Last night kicked off the start of 2011’s London Cocktail Week. Running from the 7th to the 16th October, this is the biggest drinks event on the London scene and with so much to choose from, it should be possible for everyone to find at least one thing to do.

For the rum lovers out there, there are Rum Trails; Rum Masterclasses; Rum Tastings; Rum Cocktails galore and of course the week finishes off with RumFest itself. So with an emphasis on the rum side of things, here’s a quick and dirty guide to the week’s events:

Sunday 9th October kicks off with Rum Trail – A walking tour round the Notting Hill area, visiting five bars. Meeting at Trailer Happiness on Portobello Road, each bar will give you the opportunity to try a different age of Havana Club Rum, while discussing the stories behind Tiki culture. There are two seperate 2 hour tours this evening, starting at 6pm and 7pm respectively. Tickets are available from the London Cocktail Website and are priced at £35.

Monday 10th October is the first full day of events and that means more chances to try some Rum. Today’s Rum Trail moves into the West End, meeting at HIX on Brewer Street. With a slightly earlier start of 5.30pm and 6.30pm, these 2 1/2 hour tours will take you around five bars in the Soho area, where you’ll again be given the opportunity to try different ages of Havana Club Rum. Tickets are available from the London Cocktail Website and are priced at £35.

For those in the trade, pickup your red ‘Trade’ wristband and head to the Drinkology Studios on Batemans Row, from 2pm ’til 3pm, for the Below the Equator – The Oldest and Newest Cane Spirit seminar with Leblon’s Jacob Briars.

Tuesday 11th October gives you the chance to learn about Caribbean rum from The Chairman’s Reserve team. Held from 1pm to 2.30pm at Le Méridien Picadilly’s Longitude 0°8′ bar this free event will also feature tastings of limited edition bottling’s from the Chairman’s Reserve range.

Between 2pm and 6pm, those with their red ‘Trade’ wristband can meet the Havana Club Rum Ambassador Meimi Sanchez at the Havana Club Bar, at the Drinkology Studios, where she will be making drinks and running informal tasting sessions.

Today’s Rum Trail moves yet again, but this time to the City of London, meeting at the Boisdale of Bishopsgate. The last night of the Rum Trails, will find you on a 2 hour walking tour of five bars in the Shoreditch area, starting at both 6pm and 7pm. Tickets are available from the London Cocktail Website and are priced at £35.

Wednesday 12th October brings Latino rum, chocolate and vinyl. My only disappointment is that with the exception of Hermione Granger, Marty McFly and Dr Who, we won’t be able to enjoy all three of the rum events on this ‘Hump Day’, due to their similar start times. So in no particular order, I’ll start with one of my favourite rums: the Zacapa Tasting at The Speakeasy at Selfridges. Starting at 6pm, this is a 1 hour full portfolio tasting with Ron Zacapa‘s European Ambassador Mario Nevarro and costs £15.

For those of you with a sweet tooth, why not head to Poland Street’s Barrio Central at 6pm for Rum & Chocolate. Also costing £15, this 2 hour tutored tasting will introduce you to some of the exquisite rums from the Santa Teresa range, followed by a Venezuelan style party.

Alternatively, bring your best vinyl and any unusual ingredients with you to Upper Street’s Wax Jambu, for the free Pampero Off the Record event. Starting at 7pm, the bar staff will endeavour to make you a bespoke cocktail until late into the night.

Tickets and further details of today’s events are available from the London Cocktail Website.

Thursday 13th October – Despite being the eve of the start of one of the largest events in the Rum calendar, there’s still plenty of rum events to choose from. Starting with the Zenna Rum Cocktails masterclass, being held at Zenna Bar on Dean Street. Priced at £30 and starting at 5pm, during this 2 hour class you will learn to make classic cocktails and create your own new drink. Guests will also leave with their own goodie bag.

Hosting the Cuban Cinema Double Bill, from 7pm to 11pm is Borough High Street’s Roxy Bar & Screen. Featuring Havana Club cocktails at the bar, for £10 you’ll be able to sit back and while away the evening watching Chico & Rita and Fresa y Chocolate.

For a Rum & Cachaça Paired Cocktail Dinner, hosted by the Rum Ambassador Ian Burrell, head to Brown’s on St Martin’s Lane for 7.30pm Priced at £70, the evening is also hosted by Boca Loca Cachaça and will feature dinner courses paired with distinctive rum and Cachaça cocktails. Special treats will include appearances from some of the world’s top rum experts and a chance to try some rare and special sugar cane spirits.

Tickets and further details of today’s events are available from the London Cocktail Website.

Friday 14th October is the start of this year’s RumFest and it kicks off with the trade-only Boutique RumFest. Hosted by Ian Burrell at the Hilton Olympia and running from 12pm until 9pm, the day features a series of tastings and seminars including: Santa Tersa Tasting; Let’s Talk Rum; Diplomatico Tasting; Don’t Fear the Blender; The Art of Distillation; The Grand Tasting; El Dorado Tasting and the Bacardi Legacy Seminar. For those in the trade with an interest in rum, this is a day not to be missed. Further details of today’s events are available from the London Cocktail Website.

Saturday 15th October – RumFest, what more needs to be said… Well quite a bit really, which is why I’ll post a separate entry on RumFest. What I will say here though is that this is the first public day of this year’s drinks festival celebrating the diversity of rum and its rapidly growing popularity. Tickets start at £25 are available from Ticket Source. Starting at 12pm and finishing at 6pm, RumFest is being held at Olympia 2 and further details can be found on the RumFest website.

For those of you that can’t make it to RumFest, the Selfridges Wine Shops is hosting Cheeky Tiki – a free event running from 12pm to 6pm, that looks at Tiki culture, it’s history and cocktails with the help of Havana Club Rum.

Sunday 16th October is the second and last day of RumFest. Expect more Rum and Rum escapades on Hammersmith Road for the last day of RumFest and London Cocktail Week.

Along with all of the above listed Rum events, it’s also worth bearing in mind that there are also loads of other events related to mixology and other spirits and with nearly 200 bars in and around London, who are each providing a signature cocktail for £4, everyone should be able to find something that they like. Many of these cocktails will be rum based, so please check the London Cocktail Tours page for further details.

Another worthy note is the American Bar at the Savoy where each day from Monday 10th to Sunday 16th October, they will be hosting the Miniature Cocktail Museum between 3pm and 11pm each day. Here you’ll find a pop-up bar specially created for London Cocktail Week, featuring Bacardi Brown Forman brands.

So if you haven’t already signed up, then head to www.londoncocktailweek.com to do so and collect your wristband from Gordon’s Speakeasy on the 1st floor of Selfridges. Don’t forget that each day there’s also a Bacardi Oakheart sponsored bus that will drive you between bars in each area for free when you show your wristband. Each day will cover a different area so remember to check the timetable.

Yet another short notice sneak peak for the next London Rum Club and if the last tasting I attended for Ron Diplomático is anything to go, by this should be another great rum club not to be missed. Starting at 7pm on Monday 3rd October 2011, Trailer Happiness will, as always, be playing host to the Notting Hill Rum Club.

Having already written a sneak peak for Ron Diplomático fairly recently, I won’t go into as much detail, but suffice to say the four current rums in their range are:

Ron Diplomático Blanco – A Super Premium White rum; Ron Diplomático Añejo – Aged up to 4 years old, blended column and pot still golden rum; Ron Diplomático Reserva – Aged up to 8 years old, blend of column and pot still rum and lastly Ron Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva – A premium sipping rum aged up to 12 years old and made entirely from sugar cane honey.

Further details on tomorrow’s tasting can be found on the Diplomatico Rum Club Facebook page. For those interested in learning more about the London Rum Club, please either visit the Rum Club website or pop into Trailer Happiness and speak to the bar staff.

When I alluded in my last Rum Club Sneak Peak, to September’s Rum Club having a surprise in store, I can’t deny I wasn’t expecting it to be the one we got. Thanks to the range of drinks available through Bibendum Spirits, the latest Rum Club expanded its horizons and also became a sort of Tequila Club and Liqueur Club.

With this being at least the fourth tasting of Plantation Rum at a London based rum club this year, I can’t say I was too surprised when Paul McFadyen advised that the only rum he had brought along that evening, was the Plantation Gran Añejo Rum from Guatemala. However in addition to this excellent rum he had also brought along with him both the recently released Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao and the very smooth El Tesoro de Don Felipe Tequila Blanco.

Now considering how much Paul likes to talk about rum, it’s probably not a bad thing that we only had the one rum to taste that night, as had he brought the usual plethora of rums and talked about each one in the same manner, we probably wouldn’t have left until the London Underground had started running again the following morning…

Of course maybe it was having the opportunity to talk only about one rum and the history of Guatemala; the production of rum at Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala and the Solera aging process, that lead Paul to talk for so long in the first place.

So following a brief overview of what makes Plantation Rum so different from the rest, with its Cognac style ‘finishing’ of a select number of rums from around the Caribbean, Paul announced that there would be two new rums being added to the existing 13 rums in the Plantation range. Those lucky few that had attended Floridita’s July Rare Rum Club were already familiar with the new 5 year old Bajan and 11 year old Trinidadian rums, each finished respectively in Pineau de Charentes and Banyuls casks. While no specific release date has been given, both rums will be available for general sale, although in limited numbers.

We were then treated to a short lesson on the history of Guatemala, starting with the impact of the Spanish Conquistador, Hernán Cortés, on the Central American region with his decree to find gold and convert the locals to Christianity during the 1500s, which culminated in the complete subjugation of the peoples of the region and the formation of New Spain. Following independence from first Spain and then Mexico, Guatemala initially joined together with a number of other countries, before civil war dissolved the Central American Federation in the mid 1800s.

Other than a series of dictatorships nothing much happened in Guatemala, from a rum point of view, until the town of Zacapa was created in 1876. However, it wasn’t until 1914 that the town’s significance to rum would show, when Industria Licorera Guatemalteca started rum production. This was followed in 1930, by the family run businesses of Industria Licorera Euzkadi and Licorera Zacapaneca started producing their own rum. These three companies were later joined in 1939 by Industria Licorera Quezalteca before the disruption of World War II on the Guatemalan economy forced these four companies to combine in 1944, forming the Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala distillery.

It wasn’t until 1976, when in celebration of the centenary of the town of Zacapa that the name of Ron Zacapa became known with Ron Zacapa Centenario. Today Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala is the only distillery in Guatemala, producing Ron Zacapa, Ron Botran and serveral other liqueurs in the town of Zacapa.

Guatemalan rum differs from many other rums in several ways. Instead of fermenting molasses, they use virgin sugar cane honey, which is fermented for between 48 and 50 hours using yeasts from pineapples. After distillation is finished, using a series of column stills, the distilate is aged using the Solera system in their warehouse, which is nearly 8,000 feet about sea level, where the average temperature is more akin to Scotland than the Caribbean at 16-17 degrees celcius. Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala also differs from a number of other distilleries, in that they use only sugar cane from their own plantations and do not export sugar cane to any other country.

With the help of a handout diagram, courtesy of René van Hoven’s Ron Zacapa Part II: Solera System Explained article at www.refinedvices.com, Paul explained the Solera system used by Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala for Ron Zacapa. This process was originally refined by the Spanish for sherry production and while different from the process used in sherry production, in principal it is similar. I won’t repeat the whole description here as Rene has already done a wonderful job explaining it, in detail. So in brief, rums produced using the Solera system have effectively been married during their aging process, by introducing older and younger rums together in the barrels.

The oldest barrels are stacked at the bottom, with the youngest barrels at the top, with several different aged barrels between. As the finished rum is taken out of the bottom barrels for bottling, the rum from the barrel above is moved into the older barrel to replenish the removed rum and marry the blend together. This is repeated up through the different younger barrels until the newest barrels are replenished with rum that will have been aged between 12 and 18 months. As no barrel is completely emptied, each barrel will contain a blend of different ages. The time taken to marry the rums together at each stage varies, although if the minimum age of those stages were added together it would total 6 years. Therefore Solera rums contain rums from a minimum to a maximum age. For instance Zacapa 23 is a Solera blend of between 6 and 23 years old.

So where does Ron Zacapa come into an evening talking about Plantation Gran Añejo Rum? Well as indicated above, Guatemala has only one distillery, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to learn that the Guatemalan rum in the Plantation Gran Añejo comes from Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala and is taken from the Ron Zacapa Solera system.

After the finished Guatemalan rum is shipped to France, the rum is then aged for a further 12 to 18 months in Limousin Grande Champagne Cognac casks in the cellars of Cognac Ferrand, where it is tended to and cared for during this time. Before bottling, the Gran Añejo rum has a small amount of aged sugar and aged water added bringing the final bottled strength down to 84 Proof / 42 abv.

Plantation Gran Añejo Rum has a sweet caramel and raisins aroma and a sweet start, with notes of coconut, caramel and vanilla before a slightly tempered finish. To say that this rum is very drinkable is no understatement. As easily sipped neat or over ice as it is mixed in a premium cocktail, this is an exceptional rum made even more appealing with low price point for such a quality spirit. Highly recommended and I look forward to putting it through its paces with an upcoming review over the next couple of weeks.

Moving away from the rum, Paul then introduced us to the new Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao. Bottled at 80 Proof / 40% abv, this premium Triple Sec is based on a number of old style recipes and was created with Tiki style cocktails in mind. It is produced from Brandy, 10 and 20 year old Cognac’s, Curaçao orange, sweet orange and other flavours.  With an aroma of Christmas pudding, it has a sweet orange and complex fruity taste. Although it’s not something I would  drink often by itself, this isn’t a reflection on the drink itself, it’s more that I don’t often sip orange based liqueurs. However, I would certainly use it when making premium cocktails and would more than happily add a bottle to my liqueur selection.

The last spirit of the evening was the very smooth El Tesoro de Don Felipe Blanco Tequila. Before being double-distilled, the juices extracted from the sweetest parts of the Blue Agave Pina are fermented for a week. Uniquely distilled to bottle strength from different cuts of between 30% and 70%, this fruity highland tequila is bottled unaged at 80 proof / 40% abv, within 24 hours of distillation, allowing it to capture the fresh Agave flavours.

With the evening’s presentation over, it was time to ask Damien to experiment with Plantation Rum based cocktails and in particular the new Plantation Gran Añejo Rum. So along with the delicious 5 year old Plantation Grande Reserve Mai Tai that we’d had at the start of the evening, the bar staff put together the following Plantation Gran Añejo Rum cocktails: Mai Tai, Rum Swizzle and Old Fashioned. Each of these cocktails benefited from the use of this great rum, which showed its versatility as a premium mixing rum.

As always, my thanks to Max and Damien for yet another great Rum Club and to Paul for another great Plantation Rum evening. The next London Rum Club is scheduled for Monday the 3rd October and will be featuring Ron Diplomático, with Declan McGurk of Speciality Brands. For those interested in learning more about the London Rum Club, please either visit the website or pop into Trailer Happiness and speak to the bar staff.

With less than a week to go to, the fifth annual Boutique Bar Show is shaping up to be a great event at London’s Royal Horticultural Halls.

Taking place over 2 days, between Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st September 2011, this On-Trade show features a great selection of the smaller boutique brands, representing a number of spirits, including; Rum, Cachaça, Tequila, Vodka, Whiskey & Bourbon, Gin, Liqueurs, Beer & Cider, as well as a number of other spirits and Juices & Mixers.

Confirmed Rum and Cachaça brands attending the show are: Boca Loca Cachaça, Koko Kanu, Appleton Estate Rum, Gosling’s Black Seal Rum, Germana Cachaça, Pink Pidgeon, Ron Barcelo, Flor De Cana Rum, Kraken Spiced Rum, Banks Rum, Doorly’s Rum and Chairman’s Reserve.

The show also features a number of seminars and speakers, along with competitions. If you already missed the Manchester show in May and cannot make the London dates, Edinburgh will be hosting the last Boutique Bar Show this October. For more information please visit www.boutiquebarshow.com and if you’re interested in attending the show, please don’t forget to register.