Are You Ready to Rum Bell?

My son in law and daughter gave me an amazing machine for Father's Day.  Apparently, as advertised, it cools a drink to 15 degrees F.  So this inspired me to finally create my own rum drink.  Here 'tis.

The easiest ingredient to settle upon was Blue Bell ice cream.  The only intense moment will be finding out if the melted ice cream will flow through the dispenser.  If not, then there is an alternative recipe for dispensing at parties (and on the bar for hot weekends).

Then the notion of another alternative hit me.  I love real hot chocolate--fudge.  So when the dispenser is not being used, the chocolate can be fudge rather than chocolate syrup.

The Recipes


The Rum Bell

• 1 Cup of Blue Bell Ice Cream 
• 2 Tablespoons of Smucker's Hot Fudge Topping (Unheated)
• 1 Jigger Bacardi Ron 8 Anos (or Equivalent)

The Bar Belle

• 1 Cup Heavy Cream
• 2 Tablespoons of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup
• 1 Jigger  Bacardi Ron 8 Anos (or Equivalent)

So this weekend, I'm going to try these out.  

Is aging really a reality for a real rum drinker?

Yes.  Oops, I just gave away the conclusion of this whole blog entry.  Please read on anyway.

What we need to test out the question of just how important aging is for a rum drinker is a rum that is available in a variety of aging choices.  Thank you, El Dorado.  As all the loyal followers of this blog are fully familiar, 

El Dorado is available in these ages and rated by me as follows:

• ·         Aged 12 years (Rated 7),
• ·         Aged 15 years (Rated 8),
• ·         Aged 21 years (Rated 9), and
• ·         Aged 25 years (Rated 10). 

Now one might think these ratings to be suspect considering how neatly spaced they are—7, 8, 9, 10.  Oh, but you must give me credit beyond just lining up these excellent rums in order of their labels.  In fact, I didn’t even purchase them in that order, or taste them in that order, or rate them in that order.  I’ve even set them out in front of friends for tastings and had them correctly identify their aging. 

The most definitive statement about aging is the difference between El Dorado 25 and any other rum I and all my friends have tasted.  Each of us has immediately declared the amazing smoothness of El Dorado 25 compared to other rums and the other El Dorados. 

Of course, we can’t afford to drink “El 25” casually.  So El Dorado 21 is the default, and quite frankly, is a fantastic choice. 

My conclusion is simply, when selecting your rum, pay attention to the number of years it has been aged.  The aging definitely makes a difference.  

The Spirit of Texas—The Best and Worst

How can the best and worst of Texas rum come from the same little company in Pflugerville in central Texas?  The followers of this blog already know that Pecan Street Rum (Rating 8) is one of the highest value rums.  However, its sister rum from the same company, Spirit of Texas Rum (Rating 1), a white rum, hardly passes as rum. 

Pecan Street Rum is one of my favorites with its slight hint of pecans.  However, Spirit of Texas Rum has universally drawn the most puckery, frownery grimices from the poor souls I’ve offered tastes. 

I bought a bottle from the local liquor store simply because it’s from Texas, only to be warned by the clerk that a bottle had actually been returned by another customer.  Wow, that was sobering.  Sobering is the last thing one wants from a bottle of rum!  After his taste of this brew, a colleague of mine even asked me if I might have gotten that returned bottle.

Oh well, let’s declare that the Pfugerville folks have credit in store for Pecan Street Rum.  Then let’s ask for in-store credit for Spirit of Texas Rum.  

Rum: The Spirit of Texas, Pflugerville, Texas
Rating: 1     Proof: 80

I bought this because I intend to try every Texas rum.  Ouch.  A business colleague, a new hire at my company, was over at the house tasting my rum collection.  He was skeptical that any rum could be as bad as I described this one.  So as he drank, he was trying to be open-minded and reserve judgement.  Then the harsh reality set in, and the most gruesome expression revealed the opinion that the words could not escape his lips to verbalize.  


I must remind folks that Pecan Street Rum, one of my favorites, comes from this same company.  


Value Rating: .05  Extremely Low     
This would not be of value if received as a gift.   



Typical Price:  $20/750 ml

Most Inappropriate Rum Drink

The Most Ridiculous Commercialization of “The Rum Diary” Imaginable

The real men in The Rum Diary movie drink their rum straight up or on the rocks—even out of the bottle.  Never, ever mixed in a fruity punch bowl using a spiced rum.  So how in the world do the makers of Sailor Jerry Rum try to commercialize on the movie with a specialty drink they call Hunter’s Punch named after The Rum Diary’s author? 


Sailor Jerry Ltd. produces a 92 proof spiced rum featuring a hula girl on the label. As the bottle is emptied, additional pin-up girls designed by Sailor Jerry himself are visible on the inner side of the label. The rum is distilled in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Being spiced and over 80 proof give Sailor Jerry’s rum two strikes in my ratings.  Frou-frou drinks with pom juice, lemon, and champagne were far from the minds of Paul Kemp and his newspaper buddies. 


If Sailor Jerry had wanted to honor Hunter and the men of The Rum Diary, he would have created the Paul Bearer Rum Shot.  Simply—a double shot of rum on the rocks. 


Here's the recipe Sailor Jerry published for their honorary drink. 

Hunter’s Punch

1.5 part Sailor Jerry Rum
2 part pom juice
.5 part lemon
.5 part champagne

Bottom of punch bowl add pom juice and lemon juice. Stir slowly with ice. Add rum and stir some more. Slowly add champagne while stirring. Keep punch cool with minimal ice. Serve chilled in desired glass.

The Rum Diary Gets Blogged

Sorry, the movie “The Rum Diary” isn’t about rum, and I didn’t hear the word diary once.  Yes, they drink rum often; after all, the action is set in the home of Bacardi, Puerto Rico, in 1960.  The name Bacardi is mentioned one time.   Maybe my high school English teacher would be disappointed that I failed to recognize that rum is the metaphor for all the temptations that bring out the human frailties that prevent us from reaching our full potential and that my connotation of diary is just way too narrow.

I do, however, get asked frequently about this movie and its contribution to the rum world.  So here goes.

What would be the worst drinking game while watching this movie?  Take a drink every time someone says, “Rum.”   

• ·         Rum is first mentioned 15½ minutes into the movie (counting HBO intro credits). 
• ·         Second mention at 34½ minutes. (+19 minutes)
• ·         Third time the word rum is said is at 49 minutes. (+15 minutes)
• ·         Fourth comes at 1 hour 15 minutes. (+26 minutes)
• ·         Fifth follows at 1 hour 20 minutes. (+5 minutes)
• ·         Sixth at 1 hour 32 minutes. (+12 minutes)
• ·         Movie ends at 1 hour 55 minutes.  (+23 minutes with no additional mention)

Anyone would say that’s just not the pace a screenwriter would mention rum if the movie was really about rum.  This movie is about a novelist who discovers he’s really an investigative journalist destined to expose the corruption of government and big business.  Oh, my, this is a Johnny Depp movie, isn’t it. 

The Rum Diary, based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson, follows journalist and would-be novelist, Paul Kemp, played by Johnny Depp, in 1960’s Puerto Rico.  Paul drinks more than his share of rum, and promises to cut back, then eventually to stop drinking it altogether.  As he sails off into the sunset—literally—at the end of the movie, we never find out if he either cuts back or quits. 

Imagine Paul Kemp romping around Puerto Rico more than 30 years before the excellent rums of today were even distilled and poured into their barrels for aging.  Throughout the movie, we are teased with miniatures and glasses we are left to assume are rum. 

In one scene, 10 Puerto Rican Rum bottles are struck down by a bowling ball making a Brooklyn pocket hit in what any bowler would recognize as an improbable shot, and any rum lover would declare to be a waste of 227 shots.  (Assuming the bottles are 1 liter size.) 

Unfortunately, never does anyone in the movie call for a rum by name, or is any indication given that there’s a difference among rums.  Rum is just referred to as “rum.”  The characters drink it like it’s domestic beer.  Thus, we rum drinkers learn nothing from this movie about rum.  The lazy screen play writers failed to invest even an afternoon in researching the rich history of rum in Puerto Rico.  To their credit, the photographers caught fantastic camera angles that showed off Puerto Rico in its most favorable panoramas.  Rum—well, that was just background that happened to be mentioned in the title of the movie.  They should have titled it “Depp in the Heart of Palms.“  No, really, I’ll get over it.  This movie won’t be a classic.  The biggest problem for us is that from now on when we Google rum, we’ll have to scroll past all the useless “The Rum Diary” references that’ll come up first.

An Interview with Uncle Richard

Glynn: I understand you recently returned to Barbados to see how rum has matured since 1647.

Uncle Richard: Yes, the kill-divell has really evolved in three centuries.

Glynn: You were the first to write about rum in your book A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados.  In fact, the rum you encountered in Barbados in 1647 was the first ever distilled.

Uncle Richard: That’s what I hear.  The natives called it kill-divell and boiled it in copper pots using their locally grown sugar cane.  I see the process is a bit more refined, so to speak, these days.

Glynn: Could you English gents stand to drink the local kill-divell?

Uncle Richard: On weekends, and when we did, it didn’t take much of the Devil’s killer brew to finish us off.  Remember, the natives didn’t put their rum away in barrels for 20 years to age it, so there was quite a bite to it.

Glynn: Now I want you to try some Mount Gay Extra Old from Barbados, mixed in what we call today Caffeine-Free Diet Coke on the rocks.  That means it has ice in it.  This is my preferred concoction. There wasn’t any ice to put in drinks in Barbados in 1647 was there?

Uncle Richard: Wow, that’s really chilly.  Where’s the kill-divell taste?  That stuff’s quite tame.  If I could have taken that mixture back to England, the Queen would have knighted me. 

Glynn: What did you think of the local kill-divell?

Uncle Richard: I would have included much more about it in my book if I had any notion future generations would find this at all interesting.  I had quite a fascination for the kill-divell. Around the island, there were several native families that made the brew.  My buddies depended upon me to give them my inside rating each month of the best batch out on the street.  I posted a flier at the local dry goods each month. 

Glynn: No kidding?  That post was the first rum blog. 

Uncle Richard: What’s a blog?