“I really don’t like rum, I haven’t found one that I like” was the comment from Izzy during a discussion over drinks on ‘Izzy R’. “Too bad we never met that Minster of Rum guy that they talk about in ‘An Embarrassment of Mangoes.’” Well, Ed Hamilton is plying his rum expertise in the U.S. these days, so a cameo appearance from him is unlikely, so that, to me, sounded like the perfect excuse to have another rum tasting get-together, but our first away from Grenada.

Ken and I gathered our “collection” of rum together to see what we could offer to the rum education of ‘Banyan’ and ‘Izzy R’. Jeff and Izzy had two bottles of the French “Rhum Agricole” to offer to the experience, Alex and Dave had one, and we had 4 bottles from other countries to give a reasonable representation of different types of rums.

The good news is that Izzy did find out that rum can be VERY enjoyable, and that even the least pleasant to the taste buds (on its’ own) can be dealt with in such a way to make it an enjoyable cocktail. It was the first time any of them had tasted the French Antilles specialty of “ti punch” as well. It was a hit.

It was the first time that Ken and I had the chance to try a couple of the Agricole rums in a taste test like this. There certainly is quite the difference between distilleries, but of course, everyone needs to find their market. All three of the “rhums” were “vieux” (old or aged) but after that the difference was quite marked. They ranged from a floor stripper to a decent sipping rum, but they weren’t the overwhelming favourites.

We had two Guyanese rums from the same distillery, but one was 5 years old and the other was 12 years old. It is worth waiting the extra 7 years to get a decent sipping rum.

It was an entertaining and fun evening in the cockpit of ‘Silverheels III’. Ken and I are quite relieved that we know we won’t have hangovers the next day as we went easy on the samples and basically coasted for the rest of the evening. We aren’t entirely sure how the crews of the other two boats are going to feel in the morning.