Rum Tasting Event

Rum Tasting event at the Sheaf View in Sheffield Tuesday 10th July 2012

The theme of this evening was to show some of the big names, highly regarded and highly decorated rums. Kind of a "best of". As I had run a rum tasting at that venue a few months previous these rums were to be different from the last one. As it turned out around half of the audience attended the previous event so I was justified in swapping the line up.

July Tasting
1. Diplomatico Reserva (Venezuela)
2. Pyrat XO (Anguilla) *Blend
3. Clement VSOP (Martinique)
4. Ron Zacapa 23 (Guatemala)
5. Pussers 15 (British Virgin Isles) *Blend
6. Mezan Jamaican
7. Plantation Panama 2000

El Dorado wasn't included as it featured in the last tasting event (see below). Also I included a Rhum Agricole just to show people that not all rum is sweet toffee, sugar and vanilla. Additionally I wasn't going to show rum that was available behind the bar and so things like Angostora 1919 and the hugely popular Kraken weren't on the list.
On the night the most popular were both the Pyrat XO and Ron Zacapa 23 (which I was very sure of from the start!). Interestingly the Clement was very well received (which I was pleased with) and also the Panama was fairly well liked. The Mezan Jamaican was far too pungent, the Pussers was somewhat lost amongst the line up (which surprised me) and I think the Diplomatico had been forgotten about by the end of the evening.
Given a little bit more money to play with then I'm sure the following would have been given an airing: Flor de Cana, Appleton, Mount Gay. However I'm sure they'll get an outing at future tastings.

As a comparison here is the line-up from the previous event:

March Tasting
I'm not 100% sure that 2-4 are in the correct order but everything else is.

1. New Grove Oak (Mauritius)
2. Plantation Barbados 5YO Single Cask
3. Mezan Trinidad
4. Trois Rivieres 5 YO (Martinique)
5. El Dorado 15 YO (Guyana)
6. Pussers Blue Label (British Virgin Isles) *Blend
7. Smith and Cross Jamaican

From this tasting the very strong Smith and Cross was liked. The overall winner was the Barbados 5YO Single Cask bottled by Plantation and the El Dorado 15 coming a very close second.\

The individual tasting notes for each drink will appear separately in the blog.