Beginners Guide to JAMAICA RUM

if you're new to rum or just dabbling in rum for the first time after drinking spiced rum then jamaican rum probably wouldn't be the first rum that i recommend that you try why because jamaican rums are something else we refer to them as proper funky and that's down to their methods of production which is like no other rum producing country comparing jamaican rum to barbados rum for example while they're both english styles of rum jamaican rum is known for its high esters and it's pot still although i have to point out appleton is actually kind of a blend and lots of columns still rum in there as well however once you get the taste of a jamaican rum that kind of funk or hoga whis that sometimes refer to is unmistakable think kind of overripe banana pineapple kind of mango notes those kind of tropical notes to a rum and the best way i can really relate it to you because scotch has got a little bit more knowledge especially in the uk if i said an eyelash whiskey to a lot of people people's heads would automatically go oh i lay that's kind of heavily smoky really peaty whiskies and that's true i lay whiskeys are like nothing else produced in scotland they are proper pt smokey whiskies jamaican rums are very similar to that not in the pt smoky sense in the fact that they are completely unrelatable to any other rum you just do not get that run funk in other rum producing countries and to understand kind of jamaican rum and the funk which admittedly i i'm i'm on my journey as much as you guys i'm learning as we go along here but to understand it you have to go down the dunder rabbit hole which is essentially uh the ferment that's left it's kind of what the sugar cane is all that kind of alcohol bubbling away that the ferment is the dunder now for a start pot stills will traditionally kind of give funkier rums or produce funkier rums than what a column still will but also jamaican rums are kind of fermented a lot longer than your average kind of typical rum would be for instance a lot of rum especially in caribbean will be fermented that sugar cane and molasses will be fermented two three maybe five days jamaican rums can be a week up to three weeks so all that ferment that yeasty kind of notes is really coming forward even more and it's that that kind of produces those high ester kind of yeasty notes that produces that funk but there's also another slight difference because a lot of jamaican distilleries take a pot still for example uh kind of like you know a typical pot still they've got that kind of ferment in the pot still it's left bubbling away there creating all that yeast they will distill the rum so after a few weeks they would distill that rum and then instead of cleaning this still out they will add more dunder to it more ferment so it's all the time building up distilling building up distilling so you can tell instantly that they are going to be more funkier now there's a lot more to it than that a proper expert will talk you through it a lot better than what i ever can i mean god go and let's go and search out joyce spence for instance she will kind of talk you through that all day long but that is kind of dumbing it down for you now as i said not all jamaican rums do that but it is worth noting that if they need to even if they don't a lot of jamaican rums will typically be a lot more funkier than your average kind of barbados rum or your demerara rum or your spanish style of rum and this is why i say jamaican rum probably isn't for the newbie unless you're a hardened spirit drinker and i'm not talking spiced rum the sweeter rums i'm talking a lot i'm talking like proper hardened spirit drinker your whiskies your tequilas maybe even your mezcal now to take you back to my own personal first encounter with the jamaican rum i'm going way back to the early 2000s i was just getting into rum i really like stuff like the el dorado those demerara rums i was drinking a bit of solution rum i really love chairman's reserve and kind of i bought a bottle from of appleton reserve signature blend i think it was although vx has just popped into my head for some reason i completely forgot about the vx but whether that was the same rum i completely forget now but we're talking a lot of years ago got it from tesco's uh quite cheap i kind of just cracked it looking forward to trying it and of course it was like nothing i tasted before i really didn't like it my palette wasn't there it sat on my shelf for about six months or so until the point i was making cocktails at a party one night uh literally just ran out and i thought oh that'll do and i just used it up and disguise the taste with lots of different fruit juices and sweet stuff however roll forward 15 years or so it's a very different story my palette is now acclimatized i really love love neat spirits and i really have got into jamaican rums in the last few years and while i'm still not up at the light of 50 60 crazy high ester funky rums from like long pond from clarendon from the hamdens for instance hampden is is okay hamden going up a notch is totally beyond me still at this precise moment the hamden a and the appleton 12 and that are probably in my wheelhouse like sipping them neat they're like whoa that is really really nice but then adding them to cocktails they just give that unmistakable kind of jamaican characteristic that just makes you want to go back for more so jamaican rums where do you start now i'll be talking a lot more about jamaican rums over forthcoming weeks on live streams and standalone videos we'll be diving into these sort of the aged appleton's the hampden eight-year-olds we'll be looking at smith and cross ray and nephew for instance hamden maybe even a clarendon and a long pond but for now let's talk about the basic entry points let's get you into jamaican rum now it's worth noting here that the rams i'm going to be talking about will not prepare you for a hampden eight-year-old or a smith cross they are in a proper funk world of the run let alone the rums all above it but the rums i am going to be mentioning are a perfect starting point now i was going to be talking about two rums in this video i picked out the this one that's been sitting here the appleton signature i think that's a cracker but i also in my head went to plantations i macro i thought that is going to be perfect until i looked at the price just before kind of shooting this video because i wanted to get a price point for this uh the appleton signature roughly sort of 22 pounds here this i got a hell of a shot from because in my head i don't really look at prices too much for this but in my head i was expecting this to be kind of mid-20s and it is a lot more expensive than that it's actually upper early 30s and even on time looking amazon prime was 40 pounds a bottle so while i am still going to be talking about that i want to bring in the appleton eight-year-old because actually it's going to be a good nearly if you're looking at amazon prices nearly 15 quid a bottle cheaper than that so we're looking at sort of 25 26 pounds of bottle if you're on master of mul you're talking about eight pounds cheaper now the appleton signature is a blend column stills maybe i'm not 100 up there with that there may be a pot still in there but it's a blend of i know it leaves column stills in there and i do think it is a very different rum to what it was 15 years ago i do remember those kind of high not massively high esters but that funkiness that comes off from us and now it has really changed while it's completely different and i think it's this one yeah completely different from like a barbados i've got dolly's five square five square dolly's five year old just to compare the two there completely and utterly different rums you still don't get that kind of inherent jamaican funkiness from it but it is a lovely sipping rum i do get those kind of ripe banana notes from it i do get hints of tropical um kind of pineapple notes coming through i get little bits of kind of toffee and ginger off it so it's perfect for sipping neat for an entry point is a perfect kind of cocktail rum as well so then we come on to the plantation zion maca which again i won't say disappointed me when i first got it but i was expecting a little bit more from it on the nose it really delivers on that sort of jamaican funk you're like oh here we go you get that unmistakable sort of really overripe banana the pineapple notes really come off there and you're thinking well this is going to be proper funky however on the taste it does lose it they don't market this as an entry-level kind of jamaican rum especially at kind of the price it is 33 to 50 to 40 pounds but it is precisely that interestingly for a plantation run the dosage is nil in this there's absolutely no sugar added no age statements on here because they have got blends of different aged rums in there so there might be a well there is three year old rums in there but there might be a bit of five year old rums in there but there might be a young fresh rum in there as well hence there are no age statements it's a dryer rum and a hints of ginger you still get a bit of pineapple a bit of banana on there probably kind of more sort of uh toffee or oaky oaky spice that's what i'm going for off this compared to the appleton um but again it kind of does give you a different idea of what a jamaican rum could be and the other thing i'm not sure i've mentioned the blend of rams in here is long pond and clarendon but if you do get a bottle of this and you enjoy it you smell it that smell is kind of what you you what you're in for when you go up a few notches in jamaican rum because that smell is proper jamaican funk it just doesn't really come out in the run when you taste it however bringing the appleton eight-year-old into the party this is a completely different thing because yes while you still do not get the funk the ripe banana the higher esters that you're gonna get even off the appleton 12 year old 12 year old to a certain extent but off the hamdan 8 year old off the smithing cross you know he is not preparing you for that as far as jamaican rum goes this is absolutely glorious it's a brand new bottle for me as i say i do firmly believe that these rums are and i haven't looked back at other older reviews but i do firmly believe they are different blends to what they were a few years ago but oh boy i really enjoy this 25 26 pounds for this i think it's an absolute bargain it's a 43 percenter interestingly i think the inside macro i didn't say that i think design macro is 43 as well yeah 43 compared to 40. so they're both 43 they've got that little extra bit of booze but from the app from the appleton eight-year-old the honey notes for me are what is the most prominent yes that slight hint of sort of banana and pineapple but it's the honey with apple you kind of got a little bit of toffee going on in there but it's the honey notes that really shine through this as a sipper is absolutely delicious so which one would i recommend you buy well as i have said through this nothing none of these are really going to prepare you for big funky jamaican rums you need to kind of properly go down your rum journey before you get to that stage because i think and as it did for me trying something that's properly funky if i had that hampden eight-year-old 15 years ago i would have probably put me off run for life well if that's what rum tastes like i don't want to know now i really appreciate it but as an out and out jamaican rum i in my head as much as i love plantation i i love the brand i love all that in my head if you want to go straight in for the eight-year-old i would firmly back you there maybe if you're really just starting out the appleton signature and then work up to the eight-year-old but if the price if money is not a huge deal for you mid-20s and you kind of really enjoy your rum the appleton eight-year-old is stunning

Channel: Steve the Barman

Views: 11,869

Keywords: appleton, appleton 8 year rum, appleton estate, appleton estate rum, appleton rum, appleton rum review, appleton signature vs 8, best jamaican rum for beginners, best rum for beginners, jamaica, jamaica rum, jamaican, jamaican rum, jamaican rum for beginners, plantation xaymaca, plantation xaymaca rum, plantation xaymaca rum review, rum review, rum reviews ratings, steve the barman, which jamaican rum to buy, rum tasting, rum comparison, rum, sipping rum reviews, best rum

Id: VoUEKSMDGz0

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 25 2022