Bored to Shit Dept: The State of Rum Sites

[Capn Jimbo]

Would the last one to leave please turn off the light?


Look. I love rum. I adore rum. And I will do anything within my humble, idiotic power to promote real rum - pure and unadulterated, made with artistry and care by careful fermentation, distillation, fine aging and masterful blending to make available truly fine and noble spirits.

Which sadly, most rums are not. But a goodly number are and they are worth every centivo. The few, the proud, the real rums can be had at relatively low costs and can compare quite favorably with the real noble spirits such as fine single malts, armangacs, cognac, calvados and even a few others - gins, tequilas and cachacas.

But you'd never know it from the internet.

Isn't is sad - really, really sad - when the three most active websites on the net are run by an uptight commercial promoter and rep (who knows the truth but isn't saying), a rank amateur (who doesn't know the truth, but can't stop talking) and this humble but completely independent rum website?

Very sad. Consider:

The rep's site is filled with fearful wannabees and self-proclaimed insiders who could care less, as long as you keep buying any of the "...it's all good" rums and/or rum-like concoctions. The site is really dying when the most interesting posts are of the "what I drank today.." variety.

The amateur's site is filled almost entirely with his own misrumogenic and uninformed drivel, finding "bitterness" in over half the rums reviewed, and reporting aromas and tastes for tannins that exist only in his own mind, all based on a conveyor belt of freebies from softball seeking distributors and distillers.

And finally, The Rum Project. No freebies, no softballs, no free passes. The rums are honestly reviewed - and despite rumours to the contrary - are mostly positive. Unlike the preceeding the pages are filled with great information on how to taste, choose a glass, classify and compare rums and the like. Educational. The cheaters, the promoters, the adulterers, and the lying marketers are held to task - no holds barred.

It's no wonder we aren't sent freebies.

The rest of the very few rum websites are really quite few, and most have some level of commercial involvement. Almost all of them are relatively inactive, have run out of rums to review, marketing copy to regurgitate.

Compared to wine, beer or whisky, rum exists in a near wasteland and is represented by a literal handful of follow-the-money websites. This compared to literally hundreds of competent websites for other spirits.

Feel free to cry now.


So what's needed?

Simply, you. That's right, you and you alone.

Fer gawd's sake, educate yourself. Accept the fact that most rums are altered with all manner of unlabeled additives like sugar, glycerol, sherry, and heaps of artificial and "natural" flavorings and spice substitutes.

Follow the money.

It's way, way cheaper to squeeze every drop of alcohol out of a rum wash using U.S. Steel sized multiple columns producing very high proof, nearly flavorless "rum", then tossing in a bunch of relatively inexpensive adulterants to make it "taste good" and "rum-like". That's a whole lot cheaper, and way more profitable than actually having to use long fermentations, hand/batch processing in pot stills, multiple distillations, purchase of very expensive cooperage, and long years of costly aging and angel's share losses.

It's all about the money, stupid.

And we all just sit here, or better yet bend over and take it. "It's all good... give me another one mistress!". Don't like hearing that? Want to believe otherwise? Go ahead...

It's your butt full of altered...


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Capn's Log: You can make a difference. Educate yourself and speak out. Call a rum that reeks of vanilla or drips with syrupy sweetness what it is - altered and unreal. Seek out the real and pure rums, and learn to appreciate them. Take a chance and contradict the "...it's all good" monkeys. Stop being a pussy.

Speak out - loudly and often - and tell your friends. Until or unless we do, ain't nothin gonna change...

[NCyankee]

I would assume your description above of adulterated rums applies to Captain Morgan Private stock - which I have to admit was my "gateway" to good rums about a year and a half ago, though I would never buy a bottle now. Seems silly to me that is costs as much as Pusser's Blue Label which is infinitely better.


*******
Capn's Log: Yank, you are entirely right. At least Morgan is truthful about being a spiced/flavored rum. Nothing wrong with that. Of course you understand I speak of the "rums" that are altered, but don't admit on their label.