Welcome to the Whisk(e)y Section - Important Information

What is feckin whiskey doing on the net's leading independent rum website? There's a reason, read on, but it's not my fault! Honest...
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Capn Jimbo
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Welcome to the Whisk(e)y Section - Important Information

Post by Capn Jimbo »

What's a feckin whisky section doing here - on the world's leading independent rum website?

Better yet, what is a Compleat Idiot doing running anything? You'll find out. Although this is just a quickie introductory post, here's a tasty morsel for you to gum in yer toothless mouths...

1. Rum can be a truly wonderful, noble spirit. Some rums already are and I salute them.

2. Historically rum has been the spirit of rogues. Early seamen were allowed daily rations of rum, and loved it - dark and hearty. Often the cheap rums stingy captains carried for the enscripted help was not, well, very good and was often altered - especially colored to look dark and rich.

Ho, ho, ho. The joke was on them - they knew it - but to complain meant keel hauling. Drink the feckin rum already, matey!

3. There were actually two, actually three grades of rum, and remember rum was once the currency of the world. Like the Arabian oil of today. Really bad, really cheap rum that was used to trade for slaves. Slightly better, darkened rum given to our jolly enscripted seamen. Still cheap but better and saleable rum for the masses. And quite good, decent rum for the noblemen, politicians and plantation owners (usually Jamaican).

Oops, that's four categories.

4. Point is, rum was never a noble spirit, not even close and the gold rum rush came to a crashing end with prohibition. It was not until years later that rum made a quasi reappearance, thanks to World War II and lyric stealing Morrey Amsterdam.

Mixed with Coca Cola, and a hit song for all those thirsty American servicemen who literally saved the world.

5. The next mini-recovery came with the Tiki movement and a death to the dregs fight between Beachcomber Don and Trader Vic Bergeron. This time using relatively high quality and pure rums to make high quality, fantastic mixed drinks.

6. And so it was until the likes of Bacardi and the big boys concocted a strategy to really increase sales. And it wasn't using high quality, pot-stilled rums. Nope, it was using young, cheaper but smooth and relatively uninteresting column-stilled rums that they then spiffed up with all manner of inexpensive artificial flavorings. Lemon rum, razzberry rum, tooty-frooty rum. Uggghhhh! Still there were a handful of truly great pure rums, but not at your local bar. Mixed drinks reigned.

7. The next move was obvious. Since faux flavoring and mixing ruled the day (and shelf space), why not "tweak" some of the slightly older (but still continuous distilled products) to make em taste old and complex and sell them for relatively huge profit margins. No more $12 "Limon Rum", rather a $27 tweaked "sipper". Nice work if you can get it.

8. The culmination of this deception should have been expected, and that was to create a so-called "super premium" category. Like charging $50 or $60 for some beautifully altered better aged rums. Think the Z-rums. Super smooth, super sweet, super misrepresented. The age statements on these "super premium" products are fantastical, to say the least.

Still a few old standards - like MGXO, Appleton 12 Year, W&N Overproof, El Dorado 12/15 - and a few new ones - particularly those of master distiller Richard Seale, like Doorly's XO and Seale's Ten Year - managed to maintain their integrity and relative purity.

9. The most current ploy for the biggies - and even some boutique operations - desperate to discover the next big thing was, gulp, Spiced Rums. These have simply exploded onto the scene, and yes this was yet another way to disguise young, cheap continuously distilled rums and yet sell them for prices higher than the "flavored rum" category. A few of the tiny boutique distillers have attempted to actually make a quality product using older rums and real spices. Good luck.

Can you believe the number of these products that have simply exploded onto the scene: Kilo, Kraken, Tiki, Koko Kanu (what's with all these "K's"?), VooDoo, The Lash, Blackheart (a Sailor Jerry ripoff), Cruzan "9", Bacardi of course, Elements 8, Trader Vic, Chairmans' Reserve and even - tell me it ain't so - El Dorado! And that ain't all.

The fastest growing category since the birth control pill. What a fakkin shame!

So................

Perhaps now you may understand the "Whisky" section. During all the years of rum and it's rogueiness, whisky kept plodding along, pure as the driven snow, no flavoring and simply dominating the worlds' brown spirits sales.

When you pour a dram of any whisky, but particularly a good single malt you won't be subject to the terror (or even the terroir) of wondering what to expect, as you do in rum. The differences will be those of quality, balance, complexity and true aging - not those of the bucket of cheapskate additives tossed into vats of cheap continuous rum.

There is no real "flavored" category in whiskey, with maybe one or two rare as hens' teeth exceptions. And good whisky costs real money, perhaps partially due to marketing, but more because it's worth it. To a point anyway.

The whisky tastes you will experience will be more handmade, almost entirely the product of pot stilling, and reflect years of real, expensive and skilled aging.

Now I know good whiskeys and their expense may be offputting to many rum drinkers who could care less about authenticity and are willing to trade their souls for easy, cheap, artificially induced thrills. You might as well call them artificial flavor lovers. But noble flavorings, if you believe the Preacher.

Whisky is another matter. It's not easy to learn, not easy to afford, not easy to appreciate. Believe me, the hairs on my neck arose the first few times I delved into this new/old world. But in time I came to appreciate what a real noble spirit is all about.

Whisky.
Last edited by Capn Jimbo on Wed Sep 29, 2010 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Capn Jimbo
Rum Evangelisti and Compleat Idiot
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Read my feckin lips!

Post by Capn Jimbo »

Read my fakkin lips!

Listen up fellow idiots. I already know the reaction to this new whisk(e)y section, and it's the same old sack of monkeyshit that has overflowed the moat at the Ministry. What's that?

"You can't pay any attention to that idiot. Jimbo is simply a nattering nabob of negativity. Deep down he hates all of us and rum."

I'll cover this later in yet another of my nattering nuggets, but the truths are simple, indisputable and oughta be obvious to anyone who doesn't have a banana stuck up his red....

1. I love rum. I adore rum. But I speak here of real, pure, unadulterated, honest and fairly labeled product "rum". Not the cheap "tweaked" shit that depends on unlabeled adulterants and flavors to make a cheesy, cheap continously distilled product taste old, complex and laboriously pot-stilled.

2. Most of dear Sue Sea's and my reviews are really quite positive. Out of over 125 reviews, there's a literal handful that are bad. That's it.

3. The overwhelming body of my work is entirely positive, for example: making a case for reference rums and identifying what I call the five basic styles of rums, the web's most complete reference for tasting glasses and how to choose one, an enclyclopaedic discussion of the tasting techniques of some of the world's best tasters, a lengthy definition and history of the Caribbean as it relates to rum, a thorough history and contemporary definition of products "rum", "flavored rum" and "imitation rum" in the US/UK and the ACS.

And much, much more. Literally hundreds of pages and many thousands of words. A literal book.

Now yes, I have taken fully justified aim at some of myths, frauds and misleading marketing that, to date, has seemingly dominated rum information on the net. Accordingly, it's about time that some of the few truly independent rum websites defend rum, with one specific goal:

To make rum into a truly noble spirit. Like whisky. The real notion behind this section is to expose rum drinkers to what nobility and purity really is, to learn to appreciate it, and thence to carry their newfound knowledge and respect back into the ring of refuting rogue rum.

Further affiant sayeth naught....
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Capn Jimbo
Rum Evangelisti and Compleat Idiot
Posts: 3550
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:53 pm
Location: Paradise: Fort Lauderdale of course...
Contact:

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