July 14, 2007 -- Expressing curiosity, Jack Joyce, the founder and head of both Rogue Ales and the much newer Rogue Spirits, asked me a while back to taste and assess the three rums his company is currently producing. They had won a bunch of awards, he said, but not being a rum drinker himself, he was wondering how I might view them within the context of the greater rum world.

As it happened, shortly after the rums arrived, my life grew exceedingly busy and I was unable to attend to the tasting. But fortunately, rum is not nearly as perishable as is beer, even Rogue beer, so although a significant amount of time has passed, the rums I’ve been asked to sample are as good as they were the day they were bottled.

To properly assess the spirits, I assembled a blind tasting that included both the Rogue Dark Rum and the Rogue Hazelnut Spice Rum. (The absence of any other white rums in my liquor cabinet prompted me to exclude the Rogue White Rum from sampling today.) For comparison purposes, I also included the Appleton VX from Jamaica, Havana Club Anejo Reserva from Cuba and Cruzan Single Estate from St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

From the outset, it seemed obvious that of the five, two were notably lighter in colour, aroma and palate consistency. These I assumed, correctly, as it turned out, to be the Rogues. What did surprise me, however, was that the Hazelnut Spice did not announce itself more on the nose. Yes, there was a distinct spiciness there, but the hazelnut component, which is usually so evident in any beverage, alcoholic or not, distilled or fermented, was left in the background.

Sampling back and forth between the Rogues and the other three – the spicy Havana Club, the richer, fuller-bodied Cruzan and the gently sweet Appleton – revealed that although the Oregon spirits were both flavourful and approachable, they lacked the complexities of the Caribbean trio. Given that each of Havana Club, Appleton and Cruzan have warehouses full of barrels from which to select and blend, this is hardly surprising and, in my mind, shouldn’t be construed as a negative, but rather, merely a sign of the Rogue distillery’s relative youth..

Generally, I’d say that the house of Rogue is on the right track when it comes to their rums and, especially in the case of the Hazelnut Spice, have developed a style that speaks to both their environment and pedigree. Because after all, Oregon is a long way from the Caribbean, so why should they even want to craft a rum that tastes like one from the islands?

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