Transcontinental Rum Line

Transcontinental Rum Line, short TCRL, is the rum brand of La Maison du Whisky, one of the largest French specialists in importing and distributing rare whiskies. Founded by Georges Bénitah in 1956, the family business’ first shop has been opened in Paris in 1968. Three more shops followed in Paris, plus another two on La Réunion and in Singapore in more recent times. In the 1970s, Georges became one of the first people to import Scotch to France. In the rum scene, the company became more important with the increased demand in Velier‘s bottlings as LMDW is not only the perhaps primary source for Velier’s rums but also the distributor for some of their releases. The TCRL has been launched in 2016 and the reception of their products has been phenomenal. Again, as with many bottlers these days, I’d say the quality of their choices has been at best mixed so far. Especially the relatively young releases leave a lot to be desired. At least to my mind, Velier, with their Habitation Velier series, have set the benchmark in this category. What’s interesting is that TCRL bottle in both, cask (let me include the 57% Navy Strength bottlings here as well) and drinking strength and their products seem to be only available in the one or the other. Let me tell you, and it shouldn’t come as a big surprise, that all the “hits” have been in cask strength while most of the “misses” have been drinking strength bottlings. While they don’t provide a definitive age statement (besides giving the year of distillation and bottling), they let us know to what extent the rums have been ageing in the tropics or in Europe. A more than welcome addition!

Barbados