The Straight Up Features : Gosling's Black Seal Rum

One thing I do like about rums is their rough and tumble reputation. Rum was the liquor of the adventurer, the privateer. Cheap, strong, even dangerous, rum has never been a 'class' drink. You don't drink rum to impress your boss or mingle with high society. Rum drinkers are fringe runners by stereotype. But at the same time, you can't really capture that mysticism very effectively from most of the more popular name brands. Lets face it, Bacardi and even Cap'n Morgans lack a certain flare needed to make you feel like a bloodthirsty pirate come to port near the plantations of the new world. fortunately, I have recently discovered a rum that I feel really embraces that attitude in boh its flavor and its history.

Gosling Brothers, LTD. began as a business founded by James Gosling in 1806 in Bermuda when, after a rather hazerdous voyage, he and his family decided that pressing on to America was an unnecessary risk. In 1860 they first began producing barrels of "Old Rum" which sold straight from the barrel. This tradition kept up until WWI, during which they got the notion to bottle the stuff in old champagne bottles. The name 'black seal' comes originally from the black wax used to seal these bottles with, the logo comes from the obvious play on words. Now, for my money, that's the kind of history a good rum should have.

Gosling's Black Seal is not actually produced by Gosling. Rather, they have handed out the recipe, the very secret and guarded recipe, to other distilleries, many who have produced the rum for them for decades. As a result, I have been able to find almost no information on how its made. The one thing I do know is that it's a three year old rum which is, as I understand it, fairly old for a rum.

The flavor is quite distinct. First of all, to call it a dark rum is not doing it justice. To call it a black rum would be more accurate. When you first pick up the bottle, you think it's a dark stained glass, and then you realize that the bottle itself is clear. The rum's just that dark. It has moved right into the realm of the opaque. If you mix it with coke, I swear the coke gets darker.

But the flavor is something else. One of my biggest problems with dark rum is often the sweet flavor, the sickeningly sweet, almost maple syrup like flavor. Even in rums I like, there can just be times where you can't handle that kind of sweet load on top of a drunk. I won't say that Black Seal is entirely without sweetness, but it matches it nicely with a noticably bitter initiation. The rum has a sharp attack that settles down into a simpler sweetness a few moments later. Other than that, it's a thick, rich powerful rum that by god makes you want to assault some hapless peasant village, swinging to shore, cutting a few choice throats, setting fire to a hut and then making off with some guy's goat and his daughter, the former of which you and the latter, along with your bloodthirsty crew, will devour later over a roaring fire while singing horrid songs. For my money, you'll have a hard time finding a better rum in the states.

Key facts about Black Seal :

Alcohol Content : 40%. Seriously, they need to make a 100 proof version of this.

Age : 3 years.

Price (.750) : $18-20. A day or two at sea and you'll have stolen enough to pay for a case.

Notes : Goslings is a room tempurature drink. Further, for my money it makes a poor mixer. You're really wasting it if you don't drink it straight.

Final Standing : Completely Pissed.