The First Bon Vivant Posting
All of the posts here have been about bottle salvage, my euphemism for “dusty hunting”. I’ve been building my collection over a decade and I am finally starting to open bottles I’ve been sitting on for a long time.
Not every bottle has an intriguing story. Some of my bottles are gems that I found on sale in pretty how towns. Other bottles were deals I found online, mainly from Europe. I live by two rules in retail shopping. Rule number one, don’t overpay. Rule number two, ride out the zeitgeist and the hype diffused by fanboys-turned-influencers. You can’t convince me that much of the praise heaped on certain brands and releases has aged well as more and more great rums have come to the market.
Oh, and every medal given to these Cool Kids Club Rums is a participation trophy. People who finish last in 5k runs get medals too, be they the brave and inspiring handicapped participants or the delusional, over-the-hill, overweight, peaked-in-high school losers who walked across the finish line in a full-on wheeze after years of saying “We’d have won that game 25 years ago if only coach put me in.”
Rum festivals are no different.
This post is going to be bon vivant-forward and the objective is to shine a light on the rums and cuisine of Martinique, three courses with three rums (neat and in cocktails).
Course One: Feroce de Avocat avec Rhum J.M in a Ti’ Punch
I’ll never forget my first Rhum J.M, its nose was an intense melange of terroir, a fleeting chord of vegetal notes, and fresh cane.
I’ve been going to Marintique ever since.
Not every trip starts well. My first two bottles of Clement needed a full month to open up in their bottles. Day one was arson, the chemistry set that singed your nostrils and eyelashes as a pre-teen. Day 31, however, was perfection. Some bottles of Rhum J.M VSOP have been hit or miss as well.
Let’s get to this bottle:
Rhum J.M
Agricole Vieux
Cask 20130721
Bottle 327/379
Exclusive to Benash Liquors in Cherry Hill, NJ
This is my first barrel pick and the first single cask release that I will ever taste.
Immediate note: Cherries, apples as well after a moment. Sugared pineapples. As it opens I can smell molasses and terroir.
Immediate taste: Terrorir and wood
This is one of those bottles that takes time to open up. The earth and soil that I find to be emblematic of Rhum J.M is here, and so are different dimensions absorbed from the barrel, but truthfully it took a few weeks for this bottle of Rhum J.M to flower and flourish.
After a month this bottle developed into a dry and fruity rum. Traces of cane touch reach out quickly, but it is washed away by the spice and earth notes that follow. Midrange includes the fruitiness of the aforementioned cherries, apples, and sugared pineapples that appeared on the nose when I opened the bottle. The finish is more earth with a bit of honey. It took a full month opening in the bottle for the burn to tamper down. Overall, for the 45 dollars I paid for this rum, it’s okay. I’d pay 35 even for it, not 45 with tax. As of late I find that some Rhum J.M bottles, specifically their VSOP, have a higher burn-factor than my earlier experiences with their line. The operative word in that sentence is some. I don’t know if it is an internal quality control issue or an external factor, but this is a bottle that I now look for on sale as opposed to paying full price. This Benash barrel pick is indeed nice, but it shows the limitations of “single barrel” releases. Blenders and master blenders have their rightful place in the world of spirits, let’s not rush to eliminate them in the quest for rum purity, a quest that looks more like performative asceticism as opposed to a hobby one is simply enthusiastic about.
On its own I give this bottle a 6/10 on opening and a solid 7/10 after a month of loosening up. Given how great my initial experiences with this brand was, call me disappointed. It does shine in a cocktail, and for the Martinican meal I am preparing the fruitiness should lend itself well to a dark Ti’ Punch, which I am pairing with a dish called Feroce de Avocat.
Feroce de Avocat is a dish that combines cod, peppers, flour, lime, and avocado. It is really quite easy to make. Salted cod is revived, seasoned, broiled, and shredded and then purered with the chopped up peppers, avocado and lime juice. Fill those avocado skins back up with the puree and serve if you like, but I am going to top mine with more cod. Serve chilled on a hot day or at room temperature with slightly warmed cod on top.
The Rhum J.M Benash Barrel Pick Ti’ Punch has a cleansing effect on eating Feroce de Avocat. Feel that capsaicin dancing on your tongue like a drunken jin in golf cleats? The dry nature of this drink works like pinot grigio would on spicy Italian sausage, wiping it all away, drying your palate, and prompting your inner self to take another bite and continue exploring.
Together these were sublime.
Second Course: Chatrou Grille avec Aïoli avec un daiquiri de Saint James Coeur de Chauffe
Chatrou, I believe, is the Martinican word for either octopus tentacles or for their dish of said tentacles. Traditionally it is either marinated in lime, salt, pepper, paprika, and olive oil and then grilled or prepared in a stew. For tonight we are eating baby chatrou with a lime aioli. I prepared the lime aioli in advance and if you own a Nu Wave the cleaned baby octopus cooks in 9 minutes.
First, let’s look at this bottle, Saint James Coeur de Chauffe, ordered from Fine Drams, and damn she looks pretty.
This is the first instance where I read a review, thank you Lone Caner, and I was immediately convinced that I had to buy what I read about. I first ordered this in 2020 from les cons at Excellence Rhum, who I feel intentionally sent my parcel via USPS when they damn well knew that USPS would reject or refuse to deliver the package. Six months passed before I got my money back. Fast forward to 2021, FineDrams.com had four bottles on my doorstep in a fortnight. To this day the most secure packaging I’ve found in a shipment of bottles has been this order. FineDrams’ packing practices should be the industry standard.
There was relief that the package came, but there was also fear of what lurked under the hoods of these beasts.
When I placed this order I wanted prolonged eye-lid recession and a missing eyebrow at first whiff. Would I be brave enough to put it down neat? It was 1:30 in the afternoon, I opened a bottle, poured a shot, and I let it sit out for 30 minutes to open up so that I could nose it and eye its legs in the glass.
No ice, as if I were there in Martinique. I closed my eyes and inhaled through my nose.
Vanilla, rubber/PVC cement, banana, cream, curry spices, and salt on the nose. The minerality is high and it leans toward iron. Faint smell of calf’s liver, though some say olives.
Overall Saint James Coeur de Chauffe has a lot more character than the Sunset Very Strong Rum from Grenada, which I was comparing it to in my head when I first read about it.
The taste is unexpected as well: Apples and grass, right off the bat. Not as hot as I thought it would be either. Orange peel and clove on the finish.
Not only do I love this neat, it makes my favorite daiquiri.
In a daiquiri this rum is a 1980’s-era Mike Tyson brawling with street-toughs while wearing a floral-pattern tiki shirt and Italian Lottos on Church Avenue in BK. The rum in the daiquiri goes toe-to-toe with the garlic in the aioli, their shared friend, the lime, mediating the tension between the powerful heavyweights less like a referee and more like a common ancestor, that uncle or cousin you both like. And the baby octopus? It’s the veal of the sea if you have a Nu Wave and nine minutes of free time.
I cooked another batch the next day and I basted the chatrou in a tomato-garlic and paprika sauce after nine minutes in the Nu Wave before tossing them on the grill. This time I plated it with regular garlic aioli. The result? Even better than the first time. This is about to be a new staple in my household.
Course Three: Poulet Colombo and a Rhum Superieur “Martinique” cocktail
When I first discovered overseas liquor stores in 2016 and I wasn’t even concerned with importing dusty bottles, at the time I was focused on scoring a few bottles of Gun Room (hell yeah!). The first dusty I ever wanted to order from Europe is exactly what you see here, Rhum Superieur from Martinique. Before I saw this bottle, I only looked to Europe as a source for new releases that were unavailable here in the USA.
After delaying for a few years I finally ordered this bottle from The Whiskey Exchange, and as usual the fine folks came correct with the shipping (I’ve bought all but one of my bottles of Caroni from them). The time from “order received” to “bottle open” was 9 days.
“Bottle open” was a happy accident though.
I opened the box from DHL and I could smell apples, pineapple, sugar cane, and a bit of gasoline. It saddened me to know that I’d have to drink this bottle right away, it was open and now exposed to air. The bottle is close to 50 years old and I did not consider leakage in shipping. Thank you to The Whiskey Exchange for adjusting my order accordingly. I will never have anything bad to say about these folks. I’ve ordered from them many times and their packing standards are high; I don’t blame them for the leakage, I blame age and DHL.
It’s open, don’t be mad. Pour a drink instead.
First impression from June 12th, 2021:
Nose is rich with apples, oranges, pineapples, brown sugar molasses, and distinct hints of earth and fuel.
Taste isn’t as impressive as the nose but it’s stellar; it has many of the earthy and vegetal notes of a modern Rhum J.M, however there is red apple, burnt caramel, molasses, and lemonpeel on the tongue. Earth and touches of fire and caramel on the swallow and exhale.
Made an absolutely fantastic daiquiri. My second favorite daiquiri after a Rhum J.M/Mount Gay Sugar Can Rum split-base daiquiri. I like it a lot and I only have a little bit, sadly.
For this course I am not using Rhum Superieur in a daiquiri, I will use it in something I found called The Martinique, which was created by Kate Ramos, also known as HolaJalapeno on Instagram, and is made of up the following:
- 3/4 ounce elderflower syrup or elderflower liqueur (St. Germaine in this case)
- 1 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
- 1 1/2 ounces light rum
- Ice
The only change I made was to convert the proportions to a formal double shot at two ounces of rum.
Porc Colombo is one of the most celebrated dishes in Martinique and though I do eat pork I must confess that I eat it rarely (jamon serrano and applewood smoked bacon). This curry is also often paired with fish or chicken, and tonight I am opting for chicken. Based on the curry spice brought to Martinique by Indian and Sri Lankan immigrants and indentured servants who worked the cane fields in the 19th and 20th centuries, Porc Colombo is the origin for every other Colombo curry on the island of Martinique today.
There are many recipes for this dish online and even more if you can read and speak French. I have made this dish several times since the spring of 2021 and I do want to say the following to anyone else who wants to try it: use Google Image to find the recipe you want to use. Many of the recipes that I’ve seen come from people who, like me, haven’t been to Martinique. Those chefs, writers, and epicureans tend to make a looser and more watered down version of this dish. To really make this well I’ve used Google Image to trace final products to natives who make the dish. Too many of these recipes come from people who think Porc or Poulet Colombo should look like and be served as if it were coq-au-vin. No. Please stop. Watch someone from Martinique on YouTube do it, even if you don’t understand French or their Creole, you can replicate their technique to make a much better Colombo than the ones that come from blue chip and legacy names in the culinary world.
Further, it would be wrong of me to withhold the following from you: many recipes ask you to buy many spices and ground them in your own mortar and pestle to create Poudre de Colombo. The awesome folks at WorldSpice.com have this spice in stock and ready to ship.
If you have the curry powder, this dish is pretty easy to make. I boiled a carrot and an onion for ten minutes, then I chopped and sautéed them with a unboiled shallot, removed the vegetables from the pan, kept the oil, added another half-tablespoon of oil, added the Poudre de Colombo, stirred it into the oil and heated until fragrant, and I added two bay leaves and four sprigs of thyme and a full can of coconut milk. I stirred it well without agitating it, added a pinch of salt, and let it simmer for 10 minutes. I added the vegetables back in, simmered for another 10 minutes, and then added diced eggplant and chunks of chicken (I cooked the chicken ahead of time) for another five minutes. Remove the thyme sprigs and bay leaves, serve over rice.
Close your eyes and inhale through your nose. The dance floor is steamy at Club Olfactory, the cumin and clove two-step rhythmically and twerk vigorously. The tumeric adds the terroir and musk, there is a slight tang that comes from the fenugreek seed and it synergizes well with the sweetness of the carrots, onions, and shallots. Overall there are many disparate flavors that can only sing in harmony by coaching them in a low simmer for 25 minutes. Somehow all of these powerful flavors become delicate.
As for Kate Ramos’ “The Martinique,” it’s brilliant and it complements the Poulet Colombo perfectly. The apples, oranges, pineapples, and brown sugar molasses notes of the rum combined with the elderflower backbone of the St. Germaine interact favorably with the Poulet Colombo. I don’t know if she is still posting cocktail recipes but all of Kate Ramos’ food-related postings on Instagram are excellent, go ahead and give her a follow.
Overall it was a great night at home with my wife, these rums, and my kitchen tools. Due to the ongoing pandemic we don’t think we will be visiting Martinique any time soon, but until then my bar is stocked with a dozen bottles of rum from this wonderful island and I am sitting on a half pound of poudre de Colombo for the next two years of curry cravings I am sure to have. I don’t know what the world holds for 2021 as far as stamping out COVID-19, but I know that I am going to appreciate the craft and creativity of the world while I still can. It is possible that someday we, as a species, are even worse off, life could become so trying that we would be focused on surviving instead of enjoying, so let’s enjoy responsibly while we can.
Bon Vivant Bottle Salvage 