Altrincham Duck

To get us properly in the mood, we were each given a tall cocktail, a delicious, refreshing twist on a rum punch.  As we sipped and enjoyed that, Tom our rum teacher for the night, from Emporia Brands (the company behind the Chairman Reserve range of rums) got us started with a bit of history about rum. 

 And then the first of the rums came out – we started with a Chairman’s Reserve white and Tom gave us some excellent advice on how to smell and properly taste the different flavour profiles.  It was all done as a group, encouraging us to share aloud what our senses experienced and if anyone correctly mentioned any of the ingredients, they received another shot of the rum!  Needless to say, this soon encouraged us all to be quite vocal! 

As we worked our way through a couple more rums, including the Chairman’s Reserve and the Chairman’s Reserve Spiced, we learnt more about St. Lucian rum and the science behind each of the rums we were tasting.  Tom really knew his stuff, from facts and wonderful anecdotes to advice on how to get the best from drinking each of the rums – it was certainly as interesting a night as it was fun. 

We had a little break half way through the session before cracking on with some of the more exclusive rums from the St. Lucia distillers.  The evening was in full swing by this point and of course we were all becoming quite the experts at smelling and tasting.  We sampled one of the limited release rums, The Chairman’s Reserve: Forgotten Casks as well as the Admiral Rodney, named after the admiral who captured St. Lucia from the French in 1762, a rum with immense flavour having been aged in bourbon casks. 

The final rum to taste came by way of the authentic 1931 by St. Lucia distillers, of which only a limited number are made, thus saving the best for last. We were given a quick mini quiz to test who was really listening on the night, the winners getting the rest of the rum bottles to enjoy. Lucky things!

It has to be said the Riddles Bar staff were excellent throughout the evening, making sure we were happy, had enough glasses, the water on the tables was topped up and of course mixing sublime cocktails for such a large group of people to enjoy at the same time. 

And that leads us to the grand finale – the night was wrapped up with another rum cocktail, oh yes, more rum!  We were served a fragrant yellow pepper daiquiri with a refreshing blend of white rum, lime and a homemade yellow pepper syrup.  Very tasty!  Then we all piled together for a rum-tasting group photo. It was quite something to end a very memorable night where we laughed a lot, learnt a lot and drank (a lot) of high quality St. Lucian rum. 

Riddles Bar has more of these fun-filled rum tasting evenings planned this year. Whether you are a casual drinker, hardcore fan or completely new to rum, you are guaranteed to enjoy sampling some of the finest rums on offer.  It’s more than just a tasting experience, it’s a great night out!
 

Do not worry if you missed the August evening as Riddles Bar will be hosting another exclusive rum tasting event on 22^nd September 2016.  This time there will be the opportunity to sample some of the finest El Dorado rums from Guyana, including an 8-year, 12-year, 15-year, 21-year and a very special limited edition 25-year blend.  Tickets are available to buy online. 

Now – we’re off to make a duck-special daiquiri cocktail, just a little something we picked up from our session.  Thank you Riddles Bar for a great night and happy rum drinking everybody!

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