Introduction: Dusties, they’re what’s for dinner.

In high school I had the pleasure of apprenticing under the tutelage of a drinker with a teaching problem, a man whose idiosyncrasies and dedication to in vino veritas has taken him to some regretful places. He was a Certified Wine Educator who joked that he was in education on a contract basis and that if we learned one thing from him it was this: wine is the liquid part of the meal.

22 years later, I’ve developed the idea that my teacher never drank rum.

In my first installment of “Bring Your Own Bar” I would like to state that, yes, there is a liquid part to each good meal.

The original intent of BYOB, when I was developing the idea for this blog in January of 2020, was to bring a portable bar (Thanks sis!) to restaurants in New Jersey and drink dusties and cocktails inspired by them over long meals.

COVID changed those plans, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to see this mission though. To delay gratification is to increase satisfaction. More sacrifices create better living.

There are few places in the world as blessed with food options as New Jersey. In the north there is literally a grocery for every genre or ethnicity of food that you could imagine. You could dream up MadLibs with insane adjectives and archaic proper nouns for place names and foods and still not manage to tell a lie about the food scene in North Jersey. In South Jersey there are wonderful culinary traditions that often go overlooked, customs more-closely linked to Philadelphia, the farming communities of The Garden State, and the Shore: Sicilian-leaning Italian food, Mexican and Central American dishes from far flung states not represented in your average taqueria, and generations-old seafood shacks along the Delaware and Atlantic shorelines that would knock the compression socks off of a diabetic. I’ve lived in all parts of New Jersey, from the southern Pine Barrens to the bricks of Hudson County, and even in the midst of the 2020 COVID quasi-quarantine I am lucky enough to I support my local economy by ordering take-out from Guatemalan, Colombian, and Mexican restaurants within walking distance of my home.

So without further delay, I bring to you post one of BVBS’ BYOB – Drinking a late 1970s or early 1980s Myers’s Puerto Rican Light Rum, a 1990 Ron Barrilito Three-Star, and a new 138 proof Santa Ana at Taino’s Puerto Rican Restaurant on Mount Prospect Avenue in Newark, New Jersey on June 20th, 2020.

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About a year before I was really interested in rum my wife had a business trip in Puerto Rico. I took two personal days off from my job and joined her. One of the side-excursions we attended with her co-workers and their spouses was a guided tour, tasting, and after party at the Bacardi Rum Factory. It was a fun event. We traveled in an air-conditioned bus and the woman who led the tour started us off with great news that had just been released from the government’s ministers of health, “Puerto Rico’s prostitutes are among the healthiest and disease-free in the world.” Fantastic news! Yes. I looked at my wife, we were the only ones not cringing. Their loss…

The Bacardi rum excursion was a collection of curated films, a walking tour, bawdy jokes, a prolonged tasting (where people other than this writer and his wife finally began laughing at the bawdy jokes), and then an afterparty that had the vibe of a raucous wedding reception (an event that I am known for exploiting on a prolific scale). There was an open bar, women dancing in traditional costumes, and men playing music. It was a fun time, and though I didn’t know I liked rum yet, I knew I didn’t like Bacardi rums for sipping. I didn’t particularly enjoy anything I sampled, but the rum and cokes we’re smooth enough. I really liked the mojitos, the first cocktail I ever enjoyed.

If you asked me what I learned about rum in Puerto Rico after this trip, I would have told you that I learned, almost by rote and repetition, that Puerto Rican rum was essentially Cuban rum in exile. Very little about the presentation made it clear that this rum was of Puerto Rican origin.

The Cuban heritage of Bacardi was stressed so strongly that I remember saying to my wife, “Barcardi doesn’t want to be boriquen.”

My attitude toward Puerto Rican rum changed when I had my first taste of Ron del Barrilito at SOUTH in Philadelphia. To this day it is one of the most-balanced rums for my palate and if the price point were lower I’d drink more of it. In the neighborhoods I can find this bottle for between 25 and 40 dollars. Outside of the neighborhoods I can’t find a bottle of two-star for lower than 38 dollars per bottle and three-star runs from 45 to 55 per bottle. If you find yourself at SOUTH after the lockdown is lifted, make your way to the bar with someone you want to have sex with and order a double. It’s been a year since my last visit but both the two and three star versions have been available on the occasions I’ve been to SOUTH.

Let’s cut to the chase:

Puerto Rican Food from Taino’s on Mount Prospect Avenue in Newark, New Jersey.

Newark, New Jersey, has a bad reputation but having worked there for the last five years, I actually do not think it is as dangerous as people say. The gentrifiers downtown certainly don’t find it dangerous, but then again Uber can take them safely through areas they used to have to walk through. Now that I think about it, some fools did try to rob me on the light rail, they weren’t successful but they did get my co-worker the next day. Ah, fuck it. Maybe it is unsavory, but as long as you don’t walk around fuckin’ shinin’ you should be alright.

And it is exactly in that locale where we find ourselves. Though I am sure every street corner tough has a set of less-than-threatening communion photos, I wouldn’t question anyone’s capabilities for foolishness on the basis of that.

40 shots. If I capitalized the word shots it could be the title of the movie I’d write about an open bar at a wedding that I ruined, or (some would say) made incredible. The 40 shots I am referring to are the rounds sprayed on Elwood Street in Newark less than 48 hours before we came out here for a late lunch. The scene of the shooting is four blocks from Taino’s Kitchen. At this point, you can pick your own adventure. You can say to yourself, “Do not let this deter you, it wasn’t a random shooting and I’m certainly not a target.” You can show bravado and say, “Them jokers only hit three people. Relax y’all. If you bought 40 scratch-off lottery tickets from the liquor store nearest to this shooting, you’d have a hell of a lot more than three winners. Their aim is so bad that you’re still safe.” You can order take out and bring the food home. My experience in Newark doesn’t always overlap with the headlines, although sometimes it does and one has to be careful.

But we out here, and we’re going to re-imagine and relive our culinary and cocktail tour of Puerto Rico right here on front street, at two in the afternoon, the second ones to be seated:

North Newark is rich in historic churches, text-book examples of period architecture from a diversity of design schools, abundant green spaces, generations-old bakeries, and more. It is home to beautiful Branch Brook Park and I’ve been told that before the cherry blossoms were planted in Washington DC, tens of thousands of people visited Newark to walk Branch Brook Park as the trees went into bloom each year. One of my favorite authors has a housing complex named after him and a supposedly famous man named Franklin Valli and his entourage of singers are from here as well, but if you showed a picture of Frankie Valli and the boys to the residents today, they would laugh at the guys who look more like a bowling team than a singing group.

Let’s talk about what we’re making and drinking at the bar. I fell in love with the mojito in San Juan, and the Myers’s Golden Rich Puerto Rican Rum is going to bring an added dimension to this cocktail. 

The story of this bottle can be found obliquely in my first post on this blog. It was among the first official “dusties” that I ever discovered in a store. It was found at North Bergen Liquors, right here:

I eventually found a 500 ml. of the same bottle with a label and tax strip in much better condition. When I bought the second bottle, all I could do was think about drinking the first. 

A month before going to Taino’s I decided to open this bottle and enjoy it on its own. It felt like a crime to twist the cap, but so much as to budge it is to break its seal- so it’s open now. 

First scents: bananas and alcohol. Twenty minutes later: ripe bananas, plantains, and alcohol. On the front of the tongue I get banana bread, notes of plantain, alcohol, and cream. Very little burn, less than mouthwash. Finish has slight hints of wood and dark chocolate. Smells much stronger than it actually tastes. The label advertised a “light” rum and the product delivers as much in spite of the overpowering nose. 

On first nose, I didn’t think I’d like it its taste. Turns out, it’s quite enjoyable after 30 minutes in the glass.

Even after 30 minutes, banana/plantains, wood, cream, and alcohol in almost equal parts and then a touch of bittersweet to dark chocolate at the end. Very straightforward. Dry but not sweet, and that’s been for the entire duration of the sipping.

I don’t think depth, contemplation, and time for reflection were what the blenders at Myers’s were aiming for with this product. In researching this bottle I scoured advertisements in magazines, I could not find advertisements for this rum after 1983. It’s a safe bet to say that this was intended to be a mixer.

As far as research goes, Peter’s Rum Label’s quotes Rum Yesterday and Today by Hugh Barty-King & Anton Massel and reveals that Myers’s sourced this rum from:

“…an Arecibo distillery by the name of Puerto Rican Distillers Inc., which was by now owned by Seagram Company. Seagram used this distillery for its Ronrico brand and most of its output was destined for the Canadian (mostly) and American markets. A “small proportion” of their output was sold to other companies with their own blending and bottling facilities, distribution infrastructure, and marketing divisions. These companies were referred to as DBAs, or Doing Business As, by Seagrams/Puerto Rican Distillers Inc. Among these buyers was Fred Myers & Son Co.”

In December of 2017 a new Puerto Rican Distillers Inc. was incorporated in San Juan. Its stated purpose is the “Manufacture and distribution of Distilled Spirits” according to the paperwork available online. I don’t have any idea if this company has put any product on the market. 

This Arecibo rum made for a perfect mojito. The banana and plantain-forward profile was a pleasant contrast with the zing of the mint.

As an appetizer we ordered Alcapurrias de Guineo & Yuca, which were fantastic. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, the meat and vegetables inside were moist and well seasoned. 

For our second round we broke out something new, Santa Ana 138 Overproof, a stunning debutante from the same family that brings us Ron del Barrilito and has recently begun to grace shelves in Newark.

Much like the Myers’s, I opened this bottle two weeks before taking it to Taino’s. My first impressions were on par for many cask-strength varieties. 

On the nose she is nothing but alcohol. Even after fifteen minutes, it was paint thinner in a confined space. OSHA shouldn’t allow me to put it in a snifter. Cigars while sipping this neat? No. Don’t. Ever.

It’s light in color. Could be mistaken for a white wine until it gets close enough to your nose, then you’ll know right away you’re in the wrong aisle.

After 45 minutes some fruit, butterscotch, and caramel emerge but it’s still mostly alcohol.

I drink Gunroom, OFTD, and Smith & Cross all neat and straight up. This? Intimidating, even as I approach 45 minutes of breathing time.

After that, I finally taste.

Honey, over ripened fruit-specifically lemons, banana peels, and raisins- and then heat. It’s a blazing fastball of high heat, but it pops safely in the catcher’s mitt with a certain comfort and ease of familiarity.

No hogo.

Fleet, skinny legs run down the glass yet it’s full bodied on the tongue, maybe the texture lends to the honey that I sense.

One hour and 45 minutes later, the alcohol remains prominent on the nose. Not angry, just persistent and enduring, like an unseen furnace laboring in a closet behind bi-fold doors, putting in a yeoman’s effort at the bottom of my snifter without the consumer appreciating where the heat comes from.

This heat is completely different from other overproofs I’ve already cited. More flambé than roaring fire, acute and cutting path as just as narrow as its legs journey through me. It’s on par with spicy Thai food, so long as you have had Thai food for Thai people, not the governor-restrained tricycle with training wheels Thai food for mayonnaise-faces from your local Taiwanese-owned Asian spot. Much like how the persistent flame of authentic Thai food turns a calcium-fortified zygomatic bone into a water logged and over burdened dish sponge compelling you to ooze sweat from your pores to protect you from from the coals hiding in your rice, this rum can do the same from your lips to your tonsils if not sipped slowly and deliberately.

A proper “finish”:

After nursing a double shot over two hours, a healthy-half shot remains.

Time for a full exhale.

Heat, walnuts, cream, honey, raisins, lemon peel… hiccup!

For our visit to Taino’s I felt that all of these disparate elements would make for awesome Cuba Libres, which indeed paired very well with the Mofongo con Camarones that we ordered. The slow cooked broth was a sweet melange of peppers, vegetables, and collected jus. The liquid breathed life into the mashed plantains and pork skins. As a whole the unctuousness of this dish coupled well with the spry edginess of the Santa Ana 138 Cuba Libres. As a heavy meal could easily weigh one down into a blissful somnolence, the passion and enthusiasm of this fiery rum wakes you up for another forkful. 

Let your guard down. Sigh with contentment because this is living.

Our meal concluded with a slice of vanilla flan, and we paired that with a bottle of Ron del Barelito Three Star Rum, a dusty bottle from 1990. I found this bottle on the other side of North Newark, on Park Avenue and closer to East Orange, in 2018, and I picked it up for several reasons: its color was significantly darker than the Ron Barrelito three star that I purchased from Astor Wines in Manhattan a month earlier and it had an extra sicker on the rear label, distributed by La Preferada out of Chicago. Seeing the extra sticker is rare in New Jersey and most, but not all of the time, a New Jersey company is the importer and distributor of bottles on shelves here, though I have seen Boston and NYC importing and distribution companies sell their products here as well. Chicago? I haven’t seen that before.

I asked the owner of the store how long he had this bottle. It was here since he bought the store in 1990. It cost 30 dollars and rarely does anyone come into this store with 30 dollars on them, he said. “It ain’t that kind of store,” he said. It’s a refrain I’ve heard many times.

La Preferida is still open and doing great business. I reached out via email and received a reply from a woman named Gigi, who explained to me that the company imported Ron del Barrilito from the mid-1970s into the late 1980s. She would have to contact an older family member to get more specific than that. I assume their final year of distribution was either 1989 or 1990 as this bottle does indeed have a government warning about the dangers of alcohol consumption. Since the store owner bought the business in 1990, I feel that is the most conservative estimate for the age of this bottle, although it could be from 1989.

The rum in this bottle is absolutely exquisite. Viscous and as velvety as traces of marrow, it caresses my entire body from within as it goes down and leaves artful impressions of ripe currants, honey, vanilla, molasses, and oak along its route, an elegant graffiti that slowly disappears upon exhale. It is thicker and meatier than the current blend on the market, which is still an awesome rum in its own right. 

This example from Ron del Barrilito isn’t overly sweet, by any means, but it certainly retains more of the cognac-production lineage than the current blend on the market. This quality makes it the perfect complement for a cream-based dessert, but this rum was clearly crafted to stand alone as an excellent evening sipper.

Luckily I found more of these circa-1990 Ron del Barrilito bottles, complete with La Preferida Distribution stickers, a year later and ten miles away. The place where I found them is a veritable honey-hole and there are enough bottles there that I still haven’t snatched them all up yet, but I’m working on it.

The vanilla flan from Taino’s is excellent. The caramel, cream, and vanilla harmonize to produce soothing and cool notes on this hot afternoon.

Over the last couple of hours more families and small groups of friends entered Taino’s. Outdoor dining had only recently resumed in New Jersey four days ago. This neighborhood was one of the first “hotspots” for COVID-19 in New Jersey, but today you would never know it. While some would like us to think that roving gangs prowl the streets of this city at all hours, all we saw were small groups of friends growing into larger groups of friends, many of them still wearing masks and trying to socially distance, everyone re-learning how to socialize in person, out and happy to interact with anyone who they haven’t been quarantined with. 

We sat together at a table overflowing with rum bottles and Manhattan glasses fogged by fingerprints. They held pools of melted ice, lime pulp, and muddled mint leaves. People were turning on their cars just to share their music with the block and the neighbors enjoyed it. The noise of rekindled friendships and post-lockdown reunions filled the street, competing for space in the air. For a moment we were in Puerto Rico again, trying new rums and passing the hours by simmering in the flavors of the culture.

Excluding the alcohol (two-thirds of which I bought years ago), this afternoon in the sun cost of just north of 45 dollars, and that was with a thirty-percent tip. We will be returning to Taino’s soon, next time with a different line-up of rums and a couple of friends to share the experience with. The food, service, and ambiance were all top-notch.

Best wishes to everyone who is safely venturing out and finding new ways to live well in the face of challenges that could take everything from us. Cheers!

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