The annual Miami Rum Renaissance show is equal parts rum evangelism to the curious and family reunion for the hard-core rum crowd. Having inexplicably missed Rum Renaissance last year, it was at the top of my 2015 list of non-negotiable trips, along with the upcoming Tales of the Cocktail in July. Miami does have some amazing things happening at all times, it makes you never want to leave its beautiful area. You can do everything from relaxing on its iconic beaches, to even have a tour from above by charting a plane from somewhere like Jettly.com. It’s no wonder why so many people visit this city every year, even when there’s not a Rum event on!
Because Miami is such a diverse and exciting place, it may be worth having a few days before or after the festival booked off so you can really enjoy your time there. I have checked on sites like https://www.manhattanmiami.com to see about getting my own apartment there so I never have to be too far away from all the fun.
The core of Rum Renaissance is a three-day exhibition, held at the Miami Airport Convention Center, wherein rum producers host booths for sampling rum and related goodies – rum cake, anyone? Some companies go all out in a large booth with tons of ornamentation, they also could have potentially enlisted companies similar to Classic Exhibits to possibly assist in making their booths stand out. There are a lot of booths at this fair so the desire to stand out as a business is arguably understandable. However, not all brands choose to go for an all-out decoration and stand as a way of standing out from the crowd. Some others are more spartan, choosing to let the rums speak for themselves. A few days prior to the event an assembled panel of rum experts (RumXPs) judge dozens of rums in various classes, electing a “Best in Class” and three gold medals per class. The results are announced the evening of the first day, and medals are handed out for prominent display by the winning vendors over the following two days.
Lost Spirits, which I’ve covered extensively, has been in the news of late about their plan for a spirits aging “reactor” that claims to provide the equivalent of twenty years of aging in six days. Leading up to Rum Renaissance, master distiller Bryan Davis had announced a new rum called Prometheus, modeled after the 33-year aged Port Mourant from Guyana, to debut at Rum Renaissance. To say the Prometheus was highly anticipated by the rum cognoscenti is an understatement. Although finished bottles of Prometheus were not on hand for sale, Bryan brought a sample bottle that he shared with a few lucky folks, myself included. I look forward to reviewing it once available.
Toward the end of the first day, I was watching Bryan explain the Lost Spirits story to someone. Standing next to me was an older gentleman, whom I soon realized hadn’t heard the whole Lost Spirits pitch, so I began explaining it to him. We soon exchanged names and only then did I realize it was Phil Prichard, of Prichard’s Distillery in Kelso, Tennessee. Talk about an honor! Like Bryan, Phil is a maverick in the spirits industry, bucking the conventional wisdom and competing with the big guys. Mrs. Wonk and I had visited the distillery a few months back but hadn’t met Phil then, so meeting him at Rum Renaissance was an unexpected surprise. As Phil, Bryan, and I chatted, I realized that highly anticipated seminar by Richard Seale on rum categorization was starting momentarily, so the three of us hastily left to get seats.
Like Bryan and Phil, Richard Seale of Foursquare Distilleryin Barbados has acquired a reputation as an iconoclast, a teller of hard truths about the rum industry. He’s best known for forcing the rum community to talk about the practice of adding sugar and other additives to rum without being labeled as such. Richard contends (and I agree) that there are artisanal rums being produced that are on equal footing with premium spirits like single malt scotch, but that rum as a category is held back by useless categorizations (e.g. “white”, “gold” and “dark,”) as well as shenanigans by the big players, including unlabeled additives. At the start of Richard’s session, each attendee was given four unlabeled rum samples with obviously different coloring. Our task was to identify each sample – they all tasted nice enough, but were quite different from each other. The trick was on us however, as Richard revealed they were all the same rum, but with different flavorings added. Even the experts are fooled by this sort of chicanery. Among the key points Richard made is that the type of distillation matters, i.e. pot still, column still, and blends. The session wrapped up with a call to action: Rum producers need to decide whether to go the premium, regulated route like Scotch and Cognac, or whether (like vodka) rum’s value comes solely from marketing and packaging.
Having reviewed the Afrohead Seven-year rum recently, I was happy to have a long conversation with Afrohead’s founders, Toby Tyler and Joe Farrell from Harbor Island in the Bahamas. It’s clear that Afrohead is spending some serious marketing money to make an entrance into the rum category, including hosting a breakfast for the RumXP judges. Their booth included large images of the distinctive Afrohead logo, each highlighting a hidden symbol within the design. Among the fun moments of our conversation was when Toby showed me photos on his phone from his trip to the Angostura distillery blending room, where he works on Afrohead’s blends. We talked primarily about the 15 year which I hope to review here soon.
This year, Rum Renaissance benefited from the addition of a “Trade Expo” portion only accessible to the media and trade, featuring a variety of interesting rums, most currently without US distribution. A special deal allowed these rums to be imported for sampling and allowed generous amounts of time for serious conversations with the producers without being swarmed by folks looking for yet another glass of rum punch or one of their free Custom T-Shirts, which looked pretty amazing so no wonder so many people wanted to grab one.
Just after entering the Trade Expo section, I spotted Bristol Classic Rums founder John Barrett at a table with a few of their rums. I bee-lined over for some quality time with John, primarily talking about the Bristol story. I already own two of the five Bristol Classic rums he had on display, including the Black Spiced which I reviewedearlier. The new (to me) Bristol expressions were a 1996 Caroni, a 2004 Barbados, and a 2004 Haitian, the latter of which was considered a thing of beauty by myself and several others.
Nearby was the Authentic Caribbean Rum (ACR) table. ACR is an alliance of rum producers who have strict standards about the quality of their rums. The table was lined with many top-notch rums I recognized–some by personal experience, other by extensive reading of rum blogs. Among the ACR table highlights for me was the St. Nicholas Abbey 5-year, the first aged expression created entirely at the distillery in Barbados. I own the St. Nicholas Abbey 10 and 15 as a result of visiting the distilleryin 2013; the 10- and 15-year were distilled by Foursquare and then sold to St. Nicholas Abbey, where they underwent additional aging. I found the St. Nicholas Abbey Five to be very smooth, with fewer acetone notes than I get from the 10 and 15 year. Other ACR highlights included the Hampden Gold and Monymusk (love my Jamaican funk!) and the Foursquare port cask-finished.
The Trade Expo area also featured much newer rum producers. Skotlander rum from Denmark showed several of their offerings, including an unaged (“raw”) white, an aged (“cask”) rum, and a sea buckthorn-infused rum (a berry-like fruit); I came away with 50ml bottles of the raw and sea buckthorn rum to noodle on later. With its beautiful bottles, the Nine Leaves rum from Japan caught my eye. They have an unaged white rum, as well as a number of different lightly aged versions, one using a California wine cask. I wish I could tell you more about how the Nine Leaves tasted, but my palate was fried by this point in the day-more news to come on those tastings.
Wandering around the show floor on the second day, I spotted Tito Cordero, master blender for Diplomatico standing alone by the Diplomatico booth. I quickly took advantage of the opportunity and quizzed him about upcoming Diplomatico single vintage releases — the current being the 1997 and 2000 vintage. If I understood him correctly, he said that a 2002 will be coming out later this year.
Something that surprised me as I circulated through the booths was the absence of certain really big players. Bacardi was not in attendance, notwithstanding a small presence in the “Rums of Puerto Rico” booth. Also missing were big dogs Appleton and Captain Morgan. However, without giant players dominating attention, the lesser known brands could shine – there were big, splashy booths from Plantation, Bayou, Afrohead, Rums of Puerto Rico, and others.
With all these rummy people present, you’d (correctly) surmise that the evening activities would focus heavily on bars. A series of events at different locales (proclaimed as “Miami Cocktail Week”) provided a starting point for each evening, but the Broken Shakerwas where most of the rum industry ended up night after night. The Rum Line in South Beach was a big hit with Mrs. Wonk, the Lost Spirits folks, and myself on Friday. And Saturday night? Well, that was the famed Mai-Kaievening – a huge pile of the rummy crowd piled into charter bus headed to the Mai-Kai for a mind-blowing Tiki experience. So much to tell about that visit that I’m saving it for another post!
Great article. And thanks for the images.
You are awesome Matt. Keep up the great rumwork.