Article by Tony Sachs, Liquor.com
Rum is finally becoming respectable. Not that the best of it hasn't always been worthy of respect, of course. But for long as the most decrepit boozehound can remember, rum has gotten the short shrift in the spirits world. It's the stuff you put in frozen daiquiris, the stuff that has a monochromatic vanilla flavor, the stuff that's too sweet and goopy to be taken seriously. And there's still plenty of that kind of rum out there. But as happened with American whiskey over the last 10-15 years, the hardcore fans, the connoisseurs, the geeks, are coming out of the woodwork and into the blogosphere and chat rooms and social media. They're the ones who are, more and more, dictating the conversation about rum. And they're steering us away from the more unsavory brands and towards the good stuff.
These seven aged rums are, in my opinion, the good stuff. For those who came of age thinking, as I did, that syrupy sugar-added brands like Angostura or Diplomatico were the best of the best, the flavor of some of these may come as a bit of a shock — something like a Johnnie Walker Red fan trying an Islay single malt for the first time. But they're all terrific, each in its own distinctive way. They run the gamut, taste-wise, from smooth and approachable to the potable equivalent of riding a bucking bronco, with lots of interesting stops in between. They're made all over the map, from the Caribbean to the Alleghenies. And they all point away from Captain Morgan and the like, towards the future of the rum category. At least I hope so. (N.b.: I've listed the rums in ascending order of price. The only downside to rum gaining whiskey-like levels of appreciation and respect is that it's getting more expensive, too. But compared to single malts or high-end bourbons, these bottles are still a relatively good deal.)
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Maggie's Farm Queen's Share Rum (Sher- Rye Finish) (55% ABV, $65). Made in Pennsylvania, Maggie's Farm is an oddball even for rum, which is perhaps the most oddball of booze categories. Their rums are distilled not from cane juice or molasses, but from raw turbinado sugar. And their "Queen's Share" rum is so called because it uses the "tails" —the last part of each run of liquid through the still — from multiple runs, which are then combined and redistilled. In other words, it's the hearts of the tails. The tails have a lot of flavor, but they've also got a lot of congeners, or the stuff that gives you a hangover. This combo of rye barrel-finished and sherry cask-finished rum is aged for about two years before blending; The rum's natural sweetness, matched with the spiciness of the rye influence and the dry nuttiness of the sherry, is fascinating. It's definitely a young'un — a wee bit hot and unbridled — but I kept going back to it in hopes of getting a handle on it... or maybe I just wanted to keep drinking the stuff, I'm not sure. Oh, and no hangover resulted, in case you're wondering. Maggie's Farm makes plenty of other products, including a fantastic rum-based coffee liqueur and a falernum. I'm looking forward to checking out the lot.