Rum & Brandy | Various ABV

Score: 8/10

**Something special.**
***TL;DR***
*Whisky through the lens of brandy and rum*

A thought experiment in borrowed practices

What can whisky learn from other spirits? One of the brilliant things about whisky, particularly Scotch single malt, is the rules and definitions which shape its flavour.

Even with these definitions, whisky is one of the most wonderfully diverse spirit categories around. One could argue that gin or other botanical spirits have more potential diversity because of the massive variety of accepted ingredients and processes afforded by incredibly loose definitions, but the vast majority of those beverages present little to no character from the base fermented ingredients, or indeed fermentation characteristics, so I’m generally disposed to treating these as alcoholic infusions more than a serious spirits category. Sorry-not-sorry, unless you’re making genever or similar then the drink is, at its core, fancy juniper vodka with extra steps.

Making a well balanced version of that is no mean feat- I’m working part time with a mate who’s a brewer, distiller and wine maker to help distil his gin presently, meanwhile working on rum and whisky projects. Anyway, it’s just not a drink I spend much time thinking about academically- apologies to the gin drinkers among the readership. Just one crotchety old blighter’s jaded opinion.

Something that new world distilleries are doing arguably better than Scotch and other traditional whisky producing countries is innovation. There are a simply incredible number of distillers experimenting with yeast varieties, methods of distillation, oak technology and indeed many more extreme variables that push the boundaries of the very category- the SWA would be horrified at the idea of some Australian cask seasoning methods. Or perhaps they would be glad to make an example of us in some straw-man argument about heathens desecrating the principles of “Traditional practices”; they serve a very useful purpose, but I best leave it at that for want of litigious wrath.

In any case, exciting times are upon us. The drinks world has never been so diverse and full of potential, but it does at times seem that this is causally counter-productive for the consumer. If you’ll allow a tortured analogy momentarily, I would draw on Hollywood.

We have never had greater access to media, nor such profound technology, wide an expanse of creative writers to draw on or slew of well trained actors to exact said visionary writing, and yet we have never seen such voluminous recycling of stories, habitual pandering and proliferation of generally uninspired blockbuster drivel force-fed to us as though we were the gluttonous victim from Seven.

The rationale is simple- there is such variety in the existing expanse of cinema that very few big film houses want to bet on anything new and thus unnecessarily risky. From a purely economic view it makes sense; from a consumer standpoint, we can only look back to the days of The Shawshank Redemption, Blade Runner and The Godfather with a slight wistfulness.

Of course some brilliant films are still released (I was quite a fan of All Quiet On The Western Front, though the First World War theme is well mined these days) but their frequency as a density function is arguably on a steady decline. Is this sounding familiar yet?

Part of the issue in this writer’s view is tall-poppy-syndrome; bodies like the SWA, which may or may not act at least partially at the behest of industry ‘members’, are conveniently rigid on production requirements which seem to benefit established players. So what, perish the thought, lays in the wild, barren and radioactive plains which stretch far out beyond the known realms of whisky, particularly Scotch single malt, as we presently know it to be?

Well, with all the creativity of Hollywood, let’s blatantly steal some ideas from other spirit categories whisky drinkers have been known to dabble in.

Review 1/3

Armagnac, Darroze Ténarèze, Domaine De La Poste 1977-2017, 49% ABV
AUD$270 (AUD$215 paid)

Ah yes, Armagnac. The brandy sub-genre which seems to get peddled about by whisky enthusiasts more than any other. One of the first counter-arguments which gets trotted out for discussions about the unjustifiable prices of higher aged whisky. And you know what dear reader? Rightfully bloody so.

If it seems at this point something of a trope, much like the borderline cultist chant of “Non-chill filtered, natural colour, 46%+ ABV'' then so be it. Just look at the prices listed above- how much would you expect to pay for a single cask, independently bottled cask strength single malt release at 40 years of age?

The right ballpark would be an extra zero on the above figures, depending on the distillery probably more. Armagnac SHOULD be talked about, and not just for the value proposition. There are key characteristics which make it a pretty unique drink. One of them is the distillation method; Armagnac can utilise double pot distillation, but it is very uncommon and usually gets blended with stock made from the vastly more typical Armagnac distillation style.

Here, the wine is fed through a housing containing a coil condenser which in turn contains hot vapour- passing the wine in opposing flow to the coil’s vapour flow preheats the liquid. From this housing it then flows into the top of the column still and cascades down through the plates toward the boiler at the bottom. The boiler supplies the energy needed for the volatiles in the wine to evaporate and pass up through the plates against the flow of the wine toward the top of the still- this is the basis for column distillation whereby vapour and liquid pass counter-flow to one another through plates, forcing more interaction and reflux. At the top of the column the vapour is syphoned across to the first vessel, forced through the coil condenser, whereby the counterflow of the cold wine condenses it into a liquid for collection. This video gives an excellent visual explanation of the process.

By virtue of wine’s higher alcohol concentration than most whisky washes, this single column distillation is enough to achieve a spirit strength sufficient for ageing in oak. It is the ageing process of Armagnac which I feel malt distilleries could make wide use of, and indeed I have observed some local whisky distilleries in Australia utilising the process to great effect. In Armagnac, the spirit is initially matured in younger oak- all of the heavy extractive processes occur early in maturation. After the cellar master has deemed the spirit to have sufficient oak extraction, the liquid is racked into a much older and drastically more inert cask to achieve age without accruing significantly greater oak flavour.

Depending on the producer and the condition/age of the spirit, sometimes the Armagnac is transferred to glass demijohns to undergo further resting with functionally zero additive extraction (we’ll save the debate about glass as a chemically inert vessel for another day). To be clear, the bottle I’m sampling from specifies oak maturation for the full 40 years.

The reasoning for this process is simple yet brilliant; many of the maturation reactions which occur- oxidation, tannin agglomeration and long term Le Chatelier equilibrium dynamics to name but a few- are dependent on extractive solute concentrations and time. As a quick side note, it is arguably more important this process is used with French and other European oak species- though the grain structures are generally tighter than American white oaks, the pores are larger, thus extracting more tannin more rapidly. Handling these tannins with adequate oxidation and agglomeration reactions thus requires quite some time.

This is all to say, if the components extracted from oak aren’t present in a liquid, how are they meant to undergo the changes associated with long term ageing? It runs completely counter to the typical experiences most of us have had with oak handling in whisky; usually re-racking into a different cask means a finishing period meant to add a final flurry of extractive flavour to the product. For this reason, the quiet few distilleries I’ve heard of experimenting with this process dub the technique “Reverse finishing”.

Of these very rare work-in-progress casks I’ve had the pleasure to sample, the effect has been universally appreciated.

On that note, I’m getting thirsty.

Score: 8/10

**Something special.**
***TL;DR***
*I’m not experienced enough to love this stuff, yet I do*

Nose

Decadent yet balanced in a manner I wish more sherry cask matured whiskies achieved. Ancient humidors filled with pungent cigars, dark chocolate, stewed prunes, figs, quince jelly, polished church floorboards laid down before I was born, cinnamon and white pepper, hints of rosewater, balsam, mango chutney and marzipan.

Palate

Yes, there is a significant oak and tannin presence but this spirit is also utterly alive and fresh. The juiciest mangoes and plums, hints of baked apple, fig jam, quince jelly and turkish delight cut by the cold draw from a spicy and chocolatey Nicaraguan, then a pleasingly firm oak bitterness that balances the experience while some almond rancio and sweet petrichor earthiness flourish through the finish.

The Dregs

My biggest issue with Armagnac is that I haven’t the experience or collection to appraise them with anything like credibility- I only have one wallet and one liver, both of which have taken an extended beating from whisky. As with anything subjective I can only give a personal opinion, but be warned this particular opinion is even less qualified than usual. Still, I really love this stuff and enjoy having it as a reminder to both my palate and bank account that there are spirits other than whisky worth my time. I can only encourage you dear readers to consider the same.

Score: 8/10

Review 2/3

Rum, Foursquare Shibboleth, 56% ABV
AUD$200 (AUD$180 paid)

The next category which whisky drinkers have been discussing for years now such that it’s almost synonymous with the term “Malternative” is rum.

Particularly, the enthusiast geared rums of the Caribbean- pot still dominated and operating under similar conditions to the whiskies we love. That is, those without colouring, without added sugar or flavours (that’s right, spiced rum is about as credible as gin IMHO) and preferably with higher ABVs indicative of no chill filtration, although that point isn’t generally emphasised in the rum world anywhere near as consistently as with whisky.

In any case, here’s a rum brand which has received much deservedly positive press from the likes of Ralfy and other long time broad category/aged spirits enthusiasts. Foursquare is under the direction of the occasionally controversial but undeniably brilliant Richard Seale, a man dedicated both to the production of high integrity, quality rum and to the establishment of Barbados as a recognised region with GI status. The rum comes from a blend of column (a triple column setup which can run as two columns, as well as having the capacity to run under vacuum depressurisation) and pot still distillate, generally from a moderate ester content molasses based wash- more on esters later.

The efficiency and lightness of character produced by the column still serves as an efficient blending resource to pair against the heavier, richer components from the pot distillations. Pot distillation is generally different in the Caribbean to what we understand in whisky production- usually the pot stills are paired with a double retort or doubler system. These retort/doublers are essentially two miniature pot stills, the vapours from the pot being forced to pass through each in series.

Different distilleries run these double retorts in varying manners; some “Run them dry”, which is to say that neither of the vessels are charged with any liquid and are used purely for extra reflux and rectification of the pot still vapours. Some run one doubler dry and the other with a charge of a previous distillation’s feints. Lastly, a distiller may run both doublers with separate charges, in which case the usual operation is to split the high wines into one and the low wines into the other (think of this in terms of the heads and tails of a previous distillation; heads in one doubler, tails in the other).

The advantage of these doublers is extra flexibility; for lighter style distillates, the extra rectification and reflux increases fractionation. For an intermediate style, the vapour can be forced to reflux through one set of mixed feints with a wide variety of congener volatilities, then passed through a dry doubler to rectify the resultant vapours. For a heavier distillate style, the vapour can be forced to pass through both high and low wines to extract volatiles from each.

So what’s the applicability for whisky? Well, what might a heavily peated wash distilled with double retorts forcing vapour through the tails of previous runs taste like? What phenol recovery rates could we observe in new make spirit compared with the fairly large losses generally accepted from the usual double pot distillation? Food for thought.

In any case, all of these double retort variables can of course be tailored by the usual distillation parameters; how hard the pot and doublers are run, how much cooling occurs in each of the condensers and the cut points used for the final extracted condensate. Mapping these variables is highly complex, as evidenced by this model series of differential equations which describe the vapour-liquid-equilibrium dynamics for just a single doubler.

In the case of Foursquare, each type of distillate is matured separately and allowed to achieve maturity before barrels are vatted as per Richard’s recipe, depending on the desired outcome. Bourbon barrels are the default, however Madeira, ruby port, sherry, Marsala, red wine and other cask types have been used in various releases to widely appreciated effect. In this instance, the rum is matured solely in ex-bourbon barrels for 16 years and bottled at cask strength.

Score: 7/10

**Very good indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Another fabulous Foursquare plaudit*

Nose

Great ripe fruits (higher ratio of pot/double retort distillate?) including pineapple, banana, lychee and blood oranges with a few bonus orchard stone fruits for good measure. The American oak is equally loud- vanilla, decadent caramel and toffee with some cola cubes all revolving around desiccated coconut. There's a touch of estery funk too (ethyl acetate) but it's relatively buried in all the ripe fruit and oak.

Palate

Huge richness, there’s almost an element of bourbon style oak to this but with a bolder, more capable style of distillate- just my opinion of course. Much of the same, namely huge tropical fruit and slight bubblegum esters with a mildly sweet citrus/craft cola edge. The funk’s here a touch too, picks up some minor black olive, then back to more vanilla, coconut, sticky toffee and nutmeg with an almost milk-confection aspect likely derived from the oak. Exceedingly balanced.

The Dregs

This reaches my upper limits for cask tones and richness, however the distillate does an excellent job of complementing yet mediating those components. It’s just my two cents, but I think rum, particularly higher ester and/or pot still style rum, handles higher oak better than the vast majority of whiskies.

Another fabulously well blended release and another plaudit for Foursquare’s OBs- please, please release an all pot-retort bottling for our edification Richard. It doesn’t even have to be good- though of course it would be!

Score: 7/10

Review 3/3

Rum, Habitation Velier Hampden Estate 2016 <>H, 62% ABV
AUD$255 (AUD$245 paid)

Before we get to the production side of things, I can feel the weighty onus of justification in pricing. Well, I can bear only two defences; firstly, Hampden Estate is seriously old school, low efficiency, high quality and relatively hard to find rum, particularly here in Australia. Secondly, I love the stuff- they may be my favourite rum distillery, bar none.

Part of what makes Hampden so brilliant is their exclusive use of pot still/double retort distillate- just as with Foursquare, I have no idea how they run their setup but one can assume it favours extreme congener extraction in the vast majority of cases. The other primary component is their fermentation regime- all fermentations are open to the environment and thus wild yeast and bacterial cultures do much of the heavy lifting at the distillery.

This is furthered by their use of a dunder pit; essentially a hole in the ground which is periodically fed biological material to feed the bacterial and yeast colonies which reside in the resultant slop. Legend holds that this ranges from leftover vegetable scraps to goat heads, though I haven’t come across any guaranteed accounts of this latter practice.

This so called dunder is pitched into fermenters at the beginning of fermentations to kickstart the generation of veritable plethoras of organic acids, aldehydes, ketones, terpenes, fusel alcohols, esters and just about any other fermentation derived congeners one could dream of in some amount or another.

These wild fermentations are left for weeks and sometimes even months, so there is ample time for pretty well every microflora about to have their turn shaping the washs’ flavour. Even attempting to unpack the organic chemistry at play would require a rather large book and possibly a few PhD theses, so suffice to say it’s a heavy topic.

The takeaway which rum folks usually care about is the final distillate’s ester content, something measured in units of grams per hectolitre of pure alcohol or g/HLPA. The attached number often qualifies a rum for some marque or another used as a kind of shorthand for conveying how intense the rum’s profile is to punters- a very similar system to phenol PPM units, though generally g/HLPA is a much better indicator given that the measurement is taken from the new make distillate rather than any raw ingredients.

The <>H marque here indicates a rather bloody high ester content; somewhere in the vicinity of 900-1000 g/HLPA, though this bottling simply lists total congener levels as 2472 g/HLPA.

Score: 7/10

**Very good indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Wild. Only the experienced may enter*

Nose

As far as intensity is concerned, leaves the likes of Octomore, Laphroaig and Longrow in the very distant dust. Buckets of various tropical fruits ranging from lychee and papaya to rotting bananas cooked over a tire fire, then black olives macerated in airfix glue and acetic Lambics. The whiplash continues with hot road tar, kerosene, tapenade made with generous capers, oddly misplaced strawberry (that would be the various butyric components) and just a stunning amount of industrial solvents.

Palate

Murder by bludgeoning. Is this meant for human consumption? Of course it is!

Much more of the nose, plus a generalised sense of synthetic rubber, hot/hard plastics, more acetic components and a plethora of fruits, some rotting (for instance the bananas are well beyond banana bread) and some utterly unripened. Just when you think the zig-zagging, ducking and rolling are done, the finish blossoms with mustard seed, wasabi and a little green carrot stem- don’t ask.

The Dregs

Mental. This is Frank Zappa playing electric guitar through a theremin emulator with a coked out Elvin Jones on drums, anyone but Flea on bass and George Clinton scatting. There’s your cognitive exercise for the day; enjoy.

Seriously though, this stuff is wild in both the literal and figurative senses. The very definition of “Not for beginners”, though I’m sure there’s a demographic of hot-sauce loving, thrill seeking maniacs that might find an instant appeal. While I worked my way up the ester g/HLPA fairly quickly, the first pour out of this bottle sent me for a loop. I have come to love it though, in infrequency for my own safe moderation, but all the same.

There are probably a large number of people for whom this flavour profile would never get above a one or two on the Dramface rating scale, but to me this is an unapologetic behemoth worth bowing before.

Score: 7/10

Tried these? Share your thoughts in the comments below. TK

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