Capn Jimbo's Rum Project Forum

[Stefan]

Rum Sixty Six Family Reserve - Barbados

I got curious about the rums of R.L. Seale (Doorly's, RL Seales, Foursquare and others?) after reading the praise of his rums on Jimbo's rum project and other sites. I have bought Doorly's XO and Rum Sixty Six to see what I think about them. I am a bit nervous about this because the same people that have praised his rums also praised the Mount Gay XO that I did not like at all... I hope all Barbados rums don't taste like that! I will retry the MGXO some other day and see if I like it better but I really hope R66 tastes different.

The bottle is rectangular and quite stylish but not exactly premium looking. Nevermind, I prefer the content to be of high quality rather than the packaging. There is only a small label on the front with the rest of the text printed directly on the bottle. The bottle have a cork stopper with a plastic top. Practical yes, fancy? Not very.

The rum is golden in colour and oily in viscosity like a thin lubricating oil. It got thick slow moving legs for people that are into that. I much prefer ladies legs myself but that is a discussion for another place and time.

The smell is slightly sweet with some alcoholic prickling in my nose. The smell kinds of hints at fruits of some kind (probably drenched in alcohol but still...), I wish I could pick out a lot more to say about the smell but there are far more professional reviewers for that. Even if I got a huge nose it seems to be sub standard in performance.

The taste is less sweet than I expected even if there is sweetness. To me it have a "whisky taste", is that the oak barrels? After the first few sips the primary alcoholic stings have disappeared but there is still a slight burn when swallowing. Maybe a single ice cube would remove that burn? It actually tastes quite ok, but is not all that powerful so maybe the ice would kill it. In the name of science or something I decided to try and dropped a big chunk of ice in the glass. The ice did take out that burn, sadly it also removed a lot of the flavours so I don't think I will do that again.

So what did I think of it? I would score it at 3/5 I think, I will need a few more tests before I really make up my mind. It's absolutely ok but maybe not as smooth as I would like it to be. It did taste a lot better than I remember the MGXO so maybe there is still hope for Barbadian rum.

Will I buy a new bottle when this one is finished? That is the real grading... The answer right now is probably not since there are so many other promising rums I want to taste. Chances are that my opinion might change on my long travel ahead towards the bottom of the bottle. If it does I will (hopefully) update this sorry excuse for a review.

Link for more info on the rum: http://www.tastersguide.com/index.php?option=com_agora&task=topic&id=560&Itemid=30

If you are not flash allergic and want to have a look at the real thing, the official site is here: http://www.rumsixtysix.com/.