Rum Review: Coyopa Rum

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How do you rate Coyopa Rum (five is best)?

5
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4
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3
1
100%
2
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Total votes: 1

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Capn Jimbo
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Rum Review: Coyopa Rum

Post by Capn Jimbo »

Coyopa Rum: "Peach Leather Surprise"

Where do I start with this faux classic/modern rum imported by Sidney Frank, along with Grey Goose, Jagermeister Liqueur and Gekkeikan Sake? Coyopa is/was produced by R. L. Seale. It is described as "aged 10 years" (which you can believe), distilled in "small batches" in copper pots (pot stilled), "hand casked" and boasts of its "deep bouquet" and "rich taste". The paper seal even has a hand lettered bottle number, batch and distiller's initials.

To a degree all these claims are true.

However, Coyopa has not been widely reviewed, nor is it widely available. At one time it sold for $50 - I found one for less than $20. Is it classic or modern? Available or not? Expensive or modest in price? Live up to it's label, or not? Indeed, Coyopa may be a rum in conflict, or it may not. Let's see...

Sue Sea:
Let me begin with the fact that I simply loved this bottle. It is classic insofar as its ancient flask shaped bottle, with a thick rounded lip opening, and massive polished wood stopper. Thick and heavy. Yet carries a graceful modern oval label featuring a photographic montaqe of a dancing Spanish couple. Very festive and a handsome presence on any liquor shelf. Would that the rum would be as fine.

My nosing's first presence was of a leathery cork, with a high sugary lemon, like a lemon drop candy, with just a wisp of vanilla. Yet there was an element I just couldn't place. Finally I realized it! A peachy mango rind.

I found the early palate reflected the peach/mango rind, which was quickly overcome in the midpalate by a quick and growing dry heat which carried to the short astringent finish of peachy leather, dried apricot, and a light clove.

All in all I found Coyopa lacked balance. The peachy mango sweetness and the extremely dry astringent leather fight one another. The sweet aroma is taken over by the astringent leather heat, which is replaced by an almost cloying peachy aftertaste.

It's a confusing battle with no clear winner.
Me:

I owned the Coyopa for some time, and finished at least a third of this bottle well before our tasting. I experienced it purely from an experiential view and with no eye to analyzing it - yet throughout I never really understood this rum. Something was amiss, or different - I simply didn't know what.

Until this tasting.

In the glass Coyopa Rum is a clear medium amber with pearl necklace slow legs. As far as aroma, Sue Sea and I had exactly the same first impression: leathery cork. I found an underlying sweetness which, like Sue Sea, later became clear as the peach/mango she discovered. There is a deep, rich tar as well. Although the rum strikes the palate with an initial peach/mango sweetness, a very dry and astringent, almost sour leather takes over and builds to a quick hot clove finish, leaving - once again - a coating, almost cloying peach mango aftertaste.

This is disconcerting. As we both agree, there are any number of very fine rums that successfully blend and balance hot and sweet, like good Chinese food. This is usually a remarkable, pleasant and memorable sensation (which we dearly love).

Coyopa has the sweet. It has the heat. But it lacks sufficient balance and continuity; the sweet, the leather astringency and the heat seem to fight one another - first one, then another, and then the first yet again. Confusing, choppy and not complex, a somewhat disconcerting experience.

To be fair to Seales - who has earned our highest respect - we will visit this rum again. Stay tuned...

Rating (10 is best): 6.
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