August 2010 Food & Wine

[Edward Hamilton]

Edward Hamilton, Smuggler's Cove and a few of your favorite rums are mentioned in the August, 2010 issue of Food & Wine (http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/rum).

[RonJames]

Go get 'um Ed, congrads as it looks like good rum is getting more good press.cheers.gif

[gordonbeall]

Man... am having a bit of a problem with that! How F&W could list that one as a light PR style rum is kinda hard to figure out. But as the Romans would say... (ok who wants to hear what the Romans would say?)

[Edward Hamilton]

Man... am having a bit of a problem with that! How F&W could list that one as a light PR style rum is kinda hard to figure out.

If you're referring to Don Q Gran Añejo, how would you describe it?

[gordonbeall]

No Ed, unless I am bonkers, it sure looked to me like they had Zaya listed as a light PR style... (never have had the DonQ GR...)

[gordonbeall]

Meant DonQ GA, sorry

[gordonbeall]

Hi Ed... here's the a screen shot of what I am looking at when I click on that F&W link...looks to me like they have Zaya in the light PR style, and if I were the one to be categorizing that I would at least put it in the "medium" category. I for one, find Zaya to be one of the most in your face rums, sweet, heady, full bodied and with a very very pronounced vanilla component (which, personally, I don't particularly favor.) To each his own of course. But I find it difficult to do much with Zaya because of the heavy vanilla flavor. I like it on vanilla ice cream! And it's not bad as a Dark and Stormy, (sorry Goslings.. didn't mean to intrude) Ok with tonic. Ok to sip a bit of... but there are a lot of other rums that I, personally, would favor ahead of it. Never tried it with Coke... but then again, haven't done that with anything in about 20 years. Maybe I should sometime... So here's the screen shot.. and, btw... am looking forward to running into my first bottle of DQ older offerings because I very much like their standard stuff.

[Jamie76]

Hi Ed... here's the a screen shot of what I am looking at when I click on that F&W link...looks to me like they have Zaya in the light PR style, and if I were the one to be categorizing that I would at least put it in the "medium" category. I for one, find Zaya to be one of the most in your face rums, sweet, heady, full bodied and with a very very pronounced vanilla component (which, personally, I don't particularly favor.) To each his own of course. But I find it difficult to do much with Zaya because of the heavy vanilla flavor. I like it on vanilla ice cream! And it's not bad as a Dark and Stormy, (sorry Goslings.. didn't mean to intrude) Ok with tonic. Ok to sip a bit of... but there are a lot of other rums that I, personally, would favor ahead of it. Never tried it with Coke... but then again, haven't done that with anything in about 20 years. Maybe I should sometime... So here's the screen shot.. and, btw... am looking forward to running into my first bottle of DQ older offerings because I very much like their standard stuff.

Ya, it does say "light" however, I think they meant "medium."

[RonJames]

I like the way you've phrased stuff GordonBeAll, I didn't realize it when I read the article but it does make it look like zaya is light rum by putting it under the Don Q GA. It is more of a medium sweety with lots of vanilla, which my wife loves. Do try the don q GA. Its smoky, toffee, nice burn, and not too sweet. Its actually what turned me onto sipping and rum in general. The importer for don q are good people as well.

[gordonbeall]

Hey Ron, just another word or two on the subject, not wishing to drive it into the ground, but when I first saw the way F&W listed Zaya it was this big "HUH??" moment for me. As I said earlier, I'm not a fan of the heavy vanilla component, but many folks are, so go for it, Zaya! But I think the only really unfortunate thing about the F&W categorization is that if you were a consumer without a lot of knowledge about rums and were taking their advice, expecting a light rum... you'd wind up on another planet, and maybe not even know you were there! End of story. Also, am definitely putting the DQ GA on my find soon list... along with ED3, which I am really looking forward to as well. Thanks for the input!

[RonJames]

No worries Gordon, you actually inspired me last night for a glass of my don q GA. One thing I will say about zaya/zacapa, I usually have someone start off with this sipper if they've never sipped before. Don't get me wrong, my scotch and bourbon buddy's never get to see zaya, but some of my wife's wine cooler friends its perfect for. And it does go good on pancakes doesn't it.drooling3.gif

[Edward Hamilton]

Since I didn't write this article I didn't have much input into which rums were discussed. My discussion with the editors was that Puerto Rico produces some of the lightest rums in the Caribbbean, in order of increasing body, Trinidad would be the next logical step, then Virgin Islands, on to Barbados and lastly Guyana and Jamaica.

Had I seen the layout before this was printed, I certainly would have suggested some changes, but as a source for an article, I didn't have any input into how this was going to be laid out or which rums they were going to use. Certainly, the informed members of this forum would agree that El Dorado 3 year old cask aged rum is a light rum, despite the fact that it is from Guyana. On the other hand, El Dorado 15 year old is one of the heaviest rums from the Caribbean. In the past fifteen years I've seen the Jamaican rums tend to be a bit lighter in body my point being that it is impossible to make generalizations about the most diverse of all the distilled spirits and be correct all the time.

And as a source for an article, there isn't much I can do about which rums are highlighted or how they are portrayed. In defense of Food & Wine, I will say that they did put Trinidad above the bottle of Zaya and despite the heavy vanilla flavor, the base rum is quite light, though probably not as light as the Puerto Rican rums.

In the bigger scheme of things I see a number of people who have come to this forum after tasting Zaya and saying "I didn't know rum could taste like this," and have then gone on to discover other rums that are less sweet and that have less vanilla flavor.

[gordonbeall]

Hey Ed, just discovered your comments here, and would like to make one final comment on this since I was the one to start the whole thing going a few days ago... just to set the record straight, I know all too well how once something is fed to a media source that it is completely out of your hands and they will do anything they want, not to suggest maliciously of course, but hey, they are the ones who are putting it in final form, not you or me or anyone else. So I was never suggesting in the original (or following) comments that you were responsible for the way it turned out. The existence of this site will attest to that.