276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Ableforth'S Rum Rumbullion, 70cl

£14.555£29.11Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

The LIVE virtual tastings are carried out in the last week of the month. Please keep an eye on our socials for confirmed dates!

It would be unfair to continue piling on, but worst of all Broom does not even include in his international directory of rums the Editor’s three favorites: Coruba, Pampero Anniversario and Westerhall. I do enjoy spiced rum at times, and I'm awarding this one a 9 in my "spiced" rum category, as its the best I've ever tried thus far. Its actually head-and-shoulders any spiced rum I've ever encountered. I'll hold the coveted "10" in reserve, in case I ever find a spiced rum that trumps this exceptionally fine spirit some day.There are a number of small mysteries about the introduction of sugar culture to Barbados, but the main outline of the story is clear enough.” Arawaks who accompanied the English had planted cane on the island during the first year of settlement, but neither they nor the English knew how to make sugar and in any event the plants failed to flourish. (Dunn 61) Early cultivation of tobacco and cotton on Barbados produced indifferent results: By 1640 its enterprising and ambitious inhabitants had determined that the island needed a new crop. (Dunn 61; No Peace) It is unclear when the various alcohol distillates made their individual debuts; brandy probably first, in England, France or Italy; vodka and whisky later, in the Slavic and Celtic realms, but dates unknown. Some commentators (it would be unfair to scholars to identify them as such) hazily trace ‘evidence’ of alcohol distillation to the twelfth century and one writer states unequivocally, if without citation, that it “was invented in England in the 13 th century.” (Hirst) That does not mean, however, that distilled alcohol was much in evidence until much later. The same writer who traces distillation as a technique to the thirteenth century contends that “early in the 16 th century, distilled spirits were not widely available anywhere.” (Hirst) The Portuguese had produced sugar in Brazil for over a century before the English settled Barbados in 1627. Those planters in Brazil also produced a distilled drink from cane, agua ardente, but it probably was something closer to cachaca or vodka than to rum, and in particular the amber and darker rums produced by the English in the Caribbean. As Richard Dunn notes, they “were apparently the first sugar makers to discover how to distill molasses and other sugar by-products into a potent alcoholic drink with a sweetly burnished taste.” (Dunn 196) A little less mystery surrounds the genesis if not the name of the great spirit of the Caribees, and historically of New England and beyond. Rum began, on Barbados, sometime after 1640 and before 1647. Historically, distillates based on cane have started out as a byproduct of the sugar industry and that was true on seventeenth century Barbados. The cane was crushed to extract its juices, boiled to produce crystals and then ‘cured,’ or dried and drained of molasses. Sugar planters could sell the molasses, but it was bulky to transport and fetched a lower price, much lower, than the white sugar that Europe and New England craved.

Rumbullion! has been so popular with Master of Malt punters that it is also now available in an XO (15 year old) and Navy Strength variation. This review focuses on the “traditional” standard Rumbullion. For those left on the island, fortune meant sugar, and the product was a harsh mistress. Transplanting the sugar culture from Brazil to Barbados was “complicated and costly.” ( No Peace 76) Once the industry did reach the island, its requirements in a preindustrial world were forbidding. “That the work of managing a sugar plantation demanded all of the time, intelligence, and energy of the owner must be immediately recognized.” ( No Peace 92) I didn’t find out what the base rum so I’m none the wiser. The information on the Spicing was interesting though. I didn’t pursue it any further as to be honest I can probably guess that it will be a fairly young Trini rum.

There are instructions to make rum drinks and a few recipes that are either inadequately explained or painfully obvious. so strong a Spirit, as a candle being brought to a neer distance, to the bung of a Hogshead or Butt, where itt is kept, the Spirits will flie to it, and taking hold of it, bring the fire down to the vessel, and set all a fire, which immediately breakse the vessel, and becomes a flame, burning all about it that is combustible matter.” (Ligon 93) In strength if not in flavor, seventeenth century rumbullion probably resembled the ‘overproofs’ of as much as seventy-five percent or more alcohol available today. A seventeenth century Barbadian statute “stipulated that any rum that would not take fire from a flame without being heated had to be thrown away or the maker would be fined L100,” a considerable sum. ( No Peace 297) They settled on sugar, and at some point or points during 1640 and 1641 several of them made the journey to Pernambuco in Brazil to learn from the Portuguese how to make it. They were fast studies. By 1643 Thomas Robinson could write that Bardados “is growne the most flourishing Island in all those American parts, and I verily believe in all the world for the producing of sugar…. ” (Dunn 61, 61n37) K. Kris Hirst, “The History of Distilling,” http://archaeology.about.com/od/foodsoftheancientpast/fr/smith06.htm

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment