The variations lay with the type of chocolate bitters used. And, after a vote, the favourite of the tested recipes was barrelled, to be unveiled at a future event. The time to try the aged Malt Jockey came in early April, at a temporary installation in Soho which popped up for the Easter Weekend…

Malt Jockey Ingredients 40ml Monkey Shoulder 30ml sweet vermouth 10ml maraschino liqueur 2 dashes chocolate bitters Method Stir and strain, garnish with an Orange Twist.

The Monkey Shoulder Chocolate Trail was the best incarnation of an Easter egg hunt EVER. Small wooden eggs were hidden in the foliage, which, once found, could be traded at the bar for a cocktail, designed by the guys from London Cocktail Club. Each drink was paired with a different chocolate from the fantastic Nico B which complemented the cocktail wonderfully. For more info, and recipes from the trail head over to my piece on Gin Monkey.

Running for just four days, LCS were incredibly lucky to be given exclusive access to this trail of wonderfulness on the Saturday evening. With brand ambassador Dean Callan on hand to talk us through the whisky, and Olivier Ward from Anonymous Artists to talk us through the various cocktails, we were given a whistle stop tour of the product, its production method, and where it got its name from, all whilst sipping on whisky and cocktails – fab!

Then the 12 members lucky enough to have gained a place at the event split into pairs and were set the challenge of coming up with their own cocktail and chocolate pairing. With a huge number of potential ingredients on offer, from the foliage on the walls, to the fresh fruit and various bottled liqueurs, the challenge for most of our members was to narrow these down to just a few key flavours.

With some assistance from Dean, Olivier, myself and the lovely bartender working that evening, the members played around with the ingredients and tweaked their recipes before presenting them to us for judging – not an easy task at all.

Surprisingly varied in concepts and flavours, from almonds to chillis, the cocktails that were made were impressive. In the end though, there could only be one winner…and the winning recipe came out on top as, having tried each of the chocolates earlier on in the night, you instantly knew which one the cocktail was designed to be paired with!

Monkey Island by Mr G and Ms Stephanie Rae-Smith Ingredients 50 ml Monkey Shoulder 20 ml Cointreau 20 ml fresh pineapple juice 10 ml creme de peche Juice of half a lemon Dash rhubarb bitters Method Shake vigorously with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon. Serve with sea salt chocolate.

Then there was just time for Monkey Islands all round, a bottle of Monkey Shoulder for the two winning members, and a final chance to play on the literal musical chairs before it was time to head out into the night in search of food!

A wonderful installation for Easter, the chocolate trail was brilliant fun, and we’d like to thank Monkey Shoulder and Anonymous Artists for inviting us down and putting on such a great event for our members. We had a fabulous evening

Final thanks to the incredibly talented Addie Chin from The Boilermaker for letting us use some of his photos of the instillation and our evening in this post.

Upon arrival our members were treated to a Kamm & Sons on the rocks before settling into the ‘bat cave’ to hear owner and founder Alex Kammerling talk us through his most unusual spirit.

Alex gave us a quick intro as to what his spirit is (it is neither gin nor aperitif, instead falling into its own band new category of ginseng spirit), his inspiration behind the brand, his experiences in setting up an entirely new brand, and the challenges he faced in the process. A fascinating story presented by a brilliant bartender who gained important insights into the industry through his time tending stick and working as an ambassador for world renowned spirit brands: Martin Millers Gin and Grey Goose Vodka.

The Kamm & Sons cocktails on offer were fantastic! Most designed by Alex himself, at the credit-crunch busting price of just £5, the consensus was that they were too good for their own good…in every sense of the word it seems as ginseng’s meant to be good for you! Alex took the opportunity over a few cocktails to chat to our members in a more informal setting about his plans for the future…very exciting! All I can say is that there are interesting things a-foot!

All in all a great evening with brilliant cocktails and great company. Recipes for a few of the drinks are below:

The Grosvenor Glass Small cocktail glass Method Stir with cubed ice Garnish Lemon peel Ingredients: 75ml Kamm & Sons 20ml Punt e Mes 5ml Islay whisky
	The Tipping Point Glass Rocks Method Build over cubed ice Garnish Orange zest Ingredients 30ml Kamm & Sons 30ml Chase Marmalade 15ml Punt E Mes

Monkey Diablo

Ingredients

Half a bottle of Monkey Shoulder infused with vanilla and cinnamon (approx 80ml per person)

1 orange peeled in a horseneck garnish and studded with cloves

1 pot of freshly brewed coffee (always have enough coffee on hand for 2/3 amount of whisky used)

Sugar to taste

Method

Warm the serving dish with a glass of boiling water then discard, add monkey shoulder, vanilla and cinnamon. Set the coffee up next to the dish, then set the orange peel into the centre of the dish fixed at the top to a set of tongs or a bar spoon. Light the whisky on fire, now using a ladle pour the whisky down the peel again and again until the clove and orange flavour has infused with the whisky (carefully!). Once the desired effect is achieved extinguish flame and pour in coffee. Taste the mixture and sugar to taste.

Malt Jockey

Ingredients

40ml Monkey Shoulder

30ml sweet vermouth

10ml maraschino liqueur

2 dashes chocolate bitters

Method

Stir and strain, garnish with an Orange Twist.

Artist’s Special

Ingredients

40ml Monkey Shoulder

30ml amontillado sherry

30ml fresh lemon juice

25ml Redcurrant syrup (50:50 redcurrants and sugar, boiled down with enough water to cover)

Method

Shake and strain, twist of orange over the top (and then discard).

“As beautifully presented an evening as it was to taste. Passionately and eloquently spoken by our marvellous hostess, this was a seductive introduction into the world of fine Cognac.”
Lewis Byrne

“It was a really enjoyable event – informative (I now know at least something about cognac…!), generous and fun – perfect!”
@SngleMaltWhimsy

I really enjoyed the evening, the pre event cocktails a lovely unexpected surprise. I loved the French mojito! I thought the presentation was pitched at just the right level, really informative and interesting and not too long. I found the Remy representative had a great style and delivery delightful, really engaging and her passion for the brand was very clear. The event was very popular so the area was pretty packed but she still managed to make sure the whole room felt involved. Remy Martin put on a really great evening, a big thanks for their generosity. The canapés were pretty special too. Just a pity it was a ‘school night’ !!
Jan McGinley

“The LCS was treated to a fantastic event put on by Cognac Kings, Remy Martin at the London Cocktail Club. The presentation was informative without being too drawn out (a sadly all-too-common problem.) Leaving us more time to get to talk one on one, and also appreciate the very well chosen cocktail menu. I was most pleasantly surprised by the Remy-based Mojito. The exceptional gift bags and seemingly bottomless bar tab were greatly appreciated and really made the evening stand out in my mind, and perhaps a bit in my hangover Thank you very much for having us, it was a great evening!”
Ryan Alexander

In our books a tutored tasting of the superior bitters in Master of Malt’s extensive portfolio would be a fabulous way to while away any evening but those clever chaps from the London Cocktail Society went and upped the ante for their latest outing. Imagine it; not only did we get to play wannabe alchemists playing with Master of Malt’s single ingredient bitters, there was also a fabulous prize up for grabs: the chance for the winning recipe to be put in production. Well, you didn’t need to ask us twice…

The setting was the brilliant downstairs room at Shaker & Company. It was decked out in full Benedictine regalia on that particular night but each month a different brand will take it over. For our purposes the retro school desks, wooden seats and dark, moody lighting worked perfectly – particularly when lined with the myriad apothecary bottles featuring the likes of juniper, black pepper, curacao, coffee and clove. After being warned about being too heavy-handed with the intensely dry angelica and the unbelievably hot naga chilli, the 14 teams set to work, aiming to create a winning recipe in 30 minutes. And yes, it was as tough as it sounds.

No sooner had we tasted a little bit of this and a little bit of that (one teeny droplet of each on the back of the hand), it was time to dream up something people might be willing to pay for. We didn’t do well. We knew that even before our mixture was put up for blind tasting. We’d like to pretend that was because we were called on to be judges but really, it was just that we didn’t get the balance right. Honestly, it’s so much harder than you might think.

With our judges hats on we offered up our palates to the 14 original recipes, each vying for the chance to have their creators faces immortalised on the winning bottle. Ben Ellefsen from Master of Malt led the proceedings, while Emma, Kate, Mark and yours truly brought up the rear. Apart from one or two dubious offerings (ours was probably among them) the overall standard was satisfyingly good but two mixtures really stood out.

Step forward Camille Hobby-Limon who came a very close second to a highly delighted Mike Wood, Kevin Bee and Victor Gembala who made up the Brick Lane team. Their winning concoction, inspired by curry (though not tasting of it) was further tweaked during an evening at Graphic bar, where the wonderful Sarah and Adam made some cocktails for the group to try them in, before some further additions were included. This final recipe is now in production.

London Cocktail Bitters are available to buy from Master of Malt now! Make sure you add a bottle to your cocktail lover’s Christmas stocking.

L.T.D turns cocktail snobbery on its head, flips it over and then takes it one step further. After years of cocktail imbibitions, you may well be able to navigate your way around a choice of 30 gins or more. At L.T.D, however, you can leave that sort of knowledge at the door. That’s because you’ll be drinking what the barman gives you and that’s a choice of precisely one base spirit per category. Yes, that’s right – just one vodka, one gin, one whiskey (and its not a bourbon or even rye), one tequila, one Cognac and one rum. And that’s it! But L.T.D’s Spartan approach to bartending doesn’t stop there. If you’re expecting Riedel glassware, think again. You’ll see the barman shaking your drink in a jam jar, taking the lid off and sticking a couple of straws in there for you. And that’s your drink, served up just like that. Welcome to L.T.D!

The London Cocktail Society (LCS) kindly organised an outing for its members to L.T.D on Halloween. The visit involved a little bit of fancy dress, a few tastings and a talk from cocktail master Dré Masso, the brains behind the bar concept/experiment. L.T.D in its current incarnation is a one off – what you might call a pop-up, but they prefer the term ‘bar experiment’ It’s based in the upstairs bar at The Social, 5 Little Portland Street and is being headed up by Dré Masso for just three months, running from 1st October 2011 until New Year’s eve, so there is still plenty of time to check it out and form your own opinions on the place.

For me the limited selection of spirits is intriguing. With such a selection you might expect to find a choice of the most revered luxury brands in the trade but no, the selection at L.T.D includes Stolichnaya Vodka, Beefeater Gin, Havana Club 7 Year Old Rum, Ocho Blanco Vintage Tequila, Courvoisier VS Cognac and (surprise of all surprises), Jameson Irish Whiskey! There are of course an abundance of bitters, fruit juices mixers and many other ingredients involved, however these have been decanted into green bottles so as not to detract focus from the 6 main spirits. This does mean that you can be safe in the knowledge that the menu contains a lot of classics and loads of the most popular cocktails at the moment. Whether they taste how you expect may be another matter though…

Before getting into the cocktails and how they taste, however, it seems only fair to explore the curious concept behind L.T.D. The story goes something like this: After 12 successful years the people behind The Social decided it was time for a bit of a change so they decided to let Dré Masso take over their upstairs bar and to give it a bit of a rethink. Dré is almost certainly what you’d call a safe pair of hands within the world of the cocktail. He’s been mixing drinks since he was a teenager and today he trades as a brand and bar consultant. He counts numerous very well recognised spirits brands and bars as his clients and has been awarded UK Bartender of the Year no less then three times! I get the feeling that after 15 years in the trade, when Dré was given the opportunity to shape L.T.D, he must have decided to use what must have been a metaphorical ‘blank sheet of paper’ to create something radical.

Dré decided to form L.T.D around a ‘…unique concept – just sell the best of the best.’ He wanted to focus on simplicity and quality – not boasting a vast selection of exotic spirits but rather focusing on just the very best in spirits. This approach was very much based on his belief that only a very limited selection of spirits is required to produce absolutely top-notch cocktails. To select the appropriate spirits he formed an independent tasting committee who were tasked (if that’s the right word) with blind tasting and debating a vast array of spirits both neat and mixed appropriately in cocktails. The only real limitation on the spirits sampled was that they had to be available for £20 or less per bottle at trade price. This actually still leaves a good degree of scope for choice and means that the spirits behind the bar are those that the average punter can enjoy without having to miss a mortgage payment – a sound principle in my mind. The result of this tasting process was the aforementioned selection of six, very much household brand, spirits that are served behind the bar today.

So, how did the cocktails actually taste?

While Dré welcomed us to his bar and explained the concept behind it, he treated us to a number of cocktails (not ones I’d have naturally chosen on my own volition) to allow us to experience the stocked spirits in action. Dré kindly allowed me to take one of his cocktail menus and supplied the photography so I can share some of the cocktails on offer with you:

	Fresca One and a half shots of tequila Half a shot of liqueur (strawberry, raspberry or apricot) One shot of lemon juice One teaspoon of agave syrup
	Armenian Plum One and a half shots of brandy Half a shot of apricot liqueur Tablespoon of apricot jam One shot of lemon juice
	Bumble Bee Two shots of gin Five raspberries One shot of lemon juice One teaspoon of honey water

I think the first thing that has to be said about these drinks is that they were all absolutely delicious, impeccably made and, as you can see from the images, presented as they might be if you found yourself serving up cocktails equipped only with what you could find in self-catered holiday accommodation. Of particular interest to me was the delightful effect of using sweetening agents including apricot jam and honey. Both flavours came through but were nowhere near as pronounced as one might expect – they worked exceptionally well in harmony with the cocktails’ overall flavour. The feedback from those I had the pleasure of sharing a table with was also positive. Someone, probably quite rightly, suggested that perhaps, with the distraction of spirits and trendy glassware choices taken away, it would be necessary for the barman to really focus attentions on getting all other ingredients and the ultimate flavour just right. I’m inclined to agree. If you can enjoy a cocktail from a jam jar, you can be sure it’s the flavours and nothing else that have impressed you.

In order to really give the choice of base spirits a test (the Jameson’s in particular), I decided to try out two firm favourites of mine, both of which are based on whiskey (normally bourbon). First up I tried a Manhattan. This, as stated on the menu, came sweet and was served, as one would expect, in a cocktail glass. I have to admit as far as sweet Manhattans go it was one of the best I’ve ever tried. I understand the brand of vermouth used was none other than Martini, so nothing extraordinary there. I followed this with a Julep, which again was excellent, something that I put down in part to the fine quality of fresh mint used. I did try several other cocktails, including a notably excellent Sazerac, but by this stage I was confident that what ever I ordered would be enjoyable and enjoyment, rather than critical analysis, was my only motivation for drinking the remainder of my cocktails. Having chatted to a number of the LCS members, I think my experience of L.T.D’s cocktails was more or less shared across the board.

As I said in opening, L.T.D really does turn cocktail snobbery on its head. Aside from a very pleasurable evening, one of the things I gained from my experience there was a real appreciation for the fact that great cocktails don’t have to be expensive or complicated. A modest home cocktail bar with a few good quality spirits can be used efficiently to turn out great drinks. In addition, most homes have what is required in terms of equipment, glassware, flavour modifiers and sweetening agents to serve up great tasting cocktails. For anyone who has spoken to Dré for any period of time this isn’t surprising at all, he’s an advocate of home cocktail making. This is why, along with accessible ingredients and glassware, the quantities on the menu are expressed as handfuls and teaspoons – making the cocktails as easy to make at home as an amateur as possible.

However, as accessible as the cocktails are, I do believe that the real determining factor in the quality of cocktails is the skill of the person making them, and professional bartenders obviously have a lot more skill and practice than general punters. This is why we continue to visit cocktail bars and I think that L.T.D does a fine job of demonstrating this point.

That just leaves me to offer a very big thanks to LCS for allowing me to join them and to Dré Masso for an enlightening and thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Visit www.dremasso.com for more information on L.T.D and Dré Masso.

With such a pedigree behind them, its fair to say we were expecting big things from the cocktails, but the decor was the first thing to take our breath away when we arrived.  The idea behind the look of the bar is that it looks like the living room of Aunt Wilhelmina who is a well-travelled but eccentric character.  Cue all manner of oddities ranging from cats holding umbrellas to boxing kangaroos and seating that looks as though it has travelled the world.  Different yes, but also incredibly cosy and welcoming.

Members enjoyed discounted rates on the drinks, allowing everyone to check out the full menu should they so desire!  A particular hit was the ‘Master at Arms’, a mix of port evaporation, myers rum and grenadine served in a small coupette with fine string tied into a sailors knot around the stem.  When they weren’t drinking their way through the menu, members enjoyed a bite or two to eat and tried their hand at table tennis in the games room downstairs.  This bar is sure to become a firm favourite.

I have my Spirits WSET Diploma exam in a couple of months and so have signed myself up for a raft of Spirits tastings to help get up to speed.

First up on my list was the Bourbon evening at LAB (London Academy of Bartenders) with the London Cocktail Society on Bank Holiday Monday. London Cocktail Society is a great collection of cocktail fiends. The group is free to join and every month members are invited to exclusive tastings, cool cocktail bars or distillery visits.

The bourbon evening was hosted by Maker’s Mark brand ambassador, and Kentucky girl with an authentic Southern drawl, Jane Conner.

Maker’s Mark only has one whisky in the UK market and so instead of showing a range of different whiskies we wouldn’t be able to buy, Jane took us through a maturation tasting of Maker’s Mark, comparing and contrasting White Dog, Under Mature, Fully Mature and Over Mature examples of Maker’s Mark.

First Jane set the scene with a potted history of Bourbon and Maker’s Mark.

Bourbon was first created out of luck and necessity. In order to develop Kentucky in the 1770s, the ‘Corn Patch and Cabin Rights’ law was passed, it encouraged settlers to plant a corn patch and build a cabin in order to lay claim to 400 acres of land. A pretty good deal.

Corn is a bulky produce and due to the incentives to plant corn there was plenty of excess, excess which the Scottish, Irish and German immigrants knew they could distil into whisky. Kentucky was an ideal place to produce whisky due to its plentiful supply of both corn, and water – gallons of which is used as part of the distillation process. Kentucky was blessed with an iron-free water supply that was filtered through limestone soils. Water with a high iron content would have had the unfortunate result of turning the whisky black – worth checking if you are in a hard water area or not before you try topping up your Dad’s whisky with tap water. He will notice.

The Bourbon we know today was created by a ‘little bit of smarts and a lot of luck, according to Jane.

The whisky that came straight off the stills was a clear, liquid with a distinctive bite. This whisky was shipped shipped down South in barrels.

These barrels had often been used to house everything from vegetables to fish, so in order to sanitise them the insides of the barrels were burned. This charring caramelised the wood, and whisky spending six months or so on the Mississippi in these freshly charred barrels came out a darker with a smokey, caramel nose by the time it reached New Orleans.

The French settlers in New Orleans loved this dark tipple, the colour reminded them of Cognac. This whiskey came in barrels branded Bourbon County and soon the locals in New Orleans were asking for Bourbon.

Bourbon has had a chequered past but the Temperance movement dealt it a body blow when it passed prohibition in 1919; overnight 216 bourbon distillers closed down.

When Prohibition was repealed 14 years later in 1933, only 60 bourbon distillers reopened. By that time the US was awash, with Scotch, Gin and other international spirits.

Bourbon couldn’t catch up quick enough, it needed to be aged for a number of years and so literally couldn’t be created fast enough once the distilleries reopened. Many bourbons producers cut corners in order to get to market swiftly, releasing spirit too young with bags of ‘bourbon bite’, or adding iodine or wood chips to replicate the dark brown colour gained through ageing.

Distilleries closed again during World War Two and when they reopened, yet again there was not the time or money to make good bourbon. Bourbon got labelled a poor man’s whisky and the nation’s tastes had moved onto more neutral spirits like vodka and gin.

Today there are only nine distilleries left in the state of Kentucky, a product of the post-prohibition hangover.

Nowadays, Bourbon has stricter production laws than any other form of whisky to help guarantee quality and protect Bourbon’s signature full bodied spirit with lashings flavour – vanilla, coconut, toffe and spice.

1. It must be made in America

2. Must be aged for two years in new charred oak barrels – a damn expensive business each barrel costs around $130, Makers Mark use 1,000 of these barrels per week and sell them onto Scotch producers for $60 when they’re done. There are currently 6 million barrels ageing in Kentucky. 99.6% of Scotch whisky touches a bourbon barrel at some point in its life.

Because of the fact Bourbon is aged in newly charred barrels, it does not age as long as some other whiskies, too much oak can be a bad thing especially with wheat-based whiskies.

3. No additions, no caramel, no colouring. Canadian whiskeys can add 9.09% other ‘imported mature liquids’ translating as wine, port, sherry, bourbon rum etc – although this is only usually done with the cheaper blends.

4. It must be distilled to no higher than 80% abv and aged at no more than 62.5% abv in new, charred oak barrels for a minimum of two years

5. It must be made of a minimum of 51% corn, with the rest being made up of other grains. Most Bourbons have 70-80% corn.

Corn is light and provides Bourbons signature soft sweetness, rye adds character, personality and bite, malted barley is argued by some to provide a biscuity sweetness although many believe it is only added to the mash bill for its enzymes. Wheat, when added, gives a gentle roundness to a bourbon and honey notes.

Bill Samuels decided to forgoe the rye and instead used wheat to make his bourbon.

With the backdrop of a struggling market for Bourbon, in 1953 Bill Samuels went against the grain, excuse the pun, and started to create Maker’s Mark a premium Bourbon. His family had previously made whisky but had sold up years ago.

Bill wanted to create a sipping bourbon of quality, he had three requirements for his liquid:

1. It should not have the ‘Bourbon Bite’, Bill wanted a smooth tipple

2. It should be full-flavoured

3. The flavour should be forward on the tongue, round and with a creamy lingering finish

In 1959, Maker’s Mark produced the first premium bottle of Bourbon. It was Bill Samuel’s wife who first hand dipped the whisky bottle in hot red wax, a practice which is still done by hand today. It didn’t really catch on straight away as the world had taken a liking to blanded, neutral spirits but once flavour made a comeback in the early 80s, Maker’s Mark was finally sold outside Kentucky for the first time and today we are enjoying it in the UK.

MAKER’S MARK MATURATION TASTING

WHITE DOG

The white dog is the newly distilled spirit, so called because ‘it is white and will bite you like a dog’.

It smells of corn and freshly baked bread. On the palate it is earthy and a little chewy, almost nutty. It has got that ‘Bourbon Bite’ they talk of, but you know I actually quite like this, I was expecting it to be harsher.

UNDER-MATURE

This is the same bourbon after it has spent a year in barrel, it has got some colour and is now a medium brown hue. It smells of caramel with hints of vanilla and honey. The taste moves forward on the tongue, but is still a little harsh on the throat.

FULLY MATURE

Aged for 6 years and 3 months on average, it is richer with lots of vanilla. It smells like a Creme Brulee with cream, toffee, caramel. It is smooth and full flavoured with a round creamy flavour and long lingering finish.

OVER MATURE – 10 years old

This smells amazing, bags of caramel, wood and dried fruit. But on the palate it is not balanced, the wood has taken over and it is bitter, flat and hits the back of the throat.

Wheat doesn’t handle wood as well as rye and so a wheat whiskey will rarely be aged for as long.

Thanks for my friend and drinking buddy Ben Norum coming with me and for diving straight into a Bourbon Tasting after a week in Ibiza. Hard Core!

One of the continuing themes of this blog is a sentence at the start vaguely conforming to a pattern of ‘One of the boozes I don’t know well is X and it was lovely when Y asked me along to try some for REASON Z’. So, assume that I’ve done that again with X=light rum, Y=The London Cocktail Society and REASON Z is basement bar Bourne & Hollingsworth choosing their house pouring rum, and we can then move on from this opening paragraph.

Despite having heard a bit about it over the last year or so I’d still not made it over to Bourne & Hollingsworth and wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The reviews seem rather polarised, with complaints about it getting packed leading to long waits at the bar (justified – it’s a small room with a small bar, with most of the space taken up by an open area for people to mill around in front of the bar) and that they charge too much for drinks which generally are distinguished by being served in teacups (unjustified – if you are going to a decent cocktail bar in London and are complaining about paying £7.50 for a cocktail no matter what type of receptacle it’s served in then you are probably in the wrong kind of bar. Bourne & Hollingsworth’s drinks quality certainly push it into the £7 a go bracket of London cocktail bars). It’s small and a great place, I suspect, on weekdays, but based on a Saturday night I can see it quickly turning into my idea of packed bar hell. But then again, I do hate people…

The London Cocktail Society’s role was a simple one – find a discerning crowd of cocktail drinkers to come down to the bar on a Saturday night and then taste their way through the candidates for the new house pouring rum – Ron Barcelo, Flor de Caña and El Dorado. To add a bit more competitiveness to the evening we were also joined by brand ambassadors from two of the three rums, with bar boss Dino Koletsas taking on the role of El Dorado’s rep, who couldn’t make it along that night. Along with the three in contention we also had a glass of Mount Gay Eclipse, their current golden pouring rum.

We started the evening with Dino giving us a history of rum. I’ve wittered about this before (and have at least one other post in the pipe with yet another history attached) so I won’t go into it much other than to mention a couple of specific pieces that have somehow not come up in previous tastings I’ve been to. First up is the slave trade. I’m not sure how this hadn’t appeared quite so strongly on my radar before, but it’s been part of every discussion about rum I’ve had since. The Caribbean and its sugar plantations were not only the centre of the rum trade but also of the use of slaves, and rum was connected with it not only through production but also as a key part of trade. Rum was used as currency to buy slaves but was also used to fill the holds of ships before they departed eastwards again, making sure that there was never an empty hold going to waste. More research needed.

Secondly is the effect of prohibition on rum production in North America. I hadn’t realised that there were a good number of rum distilleries in the USA before the Volstead act came into force, but the rise of the Temperance movement and the various other backgrounds reasons for Prohibition hit the US and rum fell by the wayside. This led to a strong trade between the Caribbean and South American countries and the US, now that there was little domestic rum production. However, Prohibition killed that, on the legal end of things at least, and led to a large amount of smuggling of rum into the US. This was easier than with many spirits due to the land border with Mexico meaning that it wasn’t necessary to ship booze in by land and sea.The post-prohibition cocktail boom was led by the poor quality of spirits, with drinks combinations originally designed to hide the flavours of bad booze, but rum quickly returned as a premium spirit and a key element of many cocktails.

Thirdly was a reason behind one of the evolutions in rum styles over time. In earlier rum production the use of pot stills and inconsistent product led to heavy aging in an attempt to produce a drinkable spirit, which gives us the world of dark and golden rums on the market. However, the switch to continuous distillation and modern quality control allowed lighter styles of rum to be produced, leading to the popularity of white rum as a spirit category. That bit of exposition leads into the plan for the evening – try out three quite different white rums and choose which one we thought the bar should be stocking.

We started off with Ron Barcelo Gran Platinum, a relatively new rum to the UK market that I had appear on my desk a couple of weeks back to put up on our website. It’s from the Dominican Republic, where there are currently three main rum producers – Brugal, Ron Bermudas and Ron Barcelo. It’s a family a owned company founded by a pair of Majorcan brothers, Julian and Andreas, who set up a distillery in 1929 in the town of San Domingo. Then in 1930, just as they were getting going, the island was hit by a massive hurricane which destroyed the town and the distillery. Andreas gave up on the place as a bad deal and moved to Puerto Rico but Julian stayed on and started selling rum made by other people. For 16 years he travelled round the island selling from the back of his truck until he’d raised enough money for a new distillery, which was built in 1946 by the Osama river. By 1980 his rum was the most popular in the Dominican Republic, overtaking its older competitors, and in 1982 Julian died leaving the company to his son José. He started growing the business internationally, exporting to the USA and Spain with the success helped along by the 1980s rum boom and Mojitos flying off the backbar. By 1994 they were exporting to 10 countries and by 2009 (with some extra Spanish investment helping them along the way) they’d reached 50 countries.

The UK range consists of 4 rums:

* Añejo – aged up to 6 years
* Gran Añejo – aged up to 8 years

* Imperial – aged up to 10 years
* Gran Platinum – aged up to 8 years

All the rums are agricole style, made from sugar cane juice rather than molasses, and the cane growing, rum production and bottling all happens in the Dominican Republic. They distill in a continuous still and take the spirit off at 96.3%, producing about 50k litres per day. The rum is aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels (Heaven Hill?) for at least 18 months, 6 months longer than the Dominican legal minimum of 1 year.

The Gran Platinum is the most recent addition to the range, introduced into the Dominican Republic in 2009 and the UK earlier this year. It is a response the continued rise of rum as a cocktail ingredient, often calling for a lighter flavoured and coloured rum that won’t dominate the palate or alter the look of the drink too much. It is a version of the Gran Añejo filtered through charcoal before bottling to remove the colour as well as some of the heavier flavours picked up from the wood. On the nose it was very light, with pithy lemon and vodka like spiritiness. To taste there was more, with sweet coconut and a buttery, silky mouthfeel – all in all a reminiscent of a lightly sweetened coconut vodka.

The second rum was from Flor de Caña – a Nicaraguan rum, but made in the lighter Cuban style. The distillery is in the north-west of the country in Chichigulpa and was built in the 1890s to produce rums under a number of different names. In the 1950s they started producing Flor de Caña for the local market, moving to export in the 1990s. The company is family owned and the current master distiller has been with them for 39 years, his predecessor ‘only’ having managed 30… As one of the major industries in the area they have put quite a lot back into the local economy, investing in schools and hospitals as well as building industries around the by-products of rum distillation, including paper mills and electricity plants.

The Nicaraguan climate is quite different to the Caribbean, drier and cooler, which gives it more similar yearly evaporation rates of maturing spirit to Scotland – ~3% per year as opposed to ~10% on the islands. This allows Flor de Caña to be matured for longer without getting too woody – while maturation in wooden casks in hot climates is often referred to as ‘maturing’ the spirit faster, it’s only allowing the wood to have an affect faster, which isn’t quite the same: John Hansell made some comments recently about this on his blog. However, the country does also have quite a big variation between day and nighttime temperatures, which causes the porous casks to work more actively than usual, with the spirit being driven in and out of the wood as it expands and contracts as the temperature changes. All of this gives Flor de Caña a good chance to develop interesting flavours during its years in the barrel.

The way that the Flor de Caña rums are named and produced is also slightly different, with each rum being blended in small 20-30 barrel batches from casks of the same age – in other words, if the rum is listed as being a 12 year old, all of the rum in it is 12 years old. In order to keep flavour consistent between batches they use warehouse location to change the way that the rums develop – different heights up the rack in different parts of different warehouses will give different temperatures and humidities leading to enough variation in the finished rums to allow the master blender scope to create the flavour profile they need. In another difference to the maturation of many other rums they top up the barrels each year, replacing the spirit that has evaporated with more similarly aged spirit to keep the headspace in the barrel low to stop an acceleration in evaporation by keeping the surface area in contact with air to a minimum.

The rum is based on molasses and they distill to a lowish 78-80% to retain some of the cane spirit’s flavour. They then use a mixture of 80% bourbon barrels from Heaven Hill and 20% Canadian whiskey barrels to mature the rums for their regular range between 4 and 18 years. They make both a white and gold 4 year old and then 7, 12, 15 and 18 year old rums bottled with no artificial colouring or other additives, and dilute to bottling strength with local water.

We were trying the filtered 4 year old, the white rum in their line-up – similar to the golden 4 year old that it’s based on, but with less of the woodiness as well as none of the colour. On the nose there was coconut again like with the Ron Barcelo, but it was joined with butter and limey citrus. To taste it was lightly sweet with banana cream, coconut and a touch of sweet liquorice.

Third on the list was El Dorado, from Guyana. There’s quite a lot of rum heritage in Guyana, starting with the British settlement of areas near the Demerera river in the mid-1700s and continuing to the present day. Sugar cane and rum production both need water and trade routes, making the river regions perfect and distilleries sprung up all over the place. The British left in 1966 and over time the distilleries and sugar plantations combined until the 1980s, when the remaining distilleries consolidated under the banner of the state owned Demerera Distillers Ltd. This consolidation did lead to the closing of many distilleries, but their distilling equipment was packed up and moved to one location, allowing them to produce rums of all the various styles that were once produced across all the distilleries.

El Dorado is molasses based, using local sugar cane, and has a 22-26 hour fermentation using an introduced cultured yeast rather than the spontaneous fermentation that some distillers use. Their blends are made up of rums from a couple of the many stills at the Demerera distillery, maybe even including spirit from their wooden still, the last one still in use in the Caribbean today.

We were trying the 3 year old, which is matured for at least 3 years in Kentucky whiskey barrels and is then double charcoal filtered, to remove colour and some of the heavier flavours, and then bottled. On the nose it had banana, sweet fruit and caramel. To taste it had milk, sour cream, sugar and coconut – a similar but much bigger flavour than the last three.

To round out the tasting we also tried the Mount Gay Eclipse, Bourne and Hollingsworth’s current house pour golden rum. I have a bit of a history with Mount Gay, as in my rum drinking days (before I got so heavily into whisky) it was my standard tipple and the first years of my working life were fuelled by late night Paramount comedy channel programmes and Mount Gay Old Fashioneds – still one of my favourite drinks of all time.

Mount Gay is from Barbados and claims to be the oldest rum brand in the world, tracing its heritage back to 1703 (even though it may have been renamed to Mount Gay in the late 1700s). It’s named after Sir John Gay Alleyne, owner of the distillery in the mid-1700s, who later became an MP in the Bajan government and Speaker of the House. It is the biggest rum in Barbados and one of the only ones exported from the island, although there are a bunch of locally distributed spirits as well. They produce a variety of rums, but we stuck with the standard golden expression – Eclipse. On the nose it had vanilla, honey, fruit stones and demerera sugar, with a palate of cream, caramel, pepper, ginger and a bitter end. Still one of my favourite rums, although as I try more brands I am being tempted away.

Having tasted the rums we were invited to cross the barstaffs’ palms with silver and order one of a number of drinks that they’d put on for the night, each with a user-selectable rum component to allow us to compare the different spirits in a cocktail as well as neat – as Bourne & Hollingsworth are a cocktail bar mixability is rather important. Before trying the cocktails we discussed how thought the rums would perform and came up with our predictions:

* The Barcelo was lightly flavoured, so would be easier to make cocktails with, as the flavour would not overpower the other ingredients.
* The Flor de Cana was tastier on its own but might not work so well in all rum cocktails.
* The El Dorado was a great sipping rum, but its strong flavours would clash in a mixed drink.

We decided to stick with the Flor de Cana and El Dorado as we thought the Barcelo would get a bit lost. First up we tried The Airmail – rum shaken with lemon juice and acacia honey, topped up with champagne. This was a bit of a washout on the rum front, with the champagne and lemon killing all of the others flavours and giving us a sweet and citrusy fizzy drink in a flute. We followed it with a Rum Cobbler – rum and port stirred with lemon juice, liqueurs and fruit, served in a tin cup over crushed ice. This was much more successful and despite my initial guess that the Flor de Cana would win here the El Dorado sang, with its creamy taste and texture adding rather a lot to the cocktail. After a bit of discussion it looked like it wasn’t only the Cobbler that suited the El Dorado and I duly cast my vote for it. We’re still waiting for the results but scuttlebutt suggests that the El Dorado was the overwhelming winner – a noble victory.

To check out this relatively new gin, we headed along to Saf, a vegan restaurant in Shoreditch for a bit of a tasting.  Saf kindly allowed us the use of their courtyard which was the perfect venue to check out a gin with such a summery vibe.  In amongst the seating, the courtyard plays home to a wide range of plants that are used in the cooking of the restaurant.  Of particular envy was the outdoor bar, fashioned from a greenhouse!

We were treated to a tasting of the gin which, despite being far from classical in taste, won much applaud from members.  The juniper shone through sufficiently to ensure there was no doubt this was a gin, but the Mediterranean botanicals added a summery and distinctly savoury note that was generally considered a great success.  Several cocktails were offered up for tasting to demonstrate the versatility of this gin in addition to the essential G+T, but garnished with a choice of basil, rosemary or thyme.  Truly unique gins are increasingly hard to come by, and it is always a risk to go off-piste but from our members reaction, Gin Mare has succeeded on both counts.