Comparison: Calidao, Jack Tar and Blackwell's Jamaican rums

The second standard reference style: aromatic, robust and full flavored - it's absolutely dunderful. To our ships at sea! May they sink very slowly!
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Capn Jimbo
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Comparison: Calidao, Jack Tar and Blackwell's Jamaican rums

Post by Capn Jimbo »

To the point:


Having recently gone nuts updating my own hydrometer tests of rums, I had the chance to test Jack Tar (distilled in Jamaica, bottled in S. Africa), Calidao Original Dark 9 (same, bottled in Germany) and Blackwells Black Gold (same, bottled in Jamaica by Wray & Nephews). All three are produced in Jamaica. All are 40%. None contain any notable sugar. It occurred to me that it'd be fun to compare the three, as follows:

Calidao Original

A nice lighter gold in color (I do not like coloring, but with rogue rum, get used to it). It's my opinion that the Germans know and love their Jamaican rum, and have for a long, long time. The Germans are quality conscious and prefer Jamaican rums and bulk products. Most of the extremely high ester Jamaican rums - like the Continental class - end up in Germany.

To me, the Calidao is the lightest ester of the three. Although it will hold its own against the relatively lower ester rums of most of the other islands, it is noticeably lighter than the others. It presents a bit of an alcohol prickle nose. The palate is simple and lightly sippable with banana over a light leather background, and a touch of vanillan. Perfectly pleasant, but for a Jamaican surprisingly light. If you try you can find a remote dundery tar enough to know it really is Jamaican, but that's about it.


Jack Tar

Are the south Africans (and their notable German population) just as picky as the Germans? I think yes, and of the three I find Jack Tar most representative of its source. It presents the same expected Jamaican tones, but now they are heavier and the dundery tar is now right up front, and leads the parade all the way through the palate to a nice dark leather, tar and mild warm clove finish.

One word: authentic. It remains the "best buy" of our earlier review.


Blackwell's Black Gold


Yes I know this one is made by Wray & Nephews. Yes I know that it tests at low or no sugar. Yes, I'm a big fan of Jamaican rums. But after much, much consideration I've got to return to something that bothered me before, and still does.

Blackwell's would compete favorably with the Jack Tar except for one thing: a Zaya-like dark Bing cherry sensation that didn't feel right before, and still doesn't! What makes it even more suspicious is that dark cherry sweetness is nosable, to me a real tip off that may well indicate artificial tweaking. If you studied food engineering, you may have learned that the science of creating "flavors" is heavily oriented to nosing (as it is the nose that creates most of the impression.

And I can smell the damn Bing cherry. I don't like that, and have nosed hundreds of rums, this aroma is rare enough that I find it hard to accept that it's natural. Add to that the surprising smooth body of the Blackwell's and I'm having my doubts. Let me leave it here...

If any of you have a bottle, kindly run your nose and tongue over it won't you? And please let us all know what you think...
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