This si the day, first day of december and highly anticipated first day of rum advent calendar. For me that means danish one from company 1423 – World Class Spirits. So thanks to its founder and co-owner Joshua Singh, I can now open this calendar, 7th year in a row. Yeah, I started in december 2017, when I got my box as birthday present. I only missed first two years of this tradition. And first year, calendar for 2015, was available only for Denmark in lower numbers. So for me, I only missed one year.
What is it about? It is simple. Nice box, two sampling glasses and 24 rums, for each day one 0,02 sample. Also, last several years we have 24 rums from 24 different countries. This pushes this tradition further, thanks to it we can taste even unusual rum destinations. Like last year, when we got for example rum from Scotland. But enough about box, lets look at the first rum.
First rum of this year is Rum Explorer Thailand 5 yo. The brand Rum Explorer is french, based in Chateau du Breuil in Normandy and owned by La Spiriterie Française company. This company also sells cognac and calvados, they have their own whisky distillery. But Rum Explorer brand is about buying rum across the globe and bottling under one label. Sounds little bit like Plantation. Base offering of Rum Explorer is Caribbean, blend which is little bit cheaper than rest of the rums. Then they have the Gamme Origine series, which is their main product. It offers rums from one origins, currently from Belize, Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana, Australia, Dominican Republic, Canaries and Archipel des Mascareignes. And also todays Thailand. All of them have the same price of 40 euros. I can see also one more premium rum – Bielle distillery Marie-Gallante.
Rum Explorer Thailand comes from big thai beverages company and is distilled in Pathum Thani province. First several years is aged in Thailand then is tranfered to France where it ages several more months in cellars of Chateau du Breuil. American white oak cask which previously held local cognac are used for this second aging. Finally, the rum is bottled as 5 years old and in strength of 42 %.
Nose is soft and really not strong. I have problem to catch any tones. Solution was to put lid on my glass, let the scents concentrate. Here it helped, rum opens and tones started to appearing. Firstly tropical spices and tropical fruit. Later bit of woodiness with pleasant soft sweetness. The smell is aromatic, but still very delicate and light. Really not rum for sniffing.
Taste is stronger and more flavorful. There is no waiting like was on nose, I can go directly to tasting. It all starts with spiced, but those arent the spices known from most of caribbean rums. There is also woodiness, but its not typical oak flavor. No, this is something tropical, maybe wood from furniture making. In mounth it is sweetish with little bit os staleness. It is quite full but also gently prickly. In time I start to recognize weaker tones of earthiness and chocolade, mountfell starts being more juicy. Woodines changes little bit into some artificial and spicy wood, its hard to recognize. But yeah, I know this, this is cognac cask, woodiness changed by cognac and wood spices. As I now know about cognac, the tones comes forward, along with dark chocolate and nougat. The mounthfeel is full, but the taste is still not really strong.
Finish starts with artificial wood and bits of chocolate. The dark chocolate grows stronger, pralines and nougat appears too. The finish is dominated by chocolate tones. In the background there are warming spices and hints of cofee and cognac. In the end, only spiced remains. Finish is pleasant, is adequately long and strong.
This is rum which needs time and needs him a lot. Little concentration of under lid, little warming of glass in hand and then I found pleasant rum, quite relaxing one. But this rum didnt come as anything special worth mentioning. Its good, but its not that good. For me it is weak and too much light rum, nothing I need to come back to. So, this first day of calendar was good, because I get to taste new brand of rum and something of unnusual destination, but not for the rum itself.
