Rum and chocolate tasting notes
This month's booze tasting was a variety of rums, although it was structured as a rum and chocolate tasting, not just rum. The session was led by Duane Dove of Tobago Cocoa, who also runs a restaurant and bar (warning: music) in Stockholm, with a very large selection of rums.
Again, rum is a spirit I don't really know much about - I've drunk some before, obviously, but only stuff that you can get in any supermarket or pub - so the evening was educational as well as refreshing. And as with the armagnac tasting, I rather lack the vocabulary to truly describe what I was drinking, but I shall do my best ...
- Angostura 1919, 8yo: vanilla and banana nose, sour cherries and ginger taste, with perhaps a little pineapple.
- Diplomatico reserva exclusivo, 12yo: coffee and chocolate nose with something of the smell of a freshly painted room too, the taste was vanilla essence and very very sweet. Too sweet in my opinion.
- Trois Rivieres 1997 vintage: bananas, spices and cherries on the nose, a spicey taste but rather bitter. It went quite well with the chocolate it was paired with, but doesn't stand up well on its own.
- XM Royal Demerara, 10yo: vanilla, banana and almond nose, sweet honey taste.
- Appleton Estate extra 12yo: perhaps the most whisky-like of all the rums that we tried, this had gentle smoke on the nose, with some resin developing over time and something redolent of an autumn woodland. The taste was berries with some dry mustiness. Very nice.
Now, if I lack the specialist vocabulary to describe rums, I lack that to describe chocolate even more. I'm rather sorry to say that, if you ignore the additives that were in some of the chocolates (such as orange peel) they all just tasted of ... really good chocolate.
The chocs were Pralus Trinidad (apparently available at Monmouth Coffee), Valrhona Trinidadian single estate (who have a crappy website that I can't link to), Amadei Chuao, and a couple of pralines from Dove's restaurant in Stockholm. All were very nice, and if I had to pick a favourite it would be the Pralus.