More Rum night insights

Peter Holland held another Bournemouth Rum Club night in the Library of Liquor, this time focussing on the rums from Guyana. His previous rum nights have been a kind of Rum 101 broad overview to get people into understanding the differences in making rum and the different historical perspectives.

This time Peter made the introduction but settled back stage to allow brand ambassadors Dean MacGregor (El Dorado Demerara Rum) and Stephen Rutherford (Woods Navy Rum) to do the main event of talking us through tasting of the various rums rums from Guyana.

Having been to two Rum nights now, it is very much an eye opener. It's not just a cheap and dirty spirit for mixing up great cocktails, there's a lot more breadth and depth to it. Some of the new expressions such as being aged in whisky casks and so on make for some very interesting tasting.

Due to the heat and humidity of the area, the ageing process in the barrel can be 4 times the equivalent of say Scotch Whisky, so a 5 year old rum could be viewed by some quarters as having been aged for 20 years in Scotland.

First up on the night was the El Dorado range. Dean took us through the 3 year old, 5 year old and the 8 year old. There was a much older and stronger one that came out later but can't remember what it was, but it was a bit full on.

Second round was with Stephen giving some history to the Woods brand, what makes up a Navy strength rum and why, and its revival. Reviving days gone by for the modern era.

Some of the stronger darker rums were reminiscent of fruits and cake, fruitcake? We even tried eating chocolate and then sipping on a rum.

I didn't take down too many notes and by the time I was halfway through writing this, it was time for the next month's rum club event, this time featuring the agricole of Martinique. I got there a bit late so was trying to catch up.

There were three white rums and three dark ones. Agricole is a bit different as it is made from sugar cane juice and not molasses.

This was one of my favourites from the night: J Bally 2000. The Trois Rivieres Cuvee de l'Ocean also got a lot of love on the night from James Fowler, owner of the Larder House. The Maison La Mauny also definitely smelt of sugar cane.