1957 Myers’s Planters Punch, a 1977 Old St. Croix, and a 1984 Pusser’s at Henry’s Caribbean Bakery aka Wadadli Style in Jersey City, New Jersey

We’re back!

This story starts on August 6th, 2020. At that point I had waited 8 weeks for a package from France. The liquor stores in New Jersey and NYC, at least in the midst of the pandemic, have ended “browsing.” Walk up to a table, tell them what you want, and they’ll bring the bottle up for you to pay for it. One customer at a time, please. Those demands are completely reasonable and fair given the situation and anyone who has the pleasure to decide among their 100s of bottles has no grounds to groan about it.

With dusty hunting on hiatus, perhaps it’s time to open some of my treasures. But where to start? 

In 2018 I had the good fortune to trade a dusty bottle of bourbon (1971) for a cache of rums from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. Among them is a label I’ve been searching since I got into collecting older rums: an old Myers’s Rum with the vintage Planter’s Punch label. As a bonus the man I swapped with sent along two smaller bottles, a 1986 pint of Myers’s and a 1982-1985 ceramic mini-bottle of Pussers’ rum. 

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It all started coming together in my head. A week before the first case of COVID was confirmed in America, I called Henry’s Carribean Bakery in Jersey City. My plan in February was to come by with my 1957 Myers’s, the new Hee Joy single barrel release from Jamaica, and perhaps another dusty from The Whiskey Exchange. I called in advance about bringing wine and alcohol to Henry’s, which was allowed.

My endearment to Henry’s started in 2018, I was on one of my missions: bottles, food, and ducking cops and stick-up kids. In pop culture, Jersey City is overlooked on a number of levels. Some people may be familiar with the fact that in 2018 Jersey City had rental rates comparable to that of San Francisco, other than that the city is unremarkable. If you’ve read my blog, you know I don’t hang out in that part of Jersey City. 

The truth is, I hate that place and I hate most of the residents.

This place, though, Martin Luther King Boulevard south of Bramhall, feels very much like the streets in the places I’ve either worked or called home in the past: Atlantic City, Pleasantville, Vineland, Millville, Newark, Trenton, and West New York/Union City (for the record, I’ve lived in places that weren’t thought to be slums by those who think of themselves of middle class or members of the petite bourgeoisie).

First of all, forget every single dining establishment in Jersey City that is anywhere near the financial district. If you picked out the quote-unquote “Top 100 Restaurants” in the posh area of the city you’d come to find that there are people in your own family who cook better than what you just threw anywhere from 200 to $400 at. If you actually work for your money you’re going to resent being asked to pay $30 for a burger with a runny egg on it made by the sterile fail son of an investment firm partner.

Second of all, Jamaican food in general should be given more credit for bringing such awesome creations to tables, festivals, and households near you. I’ve had the pleasure to eat Jamaican food from Vineland New Jersey, Pleasantville New Jersey, and Philadelphia. That said, nothing prepared me for the serendipity I experienced in 2018 when I walked into Henry’s Caribbean Bakery.

On my first approach it was a hot summer afternoon the day after some teenagers had a daytime shootout. The citizens were tense, the mean mugging felt like body blows, and if I were any hungrier I would have manually tenderized and cannibalized the next person who looked at me wrong. Instead, I strolled into Henry’s and smelled the gospel love being preached from the kitchen. I took one deep breath and was an immediate convert. I went to the heated case and asked the woman behind the counter what those lovely things opposite my finger were and she told me right away that they were chicken patties that had just come out of the oven in the last 5 minutes.

I bought one and sat down, and in a world with major complications, this small delight created a memory that would shine through for me on some of my most disappointing meals. If I were to ever eat another chicken patty I knew it would never compare to this. 

Over the next 9 months I would plan this meal out. The time wasn’t for preparation, the time was needed because my shift from working in an office to working from home meant my bosses assigning me even more work to complete from the, uh, “comfort” of my own home. On the other hand, I have another job as a small business owner maintaining rental units that I own, manage, and work on. When one job didn’t delay my trip to Henry’s then without fail the other job would. 

The day arrived. I packed my portable bar into the car and headed over to Henry’s to find a lunch rush. For some people this would be a disappointment, but for me I just want the owners of Henry’s to make enough money to survive. No room to sit down today. Next move: Take Out.

I ordered the aforementioned chicken pie, two fish balls, and the small oxtail platter with rice and macaroni and cheese. No pork, y’all.

It was a 30 minute slog back to my apartment, where I set up the bar and the food as quickly as my patience would permit. Let’s get started, first with how each two dusties tasted at first quaff in August and next with the awesome food from Henry’s (also known as Walidad Style), and last will come the ceramic mini-Pussers.

1957 Myers’s – Opening Date 06 August 2020

What does a dusty sound like when you open it? Listen for yourself.

Nose: Molasses, honey, almonds, wood, cream. No diesel or hogo.

First taste after fifteen minutes opening in the glass: Bitter lemons and coffee, heavy and deep molasses, honey, wood, and no burn at all for a 114 proof rum.

However, please know that 63 years in a bottle can’t be fully opened up in fifteen minutes. I poured another and let it sit for an hour and a half. After the rust had shaken off the rum became juicy. Shallow tones of fruit and berries emerged. 

Over the course of a week the final verdict became a robust nose of aged wood, molasses, and bold fruits such as bananas and cherries. The taste on the front of the tongue is lemon peel and coffee, honey mid-mouth, and an explosion of banana, curant, and cherries in the throat. The mouthfeel is silky.

In my favorite drink, a Dirty Daquiri, all I can say is WOAH! This is an incredibly delicate and nuanced cocktail. It looks like a stout or a cider in the snifter and the shaker seems to release some of the latent hogo.

In total, this is the complete opposite of what I expected. I thought I needed to prepare for bathtub-brewed rotgut befitting Harry Hope’s Saloon in Iceman Cometh, a slaughterhouse in a shot glass, only to find Lena Horn whispering a tantalizing double-entendre in my ear and kissing me softly elsewhere.

1977-1982 Old St. Croix Dark

One of my first scores is finally coming out from the back of the bunker. The day after I scored the 1971 bourbon that helped me acquire the 1957 Myers’s, I came back to the same store and scored five of these, dark and light varieties ranging from a 1977 measured in imperial units to a 1982 in a 375 mL bottle. 

I knew this was going to accompany me to Henry’s Carribean Bakery and its inclusion helped me settle on a theme: I would pair rums from the English-speaking Carribean nations with food from a Carribean-themed bakery. Myers’s, Old Saint Croix, and something else that I hadn’t picked yet.

Whereas I expected something pungent to punch me in my nose with the Myers’s and received a surprise so find no such assault, the inverse happened here as well. Expecting to smell very little out of a light-hued “dark” rum, I was surprised by the strong scents of molasses and honey which blossomed from its mouth.

Much like other dusties, I don’t grab and guzzle. If the bottle can wait on a shelf for a decade and in my bunker for a few more years after that, what harm does 30 more minutes in the glass do?

The nose lost some intensity but the two strongest notes of molasses and honey remained.

On first taste this was a bit of an experience. Molasses and honey, again, accompanied by nuts and wood. What made this memorable is the undertone of carpaccio, giving this a bit of flesh or meatiness to go with the honey and nuts.

After some more time in the glass this is a very straight forward rum. The first rum I ever enjoyed was Brugal Anjeo and I do use that as a measuring stick. When I finished my first two surveys of Old Saint Croix Dark it became apparent to me that this can’t be confused with most other British Carribean rums but it is an 80% match to the Brugal Anjeo you can find anywhere today.

Let’s Get To Pairing Rums With Food, Shall We?

Course One: Fish Balls and Chicken Patty paired with and Old Saint Croix USVI Rum Punch

I knew what to expect when it came to the chicken patty from Henry’s, something close to amazing, and I was not let down at all. Chunks and shreds of dark meat chicken in a green-curry seasoned filling take me to another place. The patty crust is perfect, and after 30 minutes in the car it is still warm. The fish balls were dense and spicy, and the kick of that spice is what I liked best. I wish I bought more than two! The seasoning of the chicken patty and the heat from the fish balls are more than enough to forget about the winter weather on the other side of my window. 

This cocktail is exactly what is called for after the spices of the fish balls jump-started some dormant neurons and knocked the cobwebs off of the synapses between them.

Course Two: Oxtails Over Rice and Remberg’s Planter’s Punch

These are my favorite oxtails from anywhere, hands down. The stew has a mahogany color and amber glow, it is as thick as gravy, and you can see the spices. The meat from the oxtails seems to have spun itself off from the bones. Tender enough to cut and eat with chopsticks. The rice, onions, and mac and cheese all hit the right notes as well. 

When the meat is delicate enough to eat with chopsticks, its dance partner should have the same qualities. As menacing as the 1957 Myers’s looks in the bottle, she is a ballerina in the bar glass. 114 proof seems high-octaine but in a Remsberg’s Planters Punch the result is a delicate and nuanced cocktail, one that refreshed the palate between bites as opposed to smothering the tongue into submission.

Course Three: Pusser’s Rum

This selection was not part of my immediate plan to include in my trip to Henry’s. In September I came across one of these in an antique shop in Lewisberg, Pennsylvania. Having one of these sent along as a bonus from the awesome dusty hunter in Detroit who I swapped bottles with to obtain the Myers’s, I jumped at the chance to obtain a second bottle to actually, you know, drink.

Here are both of them in their glory. The first was free, the second from Lewisberg cost 5 dollars.

Notes for Early 1980s Pussers:

Impressive chestnut color with some red to it, a radiant bronze. A queen’s satin sheets compared to the almost matte look to the Myers’s.

Dry cork, I still managed to open it w/o getting any cork in the juice.

Overwhelming smell of raw brown sugar, vanilla, and candied walnuts. After that, raisins.

Oily, on tongue and the glass. Long legs. Viscus, it dances fluidly with a meniscus of restraint like glycerin swaying over the face of a liquid-filled pressure gauge.

Thick on tongue without being meaty a la the carpaccio undertone of the Old Saint Croix. There is a brief taste of citrus before caramelized brown sugar.

There is a slight bit of fire on the down-swig, but I actually think this was the Zacapa of it’s time between presentation (container) and color. Not nearly as sweet, but in the glass it has the regal glitter of a prized concubine’s hammock woven from gold yarn and saffron.

Over time the citrus opens up to berries on the tongue, but I still get citrus and burn going down. I imagine the abv. is above 40 here, it’s not a junkyard dog but there is some bite to it, like that of a retired admiral berating a pleeb. 

In closing:

If a person were born in 1939, turned 18 in 1957 and drank the Myers’s, turned 39 in 1978 and had the Old Saint Croix, and then tried the Pussers in 1984… I am not sure if he or she’d feel that the new rums were a step forward from his or her youth. A person in this hypothetical scenario might see three rums from three English-speaking Caribbean countries and wonder where the future of rum from this line was headed. Someone else, a person who doesn’t hold fast to the norms of a linguistic colonial heritage which would dictate how rum is produced, might say that this person had the opportunity to try rum of three utilities: one traditional, one for vacation, and one for soldiers in an effort to quell mutinies and keep gunpowder live.

Overall these rums deserved to be made when they were and appreciated today, even decades after the fact they occupy important places in the history of alcohol. Are the formulas for these blends hidden in company vaults somewhere? I hope so. Do they need to be made again? I’m not so sure. I know I would buy a modern version of this 1957 Myers’s every day of the week. Do not believe the bullshit about all Myers’s rum being awful, maybe the newest version is awful, but having tasted 1957, 1982, and 1986 versions of it I can say that it wasn’t always bad and the 1957 blend would be awesome to see on shelves and enjoyed at bars again. The Old Saint Croix? Love the bottle and the cap. Presentation is sharp for such a tacky era. Bring this rum back to market? I don’t think so. There’s much the better modern Cruzan rum on the market now and it doesn’t taste like Brugal. Then again, you can buy a Brugal Anjeo off of today’s shelves to experience 80% of what the Old Saint Croix provided. As for the Pusser’s? In the glass and to the eye it was simply a jewel, but it did not impress me as much as I thought it would, which seems to be par for the course when it comes to my taste in Pusser’s. That said, if you see these anywhere and the prices are right, buy ‘em and try ‘em!