This week saw the return of one of my favourite regular events in Manchester, RUM CLUB! I’ve been to a few now at Revolucion De Cuba and this month saw Bacardi taking to the main stage. This was a bit strange for me as I had heard a lot about the Bacardi brand at the Untameable Party earlier in the year so thought it would be all the same spiel. Still fun obviously, there is rum involved, but I thought it would be a fairly none eventful night in terms of rum education.
I knew I was wrong about the lack of rum education when I saw this line up on arrival. I knew I hadn’t tried all of these blends so I started to get a little excited, I’m not going to lie.
Ozzy introduced herself as our host for the evening from the Bacardi brand and introduced us to the founder of Bacardi Don Facundo by way of his life story. I had heard a lot of this before and you can read it in my previous blog post if you are interested but she also told us 2 of his children had died in a cholera epidemic which had forced the family to leave Cuba and go back to Spain. Facundo’s wife had come into a large inheritance which Facundo encouraged her to invest in his new idea, to make rum that tasted good. It took Facundo 10 years to perfect his spirit as the rum available at the time was known as the ‘poor man’s drink’ tasting pretty awful. After the 10 years of design and when Facundo was ready they opened a small distillery and planted a tree outside. This tree survived until the family left the distillery in 1962 and the family have planted a tree at each of their distilleries since.
It was also Facundo’s wife Amalia who had the idea for the fruit bat symbol. I talked about them finding the bats in the rafters of the distillery in my last post but what I hadn’t realised is that they symbolise family union and prosperity, hence the decision was made for the logo. At the time there was a high level of illiteracy in Spain so many asked for ‘the rum of the bat’ rather than Bacardi.
During prohibition many flew from Florida to Cuba at a price of $24 for the booze cruise of their generation. They were met at the airport by the Bacardi rep who proceeded to take them back to the distillery to drink rum, and lots of it. Suffice to say the revellers thought this was amazing and Bacardi became the talked about rum of its time in the USA.
Starting with the simple daiquiri made with Bacardi Superior I was in a very happy place. Citrus and a slight warmth from the rum is just perfect for me. This white mixing rum is aged for 18 months then filtered so it is clear. There are notes of white chocolate and cream soda on the nose whilst the taste is sweet and creamy.
Onto Bacardi Gold which I see most often on a back bar. This has changed slightly in the last few months and is now 40%ABV instead of 37.5% of old. Aged for 3 years the higher ABV makes this more spikey with a little smoke from the barrel and burnt sugar on the nose. This version of Gold is only available in London and Revolucion De Cuba Manchester so it is worth popping in for a try!
Onto Bacardi Black which, as you can probably tell by the name, is very dark in colour. This comes from the heavily charred barrels it is aged in for 4 years and gives a Christmas cake taste on the palate.
Last but definitely not least was my favourite; Bacardi 8. This used to be reserved for the Bacardi family only until in 1981 they realised their stocks were high enough to sell it to the public. And oh how pleased I am… when served at room temperature this is really smooth with a syrupy taste of honey and caramel. Just perfect and so tasty I could have sipped it all night.
No rum club is complete without a bit of cocktail interaction and guests took to the bar to make their own espresso martinis (very rich and much less sweetness than the ones I have drank in the past) as well as a rum old fashioned. I have to say the latter was my absolute favourite with the orange peel just rounding off the flavours of the Bacardi 8 perfectly.
With another rum club over we headed upstairs with our drinks to mop up some of the alcohol with tapas style dishes. As always the food was as yummy as the rum. Now I am told there are many a variety of Bacardi that isn’t available to the public and is just for family consumption. I wonder if the Bacardi family has any eligible batchelors…
This event was free and available to anyone who wished to attend. Keep your eyes on the Revolucion De Cuba website for the next one.
No Comments