Hey, welcome back to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, where we nerd out about stuff, and then maybe you go buy them and taste them yourself. I'm Pat from the Specialty Spirits Department. I'm Greg, Communications. Roger from Beer. Lexi on Instagram. Chris, not on Instagram. So, I teach a class every Tuesday to the staff. For the past month, we've been talking about all things rum. So, I've got rum on the brain. Still, I feel like we've done rum episodes recently. I'm losing track. Didn't we just do it? We always do rum. Why are we doing rum every week now? No, we haven't done it in a while. Isn't it the summer of rum though? It is indeed the summer of rum. You did a What's New in Spirits, and I think most of them are rums or what's new in handpicks, and they were all rum. We did. We did do a bunch of rum handpicks. Yeah, that's, I think, what you're thinking of. That was a long time ago. Rum deserves a lot of attention because it's still under-appreciated, and there's lots of exciting options out there. Under-appreciated, under-sold, under-priced. It's not just that it's under-appreciated. A lot of people don't understand it. There's more to rum than people realize. Well, I bought a lot, so we can either taste them all or try to understand a few. Let's just go with tasting them all. I like it. All right. I'm looking at new rums, rums you guys may not have had. A couple new rums from a company called Virago, Virago Spirits, relatively new to the Binny's near you. We're going to start with a couple easy drinking ones, the same rum but one is Port Finished. They're calling it Four Port because it is a blend of rums from four different traditionally rum making areas. We've got an eight-year-old pot and column distilled rum from Barbados, blended with a four-year-old pot distilled rum from Jamaica, blended with five to eight-year-old column distilled rum from Nicaragua, and also six-year-old column distilled rum from Panama. You've got this blend of lighter and heavier and richer flavors from a couple key rum-making areas. Metal medicinal bottle with the wood press coin motif label is pretty sweet. Yeah, whatever you say. This smells awesome. It's bottled at 43 percent. What do we think? This is, hang on, let me pull it up. This is available at Binny's Near You for $39.99. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it is complex. It's light, fresh, fun, easy going. Yeah, very much so. Definitely got some of that molasses-y note that I included with some Barbadian rums. Little tropical fruit, but not too estuary. But there is some estuary. Not blasted with sugar. Some toasted caramel or brown sugar, like a little bit of toast. It's pretty nice. Nice rum for 40 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Good mixer. Nice cocktail for, I think, whiskey-centric cocktails. This has enough American kind of character behind it, that this would make a good rum old-fashioned. I agree. This is a bourbon drinker's rum. Tiki bitters. Yeah. That's the thing Roger was saying. I don't understand that people who are bourbon drinkers aren't crossing over into rum. I agree with that. What? That's insane. What's in a tiki bitters? Is that like baking spices and stuff? Yeah, a bunch of stuff. We find it. Allspice berries for sure. Yeah. Pimentos, they call it, and the carob-y. We can't go a rum show without that, and we just got it out of our systems. Cool. I do need to get a bottle of pimento dram and start using that because I got to mix it up. Bartender's ketchup, baby. Fall's coming. Everybody's got to have pimento dram in the fall. Oh, yeah. Put in your hard cider, put in your cocktails, put in your beer. All right. Also going around from Virago is, now this is where I have issues with their naming. This is the Four Port Rum Port Cask Finished. It could be two different things. I get it. This is finished in Ruby Port, same blend finished in Ruby Port casks. Well, then it works. Oddly lower in alcohol. The regular one is 43 percent. This is only 40. It's higher in sulfur too. Well, it's Port cask. Oh yeah. Right? Like you want it to be cherry fruit. Like, give me cherry fruit. Like that Angel's Envy from Way 1. Wow. I do like it. It's a little darker and richer. It flirts with that matchsticky sulfur character, but it's subdued. Yeah, past the matchstick. This makes it even more of a whiskey drinker's rum. The Mecca Stanny Mango. It's a real sulfur email. It's the end of the Stanny Mango season and I haven't ordered any. Uh-oh. Because they're colossally overpriced. It was August 1st, two years ago that you opened to the Pakistani. That is true. It was Jeffrey's birthday. I know. How much more is the podcast? Five bucks, $44.99. Still reasonable. Yeah. Yeah, whiskey drinkers get in on this. Rum has gone up. As much as rum is still, there's value to be had. We've seen some of the bigger brand rums go up, Rons of Coppa. When I first started working at Binny's was $40 or $45. I think it's $60 now. Another one similar to that is the Plantation XO. We know it. We love it. It's a big staff favorite. Again, when I started working here, it was maybe $40 and I think now it's $60 too. We call them that one. That's a significant increase. Oh, Plantaray. Plantaray, I guess. This bottle design is, one might say Grand. Ooh, or Grandeur. So we, next one up is Grandeur, Panamanian Rum, and this is their trophy release, which is a limited batch of barrels that show exceptional character in our bottle that are higher proof. So these are 100 proof. This was a 720 bottle batch. So Grandeur was started by this businessman from Kentucky, was marlin fishing in Panama, really fell in love with rum, opened this Panamanian rum business. They are non-sugar. Same bourbon drinker falling in love with rum. Non-sugar added, no color added. This is good natural rum. It definitely leans in the profile, in my opinion, toward more of what a bourbon drinker might like. You keep saying the word rum, but I'm looking at this bottle and it just looks like a whiskey bottle. Yeah. So this is made up of Grandeur's Grandest Barrels. Chris with the, what do you call it? The Evergreen Park Pour? Yeah, the Evergreen Park Pour. I don't know what the hell that means. It means you poured a lot. It means you gave yourself three ounces. Three ounces. This is like half an ounce. It means he's here for a drink and not a taste of it. Okay. So I mentioned no additives, Panama. This is a blend of 8-15 year old rums. Hot shoe burning down the avenue. Panama. That's Van Halen, Mr. Led Zeppelin. Real sweet on the front. 8-15 year old rums, little sweet, no additives, 100 proof. What do you think this should cost, Rod? With the over proof, 40, 45. 49.99. Caramelly. That's great for that price. It's a great rum. This is authentic ages. No messing around here. This is real, actual, transparent rum. Candied orange peel and chocolate covered cherry bites. Picks up a little of that coconut from the bourbon barrels. All of that really lingers on the palate too. It's just like Werther's Originals. This whole fruit cocktail. For sure. Yeah. Wow. This was a brand that was in Binny's, I don't know, maybe 10, 12 years ago. Greg, you probably tasted it with me at some point before. We actually did one or two barrels of it way back in the day. Hand picks? Yeah. Back when Noriega was in charge. Yeah, probably. I don't know, it just fell off and then they didn't have distribution for a little bit or they couldn't get stock or something like that. Recently came back into the stores. So we're trying it again and they have good rum. The standard is an eight-year-old that's 34.99, and then this trophy release, little higher proof. Then there's also a port cask that's more limited. It's not in a lot of stores right now and that's 65 bucks. But this is $45 for this. 49. Oh, sorry. It's 50 bucks for this. Yeah. It might be on sale. It's really good. It doesn't make any secret of its higher proof though, I would say. Yeah, but that's charming about it. It's harder to hide that with rum, I feel, because usually the driving flavor isn't the oak. An oak, I think, covers up proof. That caramel though, and a little bit of berry fruit. I mean, people who are fans of Buffalo Trace, especially the weeded stuff with a weller, this is right in your wheelhouse. Roger, what I'm thinking of is how candy this seems and how well it would go with just the tartness of lime juice or cherries for both. You know what I've started playing around with is adding, it's funny how in a lot of cocktails, they don't do lemon and lime, they just tend to especially rum, they just do lime. But think of how ubiquitous that is in soft drinks, and Sprite, and 7-Up. I've been doing a little bit of lemon squeeze and a little bit of lime, and I've been liking it. This, I think, would be a good candidate for that. Agreed. We're staying in that Central and South American area. We're actually moving over to Venezuela now, and this is a new release from Diplomatico out of Venezuela. This is, I believe, it's called Selección de Familia. De la Familia? Is that it, Raj? Yes. Famously, if you were looking at rum labels and are a little confused, in Spanish-speaking countries, rum will be spelled R-O-N. Like Ron Bacardi? Ron Rico. Ron Rico. So Diplomatico, known, very stereotypical South American rum, where it's pretty gloppy and sweet and crowd-pleasing flavor. This one, again, is made from some nebulous mix of select casks that the family liked better. It is bottled at a little bit higher proof, 43 percent versus the regular Diplomatico Reserva Especial is 40 percent. To my taste, this is a little drier than the other Diplomatico offerings. The Diplomatico Reserva, which is in kind of a frosted green bottle, by far the best seller, or at least at Binny's, very sweet rum. It's fine. I mean, sweet rums are fine. I like sugar, obviously, but when I'm looking for a rum, I'm trying to dial back on the sugar a bit personally. I will point out this is by no means dry though. Oh, no, no, no. Not at all. Plenty of sweetness. Just less sweet than the normal Diplomatico. If we're being honest though, this is pretty delicious. I mean, it's sweet, but like- It's fantastic. It's one of those things where- Cake-like. I mean, it's got a snickerdoodle cookie. Like a cream cheese frosting nose. Carrot cake, cheese, cheese, cheese. There's carrot cake. Carrot cake, cream cheese frosting. Because it's got that cinnamon character. I totally get it. I think that this rum is one of those rums that you have. Regular Diplomatico, the green frosted one is a great one as a dessert beverage because of its high sweetness. I think this one is a little bit more any time. Yeah. I'd agree with that. It's a $10 premium to the regular. This is another one that's $49.99, regular is $39. It's a breakfast rum. What? Breakfast rum. What are you talking about? Be great with bacon. For sure. French toast, bread pudding. This has a bread pudding note. For sure. I would recommend too, if you've been gifted over the years, any of those ice cube trays that make the big ice and you don't, you know, dust them off, make a nice big cube. What are you talking about? I want like eight of those in the freezer at any time. You want this chilled, but you don't necessarily want to dilute it. It's not super high proof. Put a little wedge of lime in there. Might make the ice look like the Death Star. Like a orange peel. I think it's great. It is like dessert. It's a dessert. But now, yeah, it is dessert, but if you think this is sweet, the other ones are significantly sweeter. I would recommend too for garnishing on this, something that not enough people do with, they go straight to lime, grapefruit, or pomelo. You can find a pomelo. Use some of that as a garnish. Now, Greg, imagining this pomelo wedge, like, not a pomelo wheel. That would be comical and hilarious. I don't mean to take it down on nuts there, Greg, but every other diplomatic hose is 750 and this is 700. Bum bum bum bum. I just like to- Stop cheating us out of 50 milliliters. I like to garnish this with it just a big wedge of pomelo pith. Nothing else. That gets the sock and sandal wearing suburbanite award of the day so far. Oh, easily. I want some French toast now. I want to mow the lawn. Here, we have a brand new one. And this isn't even in stores. Well, by the time this airs, it should be in stores. This is Plantaray Mr. Fogg, and this is Plantaray's Navy Rum Plantaray, formerly Plantation, owned by Maison Ferrand, the Pierre Ferrand Cognac people. Wow, what's happened in the mixology world or the rum geeks that we see so many navies now? It's great, right? It's a thing, man. It's cool. It's the hot thing. So Mr. Fogg is named after a gentleman whose last name is Fogg. Wait, Mr. Fogg. Mr. Fogg. It has beautiful tall ships on the label. I think it was Michael Fogg or something. He was- Mr. Michael Fogg to you. All right. He was in charge of purchasing for the company that procured all of the British Naval Rum Stocks. So when Matt Pietrek, the author and blogger for rumwonk.com, and he's written a couple of big rum books too, like Modern Caribbean Rum, it's like 800 pages or something. This exhaustive Modern Caribbean Rum. Anyway, he was researching a book specifically for this release on Navy Rum, ended up meeting this Fogg guy. Mr. Fogg passed away before the rum was released. His widow told Alexander Gabriel from Maison-Ferrand that he could name it after him when Alexander asked. So that's why, thus the name Mr. Fogg. It is 55.7% alcohol, so 116.4. Roger, would you make a Fogg cutter with this? Yeah, for sure. So a rhyme in the Ancient Mariner. Couple interesting things here. It's a blend of islands of the traditional naval rum recipe. So it's Barbados, Trinidad, Guiana and Jamaican rums. And then once they are done tropically aging, like all plant array rums are aged in the tropics in bourbon before they go to normally cognac France to age in cognac barrels before they're bottled. This one is tropically aging in bourbon. Then it goes to cognac France to extensively oxidatively age in large open wood vats. I'm talking like 20,000 liter wood vats. And they built them specifically for this project because that's how old British Navy rum was bottled. They would, this company, it's like ED and L, ED L&P or something was, they would source all these rums. They had a big facility on the Navy docks in England and they would have these big open vats and their rum blends would sit there openly oxidizing for sometimes years at a time. And as they bottle them off and stuff, and so they're trying to recreate that whole thing with this, they're hoping historic Navy rum. Open top vats in England? In England back, way back when. Yeah, traditionally, now in France. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, the oxidative component makes perfect sense. I was getting like a Madeira note from this. I mean, this is unreal how different this is. This seems like carrot cake too, but it has an ester-y, sulfuric kind of- Holy cow, this is awesome. Not sulfuric. Unbelievable for the proof. Just on the nose. Like all plantations, excuse me, plantarays, if you're not familiar, you can look in the back label and they're very open about what's going on in the bottle. They're going to give you an ester count, they're going to give you a volatile compounds count, they're going to give you the fermentation, still types, all that stuff. They're also going to give you the dosage, so the added sugar. And Planter A, previously Plantation, has always been very open that their intent with their dosage is to enhance mouthfeel, not to add sweetness. There's a little bit of sweetness here, this dosage is 4.8 grams per liter of rum, which is in the grand scheme of rum is very low. Yeah, it's pretty delicious. It's pretty awesome. I believe we don't even, as we record this, we don't even have an inventory number in our system yet. I believe it's supposed to be about 32 or $33 on the shelf. Holy cow. This is great for mixing. Yeah. It's 111 proof. I would just drink this. I mean, it's unbelievably easy to drink at that proof. 116.4. Holy cow. And it's silk. Yeah. I mean, you would never, never know. I think this is a good opportunity too to mention that I'm happy that people are geeking out on rum, but like anything that people get passionate about, when you start excluding things because you're like, oh, I'm only into additive-free, like you On this, yeah. If you were like, no. Well, you can't add sugar to rum. I'm like, okay, fine, more of this for me. Don't be absolutist. So this is, I guess, technically a limited release. There's going to be some amount. If you look on the bottleneck here, it says sale number one. So they're going to be doing as what they blend, oxidizes and vats and reaches the point where they say it's ready. They're going to be bottling some off at a time. In theory, this is going to be ongoing availability, but it might not be every single day availability. Did you say this would give me under $40? Like $33. Crazy. Unbelievable. It really is. Wow. There's few people, I would argue, doing it better. I always like when we find purveyors where if somebody is trying to get into something and learn more about it, you can just recommend that they walk their way through this portfolio. Dude. Everything they do is phenomenal. The quality is off the charts for that price. It's crazy. I think that there's something really magical about the open fermentation that happens in a lot of Jamaican rums or maybe all of them. They have such a complex flavor compared to so many. And it's still got that nice sweetness that's approachable versus a whiskey. Part of that is use of dunder and muck too, which we'll get to. I brought a couple worthy park rums that we're going to get to in a bit here. And we'll talk more about that. How you two are always like cringe when there's Pete involved. I get that way with the high ester stuff. And that one right there was like, it's there for me. Buckle up. Yeah. It's like bruised up banana peels on that one. Yeah, but it doesn't dominate. The esters are... And that is exactly what you said about the iodine and the scotch and the smokiness too. I think I said that about the Japanese whiskey. High esters, absolutely true. High ester rums are very much like... I will fully admit, it's just like the person that says they've developed an affinity for Malort, or they've developed... Nail polish. They love Isla whiskeys. You don't just come out the gate and immediately love it, but it's something you need to get used to. So you probably only drank those kind of rums on the podcast. You don't really buy them and play around in cocktails with them. So for as much as people like rum nerds get into those, because that's mainly the people that do, if they don't live in Jamaica and grow up with it, again, it can get annoying when people wear as a badge of pride, like, oh, you can't handle this high ester rum. You didn't at the beginning either. You grew to like it. Moving along. We have a couple new handpicked single barrel rums in. Hello. So we're gonna try one of those first. They're both rums agri-coal, by the way. Nice. The first is from Rum JM. This is an eight-year-old agri-coal rum. So it is labeled as Rum View, which it needs to be at least three years old to be labeled as that in oak. So if you're not familiar with the JM Distillery, it's pretty cool. It is on over a thousand acres, and it is 100% made from a state cane. They are currently growing and distilling five varietals of sugar cane, which all varietals of sugar cane for agri-coal rum need to be AOC approved. There are currently about 20 varietals of sugar cane that you can actually legally grow and still label as agri-coal rum. Because it is a state-grown, all of the sugar cane is crushed less than one hour after it is harvested. They crush it, and then they add French baker's yeast to it. Then it ferments for about 24 hours to about 4.5% alcohol, which is pretty low in the grand scheme of the other distilled spirits. Most whiskeys are going to start with a beer or wash of 8-12% alcohol. The max allowed for rum agri-coal is 120 hour ferment and 7.5% alcohol, so still very low. Then it's distilled to between 71-72% alcohol, which is right in the middle of the allowable range. Rum agri-coal legally has to be distilled once on a column still, and it has to be pulled off as still between 65 and 75% alcohol. So getting pulled off at 140 proof, that's like scotch pretty much. So even though you're using a column still, you're distilling to a much lower proof than it's actually capable of. So you're maintaining more body and character. A lot of character. Yeah. And then it sees oak treatment, French. This one is American. It seems like spicy and woody. It is 48.7% alcohol. Again, it was in there like almost nine years, like eight and a half or something. Bold. It is. But in the grand scheme of of agricultural rum, this is pretty tame. And I mean, part of it is the age in oak. You know, it's like peat. It kind of tones down. Yeah, I agree. It doesn't like have that really intense vegetal side to it. No, it's not. It's not the stewed tomato. Yeah, I agree. I think it's more like bright whiskey. Like it's it's monolithic and punchy. Yeah, it's punchy. It's dry. I mean, it's an oak forward. Definitely so. When it's aged that long, are they temperature controlling the warehouses? Usually not. So what kind of loss do they experience? They're experiencing around 8 to 9 percent per year in Martinique. But it's really mitigated because they're experiencing usually over 90 percent humidity. Right. So heat, yeah, is mitigated by humidity when it comes to angel share, right? Yeah, a bit. Eight to nine percent is still pretty high, but certainly you can age whiskeys in dry high elevation in the American West and Colorado and Utah, and you're going to have more loss than that, at least on the first year. Usually, you get the greatest loss the first year and then it normalizes over time. This is really interesting. It's definitely got some of the cane character, some of that banana plantain. Yeah, a little bit of that overripe banana, but it's- But dry and spicy. It's great. It's agricultural rum. It's not cheap. It's 130 bucks every day, but also the yield was something like 20 cases or something like that. There's not a lot of this out there. Higher proof agricultural age statement, agricultural oddities. Pretty cool. So staying on that, we're going to do the other agricultural handpick that just came in. From a sister distillery to Jam, they're operated by the same parent company now, although they were for many years separate. This is Rum Clamont, and this is a Rum View. This is five years and one month old, and this is finished in a Scotch whiskey cask, and bottled at a eye popping 60.4 percent alcohol. Hello. So on this Clamont handpick, a couple of interesting things here. Homer Clamont first bought this distillery in 1887, in the height of the sugar crash. So we had realized we can make refined table sugar out of sugar beets in Europe. There was no more need for this vicious trade circle into the Caribbean with sugar cane. So the sugar cane market collapsed, you could get sugar plantations on the cheap. Homer Clamont moved back to Martinique. He had moved off and bought the distillery. He had moved from Martinique because he actually became what we think is the first black medical doctor in France. And then he went back to Martinique to practice medicine, and politics, and then became very, became like whatever the term then was for like governor of Martinique was mayor or something. You know, really like was instrumental in rebuilding Martinique's economy after the sugar cane crash, all that stuff. And it's a real cool legacy for him now as one of Martinique's kind of founding fathers, at least from the native side. Sugar crash usually hits me at like 1030, 1045. So what do you do to counteract it? Snickers. Yeah. Coffee. Become mayor of Martinique. You never come down from that high. This one certainly shows the proof. Sure does. At 120. But I don't think, if I tasted blind, I'd guess probably 115, 112 to 115. There is like a weird multiness on the finish that I can only attribute to the Scotch cask. I think it's a lot of fun. It's very different. I haven't had an agri-coal like this. That is really interesting. Isn't that cool? Very different. It's a hundred bucks. So it's like, you don't want a cocktail with $100 rums, but what else are you going to do with this? Spice up something with it. Yeah. All right. What do you think of Clement? Good? Going back to it, it smells like peanut butter, like roasted peanuts. The finish is very unique. It has almost like a sarsaparilla. There's a very, I don't know, I can't even put my finger on it. Some sweet spice, little bit of like how cinnamon tastes if you just like put a cinnamon stick into tea or a toddy or something like. It's a spicy thing and it combines with the nutty quality. I agree with all of this. There's like a peanut roasted hazelnut, definitely like a hot cinnamon thing going on, nutmeg. There's a lot of layers here. It's really different. Interesting. Agricole rums are definitely something that everyone needs to try. I would highly recommend trying an aged one. The unaged ones are a very acquired taste, the savory component. The unaged ones are where you get the canned tomato, and green beans, and olives. See, I think that those are the kind of things that people who like a more aggressive agave spirit should try. Yeah, there's something for it. I mean, there's always somebody that's going to like a very out-there flavor, but I'm just saying. Yeah, I know. I'm just saying that I think that kind of vegetal side comports with some blanco tequilas. Mezcal's, yeah, for sure, I think. Marzipan, way back on the finish. The finish is forever. Yeah, forever. Yeah. What do you think of this? I mean, you prefaced this by saying you normally hate these kind of rums. Neither one are too funky. Yeah. They're both angular. This one's even more angular. I think it comes from the high proof. He doesn't mind the agri-col. He doesn't like high ester. These are not high ester rums. Well, you say this, but most high ester Jamaican rums you have fall into the wetter burns or plumbers category where they're between 200 and 400 grams of ester. Most agri-cols are 350 to 450. It doesn't taste like it. But they have other things going on that kind of like counteract it. In the same way that like the Peaty Scotch or the Spice of a Rye Whiskey counteracts other things. They're not singular in that like plantain funk. Yeah, which we'll get to when we taste the Worthy Park stuff. Hooray. Yeah. Hey, Greg, it's high proof. I thought you liked that. You got to balance your hatred of funk with your love of getting funked up. Yes. Those are both just really angular, really iron fist kind of rums. Bootsy Collins with an iron fist. What's next? What's next is kind of fun. It's from an independent rum bottler called Holmes Key. And this is a Fiji single blended rum. So this was distilled at South Pacific Distilleries in Fiji. It is made from molasses and distilled on pot and column stills. Forty-six percent alcohol. Can be yours for $49.99. Back into the affordable. That white one's kind of scaring me. It's going to be fun though. It is. It's going to be very fun. You get to learn about Grand Aroma Rub. Can't wait. Oh, that was cool. This actually smells intriguing to me right now. Right? Yeah, this is interesting. I agree. I feel like the nose is like dry, savory spices, not the sweet baking spices, but I don't know. Like what? What's a dry, savory spice? All I can think of is herbs. No, not herbs. Like white pepper. There's pink peppercorn, I think. Coriander seed, caraway, things like that. Oh, I see. It has like caraway for sure. It's got a real silky body. Mouth feels crazy. I bet this makes such a kick-ass daiquiri. Oh, yeah. Unbelievable. This is right in the family with agave spirits right here. Really, it has a vegetal back end. That's what I was just saying. You know what this really has is a young coconut. Yeah. Yeah, that too. Green. I don't get that on the nose, but I just put it in the mouth, and then you're absolutely right. Went to this Airbnb, right? And everything was new. I think we were probably the second or third family to stay in this brand new Airbnb. And it still had bedbugs. And it had one of those came from Marshall's spice racks, where it's like wheels of jars and they sat in pretty little letters, the names of all the spices. So my family's asleep and I'm up still. And my wife comes downstairs to check on me. I just picture, no, no, for sure. Greg's standing there licking his finger and sticking it in each of the jars. For sure. He had a block of cheese that he was just delicately sprinkling a blend of spices on and taking bites out of it. There's a stack of the seals, as I peeled off all the seals. Just trying them on. She's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm just trying all the spices. And she's like, one, disgusting. Two, why? And I'm like, cause I want to try all these spices. I'm on her side. That's how you build your palate. The time to try spices is if you're opening new bottles. And you can be like, they weren't touched. The opportunity to try. I'm the one defiling them. 20 brand new, 20 brand new spices. Of course I'm going to take that opportunity. I'm sure everyone at this table has been trying to get someone that you're a friend, family member to try something and enjoy it. You start describing it and they just look at you like, really? I don't taste or smell any of that stuff. You're being ridiculous. Or they have no idea what those things even taste like. So this is how you build your palate. Whether or not you're actually going bold enough, which I'm happy you did, and taste them, you should at least be smelling every spice in your spice cabinet. Absolutely. To build your vocabulary for when you're tasting things about what you taste or smell. Down the street from, what's the place? Just over the river in Iowa, that distillery. Mississippi River Distilling. Yeah. So right down the street from there is one of those chachki olive oil and balsamic vinegar shops. But the best part was the spices in the back, and they had sampleable spices in the back. I'm just like, I had everything. I had to try every single one of them, because that's how you build up the knowledge base, man. It sounds geeky and weird, but it makes consuming things more enjoyable. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Plus you might discover a flavor that you didn't know before. You're going to cook better if you do that too. You're going to make better food. I did the thing where I discover a flavor and then I massively overdo it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Run it into the ground. Okay. Next up, another one from Holmes Key. This is their Reunion Island Grand Arome Rum. A Rum Grand Arome is a rum made in one of the rum agricultural AOC areas, but that does not meet the standards to be called a rum agricultural. In this case, it was molasses distillate instead of fresh-pressed sugarcane juice. This is molasses made on a column still, 115 proof, unaged, and here you go. Speaking of spices and someone had mentioned pink peppercorn. This is not going to be friendly for Greg. Island of Reunion is famous for pink peppercorns. Reunion is one of the rum agri-col areas. This is interesting that they chose to make some molasses rum. I don't know, maybe the sugarcane harvest was short for this distillate that year, so they brought in some molasses to keep producing. It says it's made on a column still. It's specifically made on a Saval still. A Saval is one of the two traditionally French column still designs used for making rums agri-col as well as many other things. A Saval still has the column with all the plates in it. The way it works is as each tray, copper tray fills, where the wash comes in on the opposite side of the plate is where it will eventually fill up and go over a pipe that takes it down to the next tray. It goes back and forth down every tray as it falls down the still, and it makes a very slow, deliberate distillation that makes a very floral spirit. I would say that this does smell very floral. I think it smells just like a piece of sugar cane. Strawberry rhubarb. It's got that reading-ass rhubarb. Yeah, for sure. This is very intriguing, the aroma here. It is. It's fruity. It's not just funky. So, agricultural rums can be expensive. This guy's $54.99 for 115 proof and a 750, pretty solid. That's crazy. There's a lot of sweetness. Molasses. Isn't that cool? You don't see a lot of rum grander rum because normally if they're making it, it's just like whatever it's getting drank by the locals. They're exporting the AOC product, the agricultural. That is super interesting. Chris is losing his mind over there. Isn't that cool, Chris? Yeah. Now, it's like minty too. There's a lot going on here. It's like minty. It's like refreshing, like basil leaf or something like that. There is so much going on in that rum. It is bonkers. It is bonkers. Pomegranate? Like there's red fruit. It's so interesting. There's like stone fruit. There's like banana. There's... It's crazy. Once in a while, I come across a spirit that really takes me on like a little bit of a roller coaster. And this is one of those. Yeah, that is a ride. There's no doubt. There's like a cucumber, mint, watermelon explosion in the back half. What do you taste? This one. Cucumber, mint, watermelon. This is all there is here. This would be super cool to make a Bananas Foster with. Get that caramelized thing with all these crazy esters. I'd love it if you made me Bananas Foster. Look at that. We should do that on your grill outside. I've never had Bananas Foster. What? What? Oh, man, we got to fix that. It's one of the great flambé desserts of all time. What is going on with this? I'm nervous. Same distillery, but this is the true agricultural. Same still, that Saval column still, but fresh-pressed cane juice instead of molasses. It's like Pisco. It's not that tomato-y, it's more melon rind-y. Dill, melon. Dill, paint. Cucumber. Yeah. I mean, there's tomato here for sure. There's tomato too, though. But it's not like the classic Martinique's, like La Favorite and stuff. You're going to buy this? I think so. Why not? Listeners at home, write to Pat. It's spirits at binnys.com if you want him to buy this. It's a strange experience. It's really weird. It is weird because there's a little sweetness, but it's very savory. I think it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. Really acquired taste. It's even more intense roller coaster. Yeah. There's definitely tomato leaf. This would be good for your hot dog martini. You got like all that. You said cucumber. Hot dog deck time. We're doing dog decks. You said it's got a celery note, it's got a cucumber note, it's got a tomato, it's all the things in that. Yeah. Too much. It's hitting me harder than it is me. Yeah. Come on, Ross. No big deal. I'm on the thread. Most on aged agri-coal. I don't like, I love aged agri-coal, but. It really, it's developing in the glass, just sitting here too. Or maybe my nose is getting blind to some of the weirdnesses so that others shine. Buckle up. We got some Jamaican stuff coming. It's so weird because it is so herbal and savory and tomatoey, but it is sweet. And it's hot. What's the proof on that? 115. Okay. Well, that makes sense. I only said it like seven times. You ready for the esters, Greg? Are we shifting gears to something weirder? We're going to Jamaica. Jamaica. Oh, I almost bought this the other week. I had like three other rums in my cart, and I was like, pump the brakes. I'm imagining Roger just entranced in the rum aisle. I was at Oakbrook. If you were into rum, you need to stop by Oakbrook's store. Arguably, maybe one of the two best rum selections in the chain. In the world. Spill it. Who's the other one? Lincoln Park. Just because it has everything. Just because it has Pat. I didn't know I was inviting that. Yeah. I don't know where that came from. Sorry, dude. I would argue you're going to have the most captive audience at Oakbrook who wants to sit there and talk to you about rum. My experience with the customers at Oakbrook has been fantastic. Anytime I've been out there. I was talking about the staff. We do have a good staff at Oakbrook. We are moving on in Jamaica. I've got a couple of rums from Worthy Park. These aren't exactly new, but they're rebranded. Worthy Park, when they reopened their distilling operations in 2005, they started labeling things under the rum bar brand. We sold those for a little bit, but they've really realized that the real money here is in the heritage of the name Worthy Park. Worthy Park has been an estate sugar cane plant and processing facility and rum distillery going all the way back to the 1700s. The plantation itself, I think, the 1600s maybe, but the earliest record of them distilling rum there was 1741. At some point when the sugar crash happened, they stopped distilling. They put a new still in in 2005, a double retort pot still from Forsyth in Scotland, which is arguably the world's premier still manufacturer. They started making rum again. So this is obviously a dark Jamaican rum. This is going to have some color added to it at this age. This is only $27.99 on the shelf for $109 proof dark Jamaican rum. Oh my. So if you're making your hot dog, martini or daiquiri with the last one, this is like pure cracker jack. This is awesome. You got a day at the ballpark. You're right. It's nutty. It's caramely. It's caramel sauce on a banana covered in chopped walnuts. So basically, bananas foster with some nuts. That's good. It is good. It's not crazy estuary either. No, it's not crazy estuary. It's pretty drinkable neat at 109 proof. Yeah. Totally. That was some ice. Smooth as silk. Chewy caramels, man. I want a banana milkshake with some of that in there. Yeah. After this, I will be getting ice cream. There's a particular kind of toasted melted sugar that gets a little bit scorched and it's just pure. That's really good. This is bruleed. Bruleed. Man. Over banana confection and cream. There's cream in there too. Bananas Foster, baby. That is Bananas Foster liqueur except it's a rum. Now I want the French toast with Bananas Foster on top of this. This is even with a little bit of chocolate chips sprinkled on top too, which I understand would be a disgusting, horrific, heretical. I don't want the crunch of those. I want to take that out the microplane. Yeah. The cocoa powder. I'd say it's a microplane. It's my favorite kitchen utensil. You know what mine is? A knife. Oh, I'm shocked. It's a chef's knife. My chef's knife is great. Greg the man with the sharpest knife in the nation. The weird knife guy chimed in. Thanks. Well, it's the best tool for the kitchen. It's the most important tool for the kitchen. Of Noteworthy Park I mentioned, recently started distilling again. They are pretty much the smallest. I've heard and have been told that they are the smallest distillery in Jamaica. I suppose information can always be outdated. Who knows? Maybe some other craft guy has popped up since. They just have the one double retort pot still there. So next we're trying their Overproof Rum, which is an unaged, 126 proof rum. I think that the barrel has been the saving factor. Yeah, the answer is pop more here for sure. I'm afraid. It smells just like cream cheese to me. It is a liter bottle. Yeah, you're not wrong. It is cream cheese. Cream cheese. Again, if you were looking for Rumbar Overproof, it's now labeled as Worthy Park Overproof. Same liquid, better packaging, better name, Papa John's. This one liter of 126 proof rum is on the shelf at a Binny's near you for $39.99. Do you ever have the cream cheese and strawberry jam sandwiches? Or like on a bagel? Well, kind of. That's what this is. So important note here about this overproof rum. Oh, we got to try it with the ting. He's going to ting. Oh, geez. He has some ting to share with us. Do you think? That was pretty perfect. I got some ting for you. Man. Do you think you could cook down that rum and put it into cinnamon rolls somehow? With sugar. You should find out. You should use it to make frosting. No, you put it in the frosting. For our listeners, it has been four seconds, but Pat is back with some ting to share with us. We're drinking Unaged Overproof Rum and the traditional cocktail of Jamaica. For all the locals aren't drinking aged rum, they're drinking Ray and Nephew Overproof. Oh, yes. You have a cocktail, Ray and Ting. Ting is a grapefruit soda that has some grapefruit chunks and stuff in it or something. Who smuggled this to you? Dan. Oh, shout out to Dan. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Dan. And talk about an estuary rum. It's a grapefruit soda and it's a Ray and Ting. And it's a Jamaican Ting. What's my, good one, what's my mix here? Like one to three? I don't know, probably. That's the best kind of highball recipe right there. Put it in there. It doesn't matter. Stop overthinking it. It's a taste. More importantly, Ray and Nephew Overproof Rum has been the best-selling overproof rum in Jamaica and out of Jamaica for decades. And we have not been able to get Ray and Nephew Overproof Rum for a long time now, months, and we get asked a lot. People email us, hit us up on Instagram, etc. And the official, finally, Ray and Nephew came out. Ray and Nephew is the people that make Appleton. And they said, well, it's been really wet. And the quality of the cane has not been up to par. And yields are down, blah, blah, blah. We have to put everything we can in Jamaica first before we service export markets. So Hampton Creek would be Rumfire, correct? Yeah. Rumfire. I have to say that I prefer Rumfire to this. But I never really like Ray and Nephew. This definitely tastes like Ray and Nephew. Can we talk about the- Ray and Nephew is Appleton. This Ting cocktail? Yeah. It's fine. Yeah. It's the Paloma of the Caribbean. This is my first time having Ting. It takes all of the punch of the rum away. So I imagine that I would sit on a beach and just- It takes that alcohol punch, but the ester is still there. So that's the thing. Did you try the Ting on its own? No. It's clean and fresh and vibrant. It's very sweet. Very sweet. So, yeah. Too much sugar in that Ting. Next up, last but not least, it's a few months old, we've had it for a bit. Buyer Jeff asked me to keep talking about it. We've got a bit coming in. We sold through our allocation instantly. They've been pulling extra cases from other states, bringing them to Binny's Beverage Depot because we love you the best. This is plantaray cut and dry, and this is their coconut rum infused with natural coconut flesh, because that makes it sound not creepy. These are the guys who made the pineapple also, right? Yes, their pineapple is godly. The greatest flavored product we carry. Yeah, it is. Stiggins? Stiggins. Stiggins, that's right. Stiggins Fancy. Stiggins Fancy. Stiggins with a half of overcooked? Have you guys had this one yet? No. Never? Yeah. Curious to know your thoughts. Which makes me raise my eyebrows at Jeff not sharing this whole time. He was like, I don't want to give it to you because I want the bottle back. I was like, you're going to get the bottle back. We're talking about tasting. He's like, there's not much left. I said, I don't know how much you think we're going to taste on this podcast. We're going to finish it. This is gone. I'm just telling you right now. It's gone. Oh, that's like four Evergreen Park pours left. Oh my God. It's like a mountains bar. It is like a mountains bar. It's like a macaroon. Cut and dry coconut rum. And that's kind of why I don't love it. I just want coconut. Why? Where's all this chocolate? Why y'all is all the chocolate in there? There's a lot of chocolate. A lot of chocolate. I have a bottle at home because I got all excited about it. And I was like, oh, this is great. I'm gonna make pina coladas with this. And then it was just like this weird chocolatey sludge. Okay. Give it to me. Yeah. Seriously, this is amazing. Macaroon city. It is a macaroon city. This you need to make a cream based cocktail with. You have this ice on the rocks with some cream, frost it up. Clarified milk punch. I would argue that they're- Why would you do that? Could you flambe your bananas with this? Oh, it's 40%. Maybe. You'd have to add some higher proof one on top of it. Some 151. Done and done. So I would argue this is not just a mounds bar, but this is an almond joy, because there is some nuttiness here, too. I feel like this is a cheat code. Wow, you're just going to straight up dome the rest of Jeff's room. Aren't we done with this episode? No, good for you. Thanks, Jeff. This ought to be good, really good, and now legit, I'm not talking Swiss Miss, hot chocolate. Yeah, yes, I totally agree with that. Along with your Alpine liqueur. It practically tastes like hot chocolate as it is. Obviously, the Alpine liqueur is better. It should not be in hot chocolate. It's really good. One thing I would say is it does not have any of that like sun tan lotion, coconut action going on. The nose is coconutty, but not lotion-y. Okay. This is in stock, and as we record this, this is in stock in most Binny's. They have been doing a good job of getting us more of this. After they said, you can get a little bit, and then bye-bye, this is $34.99. It's going to go away though, huh? There's no way they don't bring something this successful back. Yeah, it would be crazy too. They're too savvy of liquor salesmen, I would say. If you were like, Greg, do you want to try a coconut chocolate liqueur? I'd be like, yeah, no thanks. Yeah. But I said, do you want to try a coconut rum? You're like, wow, I love this coconut chocolate liqueur. Oh my God, I like this. I think if you're a Malibu drinker and you're looking for something a little bit better, maybe. It also looks like three times stronger. Upgrade. Yeah, I mean, this is better. It's going to really- Jim Q Beyonce's upgrade. This, again, let's talk about drinking your ice cream and adding booze to it. Chocolate shake with this. Vanilla shake with this. Banana shake. Pineapple banana with some- Vanilla shake, caramel ribbon. All right, you guys are creeping me out. I got to go. This would just be good with chocolate milk. You know what I have? That's crazy. My sister was not. I'm anti-dairy industry for chocolate milk. I'm sorry. I'm telling you. No, I'm a big fan of milk and I love, if this group went out to dinner one night, like say we went out to a nice fancy restaurant, and instead of drinking, we all ordered a big glass of milk with our dinner. Just to see the looks we'd get from other patrons and the waitstaff. It'd be so much fun. I mean, if you like- I like it. Do you have any whole milk? If you like Kahlua and cream or Brandy Alexander, anything that's creamy and sweet and nutty, come on. My sister and I were mixing Amarillo with Oberweiss chocolate milk. Well, Pat, you brought a hell of a selection of rums. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Raj asked me to do, you said, what's new in rum? I looked at reports on new rums that came in recently. My first thought was like, it's slim pickings. Then I actually started thinking about more. I was like, wow, actually in the last three months, we've gotten a lot of really awesome rum. I am going to point out that one rum was more surprising than the next in this episode. It was really interesting. There was nothing that was straightforward. Everything was all over the place and surprisingly good. Even though you guys always think, I always think I'm not going to like something too funky, nothing was out of bounds on this. I think it's cool that for people, we have so many customers that are into exploring wild, interesting, bold flavors and in wildly divergent ways, whether that's in American whiskey or Scotch or mezcal and tequila, anything like that. For those customers to just write off rum as like, again, it's just once a sugary sweet nonsense. There's an equal amount of breadth of flavor and interesting stuff going on in rum. Again, most stuff we tried today was 50 bucks or less. Yeah. The value is there. The value is there and you get everything from relatively dry to this coconut rum which is insane. It's a testament to how many rums are blends of all these. That's how diverse the portfolio of flavors is. People are blending from all different countries and traditions and manufacture process and we got a great selection of all those differences today. Yeah. Yeah, people. Stop ignoring this category. It is the summer of rum indeed. I'm going to be drinking a lot of this plant array, Mr. Fogg, when it comes in. Yeah. Listeners, hopefully it's in by the time you're listening to this. I believe it should be. Anyway, we'll be back in your feed with something else next week. If you enjoyed this, please do us a favor, leave us a review. Until then, I'm Pat.