With a week and half to go until this year’s UK RumFest, what can you expect of your day out immersing yourself in all things rum? Well for starters, Rum and a lot of it.

It may sound obvious, but with so many rum producers exhibiting at the show and with most of them having more than one expression of rum available, for those who have never been before, if can be quite an overwhelming experience as to how much rum there is to choose from on the day.

This year’s exhibitors list includes: Angostura Rum, Appleton Estate Rum, Banks Rum, Blackwell Rum, Bristol Classic Rum, Chairman’s Reserve Rum, Cruzan Rum, Don Papa Rum, DonQ Rum, Doorly’s Rum, El Dorado Rum, English Harbour Rum, Gosling’s Rum, Green Island Rum, Koko Kanu, Lamb’s Rum, Mount Gay Rum, Mount Gilboa Rum, Old Grog Rum, Pink Pigeon Rum, Plantation Rum, Pusser’s Rum, Pyrat Rum, R St Barth, Ron Bacardi, Ron Barcelo, Ron Botran, Ron Brugal, Ron de Jeremy, Ron Diplomático, Ron Fortuna, Ron Zacapa, Rum Fire, St. Aubin Rum, St. Nicholas Abbey Rum, Toz Rum, Virgin Gorda Rum, Wray & Nephew Rum, XM Royal Rum

While some of this rum will be available in the form of cocktails, most will be provided in the form of 1cl tasters – all the better for being able to appreciate the flavour and character of the rum. For those of you who are not used to drinking spirits neat, the best piece of advise to be offered is pace yourself, drink plenty of water from the various water coolers dispersed around the show and follow the RumFest Etiquette Guidelines.

So what else can you look forward to? Well the UK RumFest describes itself as:

… an international celebration of rum & cane spirit. The Rum Experience prides itself on bringing together the finest rum, great food and a range of educating seminars and entertainment to make learning about rum both fun and stimulating.

From personal experience, this statement does truly sum up what to expect when visiting RumFest and it’s also fair to say that words alone cannot sum up the experience. Of course, if you don’t follow the advice given above, you might find it even harder to put anything into words the following day… So lets forget words for a moment and rely on the old adage of a picture paints a thousand words and check out the Rum@Charlosa Pinterest board for some photographic inspiration of some of the things to expect at RumFest.

And what of the great food, education and the fun mentioned above. Well it includes: live entertainment, such as Salsa, Soca, Reggae, Zouk and Samba; the Tropical Food Market; the Cooking Demonstration Stage (hosted by Chef Hasan de Four); Food and Rum Pairings; the chance to win holidays to the Caribbean and visit a real rum distillary; live cocktail demonstrations; cocktails to try from some of the UKs best mixologists; hundreds of rums to try and buy and several Rum Experience University Masterclasses conducted by industry experts and master blenders.

All being well you’re now sold on the idea of the rum, but which shores must you head to with a steady wind in search of this here pirate’s booty. Well, for the second year in the events history you can expect to set sail towards the ExCel Exhibition Centre on the northern quay of the Royal Victoria Dock in London Docklands. The nearest station is Custom House on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which is served from either the Tower Gateway or Stratford lines through to Beckton.

The UK RumFest 2013 opens its doors at 12pm midday on Saturday 12th October, with last pours at 4.30pm and closes at 5pm. For those of you who either can’t make the Saturday or just love rum that much that you need to head back for a second day, you’ll be pleased to know that RumFest is also opening its doors for the same times on Sunday 13th October.

Now you know when and where to head for your rum, how much is this little expedition going to cost you to get there. Well RumFest tickets come in two flavours and cost £25 and £45 each day for the Rum Experience Ticket and the Connoisseur Cove Ticket respectively. For the serious rum lover, you can alternatively purchase a weekend Connoisseur Cove Ticket for £80, giving a saving of £10 over separate tickets for both days. All tickets are subject to a booking fee.

So what do you get for your money and which ticket should you go for. Well this will largely depend on what you’re interested in for the day. Both tickets will give you:

• The Rum Bars sampling 1cl tots in exchange for your tokens ( full sized cocktails will be on sale)

• Small selection of rum brands sampling 1cl tots in exchange for your tokens

• The Main Entertainment Stage

• Seminar Rooms

• Tropical Food Market stands selling hot and cold food

• Food Demonstration Stage hosted by Chef Hasan De Four

• 5 tasting sample tokens to exchange for 1cl sample and 50ml mini cocktail samples within the Rum Experience Area ( no more tokens will be available to purchase).

But only the Connoisseurs Cove tickets will also include:

• Entry to the Connoisseurs Cove with a selection of brands exhibiting their premium rums and serving 1cl samples (no drink tokens needed here)

And for those of you in the professional drinks trade, make sure you register for The Boutique RumFest, which runs alongside RumFest, for the opportunity to see and try many new brands and expressions, many of whom are looking for UK distribution.

So now you know what to expect, what are you waiting for, mark Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th October in your diary, head over to the UK RumFest 2013 Website and book your tickets now and make you so you finish London Cocktail Week with some serious rum fun.

Oh did I not mention it’s London Cocktail Week next week… You wait ages for a drinks event to turn up and then they all turn up at the same time – no wait, isn’t that meant to be buses… Anyway, make sure you also check out the London Cocktail Week website to help get you in the right spirit for the UK RumFest 2013.

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.

A somewhat short notice seak peak, but as always with Plantation Rum this should be an evening worth dropping whatever you’re doing to head to this month’s London Rum Club. So if you like drinking great rum, get yourself down to Portobello Road’s Trailer Happiness, for a 7pm start on Monday 5th September 2011.

The evening will be presented by Bibendum Spirits Paul McFadyen, who will no doubt be bringing his usual bouncy charm to the evening’s tasting of what should be another great Rum Club. In Paul’s own word’s he’s “Launching the new Plantation Guatemala and with a few new surprises…”.

What these surprises are, I’m unsure, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore if I did spill the beans… What I do know though is that with such a large range of blended and vintage rums, Plantation Rum tastings are always legendary and any new additions are always eagerly anticipated. As such, starting with this year’s Imbibe Live Show, the focus of recent tastings has been the latest addition to the family – Plantation Gran Añejo Rum from Guatemala.

Just released to the UK market, it’s still not widely available, so if you can’t wait to get your taste buds round this excellent premium mixing and sipping rum, then you know where to be tomorrow evening.

Further details on tomorrow’s tasting can be found on the Plantation 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.

Back for its second year, Imbibe Live promised to bring together an unmissable selection of drinks brands, features, tastings and seminars for the trade. While not as comprehensive as Rumfest for the rum and cachaça enthusiasts among us, Imbibe Live lived up to expectations and was a great opportunity to network and taste a number of previously untried rums as well as correct a previous viewpoint, regarding Salto Cachaça (more on that below).

Although my attendance at Imbibe Live was primarily for the rum and cachaça, I approached the day with an eye for anything else related to Cocktail making and mixology. With both Funkin and Monin exhibiting, it was an opportunity to taste and see some of the best mixing purées and syrups available to the trade and consumer.

Started in 1999, Funkin has become the number 1 selling purée brand in the UK, with its 100% natural and easy to use fruit purées. The brand has been expanded to include syrups; ready made cocktail mixers, Just Add Juice (JAJ) smoothie mixers and their bartender inspired fusion range.

With over 100 flavours of syrups, liqueurs, gourmet sauces, fruit cocktails and smoothie mixes, Monin is one of the world leaders in the drinks industry. With over 2000 recipes on their website, the flavours of Monin opens up a huge range of cocktail potential.

A short walk through the stands found me enjoying a Caipirinha and talking with the distributors of PITÚ cachaça. Named after a large type of shrimp found in the north-eastern rivers of Brazil, PITÚ is one of Brazil’s largest distillers and exporters of cachaça to the international markets. Hugely popular in Germany, PITÚ promotes itself as a premium brand. At 40% ABV / 80 Proof, PITÚ is a white cachaça, with a semi-sweet and fruity taste.

Keeping with cachaça I then moved on to the Salto cachaça stand. While relatively new to the market, I had previously tried Salto at last October’s Rumfest and at the time had walked away with a slightly sour taste in my mouth. Maybe I’d had a few too many samples already that day, but when trying what I thought was a new cachaça, I found it tasting completely off and could have sworn blind it tasted salty.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that Salto was a cachaça blended with citrus flavours. So arriving at the Salto stand and finding three different bottles, I was introduced properly to Salto, Salto 37 ½ and Salto 39. Salto 39 is a 39% ABV / 78 Proof white cachaça, with a clean, fruity cachaça taste. Salto 37 ½ is a 37 ½% ABV / 75 Proof cachaça with a hint of hint of citrus flavours. Lastly is the original Salto, which is a 24% ABV / 48 Proof white cachaça, blended with the refreshing citrus flavours of grapefruit, lime and bitter orange. Personally I prefer either the cleaner taste of the Salto 39 or the more subtle citrus flavours of the Salto 37 ½, but it can’t be denied that Salto brings something uniquely different to the UK market with a flavoured cachaça.

Moving away from cachaça. the rest of my day at Imbibe Live was divided between the rum brands and there was certainly no shortage on offer:

El Dorado; English Harbour Rum; 19 Spiced Vanilla Rum; Plantation Rum; St Lucia Distillers including their Chairman’s Reserve, Toz and Admiral Rodney rums; The Rum Experience with tastings including Ron Zacapa, Saint James Rhum, Ron Atlantico, Pusser’s Rum and DonQ Rum; Ron de Jeremy; The Kraken Black Spiced Rum, Ron Diplomático and Ron Aguere.

With all brands offering tastings and some having more than one bottle in their stables, it was clear that some thought and pacing would have to be applied to the day. So starting with El Dorado Rum was a pleasure to say the least. Having previously had the privilege of meeting El Dorado’s UK Brand Manager, Stephanie Holt, at a previous Rum Club, it was nice to start my rum tastings with a friendly face. Already owning a couple of bottles of El Dorado, Stephanie introduced me to their multi award winning 12 and 15 year old rums. Bottled at 40% ABV / 80 Proof and 43% ABV / 86 Proof respectively, both El Dorado 12 and 15 year old rums come in distinctive flask-shaped bottles. Both are exceptionally smooth, drinkable rums, with the 12 year old just piping it for me in the neat tasting stakes. Other rums in the range include the mixing rums; El Dorado 3 year old, El Dorado 5 year old and El Dorado 8 year old, as well as the premium El Dorado 21 year old which was awarded 98/100, the highest ever score for a rum at the Chicago Beverage Tasting Institute. In their own words “El Dorado offers a unique range of outstanding rums with true age statements and represents the flavours and culture of the country of Guyana.”

With such a tough act to follow I was pleasantly surprised by the smoothness of Antigua Distillery’s English Harbour Rum. Winner of a double gold award two years running at the prestigious San Francisco Spirits Competition, English Harbour 5 Year Old Rum, is promoted as both a sipping rum and as a base to premium cocktails. Bottled at 40% ABV / 80 Proof, English Harbour is described as “very rich and sexy with great mixability.”

Also to be found alongside English Harbour on the Malcolm Cowen stand was 19 Spiced Vanilla Rum, from Fernandes Distillers. Catagorised as a spiced rum described as “A blend of finest golden rum, mellow spices and vanilla.” Although upon tasting and getting a big taste of vanilla, over and above the taste of the spices I think I could be forgiven for mistaking it for flavoured rum. However, irrespective of which category I might try and place it in, I have to agree with the Trinidad distillers comment that it comes “With a smooth and distinctive flavour it’s a taste to charm the tastebuds.” Bottled at 35% ABV / 70 Proof, this spiced rum is being pushed as a cocktail rum as well as being suitable for drinking neat over ice. I’m in agreement with this as I could easily see myself sipping a glass of this over ice, but equally as I stood there tasting 19 Spiced, I found myself thinking about what sort of cocktails this could go into, including giving a more distinctive taste to cocktails that would normally contain a vanilla flavoured vodka.

Hoping over to the other side of the floor on the Bibendum Spirits Bus brought me to the Plantation Rum Tiki Bar stop, hosted by the very lively Paul McFadyen. Among their usual collection of excellent blended Plantation rums was to be found their latest addition to their range, the Plantation Gran Añejo Rum from Guatemala.

Making up Plantation’s complete blended rum line are: Plantation 20th Anniversary Extra Old Rum (Barbados), Plantation Gran Añejo Rum (Guatemala), Plantation Grande Reserve Rum (Barbados),  Plantation Original Dark Rum (Trinidad) and Plantation Original Dark Overproof Rum (Trinidad).  And if memory serves correctly, they were all on offer to sample, either neat or as part of one of the cocktails that the Plantation team were busy putting together throughout the day.

Having tasted most of these rums before at a previous Rum Club meeting, I opted for a cocktail while waiting for the opportunity to try the new Plantation Gran Añejo Rum from Guatemala. The cocktail was a refreshingly fruity Rum Punch and was certainly welcome after so many previous neat samples. Knowing how good Plantation rums are, I was looking forward to trying out the new Guatemalan Gran Añejo and I can happily say that it didn’t disappoint. Bottled at 42% ABV / 84 Proof, Gran Añejo is a very smooth and easy to drink rum, which makes for a suitable sipping rum as well as the base for a number of premium cocktails. Those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to try out Plantation Rum should get themselves down to the Notting Hill Rum Club at Trailer Happiness on the 5th September 2011, where Paul McFadyen is lined up to showcase Plantation Rum.

Shows like Imbibe Live are the perfect opportunity for distilleries to showcase their existing established lines as well as any new offerings, so along with the new Gran Añejo from Plantation Rum, another rum distillery taking the opportunity to introduce their new wares was St Lucia Distillers, with not 1, not 2, but 3 new rums in their line-up. Having already tried the new Chairman’s Reserve Silver and the as yet to be released Chairman’s Reserve 1931 at the Notting Hill Rum Club on the Monday, it was the new Chairman’s Reserve The Forgotten Casks that I most interested in trying.

Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t passing up the opportunity to try these other great rums lightly, but knowing how many other rums were still to be tasted during the day, I chose not to sample the Silver and in regards to the 1931, my understanding was that they had only the one bottle in the UK and having already written about it I didn’t want to appear greedy… So on to The Forgotten Casks and wow, what a great tasting rum as well as a great back story.

In May of 2007, a fire destroyed several buildings at St Lucia Distillers and as a result a number of finishing casks were moved from where they were housed and simply forgotten about for 3 years. Chairman’s Reserve is a blend of rums that have been matured in American oak casks for an average of 5 years, which are then blended and reintroduced to oak for a further six months to marry. Being left to marry for another 3 years has produced a premium sipping rum with more depth and character than the normal Chariman’s Reserve. Bottled at 40% ABV / 80 Proof, Chairman’s Reserve The Forgotten Casks will be introduced in the Autumn and will make a handsome addition to any bar’s premium back shelf.

Despite trying Toz White Gold Rum on the Monday evening at the Rum Club it had been as part of a rather excellent Daiquiri and as such I hadn’t had the opportunity to taste it neat. So with a bottle of it in front of me how could I pass up the opportunity to ask the The Boutique Bar Show’s charismatic Andrew Scutts for a sample.

Toz White Gold Rum is matured for 5 – 8 years, before being finished in sherry casks and then charcoal filtered and finally bottled at 40% ABV / 80 Proof. It is an outstanding white rum and makes for an excellent base to any premium Daiquiri, Mojito or any other white rum based cocktail.

Also on show from St Lucia Distillers was Admiral Rodney Rum, Chairman’s Reserve and Chairman’s Reserve Spiced. All are exceptional rums and the Chairman’s Reserve range represents great value for such premium quality rums and I for one can’t wait to add the new Chairman’s Reserve rums to my collection.

After a bit of opportune networking with the Marketing Manager of J. Wray & Nephew UK, it was on to The Rum Experience to try the selection of rums on offer, including El Dorado 12 Year Old Rum, Ron Zacapa Centenario Sistema Solera 23, Saint James Royal Ambré 45 Rhum Agricole, Ron Atlantico, Pusser’s Rum and DonQ Añejo Rum. Had I been to the show on the Tuesday, this would have been a blind tasting with the opportunity to enter into a competition, however, being the Wednesday and the competition no longer running, I was taken through the rums one at a time.

In all honesty I don’t quite recall the order and as such I’m not even going to try to list them correctly. Of these I had only tried the El Dorado 12 Year Old and as described earlier, I find this an exceptional rum and could easily picture myself sitting under a palm tree on a white sandy beach with an ice bucket and a bottle of this rum to while away the time.

Having recently acquired a bottle of  Ron Zacapa Centenario Sistema Solera 23 from the Central American country of Guatemala, but not having taken the opportunity to taste it as yet, I was more than happy to sample this Solera blended rum. Made from virgin sugar cane honey and using a method of Solera blending, the aged rum is blended with younger rums and then aged again for a period of time, before the process repeats itself. This process continues until the final product is ready to be bottled at 40% ABV / 80 Proof, with a blend of rums of 6 to 23 years old in age.

Martinique’s Saint James Royal Ambré 45 Rhum Agricole represented the only other non-molasses based rum to be tasted at Imbibe Live and I can happily say that I’m pleased it was brought to the show. Rhum agricole is a type of rum synonymous with the French Caribbean Islands where freshly squeezed sugar cane juice is used as the base for making rum. Bottled at a stronger 45% ABV / 90 Proof, I find Royal Ambré has a sweeter aroma and taste than a typical rum and like all other light rhums I’ve tried, I am reminded of the taste of cachaça.

Had I been doing the blind taste test I might have got the above 3 rums correct, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have guessed the next one correctly. Ron Atlantico from the Dominican Republic uses three stages of aging and blending to create an exceptional and sweeter tasting rum than might be expected from a molasses base. Atlantico’s master blender takes a selection of their finest small batch aged rums and blends them together in private casks. The private cask blend is then aged further to produce a mellower and more complex rum. In the final stage the solera method is used to bring the age blend up to 15 to 25 years. Bottled at 40% ABV / 80 Proof, this is a great rum which deserves a space on the back shelf.

With most of the rums at the show being white, golden or spiced, it made a nice change to see an old navy dark style in Pusser’s Rum. Using the original blending information from the Royal Navy, Pusser’s Ltd was formed in 1979, on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. This multi-award winning rum is a blend of five West Indian rums and was issued on board Royal Navy ships until 1970. Bottled at 54% ABV / 108 Proof this is a serious rum, with over 300 years of historical background.

Last of the rums tasted on The Rum Experience stand was the DonQ Añejo Rum. This award winning Puerto Rican rum comes from the Destilería Serrallés in Ponce. Considered by locals to be Puerto Rico’s finest rum, the DonQ brand was introduced in 1932 and is named after the protagonist Don Quixote, from the classic Spanish novel of the same title. Bottled at 40% ABV / 80 Proof, this is a light golden rum that has been aged between 3 and 5 years.

Moving along to Imbibe Live’s red light district found me staring at a life size cardboard cut out of Ron Jeremy, promoting Ron de Jeremy. For those not familiar with his more ‘artistic’ films Ron Jeremy is the most famous male adult entertainment star in the world.

So what may you ask has that got to do with rum. Simply put, nothing other than the fact that Ron’s first name is Spanish for rum and the opportunity for a tongue in cheek advertising campaign with some very cheeky taglines, such as “For Adults Only” and “Long Smooth Taste”.

However, what is surprising about this hand crafted 7 year old, 40% ABV / 80 Proof rum from Panama is how good it is. While the celebrity affiliation may be somewhat gimmicky, the rum isn’t and I would certainly recommend contacting Master of Malt in the UK to purchase a bottle or more.

Leaving behind the rather stiff cardboard Ron, weighed down by my newly acquired Ron de Jeremy t-shirt and a sample of his most excellent rum, I suddenly found myself in perilous waters with a need to defend myself from monsters from the deep. I had found the The Kraken Black Spiced Rum stand and having missed out at last year’s Rumfest, I finally got a chance to try this 40% ABV / 80 Proof spiced rum.

Distributed in the UK by Marblehead, Kraken is a blend of Caribbean rums with 11 secret spices and is is a welcome addtion to the range of spiced rums available here.

Moving on from those dangerous waters, gave me a chance to chat with Chris Seale, of Speciality Brands, who are the UK distributor of the Venezuelan rum brand Ron Diplomático.

Produced in Venezuela by Destilerias Unidas, the company has been distilling spirits for over 45 years. Along with Ron Diplomático, Destilerias Unidas also distils Cacique and supplies the majority of the alcohol for Pampero rum.

With all four of their Diplomático rums to taste at the show, Chris introduced me to each one; the super premium Diplomático Blanco, the 4 year old Diplomático Añejo, the 8 year old Diplomático Reserva and lastly, the 12 year old Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva. All are bottled at 40% ABV / 80 Proof and are all exceptional spirits, with the three aged rums offering great value for money when considering their quality.

Of course that last statement isn’t to take anything away from the Blanco, but with the higher quality of this smooth blanco coming with a higher price, it does make it one of the more expensive white rums in the UK market. In conclusion though I can happily say that Ron Diplomático has certainly been added to my list of great rums to keep an eye out for.

Before leaving the show I decided to pop back to the Plantation Rum Tiki Bar and before I knew it I’d managed to throw caution to the wind and joined in with several attendees getting a tasting tour through the blended Plantation range. It was at this point that I also spotted the Canarian rum brand of Ron Aguere.

Unfortunately, no longer being able to do any justice to the idea of a proper tasting I sampled the rum and caramel toffee blend of their Licor Ron Aguere Caramelo. Distilled using “Volcanic Rum” from the Canary Islands, it is bottled at 24% ABV / 48 Proof, this deliciously sweet flavoured rum is best served cold and comes in a rather unique aluminium bottle. Ron Aguere produces several other rums including a Blanco, an Oro, a 7 year old Añejo and both Honey and Banana flavoured rums, which I hope I will have the chance to taste at some point in the future.

Leaving the Imbibe Live 2011 show somewhat richer in knowledge, contacts and intoxication, I even managed to leave with my hat still on, for which I should at least give a quick “hats off” to Aperol for letting me nab one of the last remaining straw-hats they had on their stand.

So with highlights of the day including finally tasting the El Dorado 12 and 15 Year Old Rum’s, trying out the soon to be released Chairman’s Reserve The Forgotten Casks, as well as tasting the excellent Plantation Gran Añejo Rum, to name but a few, it just leaves me to say thank you to Imbibe for organising the show, as well as a thank you to all of the people that spent the time with me discussing their products. With that I can’t wait to see what the show will have to offer next year.