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Refected in a mirror, Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill talks to the media after a workout Friday, Jan. 18, 2019, in Kansas City, Mo.
(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Tyreek Hill issues statement about child abuse investigation
Chris Oberholtz
Kansas City Chiefs star receiver Tyreek Hill is maintaining his innocence after prosecutors declined to charge him in a domestic incident that involved his fiancee and their 3-year-old.
KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV/AP) -- Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill has issued a statement a day after a county prosecutor declined to charge him with a crime in a domestic incident that involved his fiance and their 3-year-old child.
"I love and support my family above anything. My son's health and happiness is my number one priority. I want to thank the Kansas City Chiefs, my attorneys, my agent and my union for supporting me through this. My focus remains on working hard to be the best person for my family and our community I can be, and the best player to help our team win," Hill said.
Trey Pettlon, Ryan Ginie and Julius Collins, attorneys for Hill, said in a wrtitten statement Thursday that their client has maintained from the inception and throughout the investigation that he was innocent of any crime.
"Contrary to some media reports, Tyreek cooperated with law enforcement, waived his Fifth Amendment rights, and answered questions from both law enforcement and DCF. He continues to cooperate with authorities. Unfortunately, due to laws related to confidentiality, as much as he would like to, he cannot comment regarding specific allegations," his attorneys said.
Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe acknowledged that "we believe a crime has occurred, however, the evidence in this case does not conclusively establish who committed this crime."
The Chiefs issued a comment late Wednesday acknowledging the prosecutor's decision but declining further comment.
Police were called to the Kansas City-area home of Hill and Crystal Espinal twice last month, and investigators determined their child had been injured the second time. Howe said the child was placed in protective care and that there will be "a continued involvement by state officials."
Reports of incidents at Tyreek Hill's home raise questions of what constitutes child abuse
The police reports on incidents at the home of Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill obtained by KCTV5 News raises questions about child abuse allegations and parents.
"I can't talk about the child, its placement or what is going on in that matter. What I can say is the child is safe," Howe said. "We want to hold people accountable that hurt children, but there are other mechanisms for us to protect that child other than filing criminal charges."
The Chiefs issued a comment late Wednesday acknowledging the district attorney's decision but declining further comment, citing the ongoing investigation by the Department for Children and Families.
Chiefs release statement on developments in Tyreek Hill case
The Kansas City Chiefs have released a statement following the announcement that the Johnson County District Attorney has declined to issue charges against Tyreek Hill.
Hill is a two-time Pro Bowl wide receiver with a history of domestic issues, including a case in which he was accused of punching Espinal while at Oklahoma State. Hill was kicked off the football team there and landed at a small school in Alabama, where he became a fifth-round pick of the Chiefs.
Hill has blossomed into one of the league's elite playmakers, and had largely stayed out of trouble until this past month, when authorities were called to his home twice in a nine-day span.
Chiefs fans react to Tyreek Hill decision
The Johnson County District Attorney will not press charges against Chiefs star Tyreek Hill. He was under investigation for child abuse.
"As a prosecutor, as a father of four, yes, it frustrates me when someone hurts a child and you can't do anything about it," said Howe, adding that the investigation took several additional weeks as he waited for police to conduct follow-up work. "One of the elements of a crime is you have to prove who that person is who committed the act."
Howe said that it was ultimately impossible to determine who injured the child.
The decision comes at an important juncture for the Chiefs, who are busy preparing for the start of the NFL draft on Thursday night. They released running back Kareem Hunt shortly after a video surfaced showing him pushing and kicking a woman in a hotel hallway, and that precedent made it likely the Chiefs would have made a similar decision had charges against Hill been filed.
The Chiefs or the NFL could still punish Hill, and the receiver's long-term future in Kansas City remains in question. Hill is entering the final year of his rookie contract and appeared poised to land a massive contract, but the Chiefs could be reluctant to give him that deal now.
The Chiefs' first draft pick is not expected until the second round Friday night. The Chiefs traded their first-round pick to Seattle on Tuesday for pass rusher Frank Clark, who was kicked off his team at Michigan after his own domestic violence situation.
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DA declines to file charges at this time in Tyreek Hill child abuse investigation
Kansas City Chiefs star wide receiver Tyreek Hill will not face any criminal charges connected with a pair of child abuse incidents reported at his Overland Park home.
KCTV5 Investigates: Tyreek Hill temporarily loses custody of child after abuse allegations
KCTV5 News has confirmed with multiple sources that Hill temporarily lost custody of his child, pending further court action.
Tyreek Hill posts video online during investigation
KCTV5 News is continuing to follow developments in the investigation of Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
DCF joins investigation into child abuse claims at Tyreek Hill's home
The Kansas Department for Children and Families confirms it is investigating the situation involving child abuse claims at the home of Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
Police investigate 2 incidents of suspected child abuse at home of Chiefs WR Tyreek Hill
There are new accusations against Chiefs All-Pro wide receiver Tyreek Hill who is the target of two investigations into allegations of child abuse.
Criminal case against Tyreek Hill, fiancee reopened following audio's release
KCTV5's investigative department was sent a recording of Tyreek Hill and his fiancé discussing the police investigation and what they are telling police.
Chiefs GM: Team 'deeply disturbed' by Tyreek Hill recording
In a late-night news conference, Kansas City Chiefs General Manager Brett Veach said the organization was "deeply disturbed" by recordings of Tyreek Hill and his fiance released by KCTV5 News Thursday.
Chiefs avoid answering questions about Tyreek Hill during Monday call with reporters
No criminal charges for Chiefs Tyreek Hill after child abuse case reopened
Tyreek Hill
Crystal Espinal
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htaylor57 Apr 25, 2019 5:40pm
That's good enough for me. Let's move on and play some football
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Police say a crowd took the law into their own hands, beat to death a man who stole a car with kids inside
Two people killed, one injured after two motorcycles hit deer
Mom arrested after daughter licks tongue depressor, puts it back in jar at doctor's office
Missouri governor signs law pushing back school start date
$30,000 above ground pool has Missouri woman drowning in debt
Tyreek Hill's former fiancée files paternity case following recent birth of twins
Feds warn against storming Area 51: 'The military stands ready'
Pig intestines cause traffic delays in downtown Kansas City
Car carried away by construction vehicle in Overland Park neighborhood
North KC woman hunts down thief who stole her car, steals it back


When I was a child, at the beginning of each month, my brother and I would sit at a table, watching my parents put their salaries together and then inserted certain portion of the money into envelopes labeled as "groceries," "school," "utilities," and so on. They also talked to us about how much we had saved in the past month and how we could work on a plan to buy things like a bigger TV.
My habit of keeping a budget must have been learned from those days. It is sad that not many parents are talking to their kids about money basics now. In fact, involving kids early in your family budgeting and finance can benefit them down the road. Here are four ways I have used to teach my children about money and budgeting.
Children earn allowance for doing house chores, but often parents do not care how kids spend their allowance. Even though that's only a small amount of money, it can be seen as earnings, just as what we earn in the real world. We can help them be money-conscious and make good use of their money. Every time, when we give money to Andrew and Allison, we ask them to contribute at least 1/3 of it to the savings. They can use the rest of it for something they like. We have not yet collected "tax" from them like the real world, but we probably will as they are getting older.
I am a big fan of Excel and use it to document family spending. When Andrew was in the third grade, he participated in a technology club in school where he was taught some basics of Excel. I asked whether he would like to do the family spending-tracking using Excel for me and he accepted happily.
Using my template, he quickly learned how to enter numbers under each category. He even had more fun in it by adding his columns such as whether something we spent on was a need or a want and who initiated the spending –something like a mom for groceries and him for Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream. I also took this opportunity to teach him a little bit more advanced Excel skills such as Inserting pivot table, which allows a clear summary of costs by category with a few clicks.
By the end of the month, Andrew's spreadsheet allows him to inform us about what we have spent most, and how well we are doing as compared to previous months. As his Excel skills are developing, he now even shows us charts and graphs and shares with us his thoughts on the findings.
DIY home improvement projects not only save money but also help increase the house value in the long run. Letting children help with DIYs is important for them to have a sense of ownership in the home and understand the value of hard work.
Our house is quite old and therefore requires a lot of improvement. If we ask a professional person to work for all of those, it will cost a ton. My husband and I identified what have to be done by professionals (e.g., electrical installation, major plumbing repairs) and what could be DIY projects.
So far, Andrew has helped his dad with several projects, including replacing leaking faucets, fixing door air leaks, unclogging an external drain, etc. He also accompanied his dad to shop for materials and rent tools. While he is helping us cutting spending, he is developing into a little handyman.
Can children make things work with a limited budget? If you give them chances to try, they often can. Even if they fail, they probably will learn a lesson.
I hope you find these ideas helpful. A few final words– when we try to put discipline to our children, we need to put equal emphasis on ourselves. Children see, children do. A positive parental role model may be an even better method for improving a child's money habits than attempts at behavioral control.
Agreed. Thanks for stopping by my blog.
Very important to teach kids. I will be implementing these when my son gets a little older.
Teaching children budgeting is so important! My husband used to work for Dave Ramsey, and we learned a ton about helping kids budget there. Great post!
Love this! I'll make sure to teach my kids about this when they're older!
This is very good. My boys are just getting to where they are thinking about money, so I like the ideas.
YES! I am so on board with this! I want my kids to earn money and learn the concept too! These are great tips!
These are some great ideas! I never thought of having the kids help with DIY stuff, but that's a great idea, both so they can learn how to save and also how much it all costs!
I really like the idea of getting them to track their money. It's easy to lose track and suddenly have no money. This year I've decided to give them a $10 budget for the gifts they need to buy for Christmas. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with!
These are great tips, I will definitely remember these for when my children get of age.
Such great ideas! We are starting to work on this with our oldest son. I love the idea of giving him a budget to buy some Christmas gifts this year. Maybe it will help him realize the value of money a little more.
Thanks so much for the comment. I am glad you find the information helpful. Best wishes to you and your family!


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Will the Kurds Get Their Independence Referendum?
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July 27, 2017 Topic: Security Region: Middle East Tags: KurdsPeshmergaWarIslamic StateIndependenceMilitary
The Kurdish region faces a multiplicity of hurdles as it prepares for the "yes to independence" referendum.
Kurdistan Regional Government president Masoud Barzani announced on June 7 that the region had set September 25 as the date for a referendum on independence. He was joined by members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Kurdistan Islamic Union, Kurdistan Islamic Movement and other small parties, including those representing Assyrian and Turkmen minorities. New signs on billboards throughout the KRG capital of Erbil tout "yes to independence."
The Kurdish region faces a multiplicity of hurdles as it prepares for the referendum. The top among them are internal issues, such as demands on July 12 by the Change Movement (Gorran) and Kurdistan Islamic Union that elections for the regional parliament be held before—or during—the referendum and that the parliament be reconvened. External actors also pose challenges. Moktada al-Sadr, the powerful Shia leader in Baghdad has called on Masoud to postpone the referendum, according to a July 5 report by Asharq al-Awsat.
"The time has come for our own people to determine their future," Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of the department of foreign relations for the KRG, said in an interview. Fourteen years after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion and the problems between Baghdad and the Kurds have not been resolved by decentralization, autonomy and federalism, he said. "To have a democratic environment we need democratic practice and democratic culture," Bakir said. The Iraqi government has breached the constitution, not distributed the federal budget correctly, and a referendum will bring about "stability and security." It will also be a mandate for the Kurdish leadership to negotiate with Baghdad, Bakir said. "We can be good partners as two good neighbors," he said. "This is a turning point in our history."
Bakir said that they are aware securing independence will not be easy. Gathering the support for thirty-four local political parties for the referendum has been a challenge, as well as explaining to Baghdad that the region does not want a new round of conflict. In contrast to claims that Kurdish independence would make the area unstable, the last hundred years had "not seen stability and prosperity" in the region, he said. He pointed to the suffering of Kurds under Saddam Hussein when 182,000 people were killed during the Anfal campaign, and he also noted that under the current system, Baghdad does not share wealth and power with the north. "We assure our neighbors that this step will not go against the interest of these nations . . . we are for building bridges and we can assure them that the future independent Kurdistan would be a partner and ally." Towards that end, the KRG is reaching out to its partners abroad. Bakir referenced the United States, the U.S.-led coalition, the UN and the EU. "First they can support dialogue between Erbil and Baghdad," he said. "Second, the democratic values in the process of referendum need to be respected."
The referendum doesn't come in a vacuum but was scheduled to coincide with the winding down of the war against ISIS in Iraq. The Iraqi security forces liberated Mosul in early July after grueling battles in the Old City that saw ISIS blow up the famed Great Mosque of al-Nuri, which is where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the "caliphate" in 2014. To the west the Popular Mobilization Units, a group of mostly Shia militias that are an official paramilitary force of Baghdad, have successfully cleared a large area of ISIS. But the jihadists still have pockets in Tal Afar, Hawija and parts of Anbar province and they are not as defeated as it seems. Seventeen Islamic State members were ambushed near Rabia, near the Syrian border, by members of the Rojava Peshmerga on July 12, and ISIS members raided a village near Qayarrah, killing two Iraqi journalists in an area that was supposed to be free of the extremists.
The Kurdish region's leaders argue that the Peshmerga, the armed forces of the KRG, proved themselves in battle with ISIS over the last two years. In meetings with European Union officials in Brussels on July 12, President Masoud said that 1,745 Peshmerga had been killed in battle with the extremists and more than ten thousand had been injured. The Peshmerga liberated thirty thousand square kilometers. Masoud reminded the EU that the Kurdish region was hosting 1.4 million Iraqi internally displaced persons and 233,000 Syrian refugees according to a report at the Kurdish media outlet Rudaw.
To shore up the region, the Kurdish leadership also wants to push through a series of reforms during the period leading up to the referendum. In May, Kurdistan Regional Government prime minister Nechirvan Barzani and Kurdistan Regional Government deputy prime minister Qubad Talabani met with a delegation of representatives from the United States, Germany and the UK. According to reports, Prime Minister Barzani told the UK's Defense Ministry Senior Advisor for the Middle East that the government and the Ministry of Peshmerga were pushing further reforms for the Kurdish forces.
Bakhtiyar Mohammed, an advisor at the Peshmerga Ministry, said the reforms cover thrity-five different articles relating to issues as disparate as arming, training, logistics and upgrading barracks and living facilities for Kurdish soldiers. Reforms also seek standardization of salaries. Due to the Iraqi constitution, the KRG is not permitted to have an air force, but the Peshmerga want to expand their helicopter arm. This issue is still awaiting the approval of the president's office, according to sources in the KRG.
The region wants to continue reducing the role of political parties in the Peshmerga. Prior to the war on ISIS, one of the issues the Peshmerga faced was that the majority of their forces came under the command of two units called seventy and eighty, which were affiliated with the PUK and KDP respectively. If you went to sectors of the frontline during the war it was relatively common to see political banners either at nearby, indicating which sector was run by which Peshmerga and whose umbrella party the men came from. This is a holdover from the days before 2003 during the struggle against Saddam Hussein and the 1990s when the Kurdish parties fought a civil war. The reforms since have tried to reduce the role of parties and professionalize the entire system under the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs.
To sustain the process of creating a professional military, Kurdish commanders like General Najat Ali say the international community should continue to support the Peshmerga, thousands of whom were trained during the war on ISIS through the Kurdistan Training Coordination Center. "The international community should understand and respect the decision and help us, we are allied with the United States and we proved to the whole world we could fight ISIS," said Ali in an interview. Samuel Helfont wrote in a May 2017 paper at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the American University of Iraq Sulaimani that "helping the Kurds reform their military forces by building capacity of forces under control of the nonpolitical Ministry of Peshmerga is vital to achieving these goals."
The Kurds are trying to mollify concerns in the United States and EU about independence. Barzani has said that there is no going back on the referendum and in Brussels he asked EU officials that if they could not support the right of Kurds to vote, then to at least stay neutral. U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert has called the referendum an "internal matter," which implies the United States may not interfere.
During the war on ISIS many EU states and the United States formed a unique close relationship with the Kurdish region that included not only arms shipments and training, but also targeting funding for various programs. However with the referendum coming up there will be tensions over voting in areas considered disputed territory between the central government and the Kurdish autonomous region. This includes territories around Kirkuk, Khanaquin, Sinjar and Makhmur. The governor of Kirkuk, Najmaldin Karim, is a major supporter of independence, and in March the provincial council voted to raise the Kurdish flag at local Kirkuk government buildings. Iraq opposed the decision, and Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Bahram Qassemi said the flag would "increase tensions." This is a sign of worse to come. While foreign powers may have sympathy for Kurdish rights to have a vote, if Iraq vehemently opposes electioneering in the disputed areas things will be different. Some of the borders of these areas were drawn during the recent conflict, with Peshmerga frontlines and those of Shia militias abutting one another. Kurdistan also faces hurdles with Iran and Turkey on its borders. Dealing with those two countries, and other Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, will likely be next on President Barzani's list.
Seth J. Frantzman is a Jerusalem-based journalist and research associate at the Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs in Herzliya.
Image: Kurdish Peshmerga forces celebrate on the eve of Newroz Day, a festival marking their spring and the Persian New Year, in Kirkuk March 20, 2015. Newroz Day is also celebrated in other countries, including Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A soul food favorite, this Cracklin' Cornbread is crumbly with a crunchy crust embedded with pork cracklins. The cracklins add additional body and a ton of flavor. With few ingredients this bread is easy to make. The only step that requires a little skill is getting the proper consistency of the mix (batter). It should be thick enough to hold together loosely but not crumbly or soupy. When in doubt lean more toward a moist mixture rather than a dry one.
Cracklin cornbread goes well with any meat, poultry or fish. It compliments all traditional Southern vegetable dishes such as turnip/collard greens, black eyed peas or baked beans.
We've all had that late night hunger for a snack...but we don't want to cook anything and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches just do not sound appealing. A late night snack I learned from my dad is to crumble left-over cornbread into a glass of cold milk and eat with a spoon. It's quick and easy to make and is very filling. Of course, you have to have some left over cornbread and it seems we seldom have left over's from this cracklin cornbread recipe.
2. Pour bacon drippings (you can substitute cooking oil) in cast iron skillet and heat until hot, but not smoking.
3. Combine dry ingredients and cracklins in a mixing bowl. Add milk and mix well (see note below).
4. Add heated bacon drippings, leaving about 1 or 2 tablespoons in the skillet. Mix well.
5. Pour mixture into hot skillet and bake 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown or wooden toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
NOTE: When you add the milk in step #3, add a little at a time while stirring. Watch the consistency of the mix as you add milk. You are looking for a batter that resembles a pancake or waffle batter. You may need more or less than the 1 cup of milk.


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The Lone Caner
A Solo Reviewer's Take on Rums
Rum Essays
Rumaniacs
Reviews (A-J)
Reviews (K-Z)
The Key Rums
Habitation Velier Forsyth's Pot Still Unaged White Rum (WPE) (2017) – Review
Hampden gets so many kudos these days from its relationship with Velier — the slick marketing, the yellow boxes, the Endemic Bird series, the great tastes, the sheer range of them all — that to some extent it seems like Worthy Park is the poor red haired stepchild of the glint in the milkman's eye, running behind dem Big Boy picking up footprints. Yet Worthy Park is no stranger to really good rums of its own, also pot still made, and clearly distinguishable to one who loves the New Jamaicans. They are not just any Jamaicans…they're Worthy Park, dammit. They have no special relationship with anyone, and don't really want (or need) one.
For a long time, until around 2005, Worthy Park was either closed or distilling rum for bulk export, but in that year they restarted distilling on their double retort pot still and in 2013 Luca Gargano, the boss of Velier, came on a tour of Jamaica and took note. By 2016 when he released the first series of the Habitation Velier line (using 2015 distillates) he was able to convince WP to provide him with three rums, and in 2017 he got three more. This one was a special edition of sorts from that second set, using an extended fermentation period – three months! – to develop a higher ester count than usual (597.3 g/hLpa, the label boasts). It was issued as an unaged 57% white, and let me tell you, it takes its place proudly among the pantheon of such rums with no apology whatsoever.
I make that statement with no expectation of a refutation. The rum doesn't just leap out of the bottle to amaze and astonish, it detonates, as if the Good Lord hisself just gave vent to a biblical flatus. You inhale rotting fruit, rubber tyres and banana skins, a pile of warm sweet garbage left to decompose in the topical sun after being half burnt and then extinguished by a short rain. It mixes up the smell of sweet dark overripe cherries with the peculiar aroma of the ink in a fountain pen. It's musty, it's mucky, it's thick with sweet Indian spices, possesses a clear burn that shouldn't be pleasant but is, and it may still, after all this time, be one of the most original rums you've tried this side of next week. When you catch your breath after a long sniff, that's the sort of feeling you're left with.
Oh and it's clear that WP and their master blender aren't satisfied with just having a certifiable aroma that would make a DOK (and the Caner) weep, but are intent on amping up the juice to "12". The rum is hot-snot and steel-solid, with the salty and oily notes of a pot still hooch going full blast. There's the taste of wax, turpentine, salt, gherkins, sweet thick soya sauce, and if this doesn't stretch your imagination too far, petrol and burnt rubber mixed with the sugar water. Enough? "No, mon," you can hear them say as they tweak it some more, "Dis ting still too small." And it is, because when you wait, you also get brine, sweet red olives, paprika, pineapple, ripe mangoes, soursop, all sweetness and salt and fruits, leading to a near explosive conclusion that leaves the taste buds gasping. Bags of fruit and salt and spices are left on the nose, the tongue, the memory and with its strength and clear, glittering power, it would be no exaggeration to remark that this is a rum which dark alleyways are afraid to have walk down it.
The rum displays all the attributes that made the estate's name after 2016 when they started supplying their rums to others and began bottling their own. It's a rum that's astonishingly stuffed with tastes from all over the map, not always in harmony but in a sort of cheerful screaming chaos that shouldn't work…except that it does. More sensory impressions are expended here than in any rum of recent memory (and I remember the TECA) and all this in an unaged rum. It's simply amazing.
If you want to know why I'm so enthusiastic, well, it's because I think it really is that good. But also, in a time of timid mediocrity where too many rum makers (like those Panamanians I was riffing about last week) are afraid to take a chance, I like ambitious rum makers who go for broke, who litter rum blogs, rumfest floors and traumatized palates with the detritus of their failures, who leave their outlines in the walls they run into (and through) at top speed. I like their ambition, their guts, their utter lack of fear, the complete surrender to curiosity and the willingness to go down any damned experimentative rabbit hole they please. I don't score this in the nineties, but God, I do admire it – give me a rum that bites off more than it can chew, any time, over milquetoast low-strength yawn-through that won't even try gumming it.
(#790)(86/100)
Outturn unknown.
The Habitation Velier WP 2017 "151" edition was also a WPE and from this same batch (the ester counts are the same).
In the marque "WPE" the WP is self explanatory, and the "E" stands for "Ester"
Posted by Ruminsky at 3:23 am	Habitation Velier, Jamaica, Pot Still Rums, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type, Unaged Rums, Velier, White Rums, Worthy park Tagged with: Habitation Velier, Pot Still Rums, Rums from Jamaica, White Rums - Unaged, Worthy Park
Smatt's Silver Jamaican Rum – Review
It's peculiar how little information there is on Smatt's that isn't all razzamatazz and overhyped positive posturing meant to move cases. Almost nobody has written anything of consequence about it, there's no review of credibility out there, while the product website is a cringeworthy mass of spouting verbiage long on gushing praise and short on anything we might actually want to know. When you're relegated to furtively checking out Rumratings and Difford's to at least see what drinkers are saying, well, you know you've got an issue.
Smatt is, according to those sources I've managed to check, a small-batch, boutique, Jamaican blended rum of pot and column still distillate, launched in the early 2010s. Which distillery? Unclear and unconfirmed, though it's likely to be made by one of the companies under the NRJ banner, given the involvement of Derrick Dunn as the master blender (he started working at Innswood Distillery where he maintains an office, and is the master blender for Monymusk, the house rum of NRJ). The rum is filtered to white, released at 40% and is marketed in upscale establishments in the UK and various duty free emporia (and some online shops), which may be why it consistently maintains a low profile and is relatively unknown, as these are not places where rum geekery is in plentiful supply.
Normally, such a rum wouldn't interest me much, but with the massive reputations the New Jamaicans have been building for themselves, it made me curious so I grudgingly parted with some coin to get a sample. That was the right decision, because this thing turned out to be less an undiscovered steal than a low-rent Jamaican wannabe for those who don't care about and can't tell one Jamaican rum from another, know Appleton and stop there. The rum takes great care not to go beyond such vanilla illusions, since originality is not its forte and it takes inoffensive pleasing-the-sipper as its highest goal.
Consider the aromas coming off it: there's a touch of sweet acid funkiness and herbs – sweet pickles, pineapple, strawberry bubblegum mixed in with some brine, white pepper and cereals. To some extent, you can sense bananas and oranges starting to go off, and it becomes more fruity after five minutes or so – within the limitations imposed by the filtration and that low strength – but not rich, not striking, not something you'd remember by the time you set the glass down.
The palate is, in a word, weak, and it raises the question of why it was filtered at all given that it was already quite delicate as a factor of the standard proof. It tasted clean, very very light, and pleasantly warm, sure. And there were pleasing, soft flavours of coconut shavings, candy, caramel, light molasses. And even some fruits, light and watery and white, like pears and ripe guavas and sugar water. Just not enough of them, or of anything else. It therefore comes as no surprise that the finish is short and sugary and sweet, a touch fruity, a little dry, and disappears in a flash
Once I drank the thing, checked my notes and assessed my opinions, I came to the conclusion that while the nose does say "Jamaican" — real quiet — it then gets completely addled and loses its way on the palate and finish and ends up as something rather anonymous. It's not as if there was that much there to begin with at 40%, and to filter it into insensibility and flatness, to tamp down the exuberance of what an island rum can be, completely misses the point of the Jamaican rum landscape.
Smatt's modest self-praise of being one of the finest rums ever produced ("Considered by many as the world's best tasting rum") can be completely disregarded. I guess that letting it stand on its merits didn't scream "excellence!" loud enough for the marketing folks, who clearly have at best a tangential acquaintance with rum (or truth, for that matter) but a real good sense of over-the-top adjectives. But what they're doing by saying such things is purloining the trappings and cred of some serious, real Jamaican rum, stripping them down and selling for parts. Smatt's is no advertisement for the island or its traditions, and while I completely accept I come at my snark from a long background of trying whites from all points of the compass (and have come to prefer strong, growly and original) that's no excuse for Smatt's to come out with a bland and boring rum that doesn't even do us the favour of letting us know what it really is, while shamelessly bloviating about all the things it isn't. Why, it's positively Trumpian.
Honesty compels me to let you know that in 2015 Forbes named this as one of eight rums you should try. In 2020, the Caner is telling you it really isn't.
I don't care about the story of the pirate the rum was supposedly named after, and simply note it for completeness here.
Age is unknown. I'd suggest it's a few years old but that's a guess based on taste and price.
Posted by Ruminsky at 10:23 pm	Aged Rums - Unknown Age, Blended Rums, Jamaica, Merchant Bottlers, Miscellaneous, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type, White Rums Tagged with: Monymusk Distillery, Rums from Jamaica, Smatt's, Unknown Age, Unknown Still
Habitation Velier Monymusk 2010 EMB 9 YO – Review
As the memories of the Velier Demeraras fades and the Caronis climb in price past the point of reason and into madness, it is good to remember the third major series of rums that Velier has initiated, which somehow does not get all the appreciation and braying ra-ra publicity so attendant on the others. This is the Habitation Velier collection, and to my mind it has real potential of eclipsing the Caronis, or even those near-legendary Guyanese rums which are so firmly anchored to Luca's street cred.
I advertise the importance of the series in this fashion because too often they're seen as secondary efforts released by a major house, and priced (relatively) low to match, at a level not calculated to excite "Collector's Envy". But they are all pot still rums, they're from all over the world, they're all cask strength, they're both aged and unaged, and still, even years after their introduction, remain both available and affordable for what they are. When was the last time you heard that about a Velier rum?
Since there is such a wide range in the series, it goes without saying that variations in quality and diverse opinions attend them all – some are simply considered better than others and I've heard equal volumes of green p*ss and golden praise showered on any one of them. But in this instance I must tell you right out, that the EMB released in 2019 is a really good sub-ten year old rum, just shy of spectacular and I don't think I'm the only one to feel that way.
The first impression I got from nosing this kinetic 62% ABV rum, was one of light crispness, like biting into a green apple. It was tart, nicely sweet, but also with a slight sourness to it, and just a garden of fruits – apricots, soursop, guavas, prunes – combined with nougat, almonds and the peculiar bitterness of unsweetened double chocolate. And vanilla, coconut shavings and basil, if you can believe it. All this in nine years' tropical ageing? Wow. It's the sort of rum I could sniff at for an hour and still be finding new things to explore and classify.
The taste is better yet. Here the light clarity gives way to something much fiercer, growlier, deeper, a completely full bodied White Fang to the nose's tamer Buck if you will. As it cheerfully tries to dissolve your tongue you can clearly taste molasses, salted caramel, dates, figs, ripe apples and oranges, brown sugar and honey, and a plethora of fragrant spices that make you think you were in an oriental bazaar someplace – mint, basil, and cumin for the most part. I have to admit, water does help shake loose a few other notes of vanilla, salted caramel, and the low-level funk of overripe mangoes and pineapple and bananas, but this is a rum with a relatively low level of esters (275.5 gr/hlpa) compared to a mastodon channeling DOK and so they were content to remain in the background and not upset the fruit cart.
As for the finish, well, in rum terms it was longer than the current Guyanese election and seemed to feel that it was required that it run through the entire tasting experience a second time, as well as adding some light touches of acetone and rubber, citrus, brine, plus everything else we had already experienced the palate. I sighed when it was over…and poured myself another shot.
Man, this was one tasty dram. Overall, what struck me, what was both remarkable and memorable about it, was what it did not try to be. It didn't display the pleasant blended anonymity of too many Barbados rums I've tried and was not as woodsy and dark as the Demeraras. It was strong yes, but the ageing sanded off most of the rough edges. It didn't want or try to be an ester monster, while at the same time was individual and funky enough to please those who dislike the sharp extremes of a TECA or a DOK rum – and I also enjoyed how easily the various tastes worked well together, flowed into each other, like they all agreed to a non-aggression pact or something.
It was, in short, excellent on its own terms, and while not exactly cheap at around a hundred quid, it is – with all the strength and youth and purity – a lot of Grade A meat on the hoof. It stomped right over my palate and my expectations, as well as exceeding a lot of other more expensive rums which are half as strong and twice as old but nowhere near this good…or this much fun.
Posted by Ruminsky at 8:43 pm	Aged Rums - 06-10 YO, Europe, Habitation Velier, Jamaica, Pot Still Rums, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type, Uncategorized, Velier Tagged with: Habitation Velier, Monymusk Distillery, Pot Still Rums, Rums from Jamaica, Rums from Velier
Habitation Velier Longpond "TECA" 2005 14 Year Old Rum – Review
There are few people who tried the quartet of the Velier black-bottled Long Pond series that was released (or should that read "unleashed"?) in 2018, who didn't have an opinion on the snarling beastie that was the 2003 NRJ TECA. That was a rank, reeking, sneering, foul-smelling animal of a rum, unwashed, uncouth, unafraid, and it blasted its way through each and every unwary palate on the planet. If Luca Gargano, the boss of Velier, wanted to provide a rum that would show what a high ester beefcake could do, and to educate us as to why it was never meant to be had on its own, he succeeded brilliantly with that one.
And yet a year later, he produced another pure single rum, also from the double retort pot still at Long Pond, also a TECA, a year younger and a percentage point weaker, with fourscore or so more gr/hlpa esters – and it blew the 2018 version out of the water. It was an amazing piece of work, better in almost every way (except perhaps for rumstink), and if one did not know better, just about a completely different rum altogether. Which makes it rather strange that it has not received more plaudits, or been mentioned more often (see "other notes", below).
Let's see if we can't redress that somewhat. This is a Jamaican rum from Longpond, double pot still made, 62% ABV, 14 years old, and released as one of the pot still rums the Habitation Velier line is there to showcase. I will take it as a given it's been completely tropically aged. Note of course, the ester figure of 1289.5 gr/hlpa, which is very close to the maximum (1600) allowed by Jamaican law. What we could expect from such a high number, then, is a rum sporting taste-chops of uncommon intensity and flavour, as rounded off by nearly a decade and a half of ageing – now, those statistics made the TECA 2018 detonate in your face and it's arguable whether that's a success, but here? … it worked. Swimmingly.
Nose first. Some of the lurking bog-monsters of the acetones, rubber and sulphur that defined the earlier version remained, but much more restrained – rubber, wax, brine, funk, plasticine, rotting fruits, pineapple, that kind of thing. What made it different was a sort of enhanced balance, a sweetness and thickness to the experience, which I really enjoyed. Much of the "wtf?" quality of its brother – the gaminess, the meatiness, the reek – was toned down or had disappeared, replaced by a much tastier series of fleshy, overripe fruit, pineapple and crushed almonds.
What distinguished the rum so much on the palate, I think, was the way that the very things I had shuddered at with the NRJ TECA were, when dialled down and better integrated, exactly what made this one so very good. The spoiling meat and hogo danced around the background, but never overwhelmed the solid notes of mint, thyme, rubber, nail polish, acetones and bags of molasses and caramel and ripe fruits. I particularly liked the way that the combination of ripe peaches and apricots versus the tart citrus-and-strawberry line stopped the whole "descent into madness" thing. This allowed the rum to be extreme, yes, but not overpoweringly so…sweeter and thicker and sharper and better than one would be led to expect with that ester count, like they had all agreed to a non-aggression pact. The finish – which seemed to want to hang around for a while to show off – was redolent of molasses, mint, fruits, ripe peaches, pineapples, lemon peel and a weird little whiff of green peas, and I enjoyed it quite a bit as well.
So – good or bad? Let's see if we can sum this up. In short, I believe the 2005 TECA was a furious and outstanding rum on nearly every level. But that comes with caveats. "Fasten your seatbelt" remarked Serge Valentin in his 85 point review, and Christoph Harrer on the German Rum Club page wrote shakily (perhaps in awe) that "the smell is […] brutal and hit me like a bomb," — which leads one to wonder what he might have made of the original TECA, but he had a point: you can't treat it like a Zacapa or a Diplo…therein lies madness and trauma for sure. Even if you like your Jamaicans and boast of your experiences with fullproof Hampdens and Worthy Park rums, this was one to be approached — at that strength and with that ester count — with some caution.
Perhaps it would take a few more nips and sips to appreciate it more fully. I tried it at the German rumfest in 2019, and while I knew right away that it was special and a true original, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it…and so filched a second sample to try more carefully, at leisure. Normally I walk around a rumfest with four glasses in my hand, but that day I kept one glass with this juice on the go for the entire afternoon, and returned the very next day to get another two. And the conclusion I came to, then and now, is that while at the beginning it has all the grace of a runaway D9, at the end, when the dust settles, all the disparate notes come together in a rhythm that somehow manages to elevate its initial brutality to a surprising, and very welcome, elegance.
Others have varying opinions on this rum, mostly on the plus side. Marius over at Single Cask Rum did the full comparison of the two TECA rums and came to similar conclusions as I did, scoring it 86 points. Le Blog a Roger was less positive and felt it was still too extreme for him and gave it 82. And our old Haiku-style-reviewer, Serge Valentin noted it as being "not easy" and "perhaps a tad too much" but liked it to the tune of 85 points.
Posted by Ruminsky at 12:37 am	Aged Rums - 11-15 YO, Europe, Habitation Velier, Jamaica, Longpond, Pot Still Rums, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type, Velier Tagged with: Habitation Velier, Pot Still Rums, Rums from Jamaica, Rums from Longpond Distillery, TECA, Trelawny
SMWS R 11.2 Worthy Park 7YO Rum ("Absolutely Fabulous!") – Review
It sounds strange to say it, but the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, aside from ushering in changes in the whisky world, had its impacts on rums as well. What made the Society stand out back in the day and initially made its name, was the focus on single cask fullproof bottlings, which at the time was only sporadically addressed by other whisky makers (and hardly at all with rums, except perhaps by the Italians like Samaroli and Velier, who were practically unknown outside Italy). At the time I wrote about the Longpond R5.1 and the WIRD R 3.4 and R 3.5, 46% was about the most I ever saw outside of the 151s, so juice that went for broke at cask strength was eye opening.
Well, fast forward some years and what I saw as groundbreaking in 2012 is now standard practice, and while the Society has expanded its rum selection to 50+ (all at fullproof), its lustre has been eclipsed somewhat in the competing glare of the many other rum makers (indies or producers) who are doing the same thing, and who, let's face it, specialize in rum – they don't see it as an adjunct to their main business. That and the SMWS's pricing model, of course, which many can't or won't pony up for (full disclosure: I'm a member of the Society and buy my bottles).
But anyway, preamble aside, let's keep on disassembling the R-11.x series of rums released by the Society, with the second release from Worthy Park distillate, which is called, without irony and perhaps tongue-in-cheek, "Absolutely Fabulous!" Like the R11.1, it is 57.5% ABV, distilled in 2010 and bottled in 2017, 309-bottle outturn from ex-bourbon barrels. And like that one, it's nice and original.
The nose – sweet, fruity, subtly different from the R11.1. Orange zest, papaya, pineapple, ripe yellow mangoes, plus toblerone, white pepper, honey, cereals, and again that sly hint of glue coiling around the background. It remains dusty, but also laden with spices like cinnamon, massala, crushed black peppers and there's a subtle oily iodine-like smell wafting around that really makes the thing original. There's a slight suggestion of rubber, not so much like a vulcanizing shop in hot weather as an old basketball's air leaking out. Like I said – original. I guess it takes all kinds.
The palate presents as hot and quite dry, a little wine-y, and also salty – brine and olives, and even salt fish with a few good 'obstacles' of cassava and eddoes. It's funky and a bit off the reservation, I grant, but there's more: well-oiled leather, aromatic tobacco, sweet chilis and cucumbers and apple cider – I really didn't know what to make of it, except that it sort of makes you smile and try some more, see if there's any other element of crazy hanging around waiting to ambush your tongue. Here I did add some water and it quietened down and other flavours crept out, including the fruit that the nose had promised: pineapple, mangoes, unripe peaches, caramel, nutmeg, toffee and the acrid smoke of water-doused fire, if you can believe it. Finish was nice and long, somewhat bitter, mostly tobacco, leather, smoke, not too much in the way of sweetness or fruits except for a whiff of Fanta that permeated the entire experience.
This rum is clearly from the same tree as the R11.1 but seems like a different branch…and good in the same way, and its own way. That musky salt fish and iodine was odd to say the least (if not entirely unpleasant)…and what it shows is that rums made at the same time and aged for the same period – probably in the same place – can have discernibly different profiles. Worthy Park sold the SMWS a number of barrels (none of the SMWS bottlings come from Scheer) so there's both tropical and continental ageing in these things. And what it demonstrates is that like for all other indie bottlers, getting several barrels means one has the opportunity (takes the risk?) of having one barrel be different than its neighbor but both showing something of the character of the source estate. For my money, the R11.1 worked, and made my ears perk up, and my nose twitch. The SMWS took a chance with the R11.2 and it paid off, because this one, happily, does the same thing…not fabulously, perhaps, but with originality, and very nicely indeed.
Serge Valentin scored this 88 points and felt that were it not for two off notes it would have hit 90
RumShopBoy, the only other person in the rumisphere who has written about the SMWS bottlings, rated it 74/100 on a 0-100 scale, so his evaluation is about the same as mine. His comments are worth noting: "This is not as good as Worthy Park's Single Estate Rums that are commercially available. Although those editions do not carry age statements, they are more refined blends that are easier to drink. That leads me to my biggest problem with this rum… it is a real challenge to enjoy it properly. There is no doubting the quality of the rum and its production but it is hard to really enjoy it. Unusually for me, I found it needed some water to make it more enjoyable."
Posted by Ruminsky at 11:48 pm	Aged Rums - 06-10 YO, Europe, Jamaica, Pot Still Rums, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type, SMWS, Worthy park Tagged with: Independent Bottlers, Pot Still Rums, Rums from Jamaica, SMWS, Worthy Park
SMWS R 11.1 Worthy Park 7YO Rum ("Spicy Sweet Goodness") – Review
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is no longer, as outlined in the brief biography of the organization, quite any of those things, not really. It has offices way beyond Scotland, it's not restricting itself to bottling malts, has moved past releasing only whiskies, and can just barely be considered a society (more of an independent bottler). This is especially so since they have begun to not just buy aged casks from whisky producers but also new-make spirit so they can age their own.
This last development has not yet occurred in the fields of their rums, though it wouldn't really influence my purchasing decisions – I've been a fan for years, ever since I was fortunate enough to snap up three of their rums in Canada in 2013. That's around the time when they started to take rums even marginally more seriously than before, and now in 2020, they have 13 different distilleries' rums, of which the R 11.1 represents one of the New Jamaicans many fans are currently salivating over.
The Society is no stranger to Jamaica – the very first release R1.1 was a Monymusk, and thereafter they added R5 (Longpond, from 2012), R7 (Hampden, from 2016) and in 2017, they scored with Worthy Park as R11. And since I've unconscionably ignored the 'Park for quite some time, I think I'll begin the slow accretion of SMWS rum reviews with them – also because they're pretty damned good. This one is a relatively young 7 years old, bottled in 2017 at a firm 57.5% (308-bottle outturn) and has the evocative title of "Spicy Sweet Goodness", which is very much in line with the Society's equally amusing and puzzling label descriptions that many have drunk themselves in to stupors trying to understand or follow.
Nose first. Yep, it's definitely a Worthy Park and a pot still rum, such as I remember with such fondness from the Compagnie des Indes's two 2007 WP editions, the 7YO and the 8YO, both of which were really good. It's sweet and crisp and snaps across the nose with a light and sharp esteriness: my first written notes are "fruits, flowers and honey on white bread, wow!" But there's also a light glue background, some cereals, ginger, cumin, lemon peel and pineapple all coming together in a very precise amalgam where each note is completely distinct. It has the freshness of a newly sun-dried white sheet with the sunshine still aromatic upon it.
This is one of those rums where the taste is even better than the nose. What it does is settle down a bit, and if it loses something of the initial clean clarity that nose displayed, well, it gains a bit in depth and overall complexity. The white bread has now been toasted, the cereal is almost like Fruit Loops, but the honey (thankfully) remains, golden and tawny and thick. These core notes are joined by brown sugar, toblerone, almonds, fleshy fruits like papaya, peaches, apricots and ears, as well as a peculiar background of beef bouillon, maggi cubes and crackers and (if you can believe it) powdered laundry detergent, y'know, like Tide or something. The light citrus (it really does remind me of Fanta at times) is there to balance everything off, acting as something of an exclamation point to the palate. The medium-lasting finish is surprisingly simple in comparison to the smorgasbord we just waded through, but it is elegant and has the main food groups well represented – fruity, sweet, salty and tart, all at the same time.
Well, this was quite something. I liked it a lot. I have no idea how so much was stuffed into the ex-bourbon barrel the rum was aged in, especially given such a young age and what was (I believe) a continental ageing regimen. There are discordant bits here and there (minor ones) in the way the flavours don't always harmonize completely; and sure, you can taste the youth in its brash liveliness and the initial sharply crisp attack – yet I'm not convinced that a few more years would have done much more than enhance it marginally.
Most of the rums I've tried from WP are relatively young, and relatively good — it seems to be a real peculiarity of the estate to produce rums that other companies ageing their rums for twice as long would have been proud to bottle. In fine, the SMWS R11.1 is a jaunty young rumlet, made with verve and style by an outfit which seems somehow to regularly put out single-digit aged rums – for themselves and for others – which are consistently and uniformly better than conventional wisdom says they should be. To do that is to Worthy Park's credit. To recognize it and bring it to us, is that of the SMWS.
Inadvertent loss of my original photo required me to make some adjustments which I'll replace when I retake that picture.
Posted by Ruminsky at 3:18 am	Aged Rums - 06-10 YO, Europe, Jamaica, Pot Still Rums, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type, SMWS, Worthy park Tagged with: Independent Bottlers, Pot Still Rums, Rums from Jamaica, SMWS, Worthy Park
Doctor Bird Jamaican Rum – Review
The strangely named Doctor Bird rum is another company's response to Smith and Cross, Rum Fire and the Stolen Overproof rum. These are all made or released in the USA (Stolen hails from New Zealand but its rum business is primarily in the US), but the rums themselves come from Jamaica, and there the similarity sort of breaks down, for the Doctor Bird is one of the few from Worthy Park — one of the New Jamaicans which has quietly been gaining its own accolades over the last few years — and not from Hampden or Monymusk or Longpond or Appleton.
The quirky Detroit-based Two James Distillery — whose staff include, variously, an ex-guitar-maker, ex-EMT, ex-Marine and ex-photographer and who state openly and tongue-in-cheek that they have no problems with people stalking them on social media — is a full-fledged distillery, with a 500-gallon (1892 liter) pot still leading the charge. But while they produce gin, rye whiskey, bourbon and vodka on that still, it's really irrelevant here because – again, like Stolen – they didn't bother to make any rum themselves but imported some barrels from Worthy Park. This is a departure from most American distillers styling themselves rum makes, many of whom seem to think that if they have a still they can make anything (and are at pains to demonstrate it), but few of whom ever think of buying another country's spirit as Stolen and Two James have.
That aside, moving on: Worthy Park you say? Okay. What else? Pot still, of course, 50% ABV, so that part is good. Hay yellow. It's finished in moscatel sherry casks, and that kinda-sorta bothers me, since I retain bad-tempered memories of an over-finished Legendario that was well-nigh undrinkable because of it – though here, given the zero reading on a hydrometer, it's more likely the finishing was a short one, and not in wet casks.
Certainly the sherry influence seemed to be AWOL on initial sniffing, because my first dumbfounded note-to-self was wtf is this? Salt wax bomb just went off in the glass.Sharp funk is squirting left and right, acetones, furniture polish, rotting bananas, a deep dumpster dive behind an all night take-out joint. Harshly, greasily pungent is as good as any to describe the experience. Oh and that's just for openers. It gives you kippers and saltfish, the sweet salt of olive oil, varnish, paint thinner. Thank God the fruits come in to save the show: sharp nettlesome, stabbing, tart unripe green bastards, to be sure – gooseberries, five finger, green mangoes, soursop, apples, all nose-puckering and outright rude. But overall the sensation that remains on the nose is the brine and rotting fruits, and I confess to not having been this startled by a rum since my initial encounter with the clairins and the Paranunbes.
Thankfully, much of the violence which characterizes the nose disappears upon a cautious tasting, transmuted by some obscure alchemy into basic drinkability. It stays sharp, but now things converge to a sort of balance of sweet and salt (not too much of either), crisp and more fruity than before. There's wood chips, sawdust, varnish, glue, retreating to a respectable distance. Sweet soya sauce, vegetable soup, dill and ginger, gherkins in a sweet vinegar, followed by a parade of crisp fruitiness. Pineapple, lemon peel, gooseberries, green apples, all riper than the nose had suggested they might be, and the finish, relatively swift, is less than I would have expected — and simpler — given the stabbing attack of the nose. It provides salt, raisins, the citric spiciness of cumin and dill, exhaled some last fruity notes and then disappears.
Well now, what to make of this? If, as they say, it was finished in a sherry cask, all I can say is too little of that made it through. The light sweet muskiness is there, just stays too far in the background to be considered anything but a very minor influence, and aside from some fruity notes (which could just as easily come from the rum's own esters), the sherry didn't habla. Maybe it's because those Jamaican rowdies from the backdam kicked down the door and stomped it flat, who knows? The strength is perfect for what it is – stronger, and morgues might have filled up with expired rum drinkers, but weaker might not have exhibited quite as much badass.
I think the challenge with the rum, for people now getting into Jamaicans (especially the New ones, who like their pot stills and funky junk dialled up to "11" ) might be to get past the aromas, the nose, and how that impacts what is tasted (a good example of how polarizing the rum is, is to check out rumratings' comments, and those on Tarquin's sterling reddit review. This is a rum that needs to be tried carefully because to the unprepared it might just hit them between the eyes like a Louisville Slugger. Personally I think a little more ageing or a little more finishing might have been nice, just to round things out and sand the rough edges off a shade more – this is, after all, not even a six year old rum, but a blend of pot still rums of which a 6YO is the oldest. And those high-funk, ester-sporting bad boys need careful handling to reach their full potential.
The Jamaicans have been getting so much good press of late – especially Hampden and WP – but the peculiarity of this fame is that it's sometimes thought you can just buy a barrel or ten from them, bottle the result and voila! – instant sold-out. Yeah, but no. Not quite. Not always. And no, not here.
"Doctor Bird" is not a person, and is not supposed to be "Dr. Bird." It is, in fact, the national bird of Jamaica, a swallow-tail humming bird, only found there. Folklore has it that it was named because of the resemblance of its black crest and long bifurcated tail to the top hat and tails worn by country doctors back in the old days.
Big hat tip to Cecil Ramotar, ex-QC part-time rum-junkie, who made sure I got a sample of the rum to try.
Posted by Ruminsky at 11:57 pm	Aged Rums - 01-5 YO, Blended Rums, Jamaica, Miscellaneous, Pot Still Rums, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type, USA Tagged with: Blended Rums, Rums from Jamaica, Rums from USA, Sherry Finished Rum, Third Party Bottler, Two James Distilerry, Unknown Age, Worthy Park
Berry Bros. & Rudd Hampden 1990 17 YO Jamaican Rum – Review
Hampden is now one of the belles du jour of the New Jamaicans, but it's been on the horizon for much longer than that, though sadly much of its output from the Elder Days was sold outside Jamaica as a sort of miscellaneous bulk item, to be bastardized and mixed and blended and lost in the drab ocean of commercial rums that made up most of what was sold up to ten years ago. Never mind, though, because these days they've more than made up for that by issuing rums under their own estate brand, getting the single-barrel limited-edition treatment from Velier, and getting better every time I try 'em.
This BBR bottling predates those more recent tropically-aged estate releases and hearkens back to what I sort of suspect will be a fond memory for the annually increasing number of Old Rum Farts – those days when all of Hampden's output was sent for further ageing and bottling to Europe and only independents were releasing them at cask strength. Berry Brothers & Rudd, that famed spirits establishment which has been in existence in London through just about all of Britain's imperial and post-war history, certainly channels that genteel, old-world sense of style, with its prim and near-Edwardian-style labels.
What those labels don't give us is enough data – by our rather more exacting current standards anyway. We know it's Jamaican, Hampden, distilled in 1990, 46% ABV, and from the osmosis bleeding through Facebook, we also know it's a completely pot still rum, bottled in 2007, a continentally-aged 17 year old. Marius of Single Cask Rum whose article on Hampden is worth a read for the curious, wrote that the 1990 bulk export batch – there was only one or two a year, rarely more – was of marque C<H> "Continental Hampden", which would place it in the high range of ester-land… 1300-1400 grams per hectoliter of pure alcohol (g/hlpa); only the DOK is higher, going to the legal maximum of 1500-1600.
From those statistics we can expect something pretty dense and even feral, bursting with flavour and happily squirting near-rancid and over-fruity esters from every pore. It does indeed do that when you nose the yellow rum, but initially what you smell is a lot of glue, rubber, new vinyl, the fake upholstery of a cheap car and, more than anything, it reminds me of sliding a brand new 33 LP fresh out of its sleeve. Then there's wax, sugar water, light fruits – pears, guavas, papaya – nougat, orange peel and an interesting sub-channel of sake and tequila, some brine and olives, followed up at the last by lemon meringue pie with a good bit of crust and creaminess thrown in for good measure.
(c) Barrel Aged Mind, with thanks to Marco Freyr
Yet overall, it's not fierce and demanding and overdone. The palate, like the nose, also demonstrated this admirable self-control, and together with the lower strength, this allowed the glittering blades of over-fruity sharpness that usually distinguishes such rums, to be dialled down and savoured more than feared or watched out for. The profile was coruscating notes in a complex almost-sour fruit salad consisting of pineapples, kiwi fruit, green grapes, unripe apples and pears, sprinkled over with cardamom and a pinch of camomile. It is also rich and creamy, tastes a bit nutty, and the lemony background went well with the vaguely salty background that gave the whole thing a tequila like aspect that somehow worked really well. The finish was medium long, mostly wrapping up the show content to stay pretty simple and straightforward – lemon zest, salt butter, pineapple, caramel and a twist of vanilla. Lovely.
Summing up, the BBR Hampden is not like the high end muscle-beach monsters of the TECC and the TECA, or even a dialled down DOK; nor is it like those New Jamaicans high-proofs that are coming out now, which sport lots of tropical ageing and dense, deep profiles. You can spot the core DNA, though, because that's too distinct to miss – it's gentler, lighter, yet also crisply fruity and very precise, just not as forceful as those 60%-and-over ester fruit bombs. I wonder whether that's the strength – probably, yes.
But if you'll forgive the metaphysical license here, what it really does is evoke and bring to my mind long unthought memories: of rummaging through and inhaling the scent of just-arrived vinyl LPs in Matt's Record Bar in GT when I was a kid with no money; of overstuffed sofas and armchairs covered with thick smelly plastic sheeting, resting in old wooden houses with Demerara shutters and Berbice chairs where the men would sip their rums and "speak of affairs" on hot Saturday afternoons and me hanging around hoping for a sip and a word. The Japanese have a word for this – natsukashii – which refers to some small thing that brings you suddenly back to fond memories — not with longing for what's gone, but with an appreciation of all the good times. I don't want to make out that this is the experience others will have, just that this is what it did for me — but in my opinion, any rum that can do this even half as well, for anyone, is definitely worth a try, even leaving aside the lovely scents and tastes which it presents.
Two other reviewers have looked at this rum in the past:
Marco of Barrel Aged Mind, who as usual goes into depth with his research notes and tasting
Alex over at Master Quill, who was the source of the sample, and to whom I send my thanks.
Posted by Ruminsky at 10:14 pm	Aged Rums - 16-20 YO, Berry Bros. & Rudd, Europe, Hampden, Jamaica, Pot Still Rums, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type Tagged with: Berry Bros. & Rudd, Continental Flavoured, Hampden, Independent Bottlers, Rums from Jamaica
Lemon Hart Golden Jamaica Rum (1970s)
Rumaniacs Review #107 | R-0688
Lemon Hart is known for their Navy rums and 151 overproofs, the last of which I tried while still living in Canada when it was briefly re-issued. But they did dip their toes into other waters from time to time, such as with this 73% Gluteus Maximus wannabe from Jamaica they released while the brand was still listed under the address and label of the United Rum Merchants — which, if you recall, was a 1946 combine of Lemon Hart (owned by Portal, Dingwall & Norris), Whyte-Keelings and Lamb's. A year later, URM became part of sugar giant Bookers which had substantial interests in British Guianese plantations and distilleries, and was amalgamated into Allied-Domecq in the early 1990s.
This kind of torqued-up Jamaica rum was not particularly unusual for LH to make, since I found references to its brothers at similar strengths dating back to a decade or two earlier — but the labels from the 1950s and 1960s were much more ornate, with curlicued scrollwork and and older vibe to them which this does not have. The Golden Jamaica Rum was also released at 40% — predating Velier's habit of releasing the same rum at multiple proofs which drives accountants into hysterics — though at no point was the source estate or plantation or age ever mentioned. We must therefore assume it was a blend, very common at that time (we occasionally forget that single cask, single estate or even single still special releases from a particular year at cask strength are relatively recent phenomena).
Colour – Dark amber
Strength 73% ABV
Nose – Original, I'll grant it that. Hot, and very spicy. Crushed nuts and the sawdust of dried oak planks, plus a sort of dusty, mouldy room. Good thing that was just for openers. Dates, figs, olives and not-so-sweet fruits, bitter chocolate. I let it stand for a half hour while trying other rums and it became much more approachable – sweeter, darker fruits with a touch of licorice and low-level funk, bananas, spoiling mangoes and bananas, green apples, gherkins, peaches…not bad. It's kind of snappy, preppy, crisp, especially once the hogo-like aromas take on more prominence.
Palate – Waiting for this to open up is definitely the way to go, because with some patience, the bags of funk, soda pop, nail polish, red and yellow overripe fruits, grapes and raisins just become a taste avalanche across the tongue. It's a very solid series of tastes, firm but not sharp unless you gulp it (not recommended) and once you get used to it, it settles down well to just providing every smidgen of taste of which it is capable.
Finish – Long, sweet, fruity, briny and darkly sweet. Really quite exceptional and long lasting.
Thoughts – This reminds me more of a modern, proofed-up Appleton than anything else. It lacks the pungent pot-still estate-specific originality of the New Jamaicans, which of course is completely proper since at the time it was made, tepid blends were all the rage. For anyone who desires a different rum from "modern standard", this one ticks all the boxes.
Too bad it's out of production – I mean, Lamb's and Lemon Hart and other such supermarket brands that have survived into the modern era get a bad rap for producing the same old boring blended blah these days, but when they were in their prime, issuing souped-up superrums that took no prisoners and tasted off the scale, it's easy to see why the brands were so popular. It's because they weren't as timid, took their chances, and showed they knew their sh*t. As this rum proves, and their modern descendants so rarely do.
Posted by Ruminsky at 12:19 am	Aged Rums - Unknown Age, Blended Rums, Europe, Independent Bottlers, Jamaica, Lemon Hart, Merchant Bottlers, Overproofs, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type, Rumaniacs, UK Tagged with: Lemon Hart, Overproofs, Rumaniacs, Rums from Jamaica, United Rum Merchants, Unknown Age, Unknown Still
Murray McDavid Jamaican 1992 13 Year Old Rum – Review
Few except deep-diving, long-lasting rum geeks now remember Murray McDavid, the scotch whisky bottler that acquired Bruichladdich in 2000, and created a rum label of the same name at the same time. Most who spot the distinctive slender bottles with the steel-gray enclosures and red-patterned labels just see an older independent bottler and move along (some might stop for a taste, especially if they pay attention to the dates on the bottles). The MM line is long defunct, folded into the Renegade line in 2006 – Mark Reynier, the man behind it all, put into practice some of the ideas he had had regarding rum releases but liked the idea of creating a completely separate brand for rums…and therefore MM as a rum brand was discontinued. Renegade Rum Company was formed to take its place and continued the evolution of Mr. Reynier's ideas before itself disappearing in 2012 (temporarily – there's more info in the company bio, here).
What we see with Murray McDavid rums is an idea in embryo. Renegade to some extent gave a better-known foundation to the emergent single barrel, finishing, limited edition rum releases, but a simpler form of such an indie bottling ethos was already in play years earlier by MM, just around the same time as Velier's Demeraras were being issued over in Italy. MM releases are hard to find now after so many years (there are only five as far as I could determine) but they do exist, remaining unsold or popping up for auction, largely because few know what they are, or if they deserve their price tags.
Briefly, the facts: it's a tawny gold rum, from Hampden as noted on the very informative label (another thing MM/Renegade started to provide concurrently with Velier), distilled 1992 and bottled 2005. Ageing was in ex bourbon casks, with additional finishing in port casks but without any indication of how long – subsequent practice with Renegade suggests some months only. And it was 46%, the standard to which MM/Renegade adhered throughout their short lives.
Tasting notes: definitely Jamaican, that hogo and funk was unmistakable, though it seemed more muted than the fierce cask strength Hampdens we've been seeing of late. It smelled initially of pencil shavings, crisp acetones, nail polish remover, a freshly painted room and glue. After opening up, I went back some minutes later and found softer aromas – red wine, molasses, honey, chocolate, and cream cheese and salted butter on fresh croissants, really yummy. And this is not to ignore the ever-present sense of fruitiness – dark grapes, black cherries, ripe mangoes, papayas, gooseberries and some bananas, just enough to round off the entire nose.
No surprises on the palate, just variations on the Hampden theme: it wasn't harsh or super sharp or powerful (at 46% we could hardly expect that). I tasted glue, sweet honey, very ripe red grapes, a really nice initial attack. It developed over time, presenting molasses, salt caramel, cream cheese on toast, coffee grounds, and the sharp lightness of green apples and hard yellow fruit kept pace with all the others. The finish was short but it was at least aromatic, mostly ripe fruits, some flambeed bananas, and that peculiar mix of hogo, fruit going off and sharp-sweet acidic notes that to me characterize Jamaican pot still expressions. As an observation, the influence of the port casks seemed quite minimal to me and didn't detract from, or derail, the core Jamaican profile in any significant way.
Reading this, a jaded and experienced Jamaican rum lover might suggest it's more of the same old thing, differing only in the details. True. However, I think that seen at a remove of so many years from when it was made, its originality — that singular distinctiveness of the pot still distillate in particular, as ameliorated by the finishing — is harder to make out, because we're so used to it. It's not the best Hampden rum ever released, but it's a perfectly serviceable and drinkable version on its own merits, and for its strength, quite good.
We are in the middle of a golden age of rum making experimentation, where pot and column still blends, multiple maturations and fancy finishes are much more common and much more sophisticated…and much better, perhaps. Mr. Reynier's "Additional Cask Evolution" — which he pioneered with the five MM releases and then took further with Renegade — was ahead of its time and never really caught on with the greater rum public. My own feeling is that when one has a good distillate and uses the finishing judiciously to enhance rather than overwhelm, then it doesn't matter how long ago the rum was bottled – it's a fine rum to sample.
This rum, showing off a Hampden HLCF years before the estate became more famous, is worth trying (or buying) whether you're into Jamaicans specifically or rums from the past generally. It shows how good the lesser-known pot still estate-Jamaicans always were, and how fortunate we are that they remain available and affordable and approachable to this day. On both a historical and practical basis, I'm happy to have had the opportunity to taste it.
Posted by Ruminsky at 8:42 pm	Aged Rums - 11-15 YO, Blended Rums, Europe, Independent Bottlers, Jamaica, Murray McDavid, Pot Still Rums, Rum Reviews by Country, Rum Reviews by Maker, Rum Reviews by Type Tagged with: Hampden, Independent Bottlers, Murray McDavid, Pot Still Rums, Rums from Jamaica
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Thank you Elisabet – well put, to the point and importantly in the right register to promote a fruitful debate. The way times are shaping seems to indicate that I will not be able to attend personally, though nothing is confirmed yet. I'll be following the whole thing naturally, and taking an interest in the proceedings.
Thank you Martin. Too bad you can't be there, but I know you follow the debate.


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