American Rum Report

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American Rum Report #27 — April 17, 2020

Will Hoekenga

~ In This Report ~

#1: Which American rums won awards from the American Distilling Institute this year? (Plus some notes.) 🥇🥈🥉

#2: Reddit brings out a thoughtful and informative review of Ko Hana Distillery's Cask Strength Sherry Finish Rum  🤔

#3: Rob Burr takes a quick look at Don Q's Single Barrel 2009 release 🇵🇷

#1: Breaking down the rum results of the American Distilling Institute's annual craft spirits awards 🥇🥈🥉

The American Distilling Institute recently announced its annual craft spirits award winners from a field that included "almost 1,000" spirit entries, according to ADI.

It's kind of difficult to browse the winners on ADI's site, so I thought it would be fun to include them for you to peruse below, along with some shooting-from-the-hip thoughts. 

But first, some context for how ADI's awards work:

  • Entrants pay to enter the competition. (Note: I'm not pointing this out as a criticism. Paying for entry is pretty standard in spirits competitions.)

  • Entrants receive notes/feedback from judges whether they earn a medal or not.
     

  • The competition is open to producers worldwide, and has many international categories.
     

  • There are 45 judges. According to ADI, they are a mix of distillers, wholesalers, importers, retailers, bartenders, educators, and journalists/writers.
     

  • The judges assign spirits a score based on a 100-point system that correlates to medals.

    • 70-79 is Bronze

    • 80-89 is Silver

    • 90-100 is Gold
       

  • After each panel of judges has scored a flight, the judges discuss which medals spirits should be awarded, with a spirit's average score being the starting point for the discussion. If all the judges recommend a Gold medal, they can decide as a group to award it a Double Gold medal.
     

  • When all of the spirits in a category have been judged, the judges will designate one spirit as the Best of Category winner (for example, Best Pot Still Rum).
     

  • When all of the spirits in a class have been judged (for example, rum), any spirits that earned a Gold OR Double Gold medal AND a Best of Category award are eligible to win a Best of Class award (for example, Best U.S. Rum).
     

  • Around 75% of entrants earned a medal this year. Gold and Double Gold accounted for 11% of medals awarded.

ADI awards medals for both internationally and domestically produced rums. For the sake of brevity, I'm only going to include the awards for domestically produced rums below (but you can view the complete list of awards here). 

Within the class of domestically produced rums, ADI awards medals in the following categories:

  • Pot Still Rum

  • Hybrid Still Rum

  • Column Still Rum

  • Blend of Pot & Column Rum

  • Overproof Rum

  • Spiced Rum

  • Flavored Rum

Before we dive into the results below, a few thoughts, musings, and stats that jumped out at me while perusing:

  • 65 total medals were awarded for domestically produced rums. Feels like a lot! If someone had asked me to bet on the number of medal-deserving American rums with the over/under at 65, I probably would've taken the under. And remember, not every American rum producer entered this competition. However, I think this is mostly due to the gap in how consumers view medals versus how judges view them. If I saw someone score a rum as a 72 out of 100, I'd view it like getting a C- on a test—average and unspectacular. But this isn't ninth grade geometry. In most competitions, that score earns a bronze medal.
     

  • Those 65 medals went to 43 different producers.
     

  • Seven were gold, 34 were silver, and 24 were bronze. (For the sake of comparison, the ACSA awarded one gold, four silvers, and 27 bronze medals to American rums—again, with fewer entrants, though.)
     

  • No American-produced rums won the vaunted Double Gold medal. Only 23 were given out across the whole competition. Paranubes Oaxacan Rum did take home a Double Gold in the International Rum class, however.
     

  • 65 total domestic rum medals compares favorably to the number awarded to domestically produced rums by the American Craft Spirits Association this year, which awarded 32 medals (but had a little over half the total number of spirit entries as the ADI awards).
     

  • As you may have noted when looking at the categories, age does not play a role at all. Within the Pot Still Rum category, for example, you could have an unaged rum judged right next to a 10-year-old rum. This feels odd to me, but I'd love to hear the reasoning!
     

  • One of the two domestically-produced "Best in Class" rums was Next Century Spirits' Exalted Aged Rum, which is produced with what some might describe as "accelerated" or "rapid aging" technology. As Next Century Spirits describes it, "Our patented process combines traditional techniques with a proprietary finishing technology to create complex and unique flavor profiles that are typical of spirits matured for a much longer length of time." Huh. And to think we were all just sitting here aging rum with barrels and regular ol' time like a bunch of cavemen.

Alright, let's get to those awards, shall we? Best of category winners are in bold. Best of class winners are in bold and have a trophy emoji next to them.

Pot Still Rum

Gold Medals:

  • Atelier Vie - Calio Rum (New Orleans, LA)

  • Three Roll Estate - Rhum Agricole (Baton Rouge, LA)

Silver Medals:

  • 117 West Spirits - Aged Rum (Vista, CA)

  • Iron Goat Distillery - Amber Rum (Fredericksburg, TX)

  • Long Road Distillers - Original Rum (Grand Rapids, MI)

  • Pennsylvania Pure Distilleries - BLY Silver Rum (Glenshaw, PA)

  • Round Barn Distillery - Red Sky Rum (Baroda, MI)

  • Three Floyds Distilling Co. - Blanq Reavers Rum (Munster, IN)

  • Three of Strong Spirits - Brightwater Rum (Portland, ME)

  • Three Roll Estate - Dark Rum (Baton Rouge, LA)

  • Three Roll Estate - White Rum (Baton Rouge, LA)

  • Wright & Brown Distilling Co. - White Rum (Oakland, CA)

Bronze Medals:

  • Grand Canyon Brewing + Distillery - Rum (Williams, AZ)

  • Swamp Fox Distilling - Pure Corruption Naked Rum (Pendleton, SC)

  • Three Roll Estate - Rhum Agricole Vieux (Baton Rouge, LA)

  • Three Roll Estate - Red Stick Cinnamon Rum (Baton Rouge, LA) *Note: Not sure why this isn't categorized under flavored rum

Hybrid Still Rum

Gold Medals:

  • Goleta Red Distilling Company - Sterling Silver Rum (Goleta, CA)

  • Next Century Spirits - Exalted Aged Rum (Raleigh, NC) 🏆

  • Wicked Dolphin Distillery - Six Year Bottled in Bond Rum (Cape Coral, FL)

Silver Medals:

  • 10,000 Drops Craft Distillers - Silver Rum (Faribault, MN)

  • Dread River Distilling Company - Rum (Birmingham, AL)

  • Hanalei Spirits - Dark Rum (Kilauea, HI)

  • Missouri State University Distillery - Rum (Springfield, MO)

  • Seven Caves Spirits - Aged Rum R15 (San Diego, CA)

  • Seven Three Distilling Co. - Black Pearl Rum (New Orleans, LA)

  • South Hollow Spirits - Twenty Boat Cape Cod Amber Rum, Twenty Boat Cape Cod White Rum, and Twenty Boat Cask Finish Reserve Rum (North Truro, MA)

  • Wicked Dolphin Distillery - Silver Reserve Rum (Cape Coral, FL)

Bronze Medals:

  • Bespoken Spirits - California Rum (Menlo Park, CA)

  • Hotel Tango Distillery - Rum (Indianapolis, IN)

  • Lost State Distilling - Nolichucky Jack Silver Rum (Bristol, TN)

  • Lula Restaurant Distillery - Rum (New Orleans, LA)

  • Patio 29 Spirits Company - Twin Mischief Rum (Winters, CA)

  • Rollins Distillery - Esprit de Krewe Golden Rum (Gulf Breeze, CA)

  • Sugar Works Distillery - Turnbull Bay Silver Rum (New Smyrna Beach, FL)

 Column Still Rum

Gold Medals:

  • Islamorada Distilling - Dark Rum (Islamorada, FL)

Silver Medals:

  • Crostwater Distilled Spirits - Aged Rum (Lewisberry, PA)

  • Heritage Distilling Company - Cask Club Reserve Brown Sugar Vanilla Rum; Distiller's Reserve Aged "Rum Runner" (Gig Harbor, WA)

  • Pennsylvania Pure Distilleries - BLY Silver Rum 105 Proof (Glenshaw, PA)

Bronze Medals:

  • Heritage Distilling Company - Batch No. 12 Rum; Commander's Silver Rum; Elk Rider Rum (Gig Harbor, WA)

  • Wise Men Distillery - White Rum (Grand Rapids, MI)

Blend of Pot & Column Rum

Gold Medals:

  • Tampa Bay Rum Company - Gasparilla Reserve (Tampa Bay, FL) 🏆

Silver Medals:

  • Cutwater Spirits - Three Sheets Barrel Aged Rum; Three Sheets Cask Strength Rum (San Diego, CA)

  • Lakeward Spirits - Erie Gold Aged Rum (Buffalo, NY)

  • Three of Strong Spirits - Stone Pier Rum (Portland, ME)

Bronze Medals:

  • Cutwater Spirits - Three Sheets Rum (San Diego, CA)

 Overproof Rum

Silver Medals:

  • Virago Spirits - 151 High Proof Rum (Richmond, VA)

 Spiced Rum

Gold Medals:

  • None

Silver Medals:

  • Bear Creek Distillery - Spiced Rum (Denver, CO)

  • Cook Inlet Distillery - Three Sheets to the Wind Spiced Rum (Anchorage, AK)

  • Three Crosses Distilling Company - Crossed Rifles Spiced Rum (Powhatan, VA)

Bronze Medals:

  • Gulch Distillers - Flintlock Spiced Rum Bourbon Cask (Helena, MT)

  • Heritage Distilling Company - Distiller's Reserve Aged Spiced Rum (Gig Harbor, WA)

  • Sugar Works Distillery - Turnbull Bay Spice Flavored Rum (New Smyrna Beach, FL)

  • Swamp Fox Distilling - Pure Corruption Sinfully Spiced Rum (Pendleton, SC)

  • Three of Strong Spirits - Merrymeeting Spiced Rum (Portland, ME)

  • Twelve 33 Distillery - Crusader Spiced Rum (Little River, SC)

 Flavored Rum

Gold Medals:

  • None

Silver Medals:

  • Cutwater Spirits - Bali Hai Tiki Gold Pineapple Flavored Rum (San Diego, CA)

  • Five Saints Distilling and International Spirits - Humane No. 1 Rum (Norristown, PA)

Bronze Medals:

  • Seven Caves Spirits - Jasmine Tea Rum (San Diego, CA)

  • Sugar Works Distillery - Turnbull Bay Vanilla Flavored Rum (New Smyrna Beach, FL)

Again, you can view the full list of winners here.

#2: Reddit brings out a thoughtful and informative review of Ko Hana Rum's Cask Strength Sherry Finish Rum 🤔

Surprising but true: Reddit is home to quite a few thoughtful rum reviewers! I regularly enjoy reading them in the r/rum community, particularly when they come from a Redditor with the username Tarquin_Underspoon. 

Tarquin always manages to work just the right dose of historical and contextual information into his reviews, so by the end you're left with much more than just a smattering of tasting notes and a number that's supposed to tell you something. (In fact, there's not a score at all.) 

So I'm always sure to pay extra attention when they review an American rum. 

This review of Ko Hana's Cask Strength Sherry Finish KOA Rum shows why. 

For starters, it's jut a fascinating rum—Ko Hana grows their own sugarcane on Oahu using heirloom Hawaiian varietals. They then crush, ferment, and distill the fresh juice for all of their rum expressions. This particular expression was then aged primarily in ex-whiskey barrels before a shorter trip through sherry casks.

But beyond that, the reviewer's big picture assessment of the rum makes the whole review worth reading for any distillers seeking to capture the imagination of online rum aficionados: "Overall, this single-cask KoHana offering might be the most satisfying experience that I’ve encountered in the wide world of American craft rum."

Check out the full review here.

And check out all of r/rum while you're at it! I frequently find useful stuff and enjoyable rum conversations there. It's usually not as weird as the rest of Reddit. :)

#3: Rob Burr takes a quick look at Don Q's Single Barrel 2009 release 🇵🇷

I've been impressed with the signature releases coming out of Don Q lately (though I wish the U.S. market would get some of the higher ABV bottlings like Europe has gotten!), so I enjoyed Rob's quick look at the Single Barrel 2009 release.

If you see them in the wild, the sherry cask finish and vermouth cask finish bottles are worth a look, too!

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