac Finish. He enjoyed the depth of the Rum. Even though it becomes quite one-dimensional in comparison to the other Rums at the end of this tasting.

We then went over to the Agricole Rum FRC Martinique RX15397, which left my friend surprised. The nose and the palate didnt match at all and Agricole was definitely something he did not expect nor had tasted before. He couldnt describe the taste and I really felt, he needed more time to dive into Agricoles before deciding if he enjoys that route or not.

After some Water and easy snacks we continued with our Highlights: At first the Foursquare from Sample X RX9951 which was the strongest abv Rum in this setup. Nonetheless my friend loved the Rum immediately and insisted on buying a Bottle of this rum afterwards. Heavy Rum with typical FS-notes, really matchy for cigars, perfect for summer evenings. It was a success.

We ended up the round with the jamaican candidate: Hampden Great House 2021 RX10651. I enjoyed this Rum the most out of this setup, but could feel that my friend needed more experience with this style again. At first the nose was very unpleasant for him but I promised him it would get better after the first sip. And that was the case, by the end of the glass he seemed to enjoy the Hampden. But as with the agricole, he couldnt describe his taste. He liked the rum in general, but I feel more ester would definitely be harmful for his growing interest.

In the end we did really enjoy this trip through different styles and I had to promise him to repeat this session with other Rums and maybe more styles ( Clairin e.g. :sweat_smile: :see_no_evil: he has no clue…).

My goal was to show him different styles of rum (Agricole, jamaican, barbadian, Cask-Finish) with affordable bottles (60-100€). Yes I know, some of those bottles are not available, especially not for a beginner. But that was not my point…

My friend owns around 20 (heavily) sweetened Rums, so he is not a complete beginner from scratch to the topic. But he had never before tasted an unsweetened Rum or a Rum with over 45% abv.
The tasting lasted around 4 hours and we had loads of water, some light snacks and a nice summer terrace with the best weather.

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22

I’m preparing a rum session with 5-7 friends. Most of them are whisky drinkers and two own 1-2 bottles “searious” rum (Worthy Park and Flor de Caña, and the Worthy Park was recommended be me 2 years ago :slight_smile: ).

My theme for this tasting is to showcase the broad variety of rum from different origens and different production methods.

Thanks to all the recommendation from above and as the participants are neither rum geeks nor (most of them) do know rum in general I go for a slow start like this:

  • Havana Club 3 yo RX91 (Cuba and to make them recogince the difference)
  • Plantation XO RX1 (Barbados)
  • Plantation Grand Anejo RX19 (Guatemala + Belize)

After that I would like to introduce Guyana, Marinique and Jamaica:

  • Worthy Park 109 RX9767 (Jamaica)
  • Rum Nation Enmore 1997 RX255 (Guyana)
  • Neisson L’Esprit De Neisson RX8045 (Martinique)

In the end I’ll present one of my favourite flavor bombs (undecided jet which one)

I’m unsure with the ordering of the last three - any advices?

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23

My intuition tells me to order it RN Enmore → Neisson → WP 109, but I find it hard to justify why.

I’ll try.

The Enmore is the most accessible profile out of the triad, leaning towards the slow start, but definitely breaking into adventurous territory.

The Neisson and WP present even more challenging, exotic profiles and will quickly ramp up complexity. So, in my opinion, these are best backloaded, as they risk ‘breaking the palate’ for the rest of the evening.

If your ‘flavor bomb’ at the end is a Jamaican, you could place the WP in sixth position, giving you the opportunity to juxtapose those last two, and immediately grab the opportunity to elaborate on Jamaican rum production.

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24

Please do clairin :innocent::rofl:

I would love to see the facial expressions of some of the participants.

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25

Thank you for your thoughts!

I just quickly took a sip of the WP and Neisson and you are right! The Enmore fits way better at place 4 in that row.
After that the Neisson is probably a surprise but also has pretty high ABV. A small break after it would be good.
The WP at the and introduces funkyness and opens up the territory to whatever comes next.

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26

What a phenomenal idea, YMMD :rofl:
At least I’ll offer them one clairin!

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27

My experience is that serious Whisky drinkers like especially Jamaican rums at 60% and up, and the one that always scores a goal is the Hampden Overproof. I have given quite a few tastings and whisky drinkers don’t really like the lower proof rums so I usually don’t bring them anymore :slight_smile:

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28

those whiskydrinkers i know, unfortunatley all associate jamaikan rums with ritter-sport rum traube nuss wich they dont really like :joy:

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29

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

30

My rum session happened yesterday with 6 guests and it was a great evening!

This is the summary with some advices:

  1. I prepared some slides on rum history, production, classification, honest and dishonest rum and 2 slides for earch rum we sampled (origination map and fact sheet)
  2. I had 6 guests and I would consider this the maximum I could handle
  3. I organised enought glassware and poured the samples before guests arrived, the glasses where covered with a simple white beer coaster. My guests often used the option to do a comperative (cross) tasting during the evening.
  4. I prepared a light dinner buffet with homemade bread, different cheese, cream cheese, grapes, figs that was accessible throughout the evening. I also offered some crackers and dark chokolate

The 20 minute slide show in the beginning was received very well as none of the guests experienced rum in much detail before.
We sampled the rum in this order:

  • Havana Club 3 yo RX91
  • Plantation XO RX1
  • Plantation Grand Anejo RX19
  • Rum Nation Enmore 1997 RX255
  • Neisson L’Esprit De Neisson RX8045
  • Worthy Park 109 RX9767

The Havanna Club was intended as common starting point and all agreed it is worth to be used in cocktails only. The Plantation XO was liked very much by one participant. The Grand Anejo was considered neither bad nor good. I expected to hook them with the Enmore but they rather seem to dislike it. But 4 out of 6 where excited by the L’Esprit De Neisson. This excitement got pushed even further when I put a tiny lime zest into their Neisson glasses and asked to cover the glass for 1 minute with a beer coaster :slight_smile: What a surprise after open it up again!
The Worthy Park was also not received as well as I expected.

After that I offered some higher quality rum depending on everyones likings during the tasting.
A Foresquare (RX8051) was of much interest.
I also offered a Clarain (RX442) to the ones who liked the L’Esprit De Neisson and they judged it “interesting” :slight_smile:

The good indicator for me was: Three bottles were ordered right away during the tasting by participants!

The conclusion to me is that my own likings are far far in Rum-Nerd-Land :wink: and I can not expect unexperienced or even 1st-time-real-rum-drinkers to like what I like.
And when looking back at my own rum journey I was scared away by high ester rum too in the beginning :slight_smile:
Having something (light) to eat and a lot of water is essential for “resetting” your senses during the tasting.
We made a small break after three samples. That break helped to open up discussions about the tasted rums.

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31

Cool! Sounds like a great experience and also helping to put your own likings into a bigger context :slight_smile:

Would you mind sharing your prepared slides? Might come in handy at a similar occasion… :wink:

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32

In my experience Foursquare is always a good idea for people who drank spirits before and can handle more than 40%.
Agricole, Hampden, Clairin are way more complicated for first-time-rum-drinker.

I did also creare a really easy-to-understand presentation on my Ipad on “why rum is the most diversified spirit in the world” focusing mostly on production for that purpose.

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33

No, absolutely not.

Edit: You need to download the slides - somehow google does not show all pictures.

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34

Super Präsentation!

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35

Einen riesen Applaus von mir. Ich glaube ich komme bei dir mal auf das eine oder andere Tröpfchen vorbei und lass mir die Präsentation zeigen.
Tausend mal besser als die Masterclass die ich letztes Jahr auf der Village’23 besucht habe.

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36

Jederzeit, aber bitte ankündigen, damit ich Frau in Kinder vorwarnen kann, dass verrückte zu Gast sind :wink:

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37

Mhm wieso, Frau und Kinder lass ich doch zu Hause :rofl:

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38

Richtig gut gemacht. :+1:

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39

Jo, schön gemacht :slightly_smiling_face::+1:t2:

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40

A friend of mine showed a keen interest in rum, but the likes of Captain Morgan and all the other South American ron.

In order to convert him, I chose the extreme way : a white DOK from Romdeluxe at 85,6%. He was not a virgin anymore afterwards !

Now he is kind of a rhum hoe like me, always saying « don’t you have one or two of those nice samples over there » :sweat_smile:

We are planning to go to the whisky live together also !

Like the Sith, always go by 2 : a master, and an apprentice :wink:

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