W.I.R.D. is one of these distilleries… they’ve produced a few legendary Rums but besides that essentially only interchangable mainstream. I wonder if Plantation, who are in charge of W.I.R.D. now, will change it for the better or if they will bury the distillery and its legacy for good. For now, I have only tasted a…
Category: Barbados
WIRD/ WIRR/ Rockley/ Blackrock 1986 encore (old ones)
After the young ones, it is a pleasure to present the old ones as well! Berry Bros & Rudd Barbados (WIRR) 1986 21YO (46%): The youngest of the old ones, bottled at drinking strength. Oh yeah, that was still pretty much the standard in the first decade of the 2000s… Nose: Compared to the “young…
WIRD/ WIRR/ Rockley/ Blackrock 1986 encore (young ones)
A couple of old Rockleys came out recently and we’ve done a massive session to compare them. We’ve also included all the other, younger Rockleys we could find and decided to split the session for the reviews. Today, we will have the “younger ones” (<20), next time, we shall have a look at the “older…
Bearing(!?) Blends Part I
A good blend is more than just the sum of its parts. Of course that statement is supposed to be correct, yet most blenders don’t manage to live up to that standard. I guess at the end of the day many producers are just trying to disguise bad barrels. Nevertheless, a few blends manage to…
A bag of Bajans
There’s so much debate going on about the Barbados GI and to date I didn’t really comment on it. And that won’t change today for two reasons. Firstly, the disussion is really tiring and annoying. Secondly, others have come up with way better arguments and it should be easy for the concerned reader to come…
Mount Gay 2000
I don’t think much has to be said about Mount Gay, Barbados’ most consistent and prestigious distillery. If it really is the oldest rum distillery in the world or not is debateble, but it is the oldest one still producing today. At Single Cask Rum we do like Mount Gay but nevertheless this is the…
St. Nicholas Abbey
St. Nicholas Abbey, Barbados’ youngest distillery, started distilling in 2013, even though they were already bottling rum since 2009. While the distillery is very new, it is home to one of the oldest sugar cane plantations in Barbados and possibly also the entire Caribbean. It seems plausible that rum has been distilled here at some…
WIRD/ WIRR/ Rockley/ Blackrock 1986
This is the first of two large 1986 cross-tastings. Today we will have a look at the legendary Rockley 1986 batch, which has been distilled at the West Indies Rum Refiniery on Barbados. It’s the follow-up on the recent 2000 Rockley-style cross-tasting. For some more background information, let me refer you once again to Cedrik’s…
Another trio of W.I.R.D. 2000
After Cedrik’s article about W.I.R.D. and the Rockley style I just had to go back to them. I’ve already had quite a large session with the 1986 bottlings but I am currently waiting for another sample of an (alleged) legend to arrive. Alas, another trio of 2000s has to do it for now (click here…
Rockley – Deconstructing the Myth
Today we have a guest article by Cedrik, a fellow rum connoisseur who is probably the biggest fan of the Rockley-style I know. He has put together a few thoughts on this particular style of rum and communicated them privately through Whatsapp but I thought that they might be worth sharing with you guys so…
1423 World Class Spirits S.B.S Rums
Today we have the very first vertical tasting in which we examine the range of one bottler. Usually I prefer horizontal tastings (products of the same distillery or even batch) since they allow us to discern the differences between otherwise very similar Rums but some people also advocate this type of tasting so why not…
Velier Mount Gilboa 2008 9YO
I’ve written this review a few weeks ago and just had this rum in a blind-tasting. For the laughters: I couldn’t say with certainty what I was tasting. But then again, neither did my pals whom I have shared this bottle with. Once again, this showed how difficult blind-tastings really are. The Bottling After the Velier…
Single Cask Rum 