Huffington Post
September 2012
USA
“This is their first white rum, and it's a doozy.”
What's News In Booze: A Dozen New
Spirits To Get You Through Autumn
Posted: 09/13/2012 9:58 am
By Tony Sachs
The first couple of weeks after Labor Day are a doozy. It still looks like summer. It still feels
like summer. But all of a sudden the rules change. The douchebags who so graciously
departed for the Hamptons in June have returned en masse. Kids are back in school. People
have to start paying attention at work again. Football makes its violent, militaristic
reappearance. Those awesome seersucker and linen suits? Back in the closet for nine months.
Sure, it's still warm and lush and green outside. But the waiting game has begun. When are
the fall clothes going to come out of mothballs? When's the first frost? When are you going to
look around and say, "Holy crap, how did it become winter?"
In a nutshell, I hate this time of year. But good booze always helps mitigate the crud factor of
autumn, and this autumn there's a ton of very fine new bottlings out there. Most of them
should be on your liquor store shelves by now, and the few that aren't will be launching within
the next few weeks. There's something for just about everyone here, from bourbon to rum to
liqueur to absinthe, and at price points ranging from $20 to $5,000. Try one or, as I did, try
them all -- just not in one night. Autumn unfolds slowly, so take your time.
Photo from xlibber, Flickr.
Plantation 3 Star Rum
PLANTATION 3 STAR RUM (41.2% ABV, aged up to 12 years, $25).
Plantation has made its reputation from finding quality rums from Jamaica to Guyana and then
finishing them in old Cognac casks. This is their first white rum, and it's a doozy. Blending unaged
rums from Jamaica and Barbados with charcoal filtered 3-year-old and 12-year-old rums from
Trinidad and Jamaica, respectively, this is one of the few white rums out there that's great for sipping
as well as mixing. The first rum that came to mind when I tried 3 Star was Banks 5 Island Rum (the
awesomeness of which I mentioned in the review of Banks' new 7 Golden Age above), also a blend of
aged rums from various locales. But while Banks is complex and earthy, almost funky, 3 Star is a much
smoother and easier -- it's got gorgeous vanilla and melon notes, sweet and floral without getting sickly
sweet. If it has a flaw, it's that it doesn't stand out quite as much in daiquiris or other mixed drinks as
I'd like. But along with Banks, Plantation 3 Star is an absolute top-tier white rum, at a very affordable
price. I lift my glass to you, good sirs and madames.