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Interesting and intriguing rum from the US of A
Information
New players seem to be popping up all over the field.
Constantly. Blink, and boom, a new rum company spawned.
Richland Rum out of Georgia US of A, is on of those new kids
on the block, and one of the most open rum producers I have encountered so far,
when it comes to laying it all out there in the internet.
Go to their webpage (link at the bottom) and you will
quickly be able to learn everything Richland Rum stands for.
Back to the rum.
The Richland is made from local and organic cane juice.
Actually they keep mentioning ”pure cane syrup”, but what is that except for
reduced juice?
After fermentation, the wash is then distilled in two copper
pot stills. Small batch distillation only.
The rum is laid to rest in virgin American oak barrels for
at least 32 months before being eligible for bottling. And every single barrel
is being bottled as a single cask rum. So no blending what so ever.
Furthermore it is a pure rum - No colouring, additives or
added flavours.
That is about it. No additional age is mentioned, so we’ll
have to assume that we are dealing with a 3 year old rum here. Interesting.
Presentation
It comes in a nice cylindrical bottle , with no real
features to speak up. Not bad.
There is quite a lot written directly on the bottle with
golden text.
The name, the origin, the way it’s crafted, a sketch of a
pot still and a lot more.
Normally I would hate this sort of thing, but in this case
it has been done in a great manor and I can’t really dislike it. For some
reason it kind of gets to me in a good way.
Op top we have a natural cork with a wooden stopper hidden
away in a red shrink wrap.
The over all package in fairly nice, but it doesn’t signal
luxury rum.
In the glass it displays are dark amber colour and when
twirled it generates a lot of small droplets, which slowly moves down from
their place of creation.
Nose
Right from the beginning it shows off its very buttery and
pastry-like profile.
The first scents I noticed was a dominating combination of
orange peel and coconut.
After that came a layer of rubber and smoke. It almost felt
like smoking tires.
Suddenly, I noticed that everything was shrouded in a thick,
blurry layer of vanilla and baking spices and just a little bit of oak to add
that final touch.
Overall a very nice nose. Nothing too exciting or dominating.
Just a lot of small pleasantries neatly woven together.
Taste
Rather light profile, but with some pleasant pungency.
It comes off very spicy with huge oaks and black peppers,
along with lots of cinnamon, cloves and anise.
The pastry feel from the nose is back. There is definitely
some puff pastry in there.
A little further in the background is a wacky note of
concentrated fruit something. I can’t really nail which fruit we are talking
about. It feels like orange, but it doesn’t quite taste like it. It feels like
apples, but doesn’t quite taste like it. It almost like a very bad Hampden.
All the way back at the very end, I found a little rubber
notes.
The palate was quite charming, but it could have been
better, more intriguing, more adventurous. Unfortunately it wasn’t - but for some reason, I still want more.
Finish
It leaves again quite fast. It barely takes any time to say goodbye.
There is some warmth present, but it all fades fast, ending
with a drying sensation.
Nothing else to write home about.
Rating and final
thoughts
Not a bad rum at all. It feels like a very good effort from
Richland Rum
It has a lot a charming character, and does a couple of
thing a bit differently than everybody else.
It surprised me a lot, that the massive oaks and peppers on
the palate doesn’t result in some aftermath during the finish. But it didn’t.
On the an overall level it feels very much like an unholy
mating between a Bajan and a Jamaican,
best identified on the palate. But instead of being a symbiosis, it
feels much more like a case of schizophrenia. It misses balance and
integration. It feels like a lot of individual elements thrown into a pot and
stirred, but without ever merging together.
I did enjoy the rum, but I enjoy a lot of other same level
rums more.
Value for money is really a stretch here. It retails for
around €90 in my local shops, which is a lot!
Before it landed in the shops, I thought to myself, that it
would have to be introduced at a lower price range to be recommendable. Unfortunately
it wasn’t.
If you are a bit adventurous and would like to see what
those mad Americans are up to, by all means, go nuts and get your self one. If
your finances are limited, you might want to start off somewhere else.
If you like the Jamaican funk, there is always the Appleton
12. If you like buttery profiles along with some coconut, you could opt for the
Plantation Barbados XO instead if you don’t mind it being ”impure”.
The Richland does have a lot of qualities, but it is quite a
ways from the top of the class.
It is enjoyable and a little different, so it is definitely
worth trying, if you are into Bajan or Jamaican rums.
I have to stress that we are dealing with a single cask
product, so each batch will most certainly be different in some way. Perhaps
this batch was a bit off, perhaps the barrel wasn’t toasted properly.
I don’t know, but the particular one I tried, wasn’t quite
up to par with being a true artisanal rum.
I will however be trying it again later on, because it is that interesting!
Summing it all up, I land at a …
Rating: 78/100
Links
http://www.richlandrum.com/home.html
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