For the past few days I’ve been working on a vodka study that I’m looking to publish in the next month or so. This vodka study is similar to the study involving malt and blended scotch identification, with a few modifications and additional analysis. First, the tasting involved 13 people, tasting six different vodkas, three times. There were a number of different vodkas based on price and starting material. The participants answered three questions; was the vodka standard or premium, was it potato, rye or wheat based, and on a hedonic scale of 1 to 10 how much they enjoyed a particular sample (1 being poor, 10 being great). The second step will be running the six vodkas through a gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer (GC/MS) to identify the congeners in the vodka.

Here's a rum that suffers from both great marketing and bad marketing. The good marketing is the following statement about Newfoundlanders trading salt code for Jamaican rum: “Would they have sailed 5,000 miles for bad rum?” The other part of the marketing is based on a story from the 1940's about how this made a US Serviceman headed to Europe during World War II screech for his life after trying a shot. It has won a Gold Medal at the 2003 International Rum Fest, so it can’t be as bad as you might think based on its name. So what is the reality?

With all the rum reviewing going on, I decided it was time to stop and take a cocktail break. I’m still on this rum kick so a cocktail made with a good rum might hit the spot. Since my last rum review was on Pusser’s Navy Rum, the obvious cocktail choice was a Pusser’s Painkiller. The Painkiller is one of those branded cocktails that wasn’t created by the company originally, but by Daphne Henderson who operated the Soggy Dollar in the British Virgin Islands. The Soggy Dollar is so named because it lacks a dock for boats so the sailors must swim to shore, making their money soggy. The original cocktail is still “secret” but was reverse engineered to what we taste today, by Charles Tobias, Pusser's modern founder.

Here is a rum with a long history in the Commonwealth navies of the world. Only in the last few decades has Pussers Navy Rum been available to us commoners, because it was exclusively made for the navy fleets of the world. After the British navy stopped issuing tots in 1970 and the Canadian Navy in 1973, Pusser’s eventually made its way into the commercial world. The version I’m tasting is the Canadian Blue Label version, which is 42% ABV, which is the lowest alcohol rum that Pusser’s offers, the US version weighs in at about 48% ABV and the German version is 54%.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've updated the site to Movable Type v3.34, so if you notice any weirdness please let me know. Also, I've added a simple "comment challenge" for posts. I've been hit will a massive amount of spam over the last few months and it drives me crazy and uses up a lot of my time manually filtering it out. I've made a few other changes so hopefully the spam level will drop. Now that the update is done I'll get back to writing about cocktails and such. Thank you and have a great day!

Well I just wanted to let everyone know that I am now a first time father. My wife gave birth to our first child, a boy, who was 3.85 kg (8 lbs 5 oz), 51 cm (20") long on February 13, 2007 at 11:26AM. He is perfectly healthy so far as we know. We've decided to give him a good Irish name, so he is Fionn Patrick O'Neil. The name Fionn is from the Irish folk hero Fionn mac Cumhaill (North American pronunciation is Finn McCool,) who was a great Irish leader who implemented a code of honour among the elite soldiers he commanded, the Fianna. He challenged them to become champions of the people, make themselves models of chivalry and justice that other could aspire too. It seems to be a hopeful name of the great things he may someday accomplish. So here is a cheers to being a father and this new chapter in my life! Thank you, everyone, for reading this site and I intend to keep on writing, but if some of my posts are slightly incoherent, it maybe due to lack of sleep.

Have you ever sat around and wondered what things taste like if you substitute one ingredient? I do all the time, and most low end bartenders substitute stuff without thinking, like that Mai Tai you had made with banana liqueur and pineapple juice. But I’m talking about a calculated attempt at a substitution that would still make a good cocktail, but be contrary to the original drink. Jimmy, over at Jimmy’s Cocktail Hour who came up with the whisk(e)y topic for this Mixology Monday, gave me an opportunity to try subbing in a whisky for a tropical drink.  So what does a classic Mai Tai taste like when you take the rum out and substitute a 10 year old 100% rye whisky?

Here is a rum that is a popular call brand at the bar. Mount Gay Extra Old is a premium rum from Barbados which is aged for 17 years in charred oak barrels. Like the label says, it is an extra old rum which gives it the character and smoothness many people appreciate. Most of the time people want the Eclipse rum, which is Mount Gay's main stay rum, but the Extra Old is an even better choice considering the price of the Mount Gay Eclipse is $28 CDN per bottle and the Mount Gay Extra Old only costs $37 CDN. So if you want to pick up a bottle of Mount Gay, you should seriously look at the Extra Old.

With many products image is everything. When it comes to rum, the image of Cuba seems to be the holy grail of marketing. Bacardi has always been associated with Cuban rum, because they were founded in Cuba in 1862 but left after the Cuban revolution. Matusalem is another Cuban company that began producing rum in 1872 in Santiago. But in 1959 the Cuban revolution forced the Matusalem company into exile, just like Bacardi. After some family issues the Matusalem brand was re-launched in 1995 as a premium brand of rum with Cuban heritage. Today it is made in the Dominican Republic. This rum is made using the Solera process.

When you think Cuba, you either think Castro, cigars or rum. Well skip the first two and focus on the rum. Havana Club is the main rum producer on this tropical island and they have been producing great rum since the late 1800's. The most widely available aged rum is the Havana Club 7 Year version, which is my preferred rum. Why do I like it you ask? Well, it is reasonably priced ($30 per bottle), it can be sipped straight or used to make a rum and Coke and its flavour is fairly light bodied so it doesn’t over power cocktails. This rum works really well in a Mai Tai too.

Rum is probably my favourite spirit. It has so many variations and flavours that you could spend a life time exploring it. It can be enjoyed straight out of the still or aged for as long as any other spirit with all the benefits. It's also not as pretensions as the whisky crowds, well for now anyway. As rum becomes more popular and softens that “kill devil” nickname, people will gravitate towards rum for more than a rum and Coke or a random tiki drink. With that, I will embark upon reviewing my growing rum collection. The first review will be of a rum I've had for a while, but didn't pay much attention too; Flora De Cana Grand Reserve 7 year old Nicaraguan rum.

Why is it that a 35 year old business man drinking from a Poco, or hurricane glass looks so lame? Unless of course he is on a holiday, at some tropical resort, it just doesn't seem to fit. Sure, some guys don't care that the Pina Colada they are drinking in February doesn't fit, but good for them. Girls can get away with drinking from any glass, especially the Poco glass which has the complimentary curves that were obviously designed to represent women. So, are glasses designed to attract the different sexes? Does the curve-less Collins glass represent men? Is this a barrier to the acceptance of certain cocktails?