Today's Blog is dedicated to BrewDog's new, yep, BrewDog, I said it. if you're sitting up looking, "What?". BrewDog, famous for their Punk IPA, famous for all their bars all around the U.K., and they're exploding all over the place. They've only flippin' released a Spiced Rum. So, this Blog is dedicated to BrewDog's Five Hundred Cuts Spiced Rum.
Right then, BrewDog, as I mentioned Five Hundred Cuts. It's obviously named after The Proclaimers. I would walk 500 miles just to be that whatever the words are. It's not. Apparently, it's not. That is what I first thought when I first saw it. Now, BrewDog Distilling, this is not their first thing, obviously, they've got a sort of separate Gin brand going on. LoneWolf, that is their Gin. I think they've got two or three different Gins now in that thing they've got a Vodka that I know of. I think I did see a Whisky as well, didn't look at that. But this obviously kind of stood out to me. Lovely sort of floral, fruity kind of label on there. Really, really cool.
Buy Brewdog Spiced Rum online
With a lot of Spiced Rums, I've featured, they have, I try to find out where the base Rum is from. I'm reliably informed, I've not been up there, I've not been told, I've not seen it for my own two eyes, but I'm reliably informed that they are distilling this Rum up in Scotland, from scratch. I'm gonna start from top to bottom on the actual, the label, at back of this. So, we're starting off with stating the ingredients, the spices that they have used, so "A curious blend of fine botanicals and herbal ingredients.” So they've gone kind of Gin, the way they've created this is very same essence as the way you do Gin, they've distilled it like that.
What "Botanicals" are in the Rum?
So, we've got Tonka bean, clove, lavender, cardamom, orange peel, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, Ginger. Ten! Ten botanicals, love what they've done there. Kind of, that's very clever. They are going botanicals so Gin people can come and have some fun but still thinking they're drinking botanical led Gin. I like that, very clever. Here's the story behind Five Hundred Cuts, nothing to do with The Proclaimers. I think you should change that BrewDog, anyway.
Marketing Story
"In 1734, after Elizabeth Blackwell "was left alone in London following the incarceration of her dead-beat husband, life was looking grim. But this industrious Aberdonian refused to be beaten. "Instead she created the go to guide for herbal medicine. Drawing, engraving, and colouring 500 botanicals, or cuts, herself. With the overnight success of her book, A Curious Herbal, "Elizabeth was able to free from her spouse. Alas Alexander, the final cut came a few years later. His head was chopped off for treason. Wonder if that's true. That's, marketing, we love a bit of marketing. Anyway, final bit, Full of spice and zest, Five Hundred Cuts, pays tribute to Lizzie's unbreakable spirit. White Rum made from sugar cane molasses and fermented with red wine yeast for seven days is double pot distilled to release notes of tropical fruit and burnt sugar. We then distil the botanicals gently over four hours with a little refined muscovado added for subtle sweetness. Here's to Elizabeth Blackwell, the original spice girl.
What does this smell like?
I get the cloves, the cinnamon, they're the big two that come up me, maybe a touch of nutmeg, but just, it smells like Christmas Cake. Now, it does smell spicy, as in those kinds of traditional spices, not chilli spice. It does smell spicy over sweet, SO I'm not expecting this to be sweet Rum, by any stretch of the imagination. And I am kind of expecting those spices to really cling to the side of my throat, when they go down.
What does it Taste Like?
Right then, the first thing I need to point out to you, I don't know whether you'll see it on the glass, it might be on the closeup, I don't know if you can see that. But it is proper murky. It is not a clear see through liquid, at all. It's almost, it has been filtered, but you'd almost, it's just black. It's just sort of murky black in colour. Taste wise, for me it is not a sipper, I could not, drink too much of that neat. Cinnamon, the clove, it's just cloves and cinnamon, they are the big two coming forward there. Little bits of citrus, but that really kind of, the clove just beats forward, for me, and that is what it is. It is a clove Spiced Rum.
What to Mix with Brewdog Spiced Rum.
The first mixer that I've got for you, that I just though was a taste sensation, Fever Tree's Spiced Orange Ginger Ale. Those two, the orange, the cinnamon, the cloves in there, wow, delicious. I'll be honest, I did have to add slightly more Ginger ale than I would normally do, so it's probably got one to five, one to six ratios, in there, just to dampen down the spice, forward from that. But, oh boy, when you get that level just right, that is just such an amazing drink. In second place, for me, was the Ginger beer. Again, the Ginger just goes very, very well with the spices in the Rum. Kind of again, you kind of have to go slightly more, it's not a sort of one to three, one to four drink. I think it is very potent in the factor of the spices, so you do need slightly more mixer than you would traditionally have. But the whole Ginger beer thing works very, very well. Now, in third place is the whole Coca-Cola thing. This is Coke Zero, it is lovely. I think, possibly, a bit too clove, a bit too cinnamon forward, to go as your out-and-out favourite, but if you like your Rum and cokes, slightly more Coke than what you would normally do, following all those mixers through, slightly more Coke, just to sort of dampen down those spices ever so slightly and you've got an absolutely love and Rum and coke. Now, here's a curious one for me. In fourth place, this is Lixir's, Blood Orange and Cinnamon Tonic Water. Absolutely delicious, I'll drop links in the show notes where you can get that from. That to me, because they are not quinine forward, well they have got a bit of quinine in here, obviously, all that bitterness in the tonic water, But the whole sort of clementine and cinnamon in there, just kind of works well. I'm gonna play about with that, I'm gonna add a couple a little different flavour syrups and things, because I think that might make an awesome high ball. But as a Rum and tonic, kind of serve, exceptional.
Now I'm gonna do something I normally don't do, I'm gonna give you two mixers to avoid with this, and they are one and two. That was hard work, I tell 'ya. Let me just flip that 'round so you can see that, that such hard work It's too spice forward, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, thick in texture, it is just too much to handle the fruitiness of those drinks, for me. I just did not like them at all.
Cocktails
For the cocktails, they are gonna go onto my Instagram stories now, not as videos, they're gonna go to as four picture stories. So, were gonna have a picture of the cocktail, picture of the ingredients, sparkly stuff and then a question, I need you guys to name the cocktail. So that's how we are going forward, so search me out on https://www.instagram.com/stevethebarman