Well, clearly you knock it back by the shot at a good friend’s wedding to a wonderful Slovakian as you stay up celebrating until gone 5am. To do otherwise would be rude after all, owing to the father of the bride having made a goodly quantity out of fruit on his own land to give out as wedding favours.
(1) A wander around the recent London Coffee Festival introduced me to some really good cold brew coffee liqueurs, Mr Black and Conkers.
(2) My better half needs an espresso first thing. Given the recent hot spell, I tried making cold brew for a more summery way for her to mainline that morning caffeine.
(1) + (2) = A pressing need to attempt making my own cold brew liqueur…
Having been to Belgium the last two Novembers and being a greedy person, I’ve a few (not enough) beers stashed away that I thought would benefit, or at least cope, with aging. Amongst them are some Bourgogne Des Flandres, a Flemish red brewed (at least in part) in a magnificent building in the heart of Bruges. It doesn’t seem to be as storied as Duchesse de Bourgogne or Rodenbach and I’ve never seen it around in the UK, but I’ve found it an approachable, enjoyable example of the style.
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The Black Manhattan is a favoured cocktail in this household, for good reason. As one who’d never turn down the chance to enjoy a respectable rye whiskey (something that’s latterly become far easier in the UK) this Manhattan variant is all the excuse I need, marrying well with Averna‘s dark sugar aromatics. Anyhow, this post is meant to be about rum, so I’ll move on. There’s a through line here, I promise you.
Short version: I was given a bottle of La Hechicera the other month, am enjoying it greatly and thought it worth a few words.
Longer version: Produced in Colombia by La Hechicera, this appears to be the only commonly-available rum under their own name. They don’t distill their own rum, sourcing the base spirits from across South America and the Caribbean to get the desired characteristics. What they do, though, is take great pride in the blending and ageing of the rum into the final product.
Richard Davie 