True or False Dept: Florida Old Reserve Rum

[Capn Jimbo]

Florida Old Reserve Rum: Small batch? Or big talk?


Post Christmas, a large spirits megastore was closing out their overpurchase of holiday packages spirits. You know, the ones that come in a holiday gift box with perhaps a couple dandy logo glasses or the like. It was then I came upon a lone bottle of "Florida Old Reserve Rum". Exciting? You bet and here's why:

It came in a nice understated pebble grained glass bottle, and label which proclaimed "Small batch, hand numbered 526 and scrawled signature of Master Distiller Ron Call, Sherry Cask Aged, and handcrafted in Florida from local cane molasses, and water from the Florididan aquifer". Bottled at 84 proof, and a blend of two year olds. Wow! A handcrafted small batch rum. Needless to say I'm a huge fan of small and craft distillers like the two guys who produce Siesta Key in Sarasota, Florida.

The buy, especially at $19, was a no-brainer. Sue Sea and I decided not to review it, but simply to have a couple drams while watching a rented movie. It was remarkable for a two year old, but I had the inkling that maybe it was too remarkable for a two year old. But then again, there was that sherry barrel aging.

So naturally today - the next morning - I decided to do my due diligence and visit yet another small distiller website, and hoped to learn something more about this rum. As always, I was interested in seeing what kind of probable modified pot still was being used (which is often a German Carl).


Capn Jimgo gets Shock Treatment...

Instead, on clicking on the distiller - Florida Caribbean Distillers (of Auburndale, Florida, I was presented with a very industrial site (here) that exclaimed a multiple-column capacity of 10 million gallons a year of all manner of low end, privately branded wines, tequilas, rums, gins, whiskys and cordials, apparently based on product produced at 188 proof.! Check out the columns (here) and their product line (here).

I was furious at the deception, and at myself as well. Had I been so easily hoodwinked?


Confronting the Distiller

I love the truth, and I absolutlely despise liars, particularly of the corporate variety where profits trump honest and fair dealings. I was glowing with suppressed rage, but to be fair I emailed their director of sales...

Moi:

Hello! Capn Jimbo here of The Rum Project – perhaps the largest and most active independent and non-commercial rum appreciation and review site in the United States, based here in Florida.

I was very pleased to finally find a lone bottle of your Florida Old Reserve Rum and which the label promoted as “small batch, from local cane molasses, sherry cask aged, hand crafted”. Marked “Batch 524” by Master Distiller “Ron Call”. Of course this created images of a smaller craft distillery of the likes of Siesta Key. The notion of small batch suggests a craft distiller using a small pot still or a small still such as the German Carl. Sold in with a well designed bottle and label meant to complete the image.

Wow I thought! Great – another small batch Florida rum. You could not then describe my extreme displeaure when I visited your webpage to discover that your company appears to a fairly massive distillery based on output from a large, multiple column set of stills designed for mass output of any number of products, mostly low end and very much mass produced. So much for the “small batch” bullshit I thought.

So Dave, before I write up a humdinger of a review, it’s only fair to give you a chance to discuss and present your “small batch, local cane, sherry cask, handcrafted” rum. Please justify this description. Kindly address the following:

1. What size and type of still do you use?
2. How old are the barrels and from where were they obtained?
3. What flavorings and additives are used?
4. Is this product from your pictured, large commercial column stills?
5. Is the “batch 524” accurate and is each bottle hand labeled? Or is the label just printed to imply that?

Tag, you’re it... "

The email was sent high priority, return receipt requested. In the spirit of fairness, let's give "Dave" a fair chance to clarify what must surely be a tremendous misunderstanding, si?

[da'rum]

Interesting,

"We want to tell a story," national sales manager Jacob Call, 33, said. "We're so big, but no one knows us."

Call was a banker before joining the distillery where his father, Ron, is the general manager but who at one time worked for Jim Beam. So did Call's grandfather.

His great-grandfather made moonshine in Kentucky.

Ron Call was recruited in 1990 to the Polk distillery and soon developed the successful Cruzan Rum. For years, he wanted to make more products like that.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20 ... ?p=3&tc=pg

[Capn Jimbo]

Amazing story, thanks...


The headline is "The giant Florida distillery you've never heard of.." Some facts the article exposes...

1. "The distillery makes a variety of products, including some for more than straight drinking. Some are ingredients, like rum for flavoring ice cream, and the facility produces alcohol cleaning products for hospitals and schools. "

2. "In the bottling area, a rotating machine can fill 240 bottles in a minute. It is normal for a bottling line to put out 10,000 cases per day.".

A big thanks to da'Rum for Exhbit A. What offends me is not that they are a large and financially successful corporation, but what seem to be blatant lies about what is portrayed as numbered and signed, small batch, handcrafted rum. I await the reply of the director of sales, who will get a phone call if our email goes unanswered...

[Capn Jimbo]

Egg on Face Department: Florida Old Reserve Answers


Very often I find myself forced to confront a distiller with an email requesting basic, simple and reasonable information about their rums and/or marketing claims. The usual responses, in order typically are:

1. No answer, or
2. An auto reply roughly along the lines of "...Thank you for your inquiry...", and include some stock marketing copy, or
3. Answers a different and unrelated question, and last
4. A very carefully parsed reply that answers only part of the
question, or a purposeful evasion.

Example: "Do you use real whole spices or what are called "artificial or natural flavorings"? Answer: "Our rums are made with the finest ingredients and are in complete accord with all regulations". WTF?!


But how about Florida Old Reserve?

On 12/30 I asked the following:

Moi:
"1. Where did you purchase it from?
2. What was the date of your purchase?
3. What was the retail price of the rum?
4. Most importantly, what did you think of the quality and taste?

After repeating some stock marketing hype the National Sales Manager did not address my questions, but instead turned it around and questioned me:

NSM:
"1. Where did you purchase it from?
2. What was the date of your purchase?
3. What was the retail price of the rum?
4. Most importantly, what did you think of the quality and taste?"

Sure sounded like an evasion to me, which led me to my previous posts in this thread. But then - to my surprise - I received this answer from the Bottling Manager:

BM:
"1. What size and type of still do you use?

Continuous distillation, 25,000 pg/day. One of our Rectifer's contains 72 plates and we draw the rum off of 1 plate.

2. How old are the barrels and from where were they obtained?

Barrels contained Spanish Sherry and were 2-3 years old

3. What flavorings and additives are used?

We do not add anything except for the rum and then it is aged for 3 - 4 years.

4. Is this product from your pictured, large commercial column stills?

Yes............

5. Is the “batch 524” accurate and is each bottle hand labeled? Or is the label just printed to imply that?

Yes, each bottle is hand labeled with accurate batch #'s added. If I can be of further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me."

Well! Pretty impressive I thought, but I've seen hedges before about additives, so I thought I'd ask just two more very specific questions, to which I again received some equally specific answers...

Last Two Questions:
"Stacy, thanks again, I forgot to include a couple more questions in addition to my last email:

1. Approximately how large is a “batch”, eg. my bottle of Florida Old Reserve is marked “batch 526”?

That particular barrel batch is around 90 gallons.

2. When you say you do not add flavorings or any other additives to this rum, I am referring to any flavorings or any additives whatsoever, under any of the regulations, and for any reason? This of course includes sugar, caramel and other additives that are unlabeled but which some distillers add under the 2.5% exceptions rule.

We do not add anything, no oak chips, caramel, flavoring or sugar."

Bottom Line:

If Florida Old Reserve is to be believed - and answers like these support them - then this product is a pure column-stilled rum run in fairly small batches (though it is entirely possible that a long run is simply divided into "batches"). Short of waterboarding this well meaning respondent, I am inclined to believe her, and do hope to actually visit the distillery.

Egg - if available - should be liberally applied to my somewhat weathered but still handsome face. Kudo's to Florida Old Reserve which will be formally reviewed.

[da'rum]

15 all I'd say.

Although they have answered your questions here, they have also a misleading marketing approach.

It may be good rum "remarkable as a two year old" *, on that I can't comment but the effort to give the buyer the impression of an artisan distillery and product is a little if only slightly dishonest.

So great that they are honest now, but.......




* quote Cap'n Jimbo

[Beukeboom]

For whatever it's worth I got a bottle today (batch 151) and frankly it's not much to brag about. Okay as a mixer but nothing distinguished at all.

Yours was a higher batch number? Maybe that means my bottle has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for years before making it on the shelf at the ABC Fine Wine and Liquors store?

[Capn Jimbo]

Unfortunately, this Florida "Old Reserve", was covered too many years ago to remember much about it - but I'll dig through my storage closet to see if a bit is still about. I will say that younger rums - just like long-aged rums - can be an acquired taste. Their youthful vigor can be quite interesting, and leads one to wonder what a few more years in good wood would accomplish.

A good example of this is Appleton V/X or perhaps Mount Gay Eclipse - both are sold as mixers and are priced accordingly. But the V/X especially is considered quite sippable by more than a few bartenders. This of course illustrates the ridiculous division of rums into meaningless categories such as white and gold or mixers and sippers.

The truth: a rum is either well made or not, and has distilled complexity or not. Well made young rums have a fruity vigor that aging will slowly reduce to be replaced by the multiple processes of wood subtraction, addition and interaction. To me, one is not "better" than the other; they are just different. There are times I really prefer a younger (less than 4 years), others when a rum in the sweet spot (7 to 10 yrs), and a bit less frequently when a thick old rum works (say 15-20 years).

It just depends...

[Beukeboom]

FWIW, I do like both Appleton and Mount Gay.